People have been talking about how they don't think the Onslaught Fetches will really enable a new archetype. Has anyone thought about taking a second look at Grixis? I know there's a Grixis Delver thread going and that Cruel Control is a thing, but Tempo/Aggro decks just aren't well suited to the format and the mana requirements for Cruel Ultimatum are horrendous. I'm thinking more along the lines of a Blue/Black control shell splashing only for Lightning Bolt. Consider the following sequence:
T1: Discard
T2: Discard and/or soft counter, or LB their first threat
T3: Snapcaster, flashing back the discard
T4: Liliana, Baby Jace or Obliterator
That just seems good.
Stubborn Denial seems good with Obliterator. Play it out early and then snap it back after Obliterator is down.
The Mana isn't too bad but could be tweaked a bit. The ability to have the on-color Fetches is huge in a build like this. I really don't know how the Cruel Control players got by as long as they did. It is really light on threats, though that may be ok in such a controlling shell. Maybe trim the removal package a bit? Batterskull seems OK here. I've also just grabbed Baby Jace as card advantage. I'm sure there are better out there, especially with the new Delve ones from Khans. They just don't seem great with aggressively playing out Snappy but I haven't tested at all.
I think the land base looks pretty good, I think you've sufficiently accommodated for trying to cast a cryptic but more importantly an obliterator on curve. I don't like the 4 sunken ruins though--Even a singleton filter can annoyingly cut you off of playable mana early and that sucks. I'd cut one or two for two more fetches, or a fetch and another swamp.
Presumably early game, your dicarding, bolting threats early, snapbolting and then landing an obliterator post-discard and holding up mana for denial. If denial ends up being the card you are hoping to protect oblit with--you have a force spike until he resolves which is kinda bad. I'd run a dispel, a swan song, and 2 denials first in your testing and see what happens until you figure out what you like.
I don't really think that jace and boomerang are what you want, though I would understand a playset of vapor snag or something. I'd cut 2 discard spells and the slots above for remand/mana leaks.
While the fetches make grixis much more viable, and I agree that cruel is sort of a ridiculous card to build around in modern, a lot of your plays are similarly mana intensive--especially good oblit plays.
I hadn't considered Swan Song which actually seems fine when an Obliterator is staring it down. Blue and Black have a hard time with permanents and I figured a Boomerang coupled with a discard spell would be a way to deal with it.
3 cards I'd consider Electrolyze in place of Baby Jace. Gets you card advantage and clears the board of Lingering Souls, Elemental Tokens, Snaps, bobs, etc. It's also the cantrip you need, and makes red more usable.
Pack Rat. It's great when you're drawing late discard spells and counters you don't need.
Treasure Cruise. It's the real deal when you've got a stack of fetches, and other spells in the graveyard. Also, it combines well with Pack Rat. 3 cards for 1 blue mana.... uhhh.... YES PLEASE! In your first 3 turns you could have Fetch, fetch, fetch, Thoughtseize, Inquisitioin, counter in the graveyard. Then you take a ride on the Treasure cruise for 2 mana and you're back to a loaded hand! That's insane.
Late game, you need an army of Pack Rats? Take a cruise, and come back with 3 rats!
I just have a soft spot for obliterators. The point about reliably hitting B turn 1 is at the heart of this. If Junk and Jund can do it, then so can other decks. Discard is so good early and Cryptic Command is, well a Cryptic Command that I think clearing the way for a T3 or T4 threat and then protecting it seems fine. All the while just looking to Bolt Snap Bolt at some point.
I just have a soft spot for obliterators. The point about reliably hitting B turn 1 is at the heart of this. If Junk and Jund can do it, then so can other decks. Discard is so good early and Cryptic Command is, well a Cryptic Command that I think clearing the way for a T3 or T4 threat and then protecting it seems fine. All the while just looking to Bolt Snap Bolt at some point.
Sorry, I just wanted to make that pun. I like the deck a lot though, but feel like you could just cut the red mana and be more consistent with other cards.
Sure, the specific card choices are off but here's the top 5 cards in Modern according to MTG Goldfish:
1. Lightning bolt
2. Thoughtsieze
3. Serum Visions
4. Remand
5. Snapcaster
Seriously, how is it there isn't a Grixis deck already? I think it's the issue of hitting B on T1 reliably to make the Discard live. The newFetches greatly improve that prospect. You can say that cutting a color will make any deck more consistent. Will the power level given up make up for the increased consistancy. I'm going to say no, if it means giving up the Bolt-Snap-Bolt interaction, arguably one of the more powerful in Modern.
Sure, the specific card choices are off but here's the top 5 cards in Modern according to MTG Goldfish:
1. Lightning bolt
2. Thoughtsieze
3. Serum Visions
4. Remand
5. Snapcaster
Seriously, how is it there isn't a Grixis deck already? I think it's the issue of hitting B on T1 reliably to make the Discard live. The newFetches greatly improve that prospect. You can say that cutting a color will make any deck more consistent. Will the power level given up make up for the increased consistancy. I'm going to say no, if it means giving up the Bolt-Snap-Bolt interaction, arguably one of the more powerful in Modern.
Sure.
But you're not really playing Grixis. It's UB splash red.
Bolt is the reason to splash red. What I'm seeing is that when Bolt is in your hand, often times to cast it you are going to fetch, shock, and then cast bolt. So you're bolting yourself, to cast bolt.
I'm saying you can make red worth playing more by adding Electrolyze, Keranos, and even Terminate.
Agreed. I can't believe I didn't include Terminate at the very least. And a singleton Keranos seems a no brainer. Obliterator and, to a certain extent, Cryptic Command, will always warp a manabase just a bit. Easing up on that should help. Cutting Obliterator for some other finisher (I've seen Batterskull equipped to Tarpit, for example) that is easier on the manbase and shoring up the counterspell suite are certainly options. Basically, I'm trying to sell the idea rather than the deck.
However, I will posit that "Control" players are a bit Blue centric. I think this is a throwback to old school Legacy/Vintage. Think Counterspell. Discard is certainly a Control element according to the 8-Rax players. I read a comment http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/modern-deck-creation/573196-bug-delver that the problem with Snap-Discard-Snap is that it isn't all at instant speed. I'm not entirely sure how much I agree. Discard is admittedly worse in the late game but I doubt there will be a lack of targets T3 when you're flash-backing your T1 Discard. By the mid-late game hard counters should be online picking up where the Discard drops off. The risk of course is drawing all the Cryptics early and all the Discard late but what are you going to do?
Agreed. I can't believe I didn't include Terminate at the very least. And a singleton Keranos seems a no brainer. Obliterator and, to a certain extent, Cryptic Command, will always warp a manabase just a bit. Easing up on that should help. Cutting Obliterator for some other finisher (I've seen Batterskull equipped to Tarpit, for example) that is easier on the manbase and shoring up the counterspell suite are certainly options. Basically, I'm trying to sell the idea rather than the deck.
However, I will posit that "Control" players are a bit Blue centric. I think this is a throwback to old school Legacy/Vintage. Think Counterspell. Discard is certainly a Control element according to the 8-Rax players. I read a comment http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/modern-deck-creation/573196-bug-delver that the problem with Snap-Discard-Snap is that it isn't all at instant speed. I'm not entirely sure how much I agree. Discard is admittedly worse in the late game but I doubt there will be a lack of targets T3 when you're flash-backing your T1 Discard. By the mid-late game hard counters should be online picking up where the Discard drops off. The risk of course is drawing all the Cryptics early and all the Discard late but what are you going to do?
Im playing an American Geist midrange/control. I've built a grixis Delver deck that I really liked, but it was too fragile in certain match ups. That's why I've decided to stick to one deck for a while.
For what you've got going on with your deck, I'd say the one thing you're missing out on is blue's ability to get card advantage. Like for Boomerang, you could replace with Repeal. Jace with Electrolyze. The Obliterator, which I'd love to see you make work, with 2 Olivia Voldaren, a Vendilion Clique and a Batterskull.
I think thats getting into bad deck territory--thought countersquall is a great sideboard card in place of negate, especially when you'll always have access to UB.
Snap discard also isn't the best, its true. I do it often enough in 4c gifts, but thats not trying to tempo you out the same way, I often do that to an opponent at 18 life, as opposed to when snap bolt happens its usually to an opponent who has taken a few points already.
I think that Obliterator is a poor choice of win-con. I would much rather run more Cryptics. Also, Dig Through Time is amazing. 2 mana instant speed best 2 cards out of 7 is perfect for every control deck.
I keep a hand in game 2 against Pod, I rolled the first one with a commandereque finish of elesh norn and grave titan on the field swinging--he saw gifts, and so I expected hate post board.
I keep a hand of three lands, IOK, sieze, and snapcaster.
he goes land, viscera
I go land, take 2, IOK and see a voice of resurgence, mindcensor, and sigardga. take voice.
he doesn't draw too much gas, but has a pretty solid hand, but I turn 2 seize, take mindcensor, and then snap seize for the sigarda. I plucked every bit of hate, went to 10 off seizes while he beat in with the seer until I pulled off an EOT gifts for elesh again.
Its good, but there aren't any surprises with it as in your opponent thinking they are safe from being in burn range, then all the sudden you have two extra power/they're short a blocker (ambush viper mode) on the board and they're six life less than a second ago. playing snap as a 2/1 main phase just doesn't isn't nearly as impressive, its not a tempo play, but rather turtly and reactive.
In the situation I described he was one kitchen finks draw away from winning, because it would have ruined my dismantling plan, which is quite likely to happen. He would have probably sandbagged the censor, shutting off gifts, leaving me to topdeck removal and chump the finks. Thats a pretty thin margin of victory in my mind.
I've been looking at both Grixis Midrange and Delver because I have a solid base of fetches/shocks/manlands for the land base and a fair amount of the usual U/B/R spells, and I want a second deck alongside Hatebears which feels like a punching bag too often. I was thinking about using 4x Phyrexian Crusader as the beaters/wincon as they are immune to the two most common removal spells (Path and Bolt), can't be chumped by endless Pyromancer tokens and let me use Pyroclasm/Anger as one-sided board wipes.
The problem I see is that I'd have to commit to poison counters which makes any complementary creature choices sort of limited (basically, Skithyrix) and there's still enough Melira Pod decks out there to make me worried.
Anyone else have any input on this plan?
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I think that the Phyrexian Crusader plan seems amazing if you are going to run main board Anger of the Gods but with pod being banned I am not sure that main board anger of the gods is where you want to be.
T1: Discard
T2: Discard and/or soft counter, or LB their first threat
T3: Snapcaster, flashing back the discard
T4: Liliana, Baby Jace or Obliterator
That just seems good.
Stubborn Denial seems good with Obliterator. Play it out early and then snap it back after Obliterator is down.
Here's what I've been goldfishing with
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
2 Swamp
1 Island
4 Sunken Ruins
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Tectonic Edge
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
Spells
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Stubborn Denial
1 Cryptic Command
2 Dismember
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Boomerang
3 Jace Beleren
3 Liliana of the Veil
The Mana isn't too bad but could be tweaked a bit. The ability to have the on-color Fetches is huge in a build like this. I really don't know how the Cruel Control players got by as long as they did. It is really light on threats, though that may be ok in such a controlling shell. Maybe trim the removal package a bit? Batterskull seems OK here. I've also just grabbed Baby Jace as card advantage. I'm sure there are better out there, especially with the new Delve ones from Khans. They just don't seem great with aggressively playing out Snappy but I haven't tested at all.
I think the land base looks pretty good, I think you've sufficiently accommodated for trying to cast a cryptic but more importantly an obliterator on curve. I don't like the 4 sunken ruins though--Even a singleton filter can annoyingly cut you off of playable mana early and that sucks. I'd cut one or two for two more fetches, or a fetch and another swamp.
Presumably early game, your dicarding, bolting threats early, snapbolting and then landing an obliterator post-discard and holding up mana for denial. If denial ends up being the card you are hoping to protect oblit with--you have a force spike until he resolves which is kinda bad. I'd run a dispel, a swan song, and 2 denials first in your testing and see what happens until you figure out what you like.
I don't really think that jace and boomerang are what you want, though I would understand a playset of vapor snag or something. I'd cut 2 discard spells and the slots above for remand/mana leaks.
While the fetches make grixis much more viable, and I agree that cruel is sort of a ridiculous card to build around in modern, a lot of your plays are similarly mana intensive--especially good oblit plays.
I hadn't considered Swan Song which actually seems fine when an Obliterator is staring it down. Blue and Black have a hard time with permanents and I figured a Boomerang coupled with a discard spell would be a way to deal with it.
Electrolyze in place of Baby Jace. Gets you card advantage and clears the board of Lingering Souls, Elemental Tokens, Snaps, bobs, etc. It's also the cantrip you need, and makes red more usable.
Pack Rat. It's great when you're drawing late discard spells and counters you don't need.
Treasure Cruise. It's the real deal when you've got a stack of fetches, and other spells in the graveyard. Also, it combines well with Pack Rat. 3 cards for 1 blue mana.... uhhh.... YES PLEASE! In your first 3 turns you could have Fetch, fetch, fetch, Thoughtseize, Inquisitioin, counter in the graveyard. Then you take a ride on the Treasure cruise for 2 mana and you're back to a loaded hand! That's insane.
Late game, you need an army of Pack Rats? Take a cruise, and come back with 3 rats!
You're in Stubbron Denial if you don't think Stubborn Denial won't be a dead card in your hand 75% of the time.
Sorry, I just wanted to make that pun. I like the deck a lot though, but feel like you could just cut the red mana and be more consistent with other cards.
1. Lightning bolt
2. Thoughtsieze
3. Serum Visions
4. Remand
5. Snapcaster
Seriously, how is it there isn't a Grixis deck already? I think it's the issue of hitting B on T1 reliably to make the Discard live. The newFetches greatly improve that prospect. You can say that cutting a color will make any deck more consistent. Will the power level given up make up for the increased consistancy. I'm going to say no, if it means giving up the Bolt-Snap-Bolt interaction, arguably one of the more powerful in Modern.
Sure.
But you're not really playing Grixis. It's UB splash red.
Bolt is the reason to splash red. What I'm seeing is that when Bolt is in your hand, often times to cast it you are going to fetch, shock, and then cast bolt. So you're bolting yourself, to cast bolt.
I'm saying you can make red worth playing more by adding Electrolyze, Keranos, and even Terminate.
However, I will posit that "Control" players are a bit Blue centric. I think this is a throwback to old school Legacy/Vintage. Think Counterspell. Discard is certainly a Control element according to the 8-Rax players. I read a comment http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/modern-deck-creation/573196-bug-delver that the problem with Snap-Discard-Snap is that it isn't all at instant speed. I'm not entirely sure how much I agree. Discard is admittedly worse in the late game but I doubt there will be a lack of targets T3 when you're flash-backing your T1 Discard. By the mid-late game hard counters should be online picking up where the Discard drops off. The risk of course is drawing all the Cryptics early and all the Discard late but what are you going to do?
Im playing an American Geist midrange/control. I've built a grixis Delver deck that I really liked, but it was too fragile in certain match ups. That's why I've decided to stick to one deck for a while.
For what you've got going on with your deck, I'd say the one thing you're missing out on is blue's ability to get card advantage. Like for Boomerang, you could replace with Repeal. Jace with Electrolyze. The Obliterator, which I'd love to see you make work, with 2 Olivia Voldaren, a Vendilion Clique and a Batterskull.
Also, if you don't want to run red you could add in Psionic Blast, countersquall or Bump in the Night.
Snap discard also isn't the best, its true. I do it often enough in 4c gifts, but thats not trying to tempo you out the same way, I often do that to an opponent at 18 life, as opposed to when snap bolt happens its usually to an opponent who has taken a few points already.
Grim lavamancer is an underrated 1 drop.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Can you elaborate on your experiences with it? What situations was it OK? What situations was it just plain bad?
I keep a hand in game 2 against Pod, I rolled the first one with a commandereque finish of elesh norn and grave titan on the field swinging--he saw gifts, and so I expected hate post board.
I keep a hand of three lands, IOK, sieze, and snapcaster.
he goes land, viscera
I go land, take 2, IOK and see a voice of resurgence, mindcensor, and sigardga. take voice.
he doesn't draw too much gas, but has a pretty solid hand, but I turn 2 seize, take mindcensor, and then snap seize for the sigarda. I plucked every bit of hate, went to 10 off seizes while he beat in with the seer until I pulled off an EOT gifts for elesh again.
Its good, but there aren't any surprises with it as in your opponent thinking they are safe from being in burn range, then all the sudden you have two extra power/they're short a blocker (ambush viper mode) on the board and they're six life less than a second ago. playing snap as a 2/1 main phase just doesn't isn't nearly as impressive, its not a tempo play, but rather turtly and reactive.
In the situation I described he was one kitchen finks draw away from winning, because it would have ruined my dismantling plan, which is quite likely to happen. He would have probably sandbagged the censor, shutting off gifts, leaving me to topdeck removal and chump the finks. Thats a pretty thin margin of victory in my mind.
The problem I see is that I'd have to commit to poison counters which makes any complementary creature choices sort of limited (basically, Skithyrix) and there's still enough Melira Pod decks out there to make me worried.
Anyone else have any input on this plan?
BWR THE ARISTAHCRATZ!
Something like this perhaps?:
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Mountain
4 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Young Pyromancer
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Pack Rat
1 Olivia Voldaren
Spells (21)
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Terminate
1 Electrolyze
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Mana Leak
3 Slaughter Games
4 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Vandalblast
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Dispel
1 Counterflux
2 Sowing Salt
1 Izzet Staticaster
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
Also I have really wanted to build a deck like this with Demigod of Revenge... Faithless Looting and Izzet Charm are cards right? Lol I know its bad