I used to run pithing needle in my sideboard as my answers to karn and mindslaver against some players who played Mono-U and UW Tron. But that was in the pre-ugin days, and RG-tron can deal with needle better.
Knowing Tron, they'd probably just laugh at the notion of us spending two cards, 4 life, and 4 mana to kill their wurmcoil engine. Then they'd play another one, or karn, or ugin.
Edit:
Personally I think a far more playable card is the upcoming Flaying Tendrils . It comes from a good pedigree of following in the footsteps of infest and drown in sorrow, both of which have proven themselves in Modern in the past.
It still hits and exiles finks and voice. It will even still exile the wurmcoil engine in the extraordinarily resource intensive plan to dismember it first...
Ok. This might be a stupid idea since Sea Gate Wreckage may end up with superior performance. However I suppose it doesn't hurt to at least voice it since a quick search only saw it mentioned in passing once offhand in a decklist and didn't draw any additional comments. I tried to search the old thread, but I couldn't find an archived copy of it.
Anyway. I was looking through some assorted lands that are Modern Legal and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea caught my eye since cards that let us dig through our deck are basically on our watch list of things to look out for.
The knee-jerk reaction is that it draws the opponent cards and we don't want them to have cards. However we would control when they get the card. Additionally, if any deck in Modern has sufficiently potent discard potential to force the opponent to discard their newly drawn card before they can utilize it, it is 8rack.
I think, perhaps, 8rack may be able to reap far more advantage from it than an opponent. After all, one of the classic problem scenarios we can find ourselves in is where we've forced the opponent into topdeck mode and hunkered down behind a bridge with no racks or means to actually finish off the opponent. If we find a rack with Mikokoro, then that's great. If we keep digging up discard spells, then we can generally expect to be able to force the opponent to discard whatever spell they just drew.
The catch ofcourse is that as you dig through your deck, your opponent is too. The advantage is if whatever card they're looking for needs to be cast at sorcery speed, then we may very well be able to force them to discard it before they get a chance to use it. But if it is an instant like Abrupt Decay, then they'd be able to utilize their new spell before we can make them discard it. But I think an argument can be made that we can come out a little bit ahead in this scenario even if they do find their Instant.
Simply put, our opponents generally get the opportunity to play all of their topdecks. They usually take advantage of that opportunity because holding the card in hand isn't of much use once we have a solid discard engine like Liliana of the Veil or Raven's Crime forcing them to discard their topdecked card every turn. An extra beater or two on the board may not immediately help them, but it will certainly mean that the we're in more serious trouble when they finally find a way to blow up the bridge. If our opponent finds their aburpt-decay like card before we find our rack, then they would have found it first even if we weren't using Mikokoro. The difference being that with Mikokoro (and assuming we can make them discard their non-instants), the opponent has had fewer topdecks to improve their board state prior to them ultimately finding their answer to our soft lock. That means that we might live a little bit longer after they've found their answer and we might have enough time to find a new bridge or outrace them with racks that we've found.
Basically the tl;dr of what I'm trying to say is this: When our problem is that we're dead-drawing excessive and unnecessary discard spells, then the drawback of giving the opponent a new card on our terms isn't quite so bad. That's my two cents at least.
In general, I think feeding our dead draws to an ever growing swarm of Pack Rat's as a "Plan B" is a superior play. But we can only play so many pack rats and lands are a good deal easier to squeeze into a decklist than spells. A copy or two of Mikokoro may add another potential means for our excess discard spells to pull some weight.
Again, Sea Gate Wreckage may soon make all of what I've typed moot. But since it hadn't been discussed in this thread and I could not ascertain whether or not it was previously discussed in older threads, I figured it doesn't hurt to mention Mikokoro, Center of the Sea and get some more opinions about the card.
As an aside, Sea Gate Wreckage isn't legendary. I could have sworn it was but apparently it isn't.
My meta is really slow, so I feel fine not running bolts. I'm also not a huge fan of rix since it costs 4 mana to activate, essentially "wasting" the whole turn for a single discard. I suppose I can always test it out though.
If you have a better play for the turn, then that's great. But the main point of Rix Maadi is that it is always there to offer you a play for those turns where you find yourself with nothing.
The issue with funeral charm is that we have limited slots in the deck that we can devote towards our 1 cmc discard spells and it faces extremely stiff competition.
Thoughtseize is simply amazing and almost always hits a valuable target. Inquisition of Kozilek is comparable in power and hits most of the spells in modern. Raven's Crime can turn a hand full of lands into a wave of bulk discard in a single turn, can convert dead draws of unneeded lands into discard, and it can turn into a continuous discard engine alongside Dakmor salvage. (Edit: The continuous dredging from dakmor salvage can also act as psuedo-draw to help you dig though your deck to find copies of other dredge/retrace spells like Darkblast or Syphon Life. If you're the sort that runs buried ruin, then it can even help you dig for copies of The Rack and Ensnaring Bridge)
Instant speed discard is a rarity, and the removal aspect of charm can be useful at times. Funeral charm isn't a bad card. The majority of the time you just want the above TS/IoK/Crime instead.
The spells are good and we'd all be playing some of them in an instant if colors weren't a concern, but squeezing a lot of BB, RWB, and WW casting costs into a deck with a low curve that doesn't expect to be drawing very many lands is the tricky bit.
I simply referencing what has been done to great effect in the past. Delver showed that an efficient beater played on T1 backed up by disruptive tempo spells can allow a deck to gain such a significant lead that the game would be over by the time the opponent stuck anything. The "lightning helix" is a siege rhino that they keep recasting. Unsummon is sidisi's faithful, because that creature practically is Unsummon.
Yes, it is unfortunate that the "when this creature attacks" abilities won't trigger when resurrected by Alesha. They'd still be more useful than dead.
Edit : goldfishing with the grixis version from my previous post felt inconsistent. I might need to tweak it a bit. Maybe sidisi's faithful is too cute, but I want to keep toying with the idea since that unsummon engine is the type of thing that can turn a game around. It was a good sized chunk of the reason jtms shut opponents down years ago.
Yeah, I probably add some Smoldering Marsh in there. The fetch idea was suggested by someone else as a way to sort of filter draws (which I know that fetching is actually deck thinning) and I'm kind of just trying it out right now. Going just 21 Swamps worked just as well for me in the beginning of the testing so it's good either way. I think that splashing red like the SCG list is probably going to be the best strategy for black based aggro decks as well. I'm going to start looking at what cards may be worth the splash alongside Hordechiefs abilities. Cards to look at could be things like Alesha, Fiery Impulse, Wild Slash, and maybe even Thunderbreak Regent.
Ahh yes. The whole "run fetches to thin your deck. It's the best!!!1" myth. That's a popular one, but take that guy's advice about deck thinning and throw it out the window.
This topic of deck thinning with fetch lands comes up a lot. People have done all of the math and run numerous statistical simulations. The bottom line is that the benefit of "thinning your deck with fetchlands" is borderline statistically insignificant and most definitely isn't worth the price in life that you're paying. I don't have the links on me, but all the math is here on MTGS somewhere.
But that's purely for the purpose of deck thinning and deck thinning alone. Running fetches to help with graveyard interactions such as helping fuel your delve spells or fulfilling other goals like enabling sufficiently useful sideboard options is a different story altogether.
IMO, I think Mardu Strike Leader is better than Liliana, Heretical healer in your list. But after some thinking today, I tried to improve my list to better make use of Lili and Alesha's resurrection abilities.
I've been kicking around the idea for the past day or so of using blue's tempo cards to paralyze the opponent's defense to allow our creatures to keep successfully attacking. Initially I was looking at instants and sorceries such as Rush of Ice, Send to Sleep, and Ojutai's Breath. I was looking through other decklists and reading critiques, and I saw someone suggest Sidisi's Faithful alongside lili. So I made a small adjustment to the manabase and removed the touch of moongloves to see what the deck would look like.
By itself it isn't the most exciting card. You play it on ~T3+ or so when your opponent starts sticking creatures that can safely block your aggro dudes. Sidisi's faithful bounces it to their hand, effectively undoing the progress of their previous turn, and then your aggro creatures get another swing. It's basic tempo play with Unsummon, except at sorcery speed. Delver of Secrets did the same trick back during INN standard with Vapor Snag. Get an early threat out and just slow down your opponent's ability to get blockers on the board until it is too late.
The fun happens once you have Liliana, Defiant Necromancer or Alesha, who smiles at death on the field while Sidisi's Faithful is in your yard. Then you can start recurring that "unsummon" every time you get the option to resurrect a creature. It is a little bit of setup, but it once accomplished it is a bit of a blast from the past since lili can then effectively unsummon every turn for "-1." If you remember correctly, that's the exact same -1 effect of Jace, the Mind Sculptor that coined the infamous "Jace Test" that kept most opponent's creatures shutdown while a gang of squadron hawks with beaks full of swords beat you to death.
T4 opens up some potentially very nasty plays.
Imagine you'd played Alesha on T3. On T4, play Sidisi's faithful and return one of their blockers back to their hand, then swing with Alesha and spend BB to resurrect Sidisi's faithful to bounce a second blocker back to their hand. So on T4, your creatures are now barreling at the opponent and they're down two potential blockers. How many creatures can they even reasonably have at that point in the game (obviously depends on the deck, but against some of the more midrangeish ones you might have just removed all of their creatures from the field)? If you happen to have a Blood-chin rager in the attack, it becomes even harder for them to successfully block you after you've removed two of their creatures from the field. Can they afford to replay both creature next turn or only 1? Because for BB you are quite capable of simply bouncing whatever they played back to their hand again with Alesha's next attack.
Lili can perform a similar play on T4. First play lili, then play Sidisi's faithful to bounce a creature, flipping lili and giving you zombie, and then you can -1 to resurrect Sidisi's faithful to bounce yet another opposing creature.
And ofcourse Sidisi's faithful has been dying this whole time. If you ever happen to have any Zulaport Cutthroats on the field, you'll be triggering that effect every time you bounce away an opposing creature.
And, as a footnote, you could play it as a 0/4...That's not what we really WANT to be doing, but options are options. We might find ourself in a corner case where we legitimately find ourselves desiring a high toughness blocker.
Siege Rhino, ofcourse, passes the Jace test. But the idea is that by repeatedly clearing away blockers, you can out-race that 4 cmc lightning helix they keep casting at your face.
edit:
I am considering replacing the blood-chin ragers with Hangarback Walkers. I'll be playtesting with some friends this weekend, and I'll give both a try.
I'm not too concerned about beating stuff like Atarka Red right now. I'd like to get the deck standing on its own two feet first, then we can start worrying how it matches up against the big fish in the pond.
Lili is the type of card that wants lots of graveyard interaction, so that's why I'm trying to experiment with her alongside Alesha. Lili is by no means an auto-include card. She does however help against other aggro decks by either gaining life or drawing your opponent's resources towards killing her instead of you.
ACRR, your list looks solid too. I do have one tiny change to suggest. Try adding in a second red source. Either a mountain or smoldering Marsh. I doubt it will disrupt your mana and it will open up the possibility to fetch both red sources and enable you to potentially activate brutal hordechief's activated ability.
I presume your tentative sideboard includes red? Otherwise the red in your manabase doesn't make sense. I doubt it is worth it to take the lifeloss from the fetches for horde chief's ability alone.
Thanks for sharing! That deck definitely has a stronger red component and a higher curve. It also has a bit of graveyard recursion via the phoenixes. I like Kolaghan, the Storm's fury, but the curve of what I brewed up is too low to support him. I'm pushing it with my 4 drops already.
Ok, this was something I scratched together on my lunch break.
The obvious newcommer thanks to the splash is Alesha, who smiles at death. It is capable of resurrecting every creature in the deck baring Brutal Hordechief and more copies of Alesha. Hopefully an improved board presence can be maintained thanks to their combined resurrection capabilities.
Also brought in for the red splash is Roast and Outpost Siege. Roast primarily has my attention because it kills rhinos. Outpost siege grants us the option for psuedo card draw as our hand starts running empty, or a means to threaten pushing more damage through whenever one of our creatures leaves play.
And ofcourse the red grants access to the possibility to activate Brutal Hordechief's activated ability.
The land base has only 2 lands that risk costing you tempo by entering play tapped. IMO, a worthwhile risk. 20 are capable of providing a black mana source for predominately black spells in the deck. 18 of those lands are guaranteed to provide black without tempo loss. Casting our black spells on curve should not be a problem in the slightest.
11 lands are capable of providing a red mana source, however only 5 are guaranteed to provide red without losing tempo. However the splashed spells are either cmc 3+ or are intended to remove opposing creatures greater than 3, so maintaining tempo for red shouldn't be a problem by that point in the game.
I opted against using Despoiler of Souls because its resurrection ability directly conflicted with the resurrection effects of Alesha and lili. Instead I chose Zulaport Cutthroat. The way this deck throws creatures at the enemy, this guy should lifedrain a respectable quantity of life by the end of the game. Multiples on the field act as a rattlesnake deterrent against board wipes. Any boardwipe would be extremely costly and potentially lethal if we have 2-3 cutthroats on the field.
I considered hangarback walker instead. My knee-jerk reaction is that it is a bit slow for the high speed aggressiveness of the rest of the deck. However I suppose it could also be thought of as a bit of a ticking timebomb waiting to explode and overwhelm the opponent with thopters for the final few points of life... I'll continue pondering my options with it. It will most likely earn itself some sideboard slots at the least.
Forerunner of Slaughter was the other candidate for a 2 drop to serve in place of Despoiler of souls, but I don't think my land base can reliably support BR on turn 2. The 3 power also unfortunately conflicts with alesha's resurrection ability.
Cards I'm considering for my sideboard: Hangarback walker: Obviously an awesome card. I not sure if he plays well enough with the rest of the deck to deserve a mainboard slot, but I'm confident I'll find myself in matchups where I'll want it. Boiling Earth: I think this card is AMAZING. In a sense it is half of a one-sided pyroclasm. 1 damage may not seem like much, but it hits a lot of stuff. Most tokens, zulaport cutthroats, etc. Virulent Plague: I think tokens will have a respectable presence in standard, and this card rains on their parade pretty hard. Rending Volley: Another awesome card. It will kill a tapped Dragonlord Ojutai, kill a siege rhino that has received damage from any other source, and kill many of the warriors in W/B warriors. All for the low low price of R Ruinous Path: Generally I'm not a fan of 3cmc sorcery speed removal. But this is a catch-all and can be used to kill troublesome planeswalkers. Kolaghan's command: Another all around awesome and versatile card.
Some other cards that caught my eye in grixis colors that I think I may consider in the future as sideboard or even mainboard material: Smash to Smithereens: Extremely solid artifact hate. Aggro loves when we can kill a thing and bolt the opponent at the same time. Encase in Ice: Decidedly sideboard tech, but I like it a lot. Notable creatures I see myself freezing with this are Den Protector, Deathmist Raptor, and Siege Rhino. It is soft removal, but it should be a bit harder than it used to be now that Reclamation Sage isn't around anymore. Monastary Siege: 3 cmc is more palatable than outpost siege's 4. "Khans" isn't card advantage like siege's pseudo card draw, but it does improve card quality and we do have several options to tap into creatures within our graveyard. "Dragons" could be useful against burn decks that want to burn us or our creatures.
Icy Blast: This can tap down most blockers, clearing the way for us to swing at the dome. Ferocious is tricky for this deck to achieve. Ojutai's Breath: Another tempo card to keep an opponent's defense on ice. We can use this to keep a creature down for three combat phases in a row, or give us a window where two creatures are frozen for one combat phase. Rush of Ice / Put to Sleep: Even more approaches to freezing a defense while we swing swing swing away. Which flavor do you prefer? Screeching Skaab and Sultai Skullkeeper: Respectable bodies for their costs, and they self-mill which is almost like drawing cards when we have a resurrection gameplan Marang River Prowler: A 2/1 for 3 cmc isn't that impressive on its own, but he's unblockable AND can come back from the grave as long as we have a black permanent. Break Through the Line: An interesting card. Most of the creatures in this deck have power 2 or less, so this can give them haste and unblockable for R. Although we probably can't hope to get more than 1-2 activations a turn with this manabase.
Magmatic Chasm: This almost reads that our creatures aren't blockable this turn. It's no Mogis's Marauder, but it might be useful. Military Intelligence: Draw a card when we attack with two ore more creatures? That's something that we do ALL THE TIME. I sort of worry that it is win-more though. This won't draw us cards if our opponent gains the advantage and we're unable to maintain the offensive. Shadows of the Past: It's a low cmc card. We expect creatures to be dying, so we should be scrying a lot. The manasink lifedrain ability is neat. I'm not sure if I like it much here. It feels more like a slow-and-steady card for a more controlish gameplan. Sure Strike: The first strike is what makes me consider this. Many of our creatures would gain a power of 4-5 upon resolution, which should let them survive most combat. Generally I'd rather Roast the opponent's creature pre-combat so they can't stop an attacker by declaring a blocker. Twin Bolt / Arc Lightning: If aristocrats style Zulaport cutthroat decks become a thing, we're going to want ways to kill off their cutthroats with precision without necessarily wiping the rest of the board. Infinite Obliteration: This is worth mentioning I guess. Normally extirpate effects aren't worth running unless the target you'll hit is instrumental to their game plan. But this might be useful against some aristocrats decks or decks whose only plan for winning are Siege Rhino and Bring to Rhino
Monastary Siege
I have to say, I like the idea of pairing Lili and Alesha to maintain board presence via resurrection. I've got a rough list I'll post tonight (too much of a hassle to post it from my phone).
I'm planning on keeping the moongloves. The first strike on Alesha and Drana improves the performance of moonglove. Alongside rager, that raises the tally up to 10 creatures where the moonglove math works decidedly in our favor (presuming 3 Alesha and 3 drana)
Edit:
Personally I would shy away from altar's reap. I recall it seeing next to no play during its innistraad days, and it was much easier to spam disposable tokens back then.
Edit 2: I was looking through blue spells and send to sleep Looks attractive. Remove their best blockers from the combat equation. If we have spell mastery (which is admittedly hard for us due to our low instant / sorcery count), then we incapacitate their blockers for two turns.
Edit:
Personally I think a far more playable card is the upcoming Flaying Tendrils . It comes from a good pedigree of following in the footsteps of infest and drown in sorrow, both of which have proven themselves in Modern in the past.
It still hits and exiles finks and voice. It will even still exile the wurmcoil engine in the extraordinarily resource intensive plan to dismember it first...
Anyway. I was looking through some assorted lands that are Modern Legal and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea caught my eye since cards that let us dig through our deck are basically on our watch list of things to look out for.
The knee-jerk reaction is that it draws the opponent cards and we don't want them to have cards. However we would control when they get the card. Additionally, if any deck in Modern has sufficiently potent discard potential to force the opponent to discard their newly drawn card before they can utilize it, it is 8rack.
I think, perhaps, 8rack may be able to reap far more advantage from it than an opponent. After all, one of the classic problem scenarios we can find ourselves in is where we've forced the opponent into topdeck mode and hunkered down behind a bridge with no racks or means to actually finish off the opponent. If we find a rack with Mikokoro, then that's great. If we keep digging up discard spells, then we can generally expect to be able to force the opponent to discard whatever spell they just drew.
The catch ofcourse is that as you dig through your deck, your opponent is too. The advantage is if whatever card they're looking for needs to be cast at sorcery speed, then we may very well be able to force them to discard it before they get a chance to use it. But if it is an instant like Abrupt Decay, then they'd be able to utilize their new spell before we can make them discard it. But I think an argument can be made that we can come out a little bit ahead in this scenario even if they do find their Instant.
Simply put, our opponents generally get the opportunity to play all of their topdecks. They usually take advantage of that opportunity because holding the card in hand isn't of much use once we have a solid discard engine like Liliana of the Veil or Raven's Crime forcing them to discard their topdecked card every turn. An extra beater or two on the board may not immediately help them, but it will certainly mean that the we're in more serious trouble when they finally find a way to blow up the bridge. If our opponent finds their aburpt-decay like card before we find our rack, then they would have found it first even if we weren't using Mikokoro. The difference being that with Mikokoro (and assuming we can make them discard their non-instants), the opponent has had fewer topdecks to improve their board state prior to them ultimately finding their answer to our soft lock. That means that we might live a little bit longer after they've found their answer and we might have enough time to find a new bridge or outrace them with racks that we've found.
Basically the tl;dr of what I'm trying to say is this: When our problem is that we're dead-drawing excessive and unnecessary discard spells, then the drawback of giving the opponent a new card on our terms isn't quite so bad. That's my two cents at least.
In general, I think feeding our dead draws to an ever growing swarm of Pack Rat's as a "Plan B" is a superior play. But we can only play so many pack rats and lands are a good deal easier to squeeze into a decklist than spells. A copy or two of Mikokoro may add another potential means for our excess discard spells to pull some weight.
Again, Sea Gate Wreckage may soon make all of what I've typed moot. But since it hadn't been discussed in this thread and I could not ascertain whether or not it was previously discussed in older threads, I figured it doesn't hurt to mention Mikokoro, Center of the Sea and get some more opinions about the card.
As an aside, Sea Gate Wreckage isn't legendary. I could have sworn it was but apparently it isn't.
Thoughtseize is simply amazing and almost always hits a valuable target.
Inquisition of Kozilek is comparable in power and hits most of the spells in modern.
Raven's Crime can turn a hand full of lands into a wave of bulk discard in a single turn, can convert dead draws of unneeded lands into discard, and it can turn into a continuous discard engine alongside Dakmor salvage. (Edit: The continuous dredging from dakmor salvage can also act as psuedo-draw to help you dig though your deck to find copies of other dredge/retrace spells like Darkblast or Syphon Life. If you're the sort that runs buried ruin, then it can even help you dig for copies of The Rack and Ensnaring Bridge)
Instant speed discard is a rarity, and the removal aspect of charm can be useful at times. Funeral charm isn't a bad card. The majority of the time you just want the above TS/IoK/Crime instead.
The spells are good and we'd all be playing some of them in an instant if colors weren't a concern, but squeezing a lot of BB, RWB, and WW casting costs into a deck with a low curve that doesn't expect to be drawing very many lands is the tricky bit.
Yes, it is unfortunate that the "when this creature attacks" abilities won't trigger when resurrected by Alesha. They'd still be more useful than dead.
Edit : goldfishing with the grixis version from my previous post felt inconsistent. I might need to tweak it a bit. Maybe sidisi's faithful is too cute, but I want to keep toying with the idea since that unsummon engine is the type of thing that can turn a game around. It was a good sized chunk of the reason jtms shut opponents down years ago.
Ahh yes. The whole "run fetches to thin your deck. It's the best!!!1" myth. That's a popular one, but take that guy's advice about deck thinning and throw it out the window.
This topic of deck thinning with fetch lands comes up a lot. People have done all of the math and run numerous statistical simulations. The bottom line is that the benefit of "thinning your deck with fetchlands" is borderline statistically insignificant and most definitely isn't worth the price in life that you're paying. I don't have the links on me, but all the math is here on MTGS somewhere.
But that's purely for the purpose of deck thinning and deck thinning alone. Running fetches to help with graveyard interactions such as helping fuel your delve spells or fulfilling other goals like enabling sufficiently useful sideboard options is a different story altogether.
IMO, I think Mardu Strike Leader is better than Liliana, Heretical healer in your list. But after some thinking today, I tried to improve my list to better make use of Lili and Alesha's resurrection abilities.
TL;DR is I replaced my Touch of Moongloves with a blue splash and Sidisi's Faithful to give the deck a recurable unsummon.
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Mardu Shadowspear
3 Thornbow archer
4 Sidisi's Faithful
4 Blood-chin Rager
4 Zulaport Cutthroat
3 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
3 Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 Alesha, who smiles at death
2 Brutal Hordechief
3 Roast
2 Outpost Siege
Land (21)
1 Mountain
2 Smoldering Marsh
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
9 Swamp
I've been kicking around the idea for the past day or so of using blue's tempo cards to paralyze the opponent's defense to allow our creatures to keep successfully attacking. Initially I was looking at instants and sorceries such as Rush of Ice, Send to Sleep, and Ojutai's Breath. I was looking through other decklists and reading critiques, and I saw someone suggest Sidisi's Faithful alongside lili. So I made a small adjustment to the manabase and removed the touch of moongloves to see what the deck would look like.
By itself it isn't the most exciting card. You play it on ~T3+ or so when your opponent starts sticking creatures that can safely block your aggro dudes. Sidisi's faithful bounces it to their hand, effectively undoing the progress of their previous turn, and then your aggro creatures get another swing. It's basic tempo play with Unsummon, except at sorcery speed. Delver of Secrets did the same trick back during INN standard with Vapor Snag. Get an early threat out and just slow down your opponent's ability to get blockers on the board until it is too late.
The fun happens once you have Liliana, Defiant Necromancer or Alesha, who smiles at death on the field while Sidisi's Faithful is in your yard. Then you can start recurring that "unsummon" every time you get the option to resurrect a creature. It is a little bit of setup, but it once accomplished it is a bit of a blast from the past since lili can then effectively unsummon every turn for "-1." If you remember correctly, that's the exact same -1 effect of Jace, the Mind Sculptor that coined the infamous "Jace Test" that kept most opponent's creatures shutdown while a gang of squadron hawks with beaks full of swords beat you to death.
T4 opens up some potentially very nasty plays.
Imagine you'd played Alesha on T3. On T4, play Sidisi's faithful and return one of their blockers back to their hand, then swing with Alesha and spend BB to resurrect Sidisi's faithful to bounce a second blocker back to their hand. So on T4, your creatures are now barreling at the opponent and they're down two potential blockers. How many creatures can they even reasonably have at that point in the game (obviously depends on the deck, but against some of the more midrangeish ones you might have just removed all of their creatures from the field)? If you happen to have a Blood-chin rager in the attack, it becomes even harder for them to successfully block you after you've removed two of their creatures from the field. Can they afford to replay both creature next turn or only 1? Because for BB you are quite capable of simply bouncing whatever they played back to their hand again with Alesha's next attack.
Lili can perform a similar play on T4. First play lili, then play Sidisi's faithful to bounce a creature, flipping lili and giving you zombie, and then you can -1 to resurrect Sidisi's faithful to bounce yet another opposing creature.
And ofcourse Sidisi's faithful has been dying this whole time. If you ever happen to have any Zulaport Cutthroats on the field, you'll be triggering that effect every time you bounce away an opposing creature.
And, as a footnote, you could play it as a 0/4...That's not what we really WANT to be doing, but options are options. We might find ourself in a corner case where we legitimately find ourselves desiring a high toughness blocker.
Siege Rhino, ofcourse, passes the Jace test. But the idea is that by repeatedly clearing away blockers, you can out-race that 4 cmc lightning helix they keep casting at your face.
edit:
I am considering replacing the blood-chin ragers with Hangarback Walkers. I'll be playtesting with some friends this weekend, and I'll give both a try.
I'm not too concerned about beating stuff like Atarka Red right now. I'd like to get the deck standing on its own two feet first, then we can start worrying how it matches up against the big fish in the pond.
ACRR, your list looks solid too. I do have one tiny change to suggest. Try adding in a second red source. Either a mountain or smoldering Marsh. I doubt it will disrupt your mana and it will open up the possibility to fetch both red sources and enable you to potentially activate brutal hordechief's activated ability.
I presume your tentative sideboard includes red? Otherwise the red in your manabase doesn't make sense. I doubt it is worth it to take the lifeloss from the fetches for horde chief's ability alone.
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Mardu Shadowspear
3 Thornbow archer
4 Blood-chin Rager
4 Zulaport Cutthroat
3 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
3 Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 Alesha, who smiles at death
2 Brutal Hordechief
4 Touch of Moonglove
3 Roast
2 Outpost Siege
Land (21)
1 Mountain
2 Smoldering Marsh
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
10 Swamp
Ok, this was something I scratched together on my lunch break.
The obvious newcommer thanks to the splash is Alesha, who smiles at death. It is capable of resurrecting every creature in the deck baring Brutal Hordechief and more copies of Alesha. Hopefully an improved board presence can be maintained thanks to their combined resurrection capabilities.
Also brought in for the red splash is Roast and Outpost Siege. Roast primarily has my attention because it kills rhinos. Outpost siege grants us the option for psuedo card draw as our hand starts running empty, or a means to threaten pushing more damage through whenever one of our creatures leaves play.
And ofcourse the red grants access to the possibility to activate Brutal Hordechief's activated ability.
The land base has only 2 lands that risk costing you tempo by entering play tapped. IMO, a worthwhile risk. 20 are capable of providing a black mana source for predominately black spells in the deck. 18 of those lands are guaranteed to provide black without tempo loss. Casting our black spells on curve should not be a problem in the slightest.
11 lands are capable of providing a red mana source, however only 5 are guaranteed to provide red without losing tempo. However the splashed spells are either cmc 3+ or are intended to remove opposing creatures greater than 3, so maintaining tempo for red shouldn't be a problem by that point in the game.
I opted against using Despoiler of Souls because its resurrection ability directly conflicted with the resurrection effects of Alesha and lili. Instead I chose Zulaport Cutthroat. The way this deck throws creatures at the enemy, this guy should lifedrain a respectable quantity of life by the end of the game. Multiples on the field act as a rattlesnake deterrent against board wipes. Any boardwipe would be extremely costly and potentially lethal if we have 2-3 cutthroats on the field.
I considered hangarback walker instead. My knee-jerk reaction is that it is a bit slow for the high speed aggressiveness of the rest of the deck. However I suppose it could also be thought of as a bit of a ticking timebomb waiting to explode and overwhelm the opponent with thopters for the final few points of life... I'll continue pondering my options with it. It will most likely earn itself some sideboard slots at the least.
Forerunner of Slaughter was the other candidate for a 2 drop to serve in place of Despoiler of souls, but I don't think my land base can reliably support BR on turn 2. The 3 power also unfortunately conflicts with alesha's resurrection ability.
I'm keeping Touch of Moonglove in the deck because it interacts favorably with many of the creatures. Both Alesha, who smiles at death and Drana, Liberator of malakir have first strike to combo with the deathtouch. I find the idea of trading 2-for-2 and 4 lifeloss to be very appealing with Blood-chin rager. Bloodsoaked champion can outright resurrect himself, so losing him in a trade isn't that bad of a deal.
Cards I'm considering for my sideboard:
Hangarback walker: Obviously an awesome card. I not sure if he plays well enough with the rest of the deck to deserve a mainboard slot, but I'm confident I'll find myself in matchups where I'll want it.
Boiling Earth: I think this card is AMAZING. In a sense it is half of a one-sided pyroclasm. 1 damage may not seem like much, but it hits a lot of stuff. Most tokens, zulaport cutthroats, etc.
Virulent Plague: I think tokens will have a respectable presence in standard, and this card rains on their parade pretty hard.
Rending Volley: Another awesome card. It will kill a tapped Dragonlord Ojutai, kill a siege rhino that has received damage from any other source, and kill many of the warriors in W/B warriors. All for the low low price of R
Ruinous Path: Generally I'm not a fan of 3cmc sorcery speed removal. But this is a catch-all and can be used to kill troublesome planeswalkers.
Kolaghan's command: Another all around awesome and versatile card.
Some other cards that caught my eye in grixis colors that I think I may consider in the future as sideboard or even mainboard material:
Smash to Smithereens: Extremely solid artifact hate. Aggro loves when we can kill a thing and bolt the opponent at the same time.
Encase in Ice: Decidedly sideboard tech, but I like it a lot. Notable creatures I see myself freezing with this are Den Protector, Deathmist Raptor, and Siege Rhino. It is soft removal, but it should be a bit harder than it used to be now that Reclamation Sage isn't around anymore.
Monastary Siege: 3 cmc is more palatable than outpost siege's 4. "Khans" isn't card advantage like siege's pseudo card draw, but it does improve card quality and we do have several options to tap into creatures within our graveyard. "Dragons" could be useful against burn decks that want to burn us or our creatures.
Icy Blast: This can tap down most blockers, clearing the way for us to swing at the dome. Ferocious is tricky for this deck to achieve.
Ojutai's Breath: Another tempo card to keep an opponent's defense on ice. We can use this to keep a creature down for three combat phases in a row, or give us a window where two creatures are frozen for one combat phase.
Rush of Ice / Put to Sleep: Even more approaches to freezing a defense while we swing swing swing away. Which flavor do you prefer?
Screeching Skaab and Sultai Skullkeeper: Respectable bodies for their costs, and they self-mill which is almost like drawing cards when we have a resurrection gameplan
Marang River Prowler: A 2/1 for 3 cmc isn't that impressive on its own, but he's unblockable AND can come back from the grave as long as we have a black permanent.
Break Through the Line: An interesting card. Most of the creatures in this deck have power 2 or less, so this can give them haste and unblockable for R. Although we probably can't hope to get more than 1-2 activations a turn with this manabase.
Magmatic Chasm: This almost reads that our creatures aren't blockable this turn. It's no Mogis's Marauder, but it might be useful.
Military Intelligence: Draw a card when we attack with two ore more creatures? That's something that we do ALL THE TIME. I sort of worry that it is win-more though. This won't draw us cards if our opponent gains the advantage and we're unable to maintain the offensive.
Shadows of the Past: It's a low cmc card. We expect creatures to be dying, so we should be scrying a lot. The manasink lifedrain ability is neat. I'm not sure if I like it much here. It feels more like a slow-and-steady card for a more controlish gameplan.
Sure Strike: The first strike is what makes me consider this. Many of our creatures would gain a power of 4-5 upon resolution, which should let them survive most combat. Generally I'd rather Roast the opponent's creature pre-combat so they can't stop an attacker by declaring a blocker.
Twin Bolt / Arc Lightning: If aristocrats style Zulaport cutthroat decks become a thing, we're going to want ways to kill off their cutthroats with precision without necessarily wiping the rest of the board.
Infinite Obliteration: This is worth mentioning I guess. Normally extirpate effects aren't worth running unless the target you'll hit is instrumental to their game plan. But this might be useful against some aristocrats decks or decks whose only plan for winning are Siege Rhino and Bring to Rhino
Monastary Siege
I'm planning on keeping the moongloves. The first strike on Alesha and Drana improves the performance of moonglove. Alongside rager, that raises the tally up to 10 creatures where the moonglove math works decidedly in our favor (presuming 3 Alesha and 3 drana)
Edit:
Personally I would shy away from altar's reap. I recall it seeing next to no play during its innistraad days, and it was much easier to spam disposable tokens back then.
Edit 2: I was looking through blue spells and send to sleep Looks attractive. Remove their best blockers from the combat equation. If we have spell mastery (which is admittedly hard for us due to our low instant / sorcery count), then we incapacitate their blockers for two turns.