what's going on with the 2 nihil spellbomb and 2 surgical extraction in the side boards
Spellbomb is very good against certain decks, like Storm, Dredge, or any deck playing Goyf. Surgical has tons of applications in a lot of matchups. It really improves your Tron matchup, is great against Abzan CoCo, as well as being good against the decks I listed for Spellbomb too. 4 might be too many, you might want just 3 slots for the two cards.
Surgical is a card you absolutely shouldn't board in for midrangy grindy matchups. So I would not board it against goyf decks or Death's Shadow decks at all. Often this just means mulliganing to 6 automatically if it is in the starthand and you got no target. Not to mention its a horrible topdeck later in the game. The only major reason spellbomb is ok to bring in for such matchups is because it cantrips.
I think FlyingDelver is right on that front. The only matchup where Street Wraith should ever be considered as a potential cut is Burn.
I agree cutting all wraiths vs burn, but I recommend cutting 1-2 Wraiths also in swarm aggro matchups like BTE Zoo for example. The life loss will just knock you out with their blisteringly fast clocks sometimes.
SB: tried to prepare for a grindy so:
- 4 Street Wraiths
+1 Ashiok
+1 Painful Truths
+2 Countersquall
I think that this sideboarding plan is wrong for an attrition based matchup. Street Wraith is not a card to be underestimated here. As you experienced, your opponent had a hard time dealing with Tasigur, which is essentially a fatal push proof creature. You know what, Street Wraith is so too. I do play DS Jund rather than Grixis, but the concept remains the same, I often won games with just hardcasting Street Wraith which just couldn't be removed. Besides this, in DS mirrors, usually the player has the advantage which death shadows are bigger, so this means you could use the extra life loss and deck thinning. If you run the full 8 discard, I would cut 3 IOK instead. And I think that Stubborn Denial is a correct cut, since it is a grindy matchup, where threats and removal are higher in value. I think you don't want to land in topdeck mode topdecking your noncreature counters and your opponent slams a tasigur down. Against Delver variants leaving bolt in makes sense of course, but for delver less version I also think cutting bolt is not the worst.
Cards to bring in, depending what you have of course, is (in my opinion) all Liliana PWs (or ashiok in your case) you have, painful truths, Nihil Spellbombs, extra KCommands and extra terminates. I don't think its worth it to bring in noncreature counters here as I explained with Stubborn denial. That are my 2 cents.
Surgical is a card you absolutely shouldn't board in for midrangy grindy matchups. So I would not board it against goyf decks or Death's Shadow decks at all. Often this just means mulliganing to 6 automatically if it is in the starthand and you got no target. Not to mention its a horrible topdeck later in the game. The only major reason spellbomb is ok to bring in for such matchups is because it cantrips.
I agree cutting all wraiths vs burn, but I recommend cutting 1-2 Wraiths also in swarm aggro matchups like BTE Zoo for example. The life loss will just knock you out with their blisteringly fast clocks sometimes.
I think that this sideboarding plan is wrong for an attrition based matchup. Street Wraith is not a card to be underestimated here. As you experienced, your opponent had a hard time dealing with Tasigur, which is essentially a fatal push proof creature. You know what, Street Wraith is so too. I do play DS Jund rather than Grixis, but the concept remains the same, I often won games with just hardcasting Street Wraith which just couldn't be removed. Besides this, in DS mirrors, usually the player has the advantage which death shadows are bigger, so this means you could use the extra life loss and deck thinning. If you run the full 8 discard, I would cut 3 IOK instead. And I think that Stubborn Denial is a correct cut, since it is a grindy matchup, where threats and removal are higher in value. I think you don't want to land in topdeck mode topdecking your noncreature counters and your opponent slams a tasigur down. Against Delver variants leaving bolt in makes sense of course, but for delver less version I also think cutting bolt is not the worst.
Cards to bring in, depending what you have of course, is (in my opinion) all Liliana PWs (or ashiok in your case) you have, painful truths, Nihil Spellbombs, extra KCommands and extra terminates. I don't think its worth it to bring in noncreature counters here as I explained with Stubborn denial. That are my 2 cents.