How is everyone feeling about AV in testing. I was super excited but in testing it has not been performing up to the level I expected. Drawing multiple copies early or really any copies after turn 1 has left me without enough gas to truly control the very agressive decks in the format and drawing it late is a non-factor. It has been good in control/grindy mirrors but even there the tempo loss and putting myself at a 4 turn card disadvantage has often left me at a point where even when it goes off i'm behind enough that crawling back takes the perfect sequence of draws plus protecting it becomes a major issue. The card is great in theory gassing back up but in reality it has been good in some situations and garbage in many more. Maybe the grixis a midrange tempo type strategy with Liliana to combat the return of control decks will work better.
Remand just feels wrong in this meta with this deck. Discard and leak feel very good against eldrazi since they don't get much value out of creature that aren't in play. Problem is relying on that is probably too slow and then you get blown out by Reality Smasher or TKS. I have been testing by basically boarding into blue moon with 3-4 spreading seas and 2 blood moon at the very least it slows them down enough to give me a fighting chance occasionally you just win which is good too add a couple sweepers and it's a working game plan right now. Big thing is the balancing act since what is good against eldrazi is bad against affinity for the most part and affinity is popular right now as well. So much of my sideboard is devoted to the sweepers and blue moon package there isn't a lot of room left with a couple slots going to burn stuff (kalitas and dispel) and 2 shatterstorm, I feel like I am less prepared overall because of the space these match ups take up in the board. I can't wait until eye gets banned and I can have my sideboard back.
I have tested the UR manland and losing the evasion for a potential 1 power gain is not even close to worth. As for Jori if you have played the deck for a long time the card just doesn't really fit what we are trying to do. For the most part we play at instant speed answering threats and problems as they come down. This doesn't have any synergy with a card that wants us to cast 2 spells in a single turn. He fits a similar role to pyromancer in the deck grinding out advantage from spell casting at the cost of turning on removal that is usually dead against us. Difference being pyro provides blockers for aggro match ups, is cheaper to cast, and doesn't require and shift in play to really cast. Your argument about protecting it with IOK is also flawed bolt is often the last card you want to take since it's so dead against against us I'd rather take relevant spells. Finally if he isn't being compared to pyro then he is a value 1 or 2 of creature problem being is we have so many great options for value creatures right now and he seems worse than most. V-Clique, PKN, Kalitas, Olivia Voldaren, grim lavamancer.... so on and so forth. All the cards I mentioned make more value without a change in playstyle, or help stop aggro decks from running us over. Their not always good but they are going to be consistently better and be useful more often than Jori. That is the conclusion I come to having played this deck on and off for months.
I have been doing a lot of testing going forward with grixis pyromancer and chapin grixis builds post twin ban and was wondering how people have felt about baby jace recently. I have had him at 2 but I just feel he hasn't been as effective maybe i'm forcing him into decks he doesn't belong in or is this just a bad meta to play him.
After going over it I trimmed the probes for scour and as for beating tron game one we are dog regardless so I'd rather make sure the deck is strong against the linear aggro decks that will be everywhere as well and board against tron agressively with blood moon and crumble to dust and negate effects.
Git probe is there mostly as an extra cantrip plus I love the information it provides. I play it closer to a peek unless I really think I need to be on board with Pyro plus 1. It is definitely iffy as a choice but there aren't a lot of cantrip options sadly.
I like the idea but I have always been on the fence about main decking blood moon effects in this deck especially since the Meta looks like it gonna shape up to be a lot of aggro strats where blood moon isn't as powerful. On the flip side it completely shuts out tron and cripples eldrazi a bit which are decks that also seem to have a big benefit without twin in the meta and probably our worst matchups. I currently am running 4 snap 2 Jace 3 pyro 2 pkn 2 tasigur and 1 value flex thats a lava man right now because I think he will be really good going forward. but I'm only at 21 land and am running a fair amount more cantrip velocity with a 4 3 3 split on visions scour and probe. I haven't been on this thread or played the deck in a few months so I'm really looking forward to getting some feed back.
Whelp I'm back after what ended up being a short trip to the grixis twin world. Looking at the way lists are going to be moving and where the meta is shifting I'm not sure the current iteration of this deck is going to really work. I like the idea of somewhere in the middle of this and grixis delver leaning heavily on pyromancers for both early aggro and early defense depending on what you are up against. I'm going to go back to the drawing board and see what I can make.
So I'm a grixis control player that has been experimenting with the surprise twin package and was wondering why so few lists play IOK and Jace here? I haven't tried a full on tempo twin is it really that much better than a couple Jace and 3-4 IOK
Bloodghast alongside Kal seems very important especially in aggressive strategies where getting him to 5 power lifelinking as fast as possible is very important to our chances of victory. The potential for that deck is very high at the very least the strategy seems very fun to play. I'm looking at a 4/3/3 split on Jace, snap, and ghast. I think the rest would be less business as usual with 2-3 copies of Liliana and probably up to 6 IOK-Thoughtseize since Liliana and counters are so awkward probably just having 2 leak mainboard plus some dispel in board. The extra disruption is why Jace should probably remain at 4 IMO. I wish he had flying as the evasion would be good against bigger creatures and against soul decks.
As for the 1 painful truths I love it and scour is less important than our other cantrips
I think he fits much better in a Liliana shell. One predicated more on black spells disrupting the opponent and controlling the board. I can see it but a shell like that we probably drop PKN and focuse zon black and blue proactive spells and recursion. My worry is that Kalitas isn't going to be as good of pressure against decks that don't rely on creatures as much, those are also matches where the life link means a lot less to us. In theory those are already our best match ups but with a more black oriented deck they may not be as strong. I think I will try testing a list with 2 Kalitas 2 Liliana trim the counter magic and stuff and see how well that works.
Blood always affects how you have to play the game, even in decks like blue moon designed for it blood moon changes how anyone has to play. I feel that's out weighed by the ability to just win and turn 3 with an enchantment. I am not playing Liliana ATM sadly it is just too awkward to play her and moon together and moon is better right now. Kalitas feels like he is close to being relevant as maybe a one-of but he could be very taxing on our mana base and I'm not sure he does enough at 4, where PKN does so much work is being instant value upon entering play kalitas can not do that turn 4. I will definitely test with him but he just feels a little too slow.
I have been testing with moon coming out of the board and so far it has been really solid for me. I put scour back into the deck and dropped to 22 lands because I felt I was lacking some consistency and that has really done wonders making everything run just that much smoother. How good is countersquall MB? Recently swapped my counter package to just 3 leak and 1 dispel main and the switch has been great I don't think I would want to play without at least 2 leaks and dispel is just awesome in modern, granted I said I wouldnt want to play without remand as well but in Blue Jund it just isn't strong enough we need our "hard" counters. Also bitterblossom great card for grinding games, bad card in a deck without any main deck lifegain, just a note from a recent failed experiment with this deck.
The average CMC here is too high especially for a deck without any lifegain mechanics, looking at our elevated mana costs abundance of delve creatures Bob is getting into extremely dangerous territory. I think we get enough card advantage through 2 for 1 exchanges and recurring everything that Bob is also just unnecessary .
Haha I was just wondering where people's opinion of her was right now. I have 2 sleeved main deck for my games tonight, but my meta has been a lot of BGX recently and a lot of like Esper and BW control where she seems like she would be really good.
Lands - 21
Bloodstained mire 4
Polluted delta 4
Tar pit 2
Sulfur falls 2
Darkslick shores 1
Steam vents 2
Blood crypt 1
Watery grave 1
Island 2
Mountain 1
Swamp 1
Creatures - 14
Snap 4
Pyro 3
Jace 2
Pkn 2
Tasigur 2
Lavamancer 1
Instant - 14
Bolt 4
Kcom 3
Terminate 2
Leak 2
Murderous cut 1
Cryptic command 1
Dispel 1
Sorcery 11
Iok 4
Probe 3
Serum visions 4
As for the 1 painful truths I love it and scour is less important than our other cantrips