I tried esper before I tried grixis, and I really didn't like it. Path is better than Terminate, but not a ton - giving them a land is a very real cost in the early game, and Path vs. Valakut is just often atrocious while Terminate does real work. And the white SB cards mostly don't work in the UB Shadow shell. No RiP, no Timely, etc. Stony is good though. I really missed having K Command as a swiss army knife that also grinds incredibly hard with Snapcaster Mage, and having access to red sweepers - either Kozilek's Return or Anger. Also, it's nice being a little better vs. Blood Moon.
That said, Esper certainly has some better matchups than Grixis, but Snap + K Command is a really strong argument for sticking with red.
But even there, a lot of lists are cutting TBR altogether and running just 1 Ghor-Clan they can Traverse for.
That is a absolutely not true. Speaking as a DSJ player, Ghor-Clan Rampager is the card which sees rarely play right now. TBR is a stock 2 of in DSJ. Reason being it can just steals games which is very important overall, Ghor Clan can't do that. I agree TBR is worse in Grixis, but its great in Jund and its not a card that gets cut.
Of the last 6 lists on mtggoldfish, 2 didn't have battle rage, so I'm walking that one back. A friend of mine had went the 0 TBR 1 GCR route and I probably extrapolated too much from talking to him.
I don't really understand all of the talk about Temur Battle Rage. It really only combos with Death's Shadow, and unlike Jund, we only have 4 in our deck. Our 12 threats are: 4 Shadow, 4 4/5 power delve creatures, and 4 Snapcasters. Without a Shadow, TBR looks really really bad. It works in Jund because goyf is routinely a 6/7 or bigger, and instead of Snapcaster they have Traverse. But even there, a lot of lists are cutting TBR altogether and running just 1 Ghor-Clan they can Traverse for.
Re: MDing Terminate and having enough removal / cheap removal. I've just not had problems with fast aggro decks, or at least not problems that would be solved by having 1-2 more 1 mana removal spells instead of the Terminates I'm running MD. Affinity gives me problems sometimes, but that is 100% because of Etched Champion. And postboard, I have plenty of removal against everying. 7-8 terminate + push, 2 LotV, 2 Brutality, and 1 K Return is a lot. If K Command is removal in the matchup, i have several of those too. Bolt + Snap + Bolt is pretty overrated in this deck. When you're attacking with 5/5s and 8/8s, the extra damage afforded by Bolt is far less important than, e.g., if you're attacking with a 3/2s and 2/1s. It hurts in a few matchups where they have a lot of chump blocks and can chump + still present a clock (I'm looking at you Dredge), but I think it's worth it.
It changes, actually. At least in my experience, Inquisitions are extremely good against them, being able to prevent Seas and Claims to land expecially post-side, and to rip off their hand Silvergil Adept. Having AT LEAST six discard spell is my best advice for the match-up, because they are THAT good (even if in late they become dead draws, you really care the most about early game versus Merfolks). But then: 1) We don't block very well, true. Same issue for them: want to chumpblock my 7/7 Shadow? Fine, you're actually out of threats. Because the Lords usually get in the grave as soon as they land. 2) Very very few lists of Merfolks run Chalice. Even then, you've got multiple discards + multiple Kommand, so you can still handle them well. They're annoying, of course, but I don't see how they can land it consistently against us.
It's a difference of two cards. It matters, but the impact is fairly small in a matchup like this that doesn't go long. Every merfolk list I've played against has had chalice, but I don't pretend that's representative of merfolk lists everywhere.
Terminate hits all of the things that Bolt hits vs. eldrazi, plus TKS, Smasher, and Drowner. I don't understand this criticism.
Terminate enters from the board because it hits Smasher and Drowner. Stop. You don't want to waste them on anything else (maybe TKSeer if you don't have a Push available). You need LOTS of removals, because every single threat from their side is actually letal. Even a simple Skyspawner, considering how we lack evasive blockers. Kolaghan's Command is extremely bad against Bant Eldrazi, and I don't really understand why you would just swap Bolts for Terminates. Even Denials aren't the best, even though they are sometimes useful to prevent a RIP.
My point was to MD those Terminates. Improve game 1 and you'll do a lot to improve the matchup. I'm not talking about SBing bolts out. I'm saying don't put them in your 75.
I didn't list all the match-ups, just the most common I face. Anyway, Merfolks is by no means a bad match-up. If I remember correctly, you (Spooly) are playing Mana Leaks instead of Inquisitions, so maybe that's why you faced some issues, dunno. But my overall rating against them is very good: having 7-8 spot removals maindeck + 2 Kolaghan's Command + 4 Snapcasters + additional removal in the sideboard + 6-7 discard spells is actually insanely powerful against monoCreaturesDeck, which Merfolks is. Their only way to generate CA is Adept, and I never felt Spreading Seas like an enormous problem (I'm high on 6 duals, anyway).
Having Mana Leak instead of IoK does hurt the merfolk matchup, but I don't think having 2 more discard spells would help that much. The big problems I've found in the matchup are 1) you don't block well because of islandwalk, and 2) Chalice. If you have a pile of discard + early shadow draw, sometimes you can pull it off. But sometimes they just chump a couple times while they set up for an unblockable alpha strike.
Against Bant Eldrazi, cutting Bolts is a suicide. You NEED to dispose of Displacer, and also hitting Spawner or a dork is just fine. Kommands are much more dead in the match-up, usually, and, RIP or not from the sb, Denial isn't impressive against them.
Terminate hits all of the things that Bolt hits vs. eldrazi, plus TKS, Smasher, and Drowner. I don't understand this criticism.
Living End. Surgical in the board isn't enough, and you usually have only four Stubborn Denial to prevent the cascade monstruosity. Your best bet, here, is actually discarding Living End itself + extracting the sorcery. Alternatively, you should just use the Surgicals on their Fulminator Mage, trying to create a Snap-Denial wall and keeping always mana up.
Hard Control. UW, Esper, Mardu, Jeskai are all insanely powerful against our gameplan. They can grind way more than us, while having all the tools to survive a quick attack from our side. Definitely the worst match-up, considering how they even get better post-sideboard. Surgical & more counters are our best cards in the 75, and Liliana TLH is also extremely important. Make sure it lands, if you really want to win.
Bant Eldrazi. Seriously. This deck is why I usually play Esper instead of Grixis. Their threats are often off Bolt/Push-range, and Drowner of Hope is such a hassle. Rejections doesn't even help because of Caverns, so you just have to confy in Snapcaster + Seize + a quick clock against them.
Add Merfolk to the bad matchups list.
Eldrazi is hard, but replacing all of your bolts with terminates (MD and SB) helps a significant amount.
Question: How would you sideboard vs Bant Eldrazi?
To be honest I'm not sure with this particular build + SB. But something like:
-2 Lily, -1 Street Wraith, -2 Stubborn Denial, -1 Mana Leak
+3 Fulminator, + 1 Terminate, + 2 Disdainful Stroke, + 1 K Command
They typically have too many random mana dorks and spawn tokens for Lily to be good, K Command is necessary because of Chalice, and Fulminator is there to slow them down / keep countermagic turned on.
Is Land Destruction really that necessary in this deck? Against Tron it could be, but Eldrazi is usually too fast and Eldrazi Skyspawner ramps them too.
Also, the sweeper that seems better is Kozilek's Return since it goes nice on our mana base and it gets Etched Champion+Nexus+Master of Waves if that makes sense. Affinity seems only troublesome if they land Etched Champion and a couple of flyers.
Finaly, i agree with the White splash notion. I prefer to combat Souls than play them. They seems to be a little too slow in our deck and milling over Godless Shrine is such a blow out that i rather stay Grixis and jam some Staticasters in the SB.
PS: I can help with the primer if help is needed. Just message me or whatever the protocol is. Never done or helped with a primer before.
Eldrazi is the deck that convinced me to try having land destruction out of the board. It's not just slowing down their mana - killing Cavern of Souls will keep your counterspells turned on. But I'm not certain of this plan or anything, and if it turns out to be bad I'll probably cut the Fulminators.
Adding my list and quiz answers to the fray. I'm also willing to help with the primer a little bit - I can take a look at drafts and make suggestions, but I'm too busy to do anything more substantial than that.
1) Do you play pure Grixis or do you splash White as your 4th colour?
The main advantage splashing white gives you is a better ability to grind. Lingering Souls and Ranger of Eos. But Grixis already has Snapcaster Mage, so it's hard to justify going down that route. I can imagine metagames where this is a good idea, but in a typical wide-open modern metagame I'm not interested.
2) If you play pure Grixis, do you prefer 2 Watery Grave or two Blood Crypt?
3) How many Fatal Push and how many Terminate and Lightning Bolt in the maindeck? How many in the sideboard?
3 Terminate, 3 Push MD, 1 Terminate in the SB. 0 Bolt in the 75. Bolt doesn't kill as much as it used to, and with Shadow in the deck, Bolt + Snap + Bolt is less important as a source of pressure. I'd rather make sure my removal kills the creatures that matter: Death's Shadow, Tarmogoy, Thought Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, Tasigur, etc.
4) Do you prefer 3 Fulminator Mage or some mixture of it and Molten Rain as your land destruction package?
I prefer Fulminator mostly because getting RR is a bit of a chore in this deck, but getting BB or BR comes naturally. Absent mana concerns, I'd probably go with Molten Rain just because I have more ways to recur it than I do Fulminators. I did just get burned at an IQ for having Fulminators instead of Molten Rain vs. GR Ponza/Ramp since they pile Utopia Sprawls on top of a basic Forest typically, but that's enough of an edge case that I'm not too worried about it.
5) Can you find RR to cast Anger Of The Gods? Do you like the card or Damnation?
I can find RR and I've had Anger in my SB before, but it was really only justified vs Dredge because getting RR early is very painful. Damnation seems too expensive for this sort of effect, though it could be good. The only place I really want a sweeper is Merfolk, where Anger is painful and sometimes awkward vs double lord and Damnation is awkward to resolve through Cursecatcher. I would like to find space for a 2nd Kozilek's Return in my SB though, but that's mostly because of Affinity.
6) What do you like more in the Grixis version than the other ones(Jund, Junk, Esper, Shardless, etc)?
We're favored vs Jund Shadow because of Snapcaster Mage, and the countermagic gives us stronger game vs a lot of degenerate decks like Ad Nauseum, Storm, GR Valakut, and even Tron. Jund sometimes just loses to turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity vs Ad Nauseum or Bogles or other degenerate nonsense, but we at least still get to interact. Plus we have some insulation vs Fatal Push because of the delve creatures. The main weaknesses relative to Jund are less closing speed, especially through chump blockers, and less ability to deal with problematic permanents. Unfortunately Temur Battle Rage doesn't work as well in Grixis because delve creatures are smaller than Goyfs, and Snapcaster instead of Traverse means that we're less likely to have a fatty to begin with.
I don't really consider the other builds to be as good as Jund or Grixis, but it's worth thinking about them.
Esper: Very similar to Grixis, but instead of K Command and Terminate you have Path and SB cards. Unfortunately, many of the best white SB cards don't work in a shadow shell, so the typical benefit of being white is very much reduced. Notably, Rest in Peace and Timely Reinforcements are not options. Path is also a nombo with Mana Leak (which I'm pretty fond of in the blue shadow shells), and once you have Snapcaster Mage to grind the exiling effect is less important in the mirror IMO. Lingering Souls is also not really what I'm looking for in this deck except for in a few specific matchups.
Abzan: Very similar to Jund, but you're grindier and less explosive. One of the biggest draws to Jund is its ability to kill the opponent fast through large goyfs (thanks Tarfire) and Temur Battle Rage / Ghor-Clan. Abzan, like Grixis, foregoes this for a grindier game plan, but one that is more susceptible to decks like GR Valakut and Tron. Lingering Souls still doesn't close fast, and unlike Snapcaster Mage, also fails to disrupt the opponent.
Sultai: The removal suite is a huge problem that I don't think this shell can overcome, but if anyone figures out a way to make Whispers of Emrakul work consistently on turn 2 here I might be interested.
7) What's your MD card you side out more often?
1 Street Wraith. It always comes out in the grindy matchups, and all 4 come out in aggro matchups.
8) What question would you like to exist, so that you can answer it yourself- and of course if you'd like, answer it yourself!
In lieu of this, some comments on features of my list that aren't included in the questions above.
0 Inquisition of Kozilek, 6 counterspells (3 Stubborn Denial, 3 Mana Leak): Mana Leak serves as a great catch all in this shell that helps in a variety of matchups. Inquisition is a good card, but doesn't help much vs decks like Tron or Valakut. With shadow in the deck the clock is much faster now, so the play a threat and tempo them out plan is much more live than it was in, say, Delver shells. I've also considered Deprive in these slots, which is a bit of a pet card. Doing damage to ourselves is often good, and we function on very few lands, so it looks pretty good. But the mana requirement is harsh, especially for Snap + Deprive, since we want to have access to so much black mana.
2 Thought Scour: There are only 4 delve creatures in the deck, and there are benefits to not having as much air. Street Wraith does a lot to get that first delve creature online, plus casting Serum Visions, Thoughtseize, and generic interaction. I didn't like having so many spells that cost mana and don't impact the board or otherwise interact with my opponent. That said, I've considered shaving Street Wraith instead, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong. I might try cutting the last 2 Scour for 2 IoK, though I'm apprehensive about that.
SB 2 Disdainful Stroke: Scapeshift, Primeval Titan, Gifts Ungiven, Thought Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, Drowner in Hope, Wurmcoil Engine, Ugin, Karn, Worldbreaker, Ad Nauseum, etc. If you want more game vs. Affinity, Lantern, and Scrap Trawler combo, Ceremonious Rejection is hits a similar swath of cards.
That said, Esper certainly has some better matchups than Grixis, but Snap + K Command is a really strong argument for sticking with red.
Of the last 6 lists on mtggoldfish, 2 didn't have battle rage, so I'm walking that one back. A friend of mine had went the 0 TBR 1 GCR route and I probably extrapolated too much from talking to him.
Re: MDing Terminate and having enough removal / cheap removal. I've just not had problems with fast aggro decks, or at least not problems that would be solved by having 1-2 more 1 mana removal spells instead of the Terminates I'm running MD. Affinity gives me problems sometimes, but that is 100% because of Etched Champion. And postboard, I have plenty of removal against everying. 7-8 terminate + push, 2 LotV, 2 Brutality, and 1 K Return is a lot. If K Command is removal in the matchup, i have several of those too. Bolt + Snap + Bolt is pretty overrated in this deck. When you're attacking with 5/5s and 8/8s, the extra damage afforded by Bolt is far less important than, e.g., if you're attacking with a 3/2s and 2/1s. It hurts in a few matchups where they have a lot of chump blocks and can chump + still present a clock (I'm looking at you Dredge), but I think it's worth it.
It's a difference of two cards. It matters, but the impact is fairly small in a matchup like this that doesn't go long. Every merfolk list I've played against has had chalice, but I don't pretend that's representative of merfolk lists everywhere.
My point was to MD those Terminates. Improve game 1 and you'll do a lot to improve the matchup. I'm not talking about SBing bolts out. I'm saying don't put them in your 75.
Having Mana Leak instead of IoK does hurt the merfolk matchup, but I don't think having 2 more discard spells would help that much. The big problems I've found in the matchup are 1) you don't block well because of islandwalk, and 2) Chalice. If you have a pile of discard + early shadow draw, sometimes you can pull it off. But sometimes they just chump a couple times while they set up for an unblockable alpha strike.
Terminate hits all of the things that Bolt hits vs. eldrazi, plus TKS, Smasher, and Drowner. I don't understand this criticism.
Add Merfolk to the bad matchups list.
Eldrazi is hard, but replacing all of your bolts with terminates (MD and SB) helps a significant amount.
To be honest I'm not sure with this particular build + SB. But something like:
-2 Lily, -1 Street Wraith, -2 Stubborn Denial, -1 Mana Leak
+3 Fulminator, + 1 Terminate, + 2 Disdainful Stroke, + 1 K Command
They typically have too many random mana dorks and spawn tokens for Lily to be good, K Command is necessary because of Chalice, and Fulminator is there to slow them down / keep countermagic turned on.
Eldrazi is the deck that convinced me to try having land destruction out of the board. It's not just slowing down their mana - killing Cavern of Souls will keep your counterspells turned on. But I'm not certain of this plan or anything, and if it turns out to be bad I'll probably cut the Fulminators.
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Death's Shadow
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Serum Visions
2 Thought Scour
4 Thoughtseize
3 Stubborn Denial
3 Mana Leak
3 Terminate
3 Fatal Push
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Kolaghan's Command
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Kozilek's Return
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Stubborn Denial
2 Dispel
1 Terminate
2 Collective Brutality
1 Kolaghan's Command
1) Do you play pure Grixis or do you splash White as your 4th colour?
The main advantage splashing white gives you is a better ability to grind. Lingering Souls and Ranger of Eos. But Grixis already has Snapcaster Mage, so it's hard to justify going down that route. I can imagine metagames where this is a good idea, but in a typical wide-open modern metagame I'm not interested.
2) If you play pure Grixis, do you prefer 2 Watery Grave or two Blood Crypt?
Both. 1 Steam Vents. 2 Watery Grave is absolutely correct though.
3) How many Fatal Push and how many Terminate and Lightning Bolt in the maindeck? How many in the sideboard?
3 Terminate, 3 Push MD, 1 Terminate in the SB. 0 Bolt in the 75. Bolt doesn't kill as much as it used to, and with Shadow in the deck, Bolt + Snap + Bolt is less important as a source of pressure. I'd rather make sure my removal kills the creatures that matter: Death's Shadow, Tarmogoy, Thought Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, Tasigur, etc.
4) Do you prefer 3 Fulminator Mage or some mixture of it and Molten Rain as your land destruction package?
I prefer Fulminator mostly because getting RR is a bit of a chore in this deck, but getting BB or BR comes naturally. Absent mana concerns, I'd probably go with Molten Rain just because I have more ways to recur it than I do Fulminators. I did just get burned at an IQ for having Fulminators instead of Molten Rain vs. GR Ponza/Ramp since they pile Utopia Sprawls on top of a basic Forest typically, but that's enough of an edge case that I'm not too worried about it.
5) Can you find RR to cast Anger Of The Gods? Do you like the card or Damnation?
I can find RR and I've had Anger in my SB before, but it was really only justified vs Dredge because getting RR early is very painful. Damnation seems too expensive for this sort of effect, though it could be good. The only place I really want a sweeper is Merfolk, where Anger is painful and sometimes awkward vs double lord and Damnation is awkward to resolve through Cursecatcher. I would like to find space for a 2nd Kozilek's Return in my SB though, but that's mostly because of Affinity.
6) What do you like more in the Grixis version than the other ones(Jund, Junk, Esper, Shardless, etc)?
We're favored vs Jund Shadow because of Snapcaster Mage, and the countermagic gives us stronger game vs a lot of degenerate decks like Ad Nauseum, Storm, GR Valakut, and even Tron. Jund sometimes just loses to turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity vs Ad Nauseum or Bogles or other degenerate nonsense, but we at least still get to interact. Plus we have some insulation vs Fatal Push because of the delve creatures. The main weaknesses relative to Jund are less closing speed, especially through chump blockers, and less ability to deal with problematic permanents. Unfortunately Temur Battle Rage doesn't work as well in Grixis because delve creatures are smaller than Goyfs, and Snapcaster instead of Traverse means that we're less likely to have a fatty to begin with.
I don't really consider the other builds to be as good as Jund or Grixis, but it's worth thinking about them.
Esper: Very similar to Grixis, but instead of K Command and Terminate you have Path and SB cards. Unfortunately, many of the best white SB cards don't work in a shadow shell, so the typical benefit of being white is very much reduced. Notably, Rest in Peace and Timely Reinforcements are not options. Path is also a nombo with Mana Leak (which I'm pretty fond of in the blue shadow shells), and once you have Snapcaster Mage to grind the exiling effect is less important in the mirror IMO. Lingering Souls is also not really what I'm looking for in this deck except for in a few specific matchups.
Abzan: Very similar to Jund, but you're grindier and less explosive. One of the biggest draws to Jund is its ability to kill the opponent fast through large goyfs (thanks Tarfire) and Temur Battle Rage / Ghor-Clan. Abzan, like Grixis, foregoes this for a grindier game plan, but one that is more susceptible to decks like GR Valakut and Tron. Lingering Souls still doesn't close fast, and unlike Snapcaster Mage, also fails to disrupt the opponent.
Sultai: The removal suite is a huge problem that I don't think this shell can overcome, but if anyone figures out a way to make Whispers of Emrakul work consistently on turn 2 here I might be interested.
7) What's your MD card you side out more often?
1 Street Wraith. It always comes out in the grindy matchups, and all 4 come out in aggro matchups.
8) What question would you like to exist, so that you can answer it yourself- and of course if you'd like, answer it yourself!
In lieu of this, some comments on features of my list that aren't included in the questions above.
0 Inquisition of Kozilek, 6 counterspells (3 Stubborn Denial, 3 Mana Leak): Mana Leak serves as a great catch all in this shell that helps in a variety of matchups. Inquisition is a good card, but doesn't help much vs decks like Tron or Valakut. With shadow in the deck the clock is much faster now, so the play a threat and tempo them out plan is much more live than it was in, say, Delver shells. I've also considered Deprive in these slots, which is a bit of a pet card. Doing damage to ourselves is often good, and we function on very few lands, so it looks pretty good. But the mana requirement is harsh, especially for Snap + Deprive, since we want to have access to so much black mana.
2 Thought Scour: There are only 4 delve creatures in the deck, and there are benefits to not having as much air. Street Wraith does a lot to get that first delve creature online, plus casting Serum Visions, Thoughtseize, and generic interaction. I didn't like having so many spells that cost mana and don't impact the board or otherwise interact with my opponent. That said, I've considered shaving Street Wraith instead, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong. I might try cutting the last 2 Scour for 2 IoK, though I'm apprehensive about that.
SB 2 Disdainful Stroke: Scapeshift, Primeval Titan, Gifts Ungiven, Thought Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, Drowner in Hope, Wurmcoil Engine, Ugin, Karn, Worldbreaker, Ad Nauseum, etc. If you want more game vs. Affinity, Lantern, and Scrap Trawler combo, Ceremonious Rejection is hits a similar swath of cards.