What's your favorite land hate? I personally think Boom/Bust could be strong but I haven't tested it. Thoughts?
I personally haven't been playing any LD. I tried 2 Ceremonious Rejection in the board for Tron and really like them. The LD just feels too slow, although Boom//Bust is interesting. The cool thing there is that in grindy games where you don't have any more lands to fetch out, you can just destroy your extra fetches you don't need anymore.
One thing I'm sure everyone's noticed is that this deck has a huge weakness to enchantments, which should come as no surprise to anyone that's played a Grixis deck in Modern before. The only efficient answers in our colors are Set Adrift or Kiora's Dismissal. Does anyone think it's worth running a card this narrow for things like Leylines, RiP, Blood Moon, Bitterblossom, etc.?
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Yeah, I've been coming across a lot of places where I've wanted a TBR lately. Lots of tokens and go-wide decks on MTGO. I actually feel like the TBR should be main decked. It's kinda like Twin back in the day, you want the ability to blitz out a quick win in game 1 if you're against a deck you need to race, but if it's a grindy matchup you can just side them out. I think I'm going to start experimenting with 1 or 2 copies in the main.
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I don't know if I'm just hitting bad variance on my matchups, but MTGO has been ridiculously hostile the last few days. Over like 7 leagues, literally half of my matches have been either UW control, Burn, or Dredge.
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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 think some number of Bolts is good to have in your 75, BoltSnapBolt is still a great combo. Its stock is pretty low as a removal spell right now, so I'm only running 2, which I think is the right number.
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Has anyone been tinkering with any copies of Temur Battle Rage? Token and swarm decks seem to be on the rise to combat DS, and it's a way through chump blockers.
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I'm still trying to feel out the land count. 18 has felt like a lot at times. The deck just sees so many cards in a typical game that any more than 18 feels unnecessary. I could see shaving a Bolt (or two) for Terminate in order to make room for sweepers, though.
I think if you go 18 lands you should either cut a fetch or the Island, not one of the shocks. I think just 4 shocks is too few. Especially if you're only running 2 red shocks and trying to play Anger in the board, it would be pretty awkward to mill over one of your red shocks. Of course, if you cut the Island then you're conceding your blue mana to Blood Moons, but you can lean on trying to strip them before they can be played and killing your opponent before it matters.
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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.
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I think FlyingDelver is right on that front. The only matchup where Street Wraith should ever be considered as a potential cut is Burn. And since I'm here, I thought I'd run my current list by you all and get your thoughts on it:
I've been considering the likes of Anger of the Gods or Pyroclasm in the board, but I'm unsure what to cut for them. Any thoughts?
Cut a Bolt, move a Terminate to the main. It's funny, after you do that our 75s will be within 1 card, I just have another Blood Crypt instead of the 3rd Bolt.
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I think there are a couple main points that we aren't all in agreement on yet. I want to give my arguments for them, and maybe we can see if we can come to a consensus.
The Tasigur/Angler split
I played Grixis Delver before this, and I've always been a proponent of the 3/1 split in that deck, but I think in this deck the 2/2 split is correct. There were two reasons to play more Tasigurs in Delver: he's easier to play on turn 2 and sometimes you get to 4 mana and get to activate him when you don't have something else to use your mana for. In Shadow, I feel like it's much easier to cast Angler on turn 2 than it is in Delver because of the high number of fetches and Street Wraith. With the closing speed of the deck, I also feel like you don't have as much unused mana to dump into Tasigur activations. So basically, the upsides to playing Tasigur over Angler are lessened in this deck. The upsides for Angler are the extra point of power, which can be relevant against your average sized Goyfs, and that it's not legendary, which is the real sticking point here. You can't play multiple Tasigurs. While I think I would still rather have one Tasigur over an Angler, I would rather have one of each or two Anglers over two Tasigurs. So that's why I feel like the 2/2 split is correct here.
The mana base and RR spells
I think if you want to play Anger and Stone Rain over Kozilek's Return and Fulminator, you HAVE to play 2 Blood Crypts and 1 Steam Vents (in fact, this might just be correct for everyone). It's not hard to hit RR by turn 3, but you often don't want to. Black sources are the most important thing to have because so many of our spells require black mana. I've watched a lot of games where someone fetched a Steam Vents early and then lost the game because they had 3 black spells they wanted to play on a turn but could only play 2. Without RR spells in the deck, I would probably fetch Grave, Grave, Crypt every time if I could. Playing RR spells means you have to fetch Grave, Crypt, Crypt and limit yourself on blue mana, or Grave, Vents, Crypt and limit your black mana (which is probably even worse).
For these reasons, I'm on Fulminator and Kozilek's Return(for now). Anger might still be the better card, but that RR by turn 3 is not free like people have been making it out to be in posts in this thread.
Fourth color splashes
I don't think this is correct to do in this deck. You can't search up your copy of Ranger of Eos like the GBx versions can with Traverse. Lingering Souls is a great card, but they play it because it gives them the ability to play a longer grindy game. We already have that ability with Snapcaster and Serum Visions fixing our topdecks. I just don't think the white splash really does anything for us.
Temur Battle Rage, yes/no?
I haven't been playing it, but I might try it as a 1-of in the main. The card is really good for helping you race when you need to win quickly. I think the ability to add a small comboish aspect to the deck might be worth the opportunity cost of a slot in the main.
Planeswalkers
I think LotV is not right for the deck. We just have too many instant speed things we want to do on our opponent's turn, so I think you'll have too many instances where you don't want to uptick your LotV for several turns because you have a good card in hand you don't want to pitch. I could maybe see 1 in the SB for a matchup like Bogles, but I don't know if I love that
LtLH, on the other hand, seems great in this deck. I've been running 2 SB, but I've seen people running her MD. She's great in grindy matchups, and she's great in matchups where your opponent has a lot of X/1s. She very well may be MD-worthy, since even in matchups that aren't grindy or she's not killing creatures, she can provide fuel for delve and dig to threats.
I'm wondering, has anyone tried Ashiok in this deck? It seems like a crazy mirror breaker.
I think JVP is too slow for the deck. The only upside I can see is that people are probably going to side out their Bolts against you, so if they are using their Pushes and Paths on JVP instead of your actual threats then that's a win for you. I don't think he's worth it, though.
Tibalt is clearly a 4-of in the main deck.
Matchups
I'm not really sure from my own experience, but I can say what I've read from various people. Grixis Shadow supposedly has a good matchup against GBx Shadow. I've also read that Shadow instead of Delver improves the Burn and Tron matchups. From my limited experience with Shadow, it feels like the control matchup would be hard, likely worse than it is for Delver. That's all I really know, though.
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@Sp3lls123: The deck you listed is actually 77 cards, you have 27 spells main deck.
Here's the first list I came up with. I feel like my mainboard is ok, although I might go -1 Push +1 either Terminate or K Command. The mana seems fine. I'm really unsure of the sideboard though:
I do like Fulminator over Stone Rain mostly for the ability to buy them back with Kommand. I'm thinking of going -1 Spellbomb and +1 either Surgical or Rakdos Charm. I think I need to drop a Collective Brutality for another counterspell, probably Countersquall. I'm also not completely sold on Kozilek's Return over Anger, but I'm still trying it out. But yeah, other than that, I don't really know what I'm doing, lol.
I personally haven't been playing any LD. I tried 2 Ceremonious Rejection in the board for Tron and really like them. The LD just feels too slow, although Boom//Bust is interesting. The cool thing there is that in grindy games where you don't have any more lands to fetch out, you can just destroy your extra fetches you don't need anymore.
One thing I'm sure everyone's noticed is that this deck has a huge weakness to enchantments, which should come as no surprise to anyone that's played a Grixis deck in Modern before. The only efficient answers in our colors are Set Adrift or Kiora's Dismissal. Does anyone think it's worth running a card this narrow for things like Leylines, RiP, Blood Moon, Bitterblossom, etc.?
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I think some number of Bolts is good to have in your 75, BoltSnapBolt is still a great combo. Its stock is pretty low as a removal spell right now, so I'm only running 2, which I think is the right number.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I think if you go 18 lands you should either cut a fetch or the Island, not one of the shocks. I think just 4 shocks is too few. Especially if you're only running 2 red shocks and trying to play Anger in the board, it would be pretty awkward to mill over one of your red shocks. Of course, if you cut the Island then you're conceding your blue mana to Blood Moons, but you can lean on trying to strip them before they can be played and killing your opponent before it matters.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
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.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Cut a Bolt, move a Terminate to the main. It's funny, after you do that our 75s will be within 1 card, I just have another Blood Crypt instead of the 3rd Bolt.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
The Tasigur/Angler split
I played Grixis Delver before this, and I've always been a proponent of the 3/1 split in that deck, but I think in this deck the 2/2 split is correct. There were two reasons to play more Tasigurs in Delver: he's easier to play on turn 2 and sometimes you get to 4 mana and get to activate him when you don't have something else to use your mana for. In Shadow, I feel like it's much easier to cast Angler on turn 2 than it is in Delver because of the high number of fetches and Street Wraith. With the closing speed of the deck, I also feel like you don't have as much unused mana to dump into Tasigur activations. So basically, the upsides to playing Tasigur over Angler are lessened in this deck. The upsides for Angler are the extra point of power, which can be relevant against your average sized Goyfs, and that it's not legendary, which is the real sticking point here. You can't play multiple Tasigurs. While I think I would still rather have one Tasigur over an Angler, I would rather have one of each or two Anglers over two Tasigurs. So that's why I feel like the 2/2 split is correct here.
The mana base and RR spells
I think if you want to play Anger and Stone Rain over Kozilek's Return and Fulminator, you HAVE to play 2 Blood Crypts and 1 Steam Vents (in fact, this might just be correct for everyone). It's not hard to hit RR by turn 3, but you often don't want to. Black sources are the most important thing to have because so many of our spells require black mana. I've watched a lot of games where someone fetched a Steam Vents early and then lost the game because they had 3 black spells they wanted to play on a turn but could only play 2. Without RR spells in the deck, I would probably fetch Grave, Grave, Crypt every time if I could. Playing RR spells means you have to fetch Grave, Crypt, Crypt and limit yourself on blue mana, or Grave, Vents, Crypt and limit your black mana (which is probably even worse).
For these reasons, I'm on Fulminator and Kozilek's Return(for now). Anger might still be the better card, but that RR by turn 3 is not free like people have been making it out to be in posts in this thread.
Fourth color splashes
I don't think this is correct to do in this deck. You can't search up your copy of Ranger of Eos like the GBx versions can with Traverse. Lingering Souls is a great card, but they play it because it gives them the ability to play a longer grindy game. We already have that ability with Snapcaster and Serum Visions fixing our topdecks. I just don't think the white splash really does anything for us.
Temur Battle Rage, yes/no?
I haven't been playing it, but I might try it as a 1-of in the main. The card is really good for helping you race when you need to win quickly. I think the ability to add a small comboish aspect to the deck might be worth the opportunity cost of a slot in the main.
Planeswalkers
I think LotV is not right for the deck. We just have too many instant speed things we want to do on our opponent's turn, so I think you'll have too many instances where you don't want to uptick your LotV for several turns because you have a good card in hand you don't want to pitch. I could maybe see 1 in the SB for a matchup like Bogles, but I don't know if I love that
LtLH, on the other hand, seems great in this deck. I've been running 2 SB, but I've seen people running her MD. She's great in grindy matchups, and she's great in matchups where your opponent has a lot of X/1s. She very well may be MD-worthy, since even in matchups that aren't grindy or she's not killing creatures, she can provide fuel for delve and dig to threats.
I'm wondering, has anyone tried Ashiok in this deck? It seems like a crazy mirror breaker.
I think JVP is too slow for the deck. The only upside I can see is that people are probably going to side out their Bolts against you, so if they are using their Pushes and Paths on JVP instead of your actual threats then that's a win for you. I don't think he's worth it, though.
Tibalt is clearly a 4-of in the main deck.
Matchups
I'm not really sure from my own experience, but I can say what I've read from various people. Grixis Shadow supposedly has a good matchup against GBx Shadow. I've also read that Shadow instead of Delver improves the Burn and Tron matchups. From my limited experience with Shadow, it feels like the control matchup would be hard, likely worse than it is for Delver. That's all I really know, though.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Here's the first list I came up with. I feel like my mainboard is ok, although I might go -1 Push +1 either Terminate or K Command. The mana seems fine. I'm really unsure of the sideboard though:
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Death's Shadow
4 Street Wraith
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Gurmag Angler
Spells
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Fatal Push
4 Thoughtseize
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Thought Scour
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Terminate
4 Serum Visions
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Steam Vents
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Stubborn Denial
3 Collective Brutality
1 Painful Truths
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Terminate
3 Fulminator Mage
I do like Fulminator over Stone Rain mostly for the ability to buy them back with Kommand. I'm thinking of going -1 Spellbomb and +1 either Surgical or Rakdos Charm. I think I need to drop a Collective Brutality for another counterspell, probably Countersquall. I'm also not completely sold on Kozilek's Return over Anger, but I'm still trying it out. But yeah, other than that, I don't really know what I'm doing, lol.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW