I definitely feel like burn is hard, especially on the draw. 3x brutalities seems like a lot though, what are you cutting, needed graveyard, midrange that needs tech, or having worse go-wide matchups?
Really? As someone who plays this and Junk/Jund, an LOTV feels backbreaking to me, you need to shut the door fast or have some snapcaster tricks.
I still have a ways to go with this deck, this deck definitely requires a lot of reps, it's so easy to lose with Grixis despite it being the best deck. Kinda glad the best deck isn't a brainless gimme free wins archetype though.
I wonder how many reps it takes to become decent with this deck
Affinity is a bad matchup for grixis. You wouldn't think so, looking at the average 75, it looks like a nightmare, pushes, terminates, K-Command, snaps--and then postboard LTLH, sweepers...
Jund has ligering souls, ancient grudge, and temur battle rage (which seriously just steals games).
Also, what do you mean about jund and junk? Are you saying there's a ton of players on the decks, that jund and junk look bad?
played a 4 color (sorta sultai with red splash) play claim/fame, card was gas.
If chalice wasn't an issue, the K Commands would be gone, I think.
Anyway, question for you guys
On a normal hand, if you have 2 lands, a serum, a wraith, 1 removal, 1 discard, and we'll say a random non creature card, do you keep it? I mean, if our opener has no delver or shadow, is this a bad hand to keep, or do we keep it due to the serum and wraith? Just a question. Had a game last night where the opening hand was solid, but just never saw a threat outside of snapcaster.
Good gbx players don't slot in fulminators for shadow decks
I have recently developed a habit of disliking sentences that start with "good <insert random deck> players don't <insert tactic>". It always comes down to what their strategy against Grixis Shadow is. If they pack enough disruption to force us into a grindy game, attacking our manabase is a legit strategy.
Living end, I think you want to finish things before they get to that point
Living End often has considerable numbers of Fulminator Mage and Simian Spirit Guide maindeck. I don't see how we can reliably "finish things" before having to deal with this situation. In game 2 and 3, they are highly interested in taking us off our second blue mana source for some nifty Ricochet Trap action.
DnT can totally land lock you. That matchup is a serious uphill fight
It's not THAT bad actually, but you can make the matchup worse by cutting that 19th land if you like to lose against the one deck in the format that has recently gained popularity.
Ponza isn't really eating large meta shares
I mostly mentioned it because it punishes flimsy manabases badly. I have seen quite a few Ponza decks on MTGO lately.
I mentioned just a few decks. There was an "etc." in my list for a reason. In a metagame where big mana decks thrive, a lot of deck archtypes cannot affort to ignore lands. Sure, you can dodge all those matchups and hope that the "good players" will never come up with the idea of attacking our deck's already vulnerable manabase.
Your points aren't bad, but I'm going to push back on you against the BGx thing---Jund and Junk will NOT go the land destruction route, not the good ones. There isn't enough room to be cutting things for that, and a fulminator looks incredibly bad to topdeck in a long game
They can't cut discard because they need to snatch away snapcasters
They're bringing in the grindy cards, finks, graveyard hate, etc---there isn't room to cut for that route.
I've thought a bit about what a Young Pyromancer build would look like. Also an Abbot of Keral Keep build. But in both cases, I don't think there's quite enough synergy to be had.
Where would you find room? Cutting shadows would be a huge mistake, as would the delvers.
May as well play a totally different deck. I think I saw a UR deck on reddit using pyromancer, take a look there if you're looking to play the more traditional delver decks, I guess?
18 lands is fine from my experience as long as the opponent is not running any land destruction. If they are (D'n'T, Living End, Ponza, various GBx decks after boarding, etc.), 19 lands are certainly not too much. Any extra fetch land also helps playing around Blood Moon. You can often take out the 19th land after boarding if you are sure that your manabase is not going to be attacked. But I'd rather get occasionally flooded than miss a land drop.
Good gbx players don't slot in fulminators for shadow decks
Living end, I think you want to finish things before they get to that point
DnT can totally land lock you. That matchup is a serious uphill fight
Ponza isn't really eating large meta shares
I do feel the 18 land base count if fairly safe. Reading jessups article he said one of the slots he wanted to play with was a land, doesn't look like he cut it though
I am almost certain 19 lands are too many. I am on 18 and 2 sleights and its been fantastic for me.
I've been hitting land drops completely fine with 18 lands no SOH, all while shoving 1x bolt and the 3rd stub. What did you cut to for 2?
Again, you guys are talking about hitting your land drops but I'm seeing flooding on a daily basis. Once you reach 2 lands you're golden on just letting the game play out naturally
Why on earth are we playing 19 lands? Have you guys been watching the pros, streamers playing grixis? The mana flood in this deck is real. I also see mana flooding occur in my real life games against the deck, and playing it and against on mtgo
Why aren't we trimming this to 18 land?
Legacy delver plays 18, yes, yes, I know, different format, brainstorm, etc. But this deck is also running 12 cantrips, a bunch of 1 mana cards, etc; but the deck is remarkably the closest thing to a legacy deck we've ever seen in modern, I think.
I've been finding 18 lands WITHOUT sleight of hands completely fine, I used that slot to add my 3rd stubborn denial with 1 bolt in the main. As long as you open up with 1 blue source and a visions, or 1 land and cantrips, the deck seriously feels good to go.
I was watching some guy play Esper Shadow with 18 lands, and while he didn't perform well, it had nothing to do with his land, it actually had to do with 2 opponents in a row literally topdecking blood moons when he stripped it out of their hands the turn before, another was a turn 2 blood moon game 1. He was absolutely fine with mana using 18 lands.
I don't think 18 lands has been greedy, the deck operates extremely well on 3 lands, and 4 is only a thing when you need to start terminating with snapcaster flashbacks.
If you have mtgo I really think you guys should test a bunch of games with 18 lands, the mana screw has been far and few for me, the only reason I don't want to go to 17 is because I don't want to risk bad opening hands with less shock lands to trigger Shadow/push.
So, I'm wondering if people still think Grixis is the best colour combination for the deck. With people shaving down on the number of red spells, it seems like perhaps Esper might be better. Looking at the SCG Invitational, Fournier played two Terminates and a Rise//Fall, while Anderson played two Termintes, two Kolaghan's Commands, and a Bolt. While I think Kolaghan's Command is great, I'm not convinced it is solely a reason to play red over another colour. A card like Izzet Staticaster or Kozilek's return out of the board doesn't seem enough better than what white would offer in cards like Stony Silence or whatever cards white has (because they generally have the best sideboard cards).
White offers you: Path, Orzhov Charm, Lingering Souls. Most importantly, I think Path is really good in the meta right now because people are moving to decks with bigger creatures. Eldrazi Tron and Grixis Death's Shadow are really popular, both decks where Fatal Push and Bolt are bad. Sure, Grixis has Terminate, but I think any benefit of no drawback is mitigated by the one mana difference, which is often relevant for a deck like ours that operates on very few lands. Path also offers an answer to the dreaded Mirran Crusader. Orzhov Charm, to me, seems like a better card than Rise//Fall, and Lingering Souls is similarly just a high value card.
While I do believe Grixis Shadow itself is better than Esper Shadow, it could be the right call only because the meta is trying to adapt to Grixis, cards like colossus, Crusader, etc.
It could be a good call, but only from a meta perspective. I don't think you can underestimate how amazing Izzet Staicaster/Anger/K-Command are.
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I still have a ways to go with this deck, this deck definitely requires a lot of reps, it's so easy to lose with Grixis despite it being the best deck. Kinda glad the best deck isn't a brainless gimme free wins archetype though.
I wonder how many reps it takes to become decent with this deck
Jund has ligering souls, ancient grudge, and temur battle rage (which seriously just steals games).
Also, what do you mean about jund and junk? Are you saying there's a ton of players on the decks, that jund and junk look bad?
The meta is massively hateful right now, the MTGO practice rooms literally feel like anti shadow decks.
If chalice wasn't an issue, the K Commands would be gone, I think.
Anyway, question for you guys
On a normal hand, if you have 2 lands, a serum, a wraith, 1 removal, 1 discard, and we'll say a random non creature card, do you keep it? I mean, if our opener has no delver or shadow, is this a bad hand to keep, or do we keep it due to the serum and wraith? Just a question. Had a game last night where the opening hand was solid, but just never saw a threat outside of snapcaster.
A lot of people run her in the board in their 75
Your points aren't bad, but I'm going to push back on you against the BGx thing---Jund and Junk will NOT go the land destruction route, not the good ones. There isn't enough room to be cutting things for that, and a fulminator looks incredibly bad to topdeck in a long game
They can't cut discard because they need to snatch away snapcasters
They're bringing in the grindy cards, finks, graveyard hate, etc---there isn't room to cut for that route.
Where would you find room? Cutting shadows would be a huge mistake, as would the delvers.
May as well play a totally different deck. I think I saw a UR deck on reddit using pyromancer, take a look there if you're looking to play the more traditional delver decks, I guess?
Good gbx players don't slot in fulminators for shadow decks
Living end, I think you want to finish things before they get to that point
DnT can totally land lock you. That matchup is a serious uphill fight
Ponza isn't really eating large meta shares
I do feel the 18 land base count if fairly safe. Reading jessups article he said one of the slots he wanted to play with was a land, doesn't look like he cut it though
I'll keep testing, but it's been smooth thus far
I've been hitting land drops completely fine with 18 lands no SOH, all while shoving 1x bolt and the 3rd stub. What did you cut to for 2?
Again, you guys are talking about hitting your land drops but I'm seeing flooding on a daily basis. Once you reach 2 lands you're golden on just letting the game play out naturally
If I'm in danger of not drawing my second land I'll always serum first, don't often get stuck on 1 land between the cantrips
Why on earth are we playing 19 lands? Have you guys been watching the pros, streamers playing grixis? The mana flood in this deck is real. I also see mana flooding occur in my real life games against the deck, and playing it and against on mtgo
Why aren't we trimming this to 18 land?
Legacy delver plays 18, yes, yes, I know, different format, brainstorm, etc. But this deck is also running 12 cantrips, a bunch of 1 mana cards, etc; but the deck is remarkably the closest thing to a legacy deck we've ever seen in modern, I think.
I've been finding 18 lands WITHOUT sleight of hands completely fine, I used that slot to add my 3rd stubborn denial with 1 bolt in the main. As long as you open up with 1 blue source and a visions, or 1 land and cantrips, the deck seriously feels good to go.
I was watching some guy play Esper Shadow with 18 lands, and while he didn't perform well, it had nothing to do with his land, it actually had to do with 2 opponents in a row literally topdecking blood moons when he stripped it out of their hands the turn before, another was a turn 2 blood moon game 1. He was absolutely fine with mana using 18 lands.
I don't think 18 lands has been greedy, the deck operates extremely well on 3 lands, and 4 is only a thing when you need to start terminating with snapcaster flashbacks.
If you have mtgo I really think you guys should test a bunch of games with 18 lands, the mana screw has been far and few for me, the only reason I don't want to go to 17 is because I don't want to risk bad opening hands with less shock lands to trigger Shadow/push.
While I do believe Grixis Shadow itself is better than Esper Shadow, it could be the right call only because the meta is trying to adapt to Grixis, cards like colossus, Crusader, etc.
It could be a good call, but only from a meta perspective. I don't think you can underestimate how amazing Izzet Staicaster/Anger/K-Command are.