I see what point you are trying to make but the fact is that there are so many cards that are strictly better than Vampire Nighthawk in this deck.
No one in their right mind would send in a Dungrove Elder into a blocking Vampire Nighthawk. And even if it means they are not attacking with Dungrove Elder they can attack with any other creature.
this comment leads me to believe you're one of the people who abuse the term "strictly better" and in this case it's not true for the purpose(s) that nighthawk fulfills. it's basically everything a control deck would or could ever want from a creature being worth playing (aside from a recursion/enter play effect) it would be downright silly not to use at least 2 (which i plan to) and there isn't as i have seen, any logical reason not to consider it a main deck value card (and "it feels out of place" doesn't count as a reason)
-point: don't trash a card over it not fitting into your vision of the archetype's functioning without at least trying it.
consider this: it doesn't JUST stop dungrove, it stops anything in the format that doesn't trample, and assuming it trades damage will take it down with it while also giving you life and effectively performing the function of non-target spot removal and giving you a bit of tempo over the board when you potentially dropped a critter with more power than you have life by just standing there... and untill it hits the grave, it swings for 2 lifelink in the air per turn and survives whipflare and enemy pillars.
i see alot of people still posting and referencing mana leak, but isn't it gone from standard due to m13 replacing m12 (which no longer includes leak or doom blade)?
i plan to make a revision on my list with whats been posted in the last 5 pages in mind, i plan to go with a decent discard package, fewer spot removal and permission, and a couple more on sweeping and will be browsing more win cons to try, and will post soon.
She's the creature that controls the board while she can, and is megabait for spot removal when you have bigger and better tools. The is versatile in many aspects. He best application so far has been playing her with a ton of mana and start taking your opponents fatties within a couple of turns. He worst use is dropping her on turn 4 because you need to block their return volley on your opponent's side, and then she gets removed for 2-3 mana and sometimes 1 (vapor snag,) but it's the type of card that has extra reach. I play her over grave titan because by the time you play grave titan, he's just a 6/6 that makes a bunch of chump blockers that can be removed by an upheaval, light nuking, or just outright removed. The point of the deck is to overwhelm, not to barely survive, but able to function and barely survive when needed. Olivia gets there, a grave titan does not.
i would like to add to this that in having been playing her in my build for somethin like 2-3 months so far, she has been an absolute MVP and most times i would actually rather see her than a titan. most of the time i only get to use her removal ability and beat face and the game ends before i need to drop another finisher or she dies. i would say though that maybe 1 in 3 games when she comes down i end the game with her second ability (stealing anything that can survive more pings than i can pay for). most opponents take note of the "magic number" being 7 mana on my board which lets me ping and steal in the same turn, and normally if she comes down (and sticks) as soon as i can play her she makes a massive impact on the board just being there (note you can also ping on blocking and gain the counter before combat damage resolves) and holding the line untill she starts swinging... also, i have only ever had her blow up in my face once, being that i tapped down to ping/steal something and he top decked removal and got his guy back and i didn't see any other finishers.
Shuaws- I actually have not tried lone revenant in grixis, not because I don't think he is good (I really like him a lot, and I love using him in my block control decks). Right now I just don't think he has enough of an impact on the board in the current meta. That's why I gravitate towards titans right now.
i'm in agreement here, seems like it would be really hard to get him to hit often enough to be worth the commitment. and even if he did hit, he would take 5 swings to kill and getting 1 card each time really doesn't change much if you are doing well enough to get him in. it's the deffinition of "win-more" imo
Faithless Looting is no bueno. We have better options like Desperate Ravings that actually give card advantage where Faithless Looting does not.
personally i could never play desperate cuz it seemed to always either flatly lost me a game or was just disappointing if it was the only thing in my hand (at which point i lose 1 of 2 potentially decent draws, and probably draw-lose. i also didn't like faithless however since it only cycled 2 cards but you could decide what to cycle and the flashback made it a marginally better choice imo
Having played Grixis Cruel Control at one point, I have to admit I might have a soft spot for him.
I like Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker more because dealing with a noncreature permanent adds counters instead of having to remove them AND spending counters to deal with a creature puts that creature on your side of the board.
Bolas also has an easier number to hit to go ultimate on.
i am in agreement with this as well, since i also played cruel grix in shards standard, and he really is that good...
went to fnm tonight, my deck crapped on me givin me garbage draws all night (getting mana flood 2 games and screwed 2 games in first 2 rounds) posting 1-3 with the following:
got surprised by the clock on r/w humans first round, didn't seem like much i could've done...
second was a b/u delver deck that i was able to stall pretty well the one game i could play anything...
3rd gave me b/u zombies (kindof a janky build, not enough threat density at all)
and 4th was some kind g/w garbage agg that was ramping but not enough and not into anything scary enough...
talisman did quite a bit with its life gain when i drew them, otherwise not totally useless, olivia was my all star - i won 3 games from her stealing stuff, and another from chandra copying a x=7 red sun, while almost stealing a couple with frosty... felt like i needed more drawing, different sweeping setup, a few more evasive creatures, and more lifegain... i think i'm gonna take this build to the drawing board and see if i can think of anything that would help, was debating on goin to ptq this sunday but doen't seem worth it with the current condition of the deck. really felt like i was lacking cheap enough stuff, and like if i survived to late game i was able to play anything in the deck and possibly win but i wasn't drawing nearly enough it seemed.
I'm not following you here...
At first glance, it feels like the opposite: draw w/ TT then use DL to draw and discard a second card. -> kind of a DR with higher cost but without the randomness...
i agree with this, i think lighthouse will obsolete ravings ultimately, i like the lighthouse alot but i honestly dont like tibalt, since he creates more random discard or provides damage but it seems like its not doing as much here because of this being control as opposed to aggro (where the damage supplement would count for more and the draw/discard-random would be more worth it cuz aggro runs out of play cards and ends up with extra land pretty often)
What this means is that Ravings is better than Think Twice if your hand is worse than average. Therefore the only situations where you don't want to cast the Ravings are when you are winning anyway, in which case... win the game already. I use a full set of Think Twice and three copies of Ravings, and the reason I cut a Ravings is because I run two copies of Faithless Looting, which anti-synergizes with Ravings, as Looting always increases your hand quality.
well euphony provided examples of situations and reasoning why a person wouldn't want to use ravings even if they were already losing or close to it... so why play a card we are always unsure of using?
unless your hand is full of excess land, you'll always have something important to lose in this deck so it's a waste to lose things if you don't absolutely need to, and if you're in that tight of a situation ravings isn't gonna save you... the only way to logically counteract this is to make everything in your deck have flashback, which would effectively enslave your deck to ravings and that doesn't at all seem worth it...
looting is great because it will always give you the choice of what to lose, where ravings just likes to take the best of what you have and statistically when ravings draws you cards you make the discard effect afterward which puts 2 new cards in danger of being discarded at random(!!!) and if you can't choose you're basically losing 1 of your best cards in the deck every time you play it (not counting anything with flashback, but how often is it really going to get a FB card?) which can ultimately screw you...
If you have something pivotal in hand it should mean you don't need to draw any cards anyway.
unless of course your opponent just dropped a threat to try to steal the game, and you need to find a response, or if you know they're about to land new sorin or karn and need the counter... there's a number of situations where you will need to draw more answers or permission in order to back up your threatening plays and in that task ravings will let you down almost every time... "something pivotal" doesn't mean you auto win, it means you need to make it win... this is control thinking for ya
all the above being said, i simply think ravings should be at most a 2-of recommendation since the number of situations where you'll not want to play it vs the number of situations where you actually need it or it could help you lean far in favor of those you don't want to be seeing it in your hand... but it certainly isn't consistent or beneficial enough under all circumstances to be our main draw spell
The second is, if you had four turns and we're low on cards in hand which seems reasonable considering you said you had four land hands, it's most likely correct to just draw try and draw into answers before firing off ravings. What it sounds like is that you where in control of the game and waiting for a finisher. In that situation, you have to evaluate how far you are ahead and assign a reasonable percentage. Next you have to see if your odds of discarding a game winner are higher then your odds of winning without ravings which is definitely not easy. I'd venture that if it takes your opponent 4-5 turns to kill you, you will at a low life, you are probably at 85% to win and that makes playing ravings a negative EV play with less then 5 cards in hand.
This analysis is a lot of smoke and mirrors guess work, but I've also discarded game winning cards to ravings and I've never blamed it on the card. It's almost always me playing it improperly. I say all this to say that you are probably wrong in your assessment and/or utilization of the card. Feel free to run think twice instead, but it's a LOT less value then ravings.
is it me or does it seem like for a card drawing spell we have to hold off on untill we have no other options isn't actually helping to gain an advantage against the opponent?
the whole idea of card drawing spells is to be able to draw through more cards than an opponent is at a given time, if we have to hold back on ravings to draw off it without losing anything pivotal then it's not helping us when or how we need it to... bottom line: it doesn't help us gain an advantage or lock down a board or actively win, it instead only helps us to barely scrape a win out of a game ON OCCASSION... that's not card advantage
that all being said, are there any decent draw spells that could replace it for efficiency, cost, or amount of cards?
I've learned from experience that, as much as I loved Ravings when it was first printed, it does nothing but boot games away.
Facing a G/W aggro deck and a U/W control deck before Dark Ascension was released, I literally punted two three match sets against the aforementioned decks by using and flashing back Desperate Ravings multiple times.
Most noticeably, after I had achieved a lock down on the G/W deck, I ended up discarding (consecutively) two Olivias, one Grave Titan, one Red Sun, and one Bloodgift Demon (whom I was testing). They were discarded completely at random by Ravings, while having a four card hand aside from what I drew with ravings at each casting instance. I must mention that I had the opponent at nearly zero life--any one of those cards landing on the field would have won me the game nearly immediately. At each discard my opponent simply laughed.
The story continues, on multiple occasions, at FNM's and a PTQ. I was humiliated at a PTQ by discarding perfectly reasonable options multiple times via Ravings.
Thus, my assessment is much the same as Sassafrassa's; that being, Think Twice is the best choice for a deck such as ours.
I back this up with actual playtesting, as well.
The night I endured my losses I immediately switched to Think Twice. The results? Not only did I enjoy a more permanent form of card advantage, I drew myself out of bad situations every time I needed to without having to lose a single drop of my decks essence. It worked so well Think Twice became my permanent and premium choice of card advantage.
Right now, I'm wondering if anyone is thinking about testing Amass the Components. It, near the middle or end game, can quite possibly be a sub-par Divination. However, at its best, it lets us filter an unnecessary card out of hand and retain three fresh ones. Has anyone tested it yet? If so, what are the results?
what you're saying about ravings is pretty much what i predicted initially, but i squeezed them in because of everyone on the forum here attesting that they're absolutely pivotal... i will be following your advice and switch to TT as my main card draw, followed by 2-ofs of some combination of alchemy, and faithless/ponder...
i also have been wondering if a 2-of divination might be worth it, just since it's simple and doesn't make us lose anything and is a decent value at 3 cmc for 2 cards albeit at sorcery speed... i'm still torn on the faithless/ponder match though, and still wondering what we need for counter here... are we gonna really benefit from using more than just a set of leaks? -please advise!
I know how desperate ravings seem in theory, but in practice, they've never done me wrong. In every matchup the pure card advantage far outweighs the random discard. Most of the time, u raving eot with 5-6 cards in hand, when your opponent rolls random with 8 cards, he almost always pulls a land. Test it and you'll see, ravings is so good. You never cast it with less than four cards in hand. Also, your finishers are a bit fragile, in my list each creature has immediate board impact, that's what you want, Olivia and frost Titan don't have the same impact as inferno or grave titan.
well from my previous list i swapped the alchemy for 2 more think twice, gonna keep ravings as a 2-of since i dont feel like i need more being they have flashback... i have had frosty flat out win me games, i like his being harder to target more than i like infernos dmg effect. was thinkin about tryin to fit sorin's vengeance into here as part of my win-con setup, potentially its a turn six win via chandra and a pristine... other than that i have been thinkin about maybe adding red sun since that doubles as removal and a finisher, even more so with chandra. is curse of death's that important of a card for the MD? i keep lookin at it thinkin it should be SB vs aggro but im not sure...
EDIT: (changes to my list for FNM tonight)
-2 faithless, +2 ponder (digs deeper, and lets you manipulate while not making you LOSE ANYTHING which = CA)
-2 memoricide from SB to replace it with curse from MD
+2 red sun replacing curse MD
-2 dissipate, +2 tribute to hunger
so here is the rest of the list i have so far, i also wanted to add my decidion on certain cards: no scars lands - they present a larger margin of instances where they are unplayable or will set me back than the core set/INN duals (playable in first 3 turns vs playable whenever i have a basic land) and i also dont use a full set of ravings since they make me lose 1/2 the cards it gets me randomly (which could be other things that were already in my hand) so i see them as being situationally playable.
i feel like a few things should be in here somewhere: red sun, skinrender, sorin's vengeance, phantasmal image, and maybe inferno titan and incinerate... not sure where i could find the room, not 100% on my SB setup yet either, could probably afford to drop volition but it seems like a good answer to decks like kessig and ramp. also, i have been wondering if i should be bothering to use dissipate in the face of cavern, or if i should swap it for something like negate for the counter wars (i feel like at least 6 counter magic cards should be here) please throw some suggestions at me, and ty
hi all, just joining the thread...
had just a few questions:
what kind of experiences has anyone had with desperate ravings? i'm not sure i like the idea of the discard effect not being controllable. been thinking of running think twice instead (along with faithless and alchemy) but not sure on the draw setup.
what are thoughts on pristine talisman, curse of deaths, sorin's vengeance or red sun? so far i've come up with a basic framework but these cards don't seem to quite fit.
frost vs inferno titan? any other creatures considerable here? (skinrender, phantasmal, bloodline keeper?)
how good are incinerate and brimstone in here? would pillar replace tragic slip?
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...
Well first is the land base. You have only 10 colored lands that wont come into play tapped, and pretty much every other land will more then likely come into play tapped because you may not have that turn 1 basic land, or will match the wrong land to it all together.
This could be overlooked "slightly" by the fact that you have no turn 1 plays, but that in itself is a huge problem, you have no turn 1 plays.
Nephalia Drownyard really has no place in the deck. Yes, you can keep using it turn after turn. But its mill is HIGHLY overpriced, and you should never have a lack of a milling spell to begin with. Trackers + flashback, mulch *in your case, 4 of them at that* and playsets of skaabs should never leave you with a turn where milling wasn't an option.
Your list lacks mainboard Dungeon Geists, which in the current standard meta, is probably the best control creature our deck can run "or any blue deck imo >.>".
You are mainboarding Glissa, the Trator, while only running 2 mainboard artifacts.
Unburial Rites in general is just clunky and slow for the deck. Ask me a month ago and I would have said anything but, but after weeks of playtesting it, its all but fact in my mind. Those two slots could have been used on something that will have progressed you twords winning the game faster, not just trying to win the game off of salvaged creatures.
Your deck is to "all in". You run stupidly high on threat density, and basically no cards to help gain position on the board at all. We are not the fearless dredge of legacy, running full power game 1 and only sideboarding in game 2 and 3 when there is an absolute must answer problem to be dealt with.You need mainboard answers to real things in the meta or you are going to lose. Those things being ways to make sure your HUGE creatures don't get chumped all day "by tokens and mana dorks", ways to deal with flying creatures "tokens, angel tokens, flying infect, birds with swords in there mouth that will take you from 20 to 0 in a only a handful of swings.". I could go on.
Basically you tried to add so much random stuff to the deck, that your list lost the value of what the deck does in the first place. Put creatures in the yard, and even bigger ones on the field. Yes you "technically" do that, but at slower speeds because you messed up your mana base for zero gain in power, and have no way to protect/push through with your creatures.
All your games with that list will end up looking like:
Land, pass;
Land, maybe spell, pass;
Maybe land, probably a spell, pass;
Lose because your 1-2 turns behind where your opponent probably is.
TLDR;
It lacks any sort of cohesion. Best I can suggest is to go back and look at the most recent lists posted by Lifekills, Bearsman6, BluishGreen1.8T or Myself. All of us have done our own personal research on almost every single card that could be possibly ran in this deck, and all of us have usually came upon the same conclusions. So our deck lists often look vary similar. At its core that is what you want to see. A large group of people doing there own thing, that all end up at the same answer. When 9 our of 10 people find out on there own something works or doesn't work, its probably the correct answer.
---
It may sound brutal the way I put things, but a large group of us have playtested MANY of the things your list suggests, and found them lacking. I am simply relaying those results to you.
understood, you didn't explain that the land setup was so important to start with or why the above stated cards should/shouldn't be present, that's kindof what the forum is for - your initial post was vague, gimme details! lol i'll be reworking my list with this all in mind and repost when i can ty
basically with the black splash i went with glissa and unburial, and using the drownyard for extra mill since i had to cut a couple armored skaab for glissa (also used more artifact stuff for glissa flavor)... not sure about MD cagebreakers, seems like it should be SB for aggro matches, but not sure what should replace it MD (maybe swap it with geists in sb?) didn't feel like gravecrawler needed to be here... and btw i did read back in the thread, just not the whole 100+ pages of it lol that's why i asked questions in order to get caught up
It lacks any sort of cohesion. Best I can suggest is to go back and look at the most recent lists posted by Lifekills, Bearsman6, BluishGreen1.8T or Myself. All of us have done our own personal research on almost every single card that could be possibly ran in this deck, and all of us have usually came upon the same conclusions. So our deck lists often look vary similar. At its core that is what you want to see. A large group of people doing there own thing, that all end up at the same answer. When 9 our of 10 people find out on there own something works or doesn't work, its probably the correct answer.
i'm confused... how did my list lack cohesion? the only differences between my list and those of any of the above named are viridian emissary and unburial... so i don't get how my list is so totally horrible that i'm getting that sort of response... (quoted my list post for reference)
this comment leads me to believe you're one of the people who abuse the term "strictly better" and in this case it's not true for the purpose(s) that nighthawk fulfills. it's basically everything a control deck would or could ever want from a creature being worth playing (aside from a recursion/enter play effect) it would be downright silly not to use at least 2 (which i plan to) and there isn't as i have seen, any logical reason not to consider it a main deck value card (and "it feels out of place" doesn't count as a reason)
-point: don't trash a card over it not fitting into your vision of the archetype's functioning without at least trying it.
consider this: it doesn't JUST stop dungrove, it stops anything in the format that doesn't trample, and assuming it trades damage will take it down with it while also giving you life and effectively performing the function of non-target spot removal and giving you a bit of tempo over the board when you potentially dropped a critter with more power than you have life by just standing there... and untill it hits the grave, it swings for 2 lifelink in the air per turn and survives whipflare and enemy pillars.
i plan to make a revision on my list with whats been posted in the last 5 pages in mind, i plan to go with a decent discard package, fewer spot removal and permission, and a couple more on sweeping and will be browsing more win cons to try, and will post soon.
i would like to add to this that in having been playing her in my build for somethin like 2-3 months so far, she has been an absolute MVP and most times i would actually rather see her than a titan. most of the time i only get to use her removal ability and beat face and the game ends before i need to drop another finisher or she dies. i would say though that maybe 1 in 3 games when she comes down i end the game with her second ability (stealing anything that can survive more pings than i can pay for). most opponents take note of the "magic number" being 7 mana on my board which lets me ping and steal in the same turn, and normally if she comes down (and sticks) as soon as i can play her she makes a massive impact on the board just being there (note you can also ping on blocking and gain the counter before combat damage resolves) and holding the line untill she starts swinging... also, i have only ever had her blow up in my face once, being that i tapped down to ping/steal something and he top decked removal and got his guy back and i didn't see any other finishers.
this is where i'm at right now... stilll catching up, will ngo through the rest of the posts later on
i'm in agreement here, seems like it would be really hard to get him to hit often enough to be worth the commitment. and even if he did hit, he would take 5 swings to kill and getting 1 card each time really doesn't change much if you are doing well enough to get him in. it's the deffinition of "win-more" imo
personally i could never play desperate cuz it seemed to always either flatly lost me a game or was just disappointing if it was the only thing in my hand (at which point i lose 1 of 2 potentially decent draws, and probably draw-lose. i also didn't like faithless however since it only cycled 2 cards but you could decide what to cycle and the flashback made it a marginally better choice imo
i am in agreement with this as well, since i also played cruel grix in shards standard, and he really is that good...
2 olivia voldaren
2 frost titan
spells
4 mana leak
2 dissipate
4 think twice
2 ponder
2 desperate ravings
2 whipflare
2 slagstorm
2 black sun's zenith
2 doom blade
2 tragic slip
2 pristine talisman
2 chandra, the firebrand
2 sorin's vengeance
4 dragonskull summit
2 drowned catacombs
2 sulfur falls
2 ghost quarter
2 evolving wilds
2 desolate lighthouse
4 swamp
4 mountain
4 island
4 Vulshok Refugee
3 flashfreeze
2 massacre wurm
2 volition reins
2 red sun's zenith
2 ratchet bomb
second was a b/u delver deck that i was able to stall pretty well the one game i could play anything...
3rd gave me b/u zombies (kindof a janky build, not enough threat density at all)
and 4th was some kind g/w garbage agg that was ramping but not enough and not into anything scary enough...
talisman did quite a bit with its life gain when i drew them, otherwise not totally useless, olivia was my all star - i won 3 games from her stealing stuff, and another from chandra copying a x=7 red sun, while almost stealing a couple with frosty... felt like i needed more drawing, different sweeping setup, a few more evasive creatures, and more lifegain... i think i'm gonna take this build to the drawing board and see if i can think of anything that would help, was debating on goin to ptq this sunday but doen't seem worth it with the current condition of the deck. really felt like i was lacking cheap enough stuff, and like if i survived to late game i was able to play anything in the deck and possibly win but i wasn't drawing nearly enough it seemed.
i agree with this, i think lighthouse will obsolete ravings ultimately, i like the lighthouse alot but i honestly dont like tibalt, since he creates more random discard or provides damage but it seems like its not doing as much here because of this being control as opposed to aggro (where the damage supplement would count for more and the draw/discard-random would be more worth it cuz aggro runs out of play cards and ends up with extra land pretty often)
well euphony provided examples of situations and reasoning why a person wouldn't want to use ravings even if they were already losing or close to it... so why play a card we are always unsure of using?
unless your hand is full of excess land, you'll always have something important to lose in this deck so it's a waste to lose things if you don't absolutely need to, and if you're in that tight of a situation ravings isn't gonna save you... the only way to logically counteract this is to make everything in your deck have flashback, which would effectively enslave your deck to ravings and that doesn't at all seem worth it...
looting is great because it will always give you the choice of what to lose, where ravings just likes to take the best of what you have and statistically when ravings draws you cards you make the discard effect afterward which puts 2 new cards in danger of being discarded at random(!!!) and if you can't choose you're basically losing 1 of your best cards in the deck every time you play it (not counting anything with flashback, but how often is it really going to get a FB card?) which can ultimately screw you...
unless of course your opponent just dropped a threat to try to steal the game, and you need to find a response, or if you know they're about to land new sorin or karn and need the counter... there's a number of situations where you will need to draw more answers or permission in order to back up your threatening plays and in that task ravings will let you down almost every time... "something pivotal" doesn't mean you auto win, it means you need to make it win... this is control thinking for ya
all the above being said, i simply think ravings should be at most a 2-of recommendation since the number of situations where you'll not want to play it vs the number of situations where you actually need it or it could help you lean far in favor of those you don't want to be seeing it in your hand... but it certainly isn't consistent or beneficial enough under all circumstances to be our main draw spell
is it me or does it seem like for a card drawing spell we have to hold off on untill we have no other options isn't actually helping to gain an advantage against the opponent?
the whole idea of card drawing spells is to be able to draw through more cards than an opponent is at a given time, if we have to hold back on ravings to draw off it without losing anything pivotal then it's not helping us when or how we need it to... bottom line: it doesn't help us gain an advantage or lock down a board or actively win, it instead only helps us to barely scrape a win out of a game ON OCCASSION... that's not card advantage
that all being said, are there any decent draw spells that could replace it for efficiency, cost, or amount of cards?
what you're saying about ravings is pretty much what i predicted initially, but i squeezed them in because of everyone on the forum here attesting that they're absolutely pivotal... i will be following your advice and switch to TT as my main card draw, followed by 2-ofs of some combination of alchemy, and faithless/ponder...
i also have been wondering if a 2-of divination might be worth it, just since it's simple and doesn't make us lose anything and is a decent value at 3 cmc for 2 cards albeit at sorcery speed... i'm still torn on the faithless/ponder match though, and still wondering what we need for counter here... are we gonna really benefit from using more than just a set of leaks? -please advise!
well from my previous list i swapped the alchemy for 2 more think twice, gonna keep ravings as a 2-of since i dont feel like i need more being they have flashback... i have had frosty flat out win me games, i like his being harder to target more than i like infernos dmg effect. was thinkin about tryin to fit sorin's vengeance into here as part of my win-con setup, potentially its a turn six win via chandra and a pristine... other than that i have been thinkin about maybe adding red sun since that doubles as removal and a finisher, even more so with chandra. is curse of death's that important of a card for the MD? i keep lookin at it thinkin it should be SB vs aggro but im not sure...
EDIT: (changes to my list for FNM tonight)
-2 faithless, +2 ponder (digs deeper, and lets you manipulate while not making you LOSE ANYTHING which = CA)
-2 memoricide from SB to replace it with curse from MD
+2 red sun replacing curse MD
-2 dissipate, +2 tribute to hunger
2 olivia voldaren
2 frost titan
spells
4 mana leak
2 dissipate
2 think twice
2 desperate ravings
2 faithless looting
2 forbidden alchemy
2 whipflare
2 slagstorm
2 black sun's zenith
2 doom blade
2 tragic slip
2 chandra, the firebrand
2 pristine talisman
2 curse of death's hold
4 dragonskull summit
2 drowned catacombs
2 sulfur falls
2 ghost quarter
2 evolving wilds
2 nephalia drownyard
4 swamp
4 mountain
4 island
4 vulshok refugee
3 flashfreeze
2 ratchet bomb
2 massacre wurm
2 volition reins
2 memoricide
stats:
26 land
cmc:
1 = 4
2 = 12
3 = 8
4 = 4
5+ = 4
x = 2
colors:
red = 12
blue = 12
black = 10
draw = 8
counter = 6
removal = 4
sweeping = 6
win-con = 4 (olivia included)
misc = 4 (chandra/curse)
the cmc and color balance seems good, but i feel like i could use some more defined removal.
had just a few questions:
what kind of experiences has anyone had with desperate ravings? i'm not sure i like the idea of the discard effect not being controllable. been thinking of running think twice instead (along with faithless and alchemy) but not sure on the draw setup.
what are thoughts on pristine talisman, curse of deaths, sorin's vengeance or red sun? so far i've come up with a basic framework but these cards don't seem to quite fit.
frost vs inferno titan? any other creatures considerable here? (skinrender, phantasmal, bloodline keeper?)
how good are incinerate and brimstone in here? would pillar replace tragic slip?
also, ideas on land base? so far i have:
2 drowned catacombs
2 sulfur falls
2 ghost quarter
2 evolving wilds
2 nephalia drownyard
4 swamp
4 mountain
4 island
edit: what should we be using/how much for counter? currently i have 4 leaks and 2 dissipate...
will be contributing a list next chance i get, planning to play grixis for the rest of this format... ty for suggestions
understood, you didn't explain that the land setup was so important to start with or why the above stated cards should/shouldn't be present, that's kindof what the forum is for - your initial post was vague, gimme details! lol i'll be reworking my list with this all in mind and repost when i can ty
^
i'm confused... how did my list lack cohesion? the only differences between my list and those of any of the above named are viridian emissary and unburial... so i don't get how my list is so totally horrible that i'm getting that sort of response... (quoted my list post for reference)