So I've been trying really hard to figure out a way to be 4 color and, by extension, utilize Snapcaster Mage in the deck.
Spooly and I agreed that our least favorite part of Grixis are the blue cantrips. They are a necessary evil but can definitely cause the deck to 'spin its wheels' too much and lead to losing. After the initial testing of just throwing Snap into the Traverse deck, it unfortunately felt like it would be necessary to play some blue cantrips so that Snap would have enough proactive targets when you didn't have a hand disruption spell to flashback.
So I set off on trying to figure out how to solve this issue. It took a long time and the inspiration actually came from looking at Legacy Grixis Delver lists. I know that the formats are not the same, but I realized that I had forgotten how good the spell Lightning Bolt is. I'm not sure this is actually better than what we are already doing, but it for sure hasn't felt like a downgrade in my testing so far, so I think I might be on to something. Instead of trying to turn into an Abzan deck with Lingering Souls in the side, I think we can instead be more like a tempo deck and disrupt and clock them before they stabilize.
This is the OUTLINE for the deck. The deck will likely need some tuning, but it has shown some serious legs in testing. It just embraces the fact that Traverse is more aggressive and sleek than Grixis. I really feel like we have forgotten the power of Lightning Bolt both as removal spell (Mantis Rider and Spell Queller) and as another way shut the door on our opponent before they can stabilize. The Bolts give more targets for Snapcaster Mage and can turn him into a real threat.
I'll be playtesting a 4c version with Snap tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm going to try to not play any blue cantrips, I really don't like them. (And if I have to play them to make snap work, Id rather just stick with 5c)
This is what I plan on playing:
@Spooly- Your last paragraph I think just reiterates my point. It seems silly that the recent Grixis innovations have basically been 'lets make Grixis function more like 5c Shadow'. Why not just play 5c Shadow?
I just really don't believe that GDS is better than 5c. I think it is just a matter of GDS has way more eyes on it so it creates a self-perpetuating cycle of more people playing it. I've seen a couple people advocating for new versions of Grixis Shadow (Lingering Souls in the side, playing Mishra's Bauble in the main) and I think overall the deck is actually a slightly worse version of our deck. GDS has just been more popular for a quite a while now, and people fricken love playing Snapcaster Mage (I can't blame them), so we don't get many converts.
My buddy and I took the same 75, and we wrote out over 20 sideboad plans. I’m not sure everyone here would want to read through all of that? I can PM you if you really want though.
Round 1: Tron (0-0)
I didn’t start the day off well. I wrote this down very specifically because of how rough it felt. G1 he's on the play, I mull. He plays t1 tower into map. I inquisition him turn 1 taking an ostone and he has mine, dismember, karn, karn left... So all my threats die to karn minus or dismember so I scoop
-7 removal spells and an Inquisition. +5 Counterspells, the Grudges and Pulse.
G2 I mull, inquisition him t1 and see ghost quarter, tower, sylvan scrying, map, karn, karn. I take map. He draws green source, I'm bauble scrying and draw into a goyf and an ancient grudge. He draws into second scrying to get tron online, plays karn t4 killing my goyf and playing an ancient stirrings grabbing wurmcoil (and he has second karn in hand). This match wasn’t close.
Round 2: Bant Eldrazi (0-1)
He’s on the play, and goes to 6. He plays turn 1 forest into Ancient Stirrings. Tron again? He reveals an Eldrazi Skypawner off of it, and I sigh in relief. I start off with a fetch and bauble hand, and I shuffle away the 4th land I had on top while also allowing me to push his t2 noble. I follow up with a goyf on my turn and pass. He draws and passes back without playing a 3rd land. The game doesn’t last much longer as he misses his 3rd land for multiple turns and even when he finally does its too late for him to catch up.
-2 Stubborn, -Grave, -2 IOK, -2 Street Wraith. +Souls, +Shrine, + Pulse, +Radiant Flames.
We both keep 7. I have an Inquisition, Shadow, removal hand and he has 3 lands, a Skyspawner, Displacer, and 2 Thoughtknot Seers. I take the Skypawner hope he misses land drops again. He plays his Displacer which I decay. He misses a turn or 2 on land but he does get a path for my Shadow. My next couple of draws were Thoughtseizes and a Goyf, so I took his Thoughtknot Seers and hoped he would get stuck with a Thragtusk and Drowner of Hope in hand. I get him 8 with the Goyf before he is able to play Thragtusk (which I Flames and Push). He follows up Drowner (which I pulse) and he chumps with one of the tokens. The reason why I list off my removal spells is because he then draws RIP. Which I now have exactly 1 out to now. I’m a lucksack and peel the last Decay off the top on my next drawstep for the RIP and a Lingering Souls the turn after makes sure he can’t come back.
Round 3: Grixis Shadow (1-1)
He is 4 minutes late, so I get a G1 win. Lucky me.
G2 He goes to 6 and is obviously on the play. I Inquisition him turn 1 and he Thoughtscours in response. I then see Shadow, Gurmag, and 3 lands. He is able to play his Gurmag on t3 that I have no answer for, but I do have a T3 5/5 Shadow. He declines on attacking into my Shadow, but I brazenly attack back, and he declines the block. What confuses me is that he then attacks me, putting me to 3 while he is at 12. I shrug, and shock myself on my turn, putting me to 1 and then attack him for exactly 12.
Round 4: GR Devotion (2-1)
I would eventually be told by my friends that I was playing against Brennan Deccandio. I didn’t know who he was before, but while I way playing, I could tell that his play was super tight. I’m not sure I agree on his deck choice (or his general attitude and view on modern after reading some of his articles now) but he played well, at least.
We both keep 7, he’s on the play. I have disruption spell into a threat and I quickly pull him apart while he is forced to play Genesis Wave for 3 and only hits Bird before he dies.
-3 Liliana, -2 Push, -1 Dismember. +5 Counterspells, +1 Pulse.
I took swap the removal and counters in hopes that I can just let him have his ramp, but then hopefully counter his big plays. I know he has Moon though, so I kept the decays.
G2 I made several misplays. T1 I have to Traverse for my swamp so I have a 2nd land. T2 I thoughtseize him twice, taking his last two cards (he played multiple ramp cards in the previous turns). His last two cards were Tireless Tracker and Craterhoof Behemoth. Taking Tracker is obviously right, but I think I shouldn’t have bothered taking the Behemoth. He was nowhere close to casting the card, and I would later get locked out by him ripping Primal Command and starting to loop it with Eternal Witness. If I would have either saved my second hand disruption I would have been able to break the loop, or if I would have just left an uncracked fetch in play I could have at least shuffled and not have to draw the land he put on top for multiple turns. (I had enough land in hand to make sure I could cast my spells, but I needed action). OH well.
G3 is really close and quite long so I dont remember all the details. I know that he was able to bait an abrupt decay on his Tireless Tracker and then follow up with a Moon. I luckily already had a Goyf, Flayer, and my Swamp in play though. But I’m now unable to cast my counterspells for his big plays. There were multiple turns that I had Battlerage in hand, but he was off of death by 1 life, so I played patient, hoping that he would just flood out and I would eventually get to kill him. Hitting him with Flayer every turn did allow me to filter my draws and make sure I could continually draw at least castable spells and break up his Primal Command loops as best as I could. I was eventually able to battlerage to protect one of my threats (because of the first strike) and I just had to hope that he would miss on the next drawstep. I got lucky and was able to close it out.
Round 5: Affinity (3-1)
He wins the roll, but mulligans to 5. He still makes it a game though and plays to his outs. I was probably a little too aggressive with my life total for my Shadow, so there was turn that I opened myself up to dying when he went in with a Ravager, but I had saved a Decay to kill the lethal Ravager and I had Dismember for the Blinkmoth Nexus.
-3 Liliana, -3 Street Wraith, -2 Stubborn, -1 IOK, -1 Grave. +4 Souls, +2 Grudge, +2 Sweepers, +1 Pulse, +1 Shrine.
We both keep 7 this time, but this game isn’t really close. I have a Souls that basically 4 for 1 him, and a Grudge to clean up the rest.
Round 6: Affinity (4-1)
He takes a long time to decide, but we both keep 7. I inquisition T1 and see Ornithopter x3, Mox Opal x2, Thoughtcast, and Hazoret. Uh oh. Well. I really wish I had a Thoughtseize instead of an Inquisition. I take the second Opal, because I’m scared of him playing T1 Thoughtcast into t2 Hazoret. He draws well (Thoughtcast helped) and is able to play and attack with Hazoret on t3 anyway. I drew 2 Liliana of the Veil and no Dismember for his Hazoret, so it doesn’t take long for him to overwhelm me.
G2 Was so long that I wish I would have just conceded earlier to save myself the energy. I draw multiple Lingering Souls and large Goyfs to prevent him from attacking, but he drew multiple Steel Overseers that I didn’t have timely removal spells for. So eventually his board had like 5+ counters on every creature and I’m not sure what I was even drawing to at that point. Once he finally decides to start attacking, it doesn’t take long for him to plow through my 12 Souls tokens.
Round 7: Zoo (4-2)
He goes to 6 and is on the play. He plays T1 Wild Nacatl which I have a push for. He has a follow up creature, but no 2nd land. I thoughtseize and take his only other 1 mana play (he has Herbalist and 2 Bushwackers left). He misses a land drop while I play a Shadow. He’s draws a second land but only has an Herbalist to play. Next turn he plays 3rd land attacks, and Atarka’s Commands putting me pretty low. But I’m able to follow up with enough damage to myself to get to 1 (I have stubborn in hand). He has the bolt, but I stubborn and attack him for 12 which finishes him off.
-2 Liliana, -3 Street Wraith. +2 Sweepers, +2 Stubborn, +1 Pulse.
He goes to 6. My opening hand has 3 Land, a Push, an Inquisition, and 2 Goyfs. Yeah, this game wasn’t close at all. Goyfs were just brick walls while I stabilized and made sure he didn’t have all burn in hand before I start swinging and quickly close the game out.
Round 8: Affinity (5-2)
I win the die roll and have a nice inquisition into Flayer plus removal hand. His hand is kinda mediocre, but it does have 2 Galv Blasts. One of the Blasts hits a small Shadow (Making him 5/5 makes his Blasts kill me). He does draw into a Master of Etherium though so his attacks in the air get better. The next couple of turns we both make huge punts. I have a Goyf on board and draw Liliana which I then minus and only kill an Ornithopter. He finishes off the Liliana, but that puts my Goyf that I drew at 6/7. He then animates his manland and attacks with it, a memnite, and 6/6 Master of Etherium. I’m able to straight eat him master of Etherium, and I go to 1. I draw a push for his manland and attack with just my Flayer, leaving the Goyf back to block his Memnite. After I hit him with the Flayer he says “OK, I go to 4” and I facepalm. He was straight dead on board, and I immediately get punished when he immediately draws the 3rd Galv Blast to kill me.
G2 I again similarly to my first Affinity opponent and have a Lingering Souls that 4 for 1’s him and an Ancient Grudge to clean up.
G3 He mulligans to 5 and plays a turn 1 ornithopter and nothing else. I have 2 hand disruption spells and kill him before he does anything relevant. Better lucky than good, I guess.
Round 9: Affinity (6-2)
Yeah, that's right, I played affinity 4 times. Game 1 I mulligan a hand that has Fetch, Wraith, Shadow, Goyf x2, Liliana x2. I don’t think that hand is keepable, but it haunts me when my 6 hand no lands, and my 5 has 3 land, 2 Goyfs and a Flayer. His hand isn’t crazy, but it's enough to kill me as I only play creatures and draw zero removal spells.
Game 2 We both keep 7, and my hand looks pretty good. I have disruption, Flayer, Souls, and a removal spell. His draw isn’t crazy and it looks like Souls will be enough to put me ahead. He draws and plays Bitterblossom. Hmm. Maybe this will be harder, but it's probably still doable since I also drew a Goyf and with Flayer’s trample I can probably kill him through the Bitterblossom anyway. Then he soon draws and slams Rest In Peace. Well. The name of that card is quite fitting for my Day 2 dreams. It doesn’t take long after that for him to finish me off as all of my pressure is gone and I can no longer flashback souls.
Overall, the deck was amazing, and I don’t think I would change anything other than maaaybe swapping the 3rd Liliana for something else. I think that might be because I played against Affinity 4 times though, so that’s probably not really fair to Lili. I firmly like this deck over Grixis, and I think the only downside is that Bauble triggers and 5c makes playing and sideboarding more complicated.
I cut an inquisition (as did Reid duke) and a traverse. I know Spooly disagreed on the traverse, but my reasoning is that I felt like we only played 4 before because it was a necessary evil (with only 8 real creatures) and if you drew multiples of them early game they were just awful, and really the 4 traverses only counted as ~2.5 threats anyway. So in those situations I'd rather have a Grim Flayer and always be able to play my threat on turn 2.
The deck definitely wants more threats than 8 big dudes and 4 traverses. You can't count traverse as a whole threat because it usually won't be on in the early turns (when you really want a threat). Flayer is able to be played on turn 2 which is so much more consistent than anything traverse could do.
You're playing the tarfires which do change how consistently traverse is on, but I think that grim flayer fulfills a similar role while also filtering and hitting them. And he gets even better in post board games when he can hit a flashback spell which is crazy.
I'm just not excited to be playing tarfire though. Stubborn denial is such a house in so many matchups whereas tarfire can hopefully kill their guy if your opponent plays creatures at all. #of decks with non creature spells>>> # of decks with x/2's.
Sorry for the double post (does it count if there is a week between?)
But are any of you guys going to SCG Columbus next week?
I'm curious about last minute tuning and whether I should be concerned about big mana or some other archetype showing up in big numbers. I'm not great at meta analysis
I agree on 2 decays. It just gives you an out to random stuff like blood moon, ensaring bridge, cranial playing, rest in peace, etc.
Oh and I'm most of you know this, but I think the small tips and tricks can really add up with this deck:
Float GB mana before the blood moon resolves, then decay it after it does. Allow the rest in peace and it's trigger to resolve before decaying it. Their RIP will exile itself and you'll be left with a decay in your yard (which can be relevant later for delirium)
I tested for almost 12 hours yesterday, and I came to many of the same conclusions. I can't figure out how to get 4c to work, but simplifying the spells enough that we can easily board out red (so Hazoret isn't doable) and never have to play 5 color (staticaster) is the way to go.
I agree with you on Grim Flayer, I was totally sold. Why weren't we playing this earlier?
Although if we don't have Terminate I kinda want a 3rd disdainful stroke so we have another way to handle stuff like Titan and Tron stuff. I also prefer the 4th stubborn over brutality.
My reasoning was that playing the 4 goyf/4 shadow/4 traverse felt like ~10 threats in the deck. By adding the two flayers you don't just up the count to ~12, but really closer to 13 because the flayers help enable delirium and dig through your deck. I wasn't sure if increasing the threat count from 10 to 13 and losing 2 pieces of interaction was needed. You have a lot more experience with the deck than I do though, so I'll trust your judgement.
If we play 2 flayers maybe we can cut the 4th traverse? In general I'm thinking the flayers are probably going to be better than they first seem. All of its abilities are powerful and relevant to this deck's game plan. I definitely think it's worth a shot.
You mentioned in the article that you want to fit a grim flayer or two in there. How do you think we should fit them? I think we can squeeze one in the main, but I don't know if flayer is really a sideboard card? Idk how to get the second one in there.
It doesn't stop goyf because they still have a graveyard. So I would try to bring in any threats that you have that don't rely in the yard (like Hazoret or ranger) and a maelstrom pulse if you have it, while siding out some traverses (which is really the only card that leyline actually kills).
And then just kill them anyway while they are going down a card (at least, if they draw it later in the game it does nothing). It rrally only shuts off 4 of our cards. It's not that bad.
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Spooly and I agreed that our least favorite part of Grixis are the blue cantrips. They are a necessary evil but can definitely cause the deck to 'spin its wheels' too much and lead to losing. After the initial testing of just throwing Snap into the Traverse deck, it unfortunately felt like it would be necessary to play some blue cantrips so that Snap would have enough proactive targets when you didn't have a hand disruption spell to flashback.
So I set off on trying to figure out how to solve this issue. It took a long time and the inspiration actually came from looking at Legacy Grixis Delver lists. I know that the formats are not the same, but I realized that I had forgotten how good the spell Lightning Bolt is. I'm not sure this is actually better than what we are already doing, but it for sure hasn't felt like a downgrade in my testing so far, so I think I might be on to something. Instead of trying to turn into an Abzan deck with Lingering Souls in the side, I think we can instead be more like a tempo deck and disrupt and clock them before they stabilize.
This is the OUTLINE for the deck. The deck will likely need some tuning, but it has shown some serious legs in testing. It just embraces the fact that Traverse is more aggressive and sleek than Grixis. I really feel like we have forgotten the power of Lightning Bolt both as removal spell (Mantis Rider and Spell Queller) and as another way shut the door on our opponent before they can stabilize. The Bolts give more targets for Snapcaster Mage and can turn him into a real threat.
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Street Wraith
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Stubborn Denial
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Fatal Push
2 Dismember
2 Temur Battle Rage
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
1 Swamp
3 Stubborn Denial
3 Kolaghan's Command
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Golgari Charm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
This is what I plan on playing:
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Grim Flayer
1 Snapcaster Mage
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Stubborn Denial
3 Fatal Push
2 Tarfire
2 Dismember
2 Temur Battle Rage
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
1 Swamp
3 Stubborn Denial
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Kolaghan's Command
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Golgari Charm
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Grim Flayer
4 Street Wraith
4 Mishra's Bauble
3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Stubborn Denial
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember
2 Temur Battle Rage
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Blood Crypt
1 Watery Grave
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Breeding Pool
1 Swamp
4 Lingering Souls
1 Godless Shrine
2 Stubborn Denial
3 Disdainful Stroke
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Radiant Flames
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Maelstrom Pulse
My buddy and I took the same 75, and we wrote out over 20 sideboad plans. I’m not sure everyone here would want to read through all of that? I can PM you if you really want though.
Round 1: Tron (0-0)
I didn’t start the day off well. I wrote this down very specifically because of how rough it felt. G1 he's on the play, I mull. He plays t1 tower into map. I inquisition him turn 1 taking an ostone and he has mine, dismember, karn, karn left... So all my threats die to karn minus or dismember so I scoop
-7 removal spells and an Inquisition. +5 Counterspells, the Grudges and Pulse.
G2 I mull, inquisition him t1 and see ghost quarter, tower, sylvan scrying, map, karn, karn. I take map. He draws green source, I'm bauble scrying and draw into a goyf and an ancient grudge. He draws into second scrying to get tron online, plays karn t4 killing my goyf and playing an ancient stirrings grabbing wurmcoil (and he has second karn in hand). This match wasn’t close.
Round 2: Bant Eldrazi (0-1)
He’s on the play, and goes to 6. He plays turn 1 forest into Ancient Stirrings. Tron again? He reveals an Eldrazi Skypawner off of it, and I sigh in relief. I start off with a fetch and bauble hand, and I shuffle away the 4th land I had on top while also allowing me to push his t2 noble. I follow up with a goyf on my turn and pass. He draws and passes back without playing a 3rd land. The game doesn’t last much longer as he misses his 3rd land for multiple turns and even when he finally does its too late for him to catch up.
-2 Stubborn, -Grave, -2 IOK, -2 Street Wraith. +Souls, +Shrine, + Pulse, +Radiant Flames.
We both keep 7. I have an Inquisition, Shadow, removal hand and he has 3 lands, a Skyspawner, Displacer, and 2 Thoughtknot Seers. I take the Skypawner hope he misses land drops again. He plays his Displacer which I decay. He misses a turn or 2 on land but he does get a path for my Shadow. My next couple of draws were Thoughtseizes and a Goyf, so I took his Thoughtknot Seers and hoped he would get stuck with a Thragtusk and Drowner of Hope in hand. I get him 8 with the Goyf before he is able to play Thragtusk (which I Flames and Push). He follows up Drowner (which I pulse) and he chumps with one of the tokens. The reason why I list off my removal spells is because he then draws RIP. Which I now have exactly 1 out to now. I’m a lucksack and peel the last Decay off the top on my next drawstep for the RIP and a Lingering Souls the turn after makes sure he can’t come back.
Round 3: Grixis Shadow (1-1)
He is 4 minutes late, so I get a G1 win. Lucky me.
G2 He goes to 6 and is obviously on the play. I Inquisition him turn 1 and he Thoughtscours in response. I then see Shadow, Gurmag, and 3 lands. He is able to play his Gurmag on t3 that I have no answer for, but I do have a T3 5/5 Shadow. He declines on attacking into my Shadow, but I brazenly attack back, and he declines the block. What confuses me is that he then attacks me, putting me to 3 while he is at 12. I shrug, and shock myself on my turn, putting me to 1 and then attack him for exactly 12.
Round 4: GR Devotion (2-1)
I would eventually be told by my friends that I was playing against Brennan Deccandio. I didn’t know who he was before, but while I way playing, I could tell that his play was super tight. I’m not sure I agree on his deck choice (or his general attitude and view on modern after reading some of his articles now) but he played well, at least.
We both keep 7, he’s on the play. I have disruption spell into a threat and I quickly pull him apart while he is forced to play Genesis Wave for 3 and only hits Bird before he dies.
-3 Liliana, -2 Push, -1 Dismember. +5 Counterspells, +1 Pulse.
I took swap the removal and counters in hopes that I can just let him have his ramp, but then hopefully counter his big plays. I know he has Moon though, so I kept the decays.
G2 I made several misplays. T1 I have to Traverse for my swamp so I have a 2nd land. T2 I thoughtseize him twice, taking his last two cards (he played multiple ramp cards in the previous turns). His last two cards were Tireless Tracker and Craterhoof Behemoth. Taking Tracker is obviously right, but I think I shouldn’t have bothered taking the Behemoth. He was nowhere close to casting the card, and I would later get locked out by him ripping Primal Command and starting to loop it with Eternal Witness. If I would have either saved my second hand disruption I would have been able to break the loop, or if I would have just left an uncracked fetch in play I could have at least shuffled and not have to draw the land he put on top for multiple turns. (I had enough land in hand to make sure I could cast my spells, but I needed action). OH well.
G3 is really close and quite long so I dont remember all the details. I know that he was able to bait an abrupt decay on his Tireless Tracker and then follow up with a Moon. I luckily already had a Goyf, Flayer, and my Swamp in play though. But I’m now unable to cast my counterspells for his big plays. There were multiple turns that I had Battlerage in hand, but he was off of death by 1 life, so I played patient, hoping that he would just flood out and I would eventually get to kill him. Hitting him with Flayer every turn did allow me to filter my draws and make sure I could continually draw at least castable spells and break up his Primal Command loops as best as I could. I was eventually able to battlerage to protect one of my threats (because of the first strike) and I just had to hope that he would miss on the next drawstep. I got lucky and was able to close it out.
Round 5: Affinity (3-1)
He wins the roll, but mulligans to 5. He still makes it a game though and plays to his outs. I was probably a little too aggressive with my life total for my Shadow, so there was turn that I opened myself up to dying when he went in with a Ravager, but I had saved a Decay to kill the lethal Ravager and I had Dismember for the Blinkmoth Nexus.
-3 Liliana, -3 Street Wraith, -2 Stubborn, -1 IOK, -1 Grave. +4 Souls, +2 Grudge, +2 Sweepers, +1 Pulse, +1 Shrine.
We both keep 7 this time, but this game isn’t really close. I have a Souls that basically 4 for 1 him, and a Grudge to clean up the rest.
Round 6: Affinity (4-1)
He takes a long time to decide, but we both keep 7. I inquisition T1 and see Ornithopter x3, Mox Opal x2, Thoughtcast, and Hazoret. Uh oh. Well. I really wish I had a Thoughtseize instead of an Inquisition. I take the second Opal, because I’m scared of him playing T1 Thoughtcast into t2 Hazoret. He draws well (Thoughtcast helped) and is able to play and attack with Hazoret on t3 anyway. I drew 2 Liliana of the Veil and no Dismember for his Hazoret, so it doesn’t take long for him to overwhelm me.
G2 Was so long that I wish I would have just conceded earlier to save myself the energy. I draw multiple Lingering Souls and large Goyfs to prevent him from attacking, but he drew multiple Steel Overseers that I didn’t have timely removal spells for. So eventually his board had like 5+ counters on every creature and I’m not sure what I was even drawing to at that point. Once he finally decides to start attacking, it doesn’t take long for him to plow through my 12 Souls tokens.
Round 7: Zoo (4-2)
He goes to 6 and is on the play. He plays T1 Wild Nacatl which I have a push for. He has a follow up creature, but no 2nd land. I thoughtseize and take his only other 1 mana play (he has Herbalist and 2 Bushwackers left). He misses a land drop while I play a Shadow. He’s draws a second land but only has an Herbalist to play. Next turn he plays 3rd land attacks, and Atarka’s Commands putting me pretty low. But I’m able to follow up with enough damage to myself to get to 1 (I have stubborn in hand). He has the bolt, but I stubborn and attack him for 12 which finishes him off.
-2 Liliana, -3 Street Wraith. +2 Sweepers, +2 Stubborn, +1 Pulse.
He goes to 6. My opening hand has 3 Land, a Push, an Inquisition, and 2 Goyfs. Yeah, this game wasn’t close at all. Goyfs were just brick walls while I stabilized and made sure he didn’t have all burn in hand before I start swinging and quickly close the game out.
Round 8: Affinity (5-2)
I win the die roll and have a nice inquisition into Flayer plus removal hand. His hand is kinda mediocre, but it does have 2 Galv Blasts. One of the Blasts hits a small Shadow (Making him 5/5 makes his Blasts kill me). He does draw into a Master of Etherium though so his attacks in the air get better. The next couple of turns we both make huge punts. I have a Goyf on board and draw Liliana which I then minus and only kill an Ornithopter. He finishes off the Liliana, but that puts my Goyf that I drew at 6/7. He then animates his manland and attacks with it, a memnite, and 6/6 Master of Etherium. I’m able to straight eat him master of Etherium, and I go to 1. I draw a push for his manland and attack with just my Flayer, leaving the Goyf back to block his Memnite. After I hit him with the Flayer he says “OK, I go to 4” and I facepalm. He was straight dead on board, and I immediately get punished when he immediately draws the 3rd Galv Blast to kill me.
G2 I again similarly to my first Affinity opponent and have a Lingering Souls that 4 for 1’s him and an Ancient Grudge to clean up.
G3 He mulligans to 5 and plays a turn 1 ornithopter and nothing else. I have 2 hand disruption spells and kill him before he does anything relevant. Better lucky than good, I guess.
Round 9: Affinity (6-2)
Yeah, that's right, I played affinity 4 times. Game 1 I mulligan a hand that has Fetch, Wraith, Shadow, Goyf x2, Liliana x2. I don’t think that hand is keepable, but it haunts me when my 6 hand no lands, and my 5 has 3 land, 2 Goyfs and a Flayer. His hand isn’t crazy, but it's enough to kill me as I only play creatures and draw zero removal spells.
Game 2 We both keep 7, and my hand looks pretty good. I have disruption, Flayer, Souls, and a removal spell. His draw isn’t crazy and it looks like Souls will be enough to put me ahead. He draws and plays Bitterblossom. Hmm. Maybe this will be harder, but it's probably still doable since I also drew a Goyf and with Flayer’s trample I can probably kill him through the Bitterblossom anyway. Then he soon draws and slams Rest In Peace. Well. The name of that card is quite fitting for my Day 2 dreams. It doesn’t take long after that for him to finish me off as all of my pressure is gone and I can no longer flashback souls.
Overall, the deck was amazing, and I don’t think I would change anything other than maaaybe swapping the 3rd Liliana for something else. I think that might be because I played against Affinity 4 times though, so that’s probably not really fair to Lili. I firmly like this deck over Grixis, and I think the only downside is that Bauble triggers and 5c makes playing and sideboarding more complicated.
Deck was great overall, I loved it. I can write up a tournament report if you guys woild like.
You're playing the tarfires which do change how consistently traverse is on, but I think that grim flayer fulfills a similar role while also filtering and hitting them. And he gets even better in post board games when he can hit a flashback spell which is crazy.
I'm just not excited to be playing tarfire though. Stubborn denial is such a house in so many matchups whereas tarfire can hopefully kill their guy if your opponent plays creatures at all. #of decks with non creature spells>>> # of decks with x/2's.
But are any of you guys going to SCG Columbus next week?
I'm curious about last minute tuning and whether I should be concerned about big mana or some other archetype showing up in big numbers. I'm not great at meta analysis
Oh and I'm most of you know this, but I think the small tips and tricks can really add up with this deck:
Float GB mana before the blood moon resolves, then decay it after it does. Allow the rest in peace and it's trigger to resolve before decaying it. Their RIP will exile itself and you'll be left with a decay in your yard (which can be relevant later for delirium)
I agree with you on Grim Flayer, I was totally sold. Why weren't we playing this earlier?
Although if we don't have Terminate I kinda want a 3rd disdainful stroke so we have another way to handle stuff like Titan and Tron stuff. I also prefer the 4th stubborn over brutality.
So how did the flayers do last night?
And then just kill them anyway while they are going down a card (at least, if they draw it later in the game it does nothing). It rrally only shuts off 4 of our cards. It's not that bad.