- Fiddlyr
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Member for 8 years, 9 months, and 5 days
Last active Sat, Oct, 7 2017 12:43:27
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Oct 15, 2015Fiddlyr posted a message on The Magic Market Index for October 14, 2015these posts are greatPosted in: Articles
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Oct 11, 2015Fiddlyr posted a message on The Magic Market Index for October 7, 2015Thanks for doing these.Posted in: Articles
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Oct 7, 2015Fiddlyr posted a message on Archive Trap: The World of Zendikar Part IIGreat article. I have never paid the slightest attention to Magic lore, but this was a fun read.Posted in: Articles
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Its a reactive shell and its Tier 2. Its fine.
Its Tier 2 in a relatively new post-ban unsolved environment.
The question to me is:
Does Grixis Control "count" as a control deck for reactive mages? It seems to play 6-8 MD counters w/Snapcaster recursion, compared to typically 8-12 counters in the old days.
An entirely reactive strategy (or nearly so, a full grip of counters and handful of removal) likely is consigned to the dustbin of history, probably rightfully so. In early magic, the instant vs sorcery-speed tax wasn't nearly high enough, now the threats are worth spending mana on, and the reactive mage can't be entirely reactive, you likely need your own proactive elements also.
You're supposed to be able to lose to other good decks some percentage of the time, not win all of the games. Grixis Control is a fine deck and plenty controlling. Complaints about control mostly seem to come from the good old days when the answers were so much better than the threats that playing blue-based control meant a steady stream of 65/35 matchups, unless the opponent was specifically anti-control and had 30/70 matchups against non-control decks.
What are Grixis Control's worst matchups? Tron is basically it right? You have pretty solid game against everything else.
What is your question?
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/
I really don't think Blue is materially underpowered. There is room for some good blue spells to enter the pool from new sets without making Blue oppressive, which is good. The elder statesmen blue mages don't recognize how good they had it in the old days. The ability to do things as powerful or more so than your proactive opponent without having to commit resources to them on your own turn, so you avoid tons of risk was undercosted 15 years ago. Its closer to right now.
In my experiences with my list, having less than the full 4 Architects seemed wrong, they are the best way to get Delirium quickly. The Coiling Oracle are interesting, I am playing 3 Noble Hierarch and 3 Search for Tomorrow as acceleration because I'm not playing discard on turn 1, but the Oracles are semi-reliable acceleration.
This deck looks tuned to beat creature matchups, with only 3 mainboard discard spells, 1 counter spell and a metric ton of mainboard removal. It seems to be BUG playing the Jund gameplan rather than a more traditional control gameplan.
Goldfishing with a decklist that is designed to goldfish of course is going to feel better than goldfishing with a deck that includes interactive cards. You're playing no interaction and only see the costs of Treetop, not the benefits because no one interacts with you while you're goldfishing either. Your liberators seem sweet because they have 4 power and you never have to worry about them being bolted or miss the trample and reach Avatar gives you because you never run into blockers or have infect fliers threatening to kill you on turn 3.
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Botanical Sanctum
2 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Treetop Village
2 Watery Grave
//Spells
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Autumnal Gloom
3 Deprive
2 Fatal Push
3 Search for Tomorrow
2 Serum Visions
2 Slaughter Pact
4 Stubborn Denial
3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Architects of Will
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Grim Flayer
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Dark Heart of the Wood
2 Go for the Throat
1 Golgari Charm
2 Natural State
2 Negate
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Scrapheap Scrounger
1 Tireless Tracker
This deck might not be controlling enough for some, but it is more controlling than some of the recently posted Deathshadow lists.
Mana wise, it is 15 G, 15 U, 12 B sources, the deck wants a lot of G & U, B is the splash color. Bojuka Bog is a Traverse target and gets extra value once in a while from Deprive. An singleton Ghost Quarter in the 75 is a possibility.
I have six mana accelerants, 3 Noble Hierarch and 3 Search for Tomorrow. I find the extra mana on turn 3-4 useful to do two things; to make room I skimp on land compared to some with 21.
The basic plan is to achieve Delirium and get a 4 power creature on the board. Once that is accomplished your spells are very powerful. I tried playing less Architects, but 4 is right, they are too good to play less than 4. The Autumnal Glooms will raise eyebrows, you have to work to enable them, but if you are putting in the work, the effect is powerful, hexproof and trample are really good.
Matchup wise:
It still feels a turn too slow against Dredge, but is winnable. There should be decent tools for the matchup, but its not great.
Spell based combo decks Sultai should beat and I feel are pretty favorable.
Go wide creature decks can be tough.
Tron decks I have found pretty decent but not great.
Basically, its what you expect from a midrange deck, you're in most games but also have few great matchups. Countering the right threats for a matchup is essential; fwiw I love the counter suite, Deprive and Stubborn Denial (if you can support them) are great right now.
Also, Grim Lavamancer is amazing, at least as a 2 of.
I have loved Collective Brutality so far. So useful and also can help getting Delirium when you want it; also its very easy on the mana which matters.
I agree with some of your analysis regarding Abzan humans versus other forms of Abzan. I played a handful of games against a traditional Abzan list and had a very tough time, because their card quality was so much better. What the Humans have going for them is a more assertive Plan A; I've been able to race Aggro, Burn, Combo type decks fairly often where a midrange Abzan deck would need the right hand destruction at the right time to prolong the game enough to win.
I can't argue the point on Cavern of Souls, its clearly correct. Sadly, I don't own them either in paper or online, so I may work a little more on tuning this and then set it to the side for a deck I have the cards for.
Edit: I did have some anecdotal fun with Profane Command, burning a midrange deck dead from 4 when he was sure I had no reach once and rezzing Thalia's Lieutenant and giving a couple of guys fear for a win once. Its probably wrong, but I really like threat diversity. Having no reach, no flying and little pump in an aggro deck makes your opponent's life easy.
I really miss having reach to end games (no RRR).
One way to satisfy the sorceries requirement for delirium would be to play some hand destruction.
Alternatively, we could get a little reach with Collective Brutality or maybe even Profane Command
Sideboard cards to beat control decks and Tron also needed.
Obviously Collected Company is a great card, and it could be a good answer to control decks. My creature base is pretty low cc, so I kind of feel like I'm not getting full mileage out of it, but with bigger creatures it makes sense. It might be the right answer. I'm going to try some of the sorceries above with maybe a Night's Whisper or two in place of the Traverse's.
Thanks for the thoughts. I played a couple of dozen games last night to get a feel for the deck.
Dark Confidants make a lot of sense over the Recruiters, especially as I lower the casting cost of the deck.
Kambal, Consul of Allocation is really great in some matchups, but you are right, there are too many creature-centric decks. I think he's a strong sideboard card though. I have tried Tireless Tracker and Knight of the Reliquary in Naya builds of this deck before. I love Tracker in concept, he's exactly what I want in a creature, but without more Landfall enablers, I think he's too slow. I always keep him in mind, but he's card choice about 78-80 for the 75 at the moment I think. KotR, my view is similar, though Grim Flayer fueling KotR is definitely a thing. I've struggled to make KotR that good with only the Flayer self-mill as enabler, but this could be wrong and KotR could be right, especially as a one of for reasons that will follow. I also want to be careful with too many graveyard dependent cards, as siding in Rest In Peace is a plan in many matchups. I haven't tried Big Thalis yet.
You were right on the card types. Card type diversity is one of the best arguments for Gather the Townsfolk. Early last night I went looking for cheap sorceries. The search led to Traverse the Ulvenward, which was really good for me. Traverse smoothed my mana, is Blood Moon insurance once you have a basic forest and I also used it fairly often as a tutor. On a full board, Tutor for Thalia's Lieutenant was great. With 3 power, tutor for Surrak, the Hunt Caller won me two games, on an empty board, getting Tasigur was good, but this is where KotR as a one of might shine.
Tasigur was really good, you can't get him on turn 2 or 3 for 1 mana like in other decks, but often I was getting him inexpensively late.
Changes so far:
-2 Anafenza (to SB)
-3 Duskwatch Recruiter
-2 Kambal (to SB)
-1 Surrak
-1 Anguished Unmaking
+4 Traverse
+1 Knight of the Reliquery
+2 Dark Confidant
+2 Gather the Townsfolk
2 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
//Spells
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Anguished Unmaking
2 Dromoka's Command
2 Path to Exile
2 Anafenza, the Foremost
4 Champion of the Parish
3 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Grim Flayer
2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
4 Thraben Inspector
1 Anguished Unmaking
2 Gather the Townsfolk
2 Heron's Grace Champion
2 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
2 Mystic Enforcer
2 Rest in Peace
The Sideboard is just a placeholder for cards I have considered.