I didn't want to cast him much when I saw him. Drawing two was fine but I think I'm going to try a 1 of Sedraxis Specter. Can be unearthed back for 3 damage and discard. Which to me seems kinda sneaky in a way after he gets milled by scours. Could be underwhelming but giving him a try.
More on the drifter, I felt paying 5 mana was too much and the 2/2 flying body just didn't pose enough threat to me. It may be fine but that is my opinion.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
1) Why do you like Liliana against Merfolks so much? I generally think it is a mediocre plainswalker metagame wise.
2) You do keep a single Cryptic Command in as I see. It is a nice thing to do as tapping all creatures and bouncing Master Of Waves mid combat and then blocking with a fatty results in a disaster for them.
3) About Mulldrifter, I agree with the above statement. I had him in hand and
either had no mana/chance to throw him in the battlefield
or I just did not want to use him(because I wanted to use something else. If i did use him, I would be one turn late in everything. The positive of that is that I would be in a perfect shape. The catch is that I would probably lose the step I had on the opponent.)
Lili is the best planeswalker available in modern, and will always be better on your side of the table as you don't really care about having resources in graveyard, also it's always better to choose what to throw in there. When playing a deck with such high level of redundancy as Merfolk you force them to discard threats or cards that protect their threats. If they discard a threat, the protection loses value, if they discard the protection you can kill the threat. When you control the board, as I said on before, you force them to play 2 threats a turn, otherwise they face her -2 and 1-for-0 themselves. Lili is not the card you want to drop asap, is a mid/late game all star which will give you many games (not just against merfolk). Cryptic Command is nice because of the tapping and bouncing effects as you say. Many times I had an alpha strike of 20+ and just EOT Cryptic tap bounce vial. Untap and win.it's nice to have that play although sometimes you need to counter something or just stall for a turn while digging for another answer.
The thing about lili is that she shines against Bogles, Burn, Jund, Junk, Control, Combo and is a great way of keeping a board under control against aggro.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In Lorwyn's brief evenings, the sun pauses at the horizon long enough for a certain species of violet to bloom with the fragrance of mischief.
We don't need to rely on Lili because our creatures are incredibly efficient threats, and we have enough removal/permission to control the board. Lili is a non-blue deck's way of controlling the board, and Blue Jund is not a blue deck at heart.
How do we feel about this card - Painful Truths? 3 mana draw 3 is INCREDIBLY strong and for only three life, it seems like it would be decent as a 1/2 of. So far I've seen no one mention it in any of the major circles, but there are literally no cards that have 3 mana : 3 card ratio, which is an INSANE ratio. Ambition's Cost is the same effect at 4 mana and no flexibility and basically nothing else is close (except for unplayables like Counsel of the Soratami. Thoughts?
No Jace: He feels more like a win more while leaving myself open to removal that is otherwise dead to me.
Ashiok: Meta has some board flood that I feel it could be good against, against GBx gets swapped with Keranos game 2 but there isn't much GBx in local meta. Least confident spot however, might just exchange it for another angler or cryptic.
MB damnation: Lots of people going wide so I am going to leave it mainboard. Debating anger of the gods or Languish instead.
Grim Lavamancer sideboard: Going to try sideboarding in over anglers against burn and elves/zoo/spirits.
Matchup I am most worried about is Affinity and GR Tron. Plan against tron is to SB in 2 Countersquall over 2 Spell Snare and 3 Fulminator over Dispel, Go For The Throat and 1 Terminate and just go for a race. Affinity I am not sure yet.
Aside from mainboard damnation (fine in the right metas), and Ashiok (I wouldn't run her at all in the 75), your list looks pretty standard. Tron you need to race and hopefully disrupt, and affinity you just need to play tight and hope they don't get the nut draw and you should be ok.
What do you guys think about the "traditional" Chapin-style Grixis Control with Cryptics and Mana Leaks vs the Majors-style sorcery speed version with Jaces and Lilianas?
I have screwed around a bit with the Jace/Lili version (don't own Jaces so just proxy testing) and I prefer the traditional build for 2 main reasons:
1) The Jund matchup is much better I think for the Cryptic version. If you play Jaces and Lilis you are turning Bolts and Decays into good cards for you opponent, while they are almost dead cards against the traditional build.
2) The Tron matchup is also much better for the traditional build, since we have countermagic to delay the Karns and Wurmcoils. It's not a great matchup either way, but with regular Grixis control I feel like I have a decent chance vs Tron, and with the other version it feels like playing Jund against Tron, which feels almost unwinnable at times unless you get a very good hand and they get a very bad one. In fact it feels worse than Jund because you can't go t1 discard -> t2 Goyf -> t3 Fulminator which is the usual route to victory against Tron for Jund. You have to land an early fast threat against Tron to win, and the traditional Grixis deck is more likely to get an early Delve creature out, and you have countermagic to protect the threat for a little longer.
All of the other matches I've tested feel about the same for both versions of Grixis, so the fact that the traditional build is better in these two relatively common matchups makes me prefer the traditional build. What matchup am I missing that the Majors build is significantly better than the traditional build in?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Modern decks BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
You are right on everything, I spent over 450$ to make the "blue jund" (bought lands,2x lili,3x jace, abbots..)
And I was not feeling as strong as i was with the traditionnal grixis control for one main reason.
When you counter your oponnent spell, he's losing his turn. His mana is tapped.
A good counterspell may feel like an extra turn.
I'm a bit sad of not being able to play lili anymore.. i like her, she's hot. haha;
What do you guys think about the "traditional" Chapin-style Grixis Control with Cryptics and Mana Leaks vs the Majors-style sorcery speed version with Jaces and Lilianas?
I have screwed around a bit with the Jace/Lili version (don't own Jaces so just proxy testing) and I prefer the traditional build for 2 main reasons:
1) The Jund matchup is much better I think for the Cryptic version. If you play Jaces and Lilis you are turning Bolts and Decays into good cards for you opponent, while they are almost dead cards against the traditional build.
2) The Tron matchup is also much better for the traditional build, since we have countermagic to delay the Karns and Wurmcoils. It's not a great matchup either way, but with regular Grixis control I feel like I have a decent chance vs Tron, and with the other version it feels like playing Jund against Tron, which feels almost unwinnable at times unless you get a very good hand and they get a very bad one. In fact it feels worse than Jund because you can't go t1 discard -> t2 Goyf -> t3 Fulminator which is the usual route to victory against Tron for Jund. You have to land an early fast threat against Tron to win, and the traditional Grixis deck is more likely to get an early Delve creature out, and you have countermagic to protect the threat for a little longer.
All of the other matches I've tested feel about the same for both versions of Grixis, so the fact that the traditional build is better in these two relatively common matchups makes me prefer the traditional build. What matchup am I missing that the Majors build is significantly better than the traditional build in?
This build thrives in non blue metas and metas not heavily GW. If the meta is prepared for this deck and anyone is packing extra dispels, it becomes much more difficult to win with a higher win percentage. My meta is almost all Esper, Twin variants, and UWR control which makes this deck a much less ideal choice.
The blue jund list thrives in metas that are heavy in blue, as it's 1-1s are much cheaper and is more able to 2-1 a control player through things like Rise/Fall.
Other than that, they're almost the same. Generally, if cryptic is good, this deck is better. If cryptic is bad, the other one is probably better.
The Jund version for me has been better with the other list, but some people have said that this one has a better matchup. It's probably a pretty solid 50/50. As for Tron - some people are running a dreadbore and that helps with Karn's Emrakuls... other than that the matchup isn't that different. Thoughtseize is good, Fulminator is good - it seems to be a 40/60 MU for both decks either way.
You are right on everything, I spent over 450$ to make the "blue jund" (bought lands,2x lili,3x jace, abbots..)
And I was not feeling as strong as i was with the traditionnal grixis control for one main reason.
When you counter your oponnent spell, he's losing his turn. His mana is tapped.
A good counterspell may feel like an extra turn.
I'm a bit sad of not being able to play lili anymore.. i like her, she's hot. haha;
Well, you can always come join us on the Jund side of things, if you are so inclined
But yeah, counterspells are much better for tempo than discard spells.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Modern decks BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
Do you think there's a place for lili maindeck? Just like "blue jund" or not?
Maybe we could drop a cryptic command for 1 lili? 2cryptic 1 lili.
There's no need for that. MB is as tight as can be. Lili is a resource we can have in our sideboard, and a resource that I really like. She takes over combo, control and midrange decks, and when paired up with the right removal any aggro deck too. But you just need to understand that lili in grixis is not lili in BGx. We usually don't want her on T3 unless the board is clear/almost empty.
We don't need to rely on Lili because our creatures are incredibly efficient threats, and we have enough removal/permission to control the board. Lili is a non-blue deck's way of controlling the board, and Blue Jund is not a blue deck at heart.
I disagree, Blue identity doesn't limit to counterspells. Lili is bad if you clog your deck with countermagic, as you want to hold the counterspells in hand, being a nombo with her +1. I'll give you that. But she fits grixis colors perfectly. Blue is all about sculpting zones (hand, library, graveyard). Counterspells are the weakest cards in Grixis control, with the exception of Cryptic Command, which is not a counterspell but an extreme valuable 2-for-1 (though yes, we will use the counter mode more often than not). The point is, CC is the best counter because it can be something else. In that sense, this deck runs blue for 2 reasons: Cantrips and Snapcaster Mage. It doesn't run blue like UWR or UW, the other control we're more used to. The problem with Lili is that not all players are lili players. If you're not a lili player, you will not get the real value from her, as you need to know when to cast her, when to to +1, when to -2 and when to do nothing with her. This is very contextual, and game dependant, but if you're not sure of how to use her, you will lose value, rather than gain it.
Just think about it like this: Jund drops a Liliana. Do you counter it? 90% of the times my answer will be 'Hell no!', as she gives us much more value than it will give them. Same for junk (as long as they're not holding a Lingering Souls in hand), but even if they do that's 2 tokens less so it's still better for us as we can't deal very well G1 against decks that go wide. Lili puts cards you need at later stages in the game in the graveyard, where you will be able to recur them when you need.
Grixis control is all about outvaluing the opponent while keeping control of the board. We play grixis because blue enables the zone sculpture, black gives us the threats, and red reach/speed and sideboard outs. All three together get an outstanding value as the game goes on, like no other deck can do ATM.
How do we feel about this card - Painful Truths? 3 mana draw 3 is INCREDIBLY strong and for only three life, it seems like it would be decent as a 1/2 of. So far I've seen no one mention it in any of the major circles, but there are literally no cards that have 3 mana : 3 card ratio, which is an INSANE ratio. Ambition's Cost is the same effect at 4 mana and no flexibility and basically nothing else is close (except for unplayables like Counsel of the Soratami. Thoughts?
Why would you play that over Mulldrifter? Same speed, better recursion, can even be a flying beatstick while it also dodges the counterspells with the 'non-creature' clause. 1 card is not worth 3 life in our deck, as we don't get to play Scavenging Ooze like BGx do (that's why they can afford to play Bob), or any similar effect to mitigate the life loss.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In Lorwyn's brief evenings, the sun pauses at the horizon long enough for a certain species of violet to bloom with the fragrance of mischief.
Late game draw 3s are almost an auto win. The life loss at that point might be a factor, but in a topdeck war, the gas you can get from a draw three opens you up to getting out of most situations. Not saying I'm in love with the card, but only that it's something to look at.
Late game draw 3s are almost an auto win. The life loss at that point might be a factor, but in a topdeck war, the gas you can get from a draw three opens you up to getting out of most situations. Not saying I'm in love with the card, but only that it's something to look at.
I get what you mean. But in this deck I rather get back something from graveyard than drawing random cards, especially lategame.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In Lorwyn's brief evenings, the sun pauses at the horizon long enough for a certain species of violet to bloom with the fragrance of mischief.
Late game draw 3s are almost an auto win. The life loss at that point might be a factor, but in a topdeck war, the gas you can get from a draw three opens you up to getting out of most situations. Not saying I'm in love with the card, but only that it's something to look at.
I get what you mean. But in this deck I rather get back something from graveyard than drawing random cards, especially lategame.
A fair point for sure. I think I'm going to test it out as a 1 or 2 of (mostly because I'm a little bored with playing the stock list right now, there are no major tournaments, and I like playing spicy stuff) and report back. I almost feel like it might be the perfect card for Mardu or Sultai control lists.. but that's obviously for a different thread.
Late game draw 3s are almost an auto win. The life loss at that point might be a factor, but in a topdeck war, the gas you can get from a draw three opens you up to getting out of most situations. Not saying I'm in love with the card, but only that it's something to look at.
I get what you mean. But in this deck I rather get back something from graveyard than drawing random cards, especially lategame.
A fair point for sure. I think I'm going to test it out as a 1 or 2 of (mostly because I'm a little bored with playing the stock list right now, there are no major tournaments, and I like playing spicy stuff) and report back. I almost feel like it might be the perfect card for Mardu or Sultai control lists.. but that's obviously for a different thread.
You might be better off with an instant speed one. Something like Think Twice and such. So that you do it on their end step and had mana open for counters if needed.
In the yard: RUG Delver, Kiki-Chord, Grixis Twin, Mardu Control, Smallpox, Jeskai Control, Jeskai Delver, Assault Loam, Elves, Deathcloud, Eggs, Storm
I didn't want to cast him much when I saw him. Drawing two was fine but I think I'm going to try a 1 of Sedraxis Specter. Can be unearthed back for 3 damage and discard. Which to me seems kinda sneaky in a way after he gets milled by scours. Could be underwhelming but giving him a try.
More on the drifter, I felt paying 5 mana was too much and the 2/2 flying body just didn't pose enough threat to me. It may be fine but that is my opinion.
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Lili is the best planeswalker available in modern, and will always be better on your side of the table as you don't really care about having resources in graveyard, also it's always better to choose what to throw in there. When playing a deck with such high level of redundancy as Merfolk you force them to discard threats or cards that protect their threats. If they discard a threat, the protection loses value, if they discard the protection you can kill the threat. When you control the board, as I said on before, you force them to play 2 threats a turn, otherwise they face her -2 and 1-for-0 themselves. Lili is not the card you want to drop asap, is a mid/late game all star which will give you many games (not just against merfolk).
Cryptic Command is nice because of the tapping and bouncing effects as you say. Many times I had an alpha strike of 20+ and just EOT Cryptic tap bounce vial. Untap and win.it's nice to have that play although sometimes you need to counter something or just stall for a turn while digging for another answer.
The thing about lili is that she shines against Bogles, Burn, Jund, Junk, Control, Combo and is a great way of keeping a board under control against aggro.
Maybe we could drop a cryptic command for 1 lili? 2cryptic 1 lili.
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
UWR Control
Legacy:
W D&T
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
No Jace: He feels more like a win more while leaving myself open to removal that is otherwise dead to me.
Ashiok: Meta has some board flood that I feel it could be good against, against GBx gets swapped with Keranos game 2 but there isn't much GBx in local meta. Least confident spot however, might just exchange it for another angler or cryptic.
MB damnation: Lots of people going wide so I am going to leave it mainboard. Debating anger of the gods or Languish instead.
Grim Lavamancer sideboard: Going to try sideboarding in over anglers against burn and elves/zoo/spirits.
Matchup I am most worried about is Affinity and GR Tron. Plan against tron is to SB in 2 Countersquall over 2 Spell Snare and 3 Fulminator over Dispel, Go For The Throat and 1 Terminate and just go for a race. Affinity I am not sure yet.
I have screwed around a bit with the Jace/Lili version (don't own Jaces so just proxy testing) and I prefer the traditional build for 2 main reasons:
1) The Jund matchup is much better I think for the Cryptic version. If you play Jaces and Lilis you are turning Bolts and Decays into good cards for you opponent, while they are almost dead cards against the traditional build.
2) The Tron matchup is also much better for the traditional build, since we have countermagic to delay the Karns and Wurmcoils. It's not a great matchup either way, but with regular Grixis control I feel like I have a decent chance vs Tron, and with the other version it feels like playing Jund against Tron, which feels almost unwinnable at times unless you get a very good hand and they get a very bad one. In fact it feels worse than Jund because you can't go t1 discard -> t2 Goyf -> t3 Fulminator which is the usual route to victory against Tron for Jund. You have to land an early fast threat against Tron to win, and the traditional Grixis deck is more likely to get an early Delve creature out, and you have countermagic to protect the threat for a little longer.
All of the other matches I've tested feel about the same for both versions of Grixis, so the fact that the traditional build is better in these two relatively common matchups makes me prefer the traditional build. What matchup am I missing that the Majors build is significantly better than the traditional build in?
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
You are right on everything, I spent over 450$ to make the "blue jund" (bought lands,2x lili,3x jace, abbots..)
And I was not feeling as strong as i was with the traditionnal grixis control for one main reason.
When you counter your oponnent spell, he's losing his turn. His mana is tapped.
A good counterspell may feel like an extra turn.
I'm a bit sad of not being able to play lili anymore.. i like her, she's hot. haha;
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
decks playing:
none
This build thrives in non blue metas and metas not heavily GW. If the meta is prepared for this deck and anyone is packing extra dispels, it becomes much more difficult to win with a higher win percentage. My meta is almost all Esper, Twin variants, and UWR control which makes this deck a much less ideal choice.
The blue jund list thrives in metas that are heavy in blue, as it's 1-1s are much cheaper and is more able to 2-1 a control player through things like Rise/Fall.
Other than that, they're almost the same. Generally, if cryptic is good, this deck is better. If cryptic is bad, the other one is probably better.
The Jund version for me has been better with the other list, but some people have said that this one has a better matchup. It's probably a pretty solid 50/50. As for Tron - some people are running a dreadbore and that helps with Karn's Emrakuls... other than that the matchup isn't that different. Thoughtseize is good, Fulminator is good - it seems to be a 40/60 MU for both decks either way.
Well, you can always come join us on the Jund side of things, if you are so inclined
But yeah, counterspells are much better for tempo than discard spells.
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
There's no need for that. MB is as tight as can be. Lili is a resource we can have in our sideboard, and a resource that I really like. She takes over combo, control and midrange decks, and when paired up with the right removal any aggro deck too. But you just need to understand that lili in grixis is not lili in BGx. We usually don't want her on T3 unless the board is clear/almost empty.
I disagree, Blue identity doesn't limit to counterspells. Lili is bad if you clog your deck with countermagic, as you want to hold the counterspells in hand, being a nombo with her +1. I'll give you that. But she fits grixis colors perfectly. Blue is all about sculpting zones (hand, library, graveyard). Counterspells are the weakest cards in Grixis control, with the exception of Cryptic Command, which is not a counterspell but an extreme valuable 2-for-1 (though yes, we will use the counter mode more often than not). The point is, CC is the best counter because it can be something else. In that sense, this deck runs blue for 2 reasons: Cantrips and Snapcaster Mage. It doesn't run blue like UWR or UW, the other control we're more used to. The problem with Lili is that not all players are lili players. If you're not a lili player, you will not get the real value from her, as you need to know when to cast her, when to to +1, when to -2 and when to do nothing with her. This is very contextual, and game dependant, but if you're not sure of how to use her, you will lose value, rather than gain it.
Just think about it like this: Jund drops a Liliana. Do you counter it? 90% of the times my answer will be 'Hell no!', as she gives us much more value than it will give them. Same for junk (as long as they're not holding a Lingering Souls in hand), but even if they do that's 2 tokens less so it's still better for us as we can't deal very well G1 against decks that go wide. Lili puts cards you need at later stages in the game in the graveyard, where you will be able to recur them when you need.
Grixis control is all about outvaluing the opponent while keeping control of the board. We play grixis because blue enables the zone sculpture, black gives us the threats, and red reach/speed and sideboard outs. All three together get an outstanding value as the game goes on, like no other deck can do ATM.
Why would you play that over Mulldrifter? Same speed, better recursion, can even be a flying beatstick while it also dodges the counterspells with the 'non-creature' clause. 1 card is not worth 3 life in our deck, as we don't get to play Scavenging Ooze like BGx do (that's why they can afford to play Bob), or any similar effect to mitigate the life loss.
I get what you mean. But in this deck I rather get back something from graveyard than drawing random cards, especially lategame.
A fair point for sure. I think I'm going to test it out as a 1 or 2 of (mostly because I'm a little bored with playing the stock list right now, there are no major tournaments, and I like playing spicy stuff) and report back. I almost feel like it might be the perfect card for Mardu or Sultai control lists.. but that's obviously for a different thread.
You might be better off with an instant speed one. Something like Think Twice and such. So that you do it on their end step and had mana open for counters if needed.
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator