If I were to take away simply fun cards like bolas and cruel and trim the deck down (including the land count slightly, and replace a steam vents with a wandering fumarole for an additional manland) this is very close to what I would run in modern as grixis control. I liked av in this list but there were a few situations where I either died before it came off suspend or it came up mid to late game and I wanted it to be basically anything else. I think running think twice (similar to when I tried esper it's nice to use open mana if no counters or removal are needed as well as cycling to ensure land drops) and a pull from tomorrow would be what I would personally use. I also like the idea of keranos as a win condition and would probably include that as well. Basically it would be very similar to wolf's list with slight differences.
Right now I'm focused on grinding out reps with shadow (finally bit the bullet and tried it, way more fun than I thought it would be even though I still miss casting cryptic loops) since there's going to be a large amount of pptq's, iq's and such in my area over the next 2 months so I want to get as good as possible with that deck. Once that's done I'll definitely see what I can come up with for control at fnm type events and post write ups here. I'm still keeping tabs here in the meantime though, control will always be something I'm interested in.
I agree 100% with you, discard can be interesting but I'm not sure. My idea was closer to make a Draw-Go deck with grixis instead of adding more sorcery speed cards.
I think that most of you have played decks like blue moon, esper, uw or uwr. I'm trying to approach our deck to those decks.
UWR and UW kills the opp with snap + manlands (UWR also burn spells) and sometimes they have 1-2 finishers
Blue Moon kills with snap + burn plus some finishers like batterskull or keranos. (not counting the madcap version)
Esper is the purest control and just kills with snap + manlands and sometimes it has 1 walker.
The problem with grixis I think that it is tasigur, and don't get me wrong, I love this card. But in our deck it is the only real target for our opponents' removal.
Maybe, and just maybe, we should play a stronger form of control more focused in answers (k command, counters, cryptic, Explosives...) and trying to stick our bombs (I think Keranos, God of storms is our best option, but also like Batterskull) or killing by snap + bolt + k command + electrolyze + bolt and hitting with our tar pits.
Any thought?
Edit: Keranos betst option since we can take it back with kolaghan's and it is not hitted by removal
I fully support the idea of trying out keranos and I think after the nahiri craze when she first came out is why he dropped off the map in the first place. Nahiri is virtually non existent as an answer to him and Keranos is never going to be a creature in this list barring some extreme circumstances so he's completely immune to pretty much all the removal most decks play. Sure he can be discarded but then easily bought back by k command. I'm not surprised to hear he turned out well for you, congrats on the games as well btw good showing. I think the only place I disagree with is batterskull, at least in the main. Too much k command running around right now for it too be amazing. Against burn or aggro sure but even then I still see destructive revelry in a lot of burn side boards which would be a complete blow out for us.
I'm also a fan of the increased man lands and dropping tasigur. Great creature but as you mentioned having a creature based win condition with no other real targets means opponents will always be able to answer him. I'm not a fan of ashiok at all in modern in general. I keep trying to make it work as a fun of in occasional lists since it's an amazing planeswalker flavour wise but it just never pulls it's weight.
Another card I've really grown fond of but in cruel control was jace architect of thought, speaking of planeswalkers. Generates value and a main deck answer to lingering souls but comes down at sorcery speed so that's a potential drawback.
Arngothia, I don't think you're taking into account how much this deck actually wants to use the cards in the graveyard though. Yes we could probably support another delve card or 2 but they're directly competing with snapcaster mages and k commands. My fear is you'll run into very awkward situations where you have snapcaster with juicy targets in your gy or a k command and creatures to bring back but also want to play a delve threat and now you have to weigh your options since you can't do both. Taking more turns to wait to fill the yard more means you have a dead card sitting in your hand that whole time, I just don't know if it would work. Also your English is fine don't worry, and I'm not taking what you say personally aha as I hope you're doing the same with mine. It's all just good debate, we're all trying to make grixis as good as we can
And darkvoid I think the 3 cmc hard counters are just very awkward and are either too slow or too low impact. I much prefer a split of earlier conditional counters (I'm a big fan of logic knot just not in tasigur lists) with cryptic commands as our hard counters that also generate additional value.
I've been running 1x Damnation for a long time, even as Grixis Delver. Every time I try to outthink it, I end up in a situation where I wish I had it as a sweeper, and not a Pyroclasm, AotG, or other (namely a mix of out of control Goyfs or or other things, etc). Also SB EE and Izzet Staticaster.
Sorry for the double post didn't see this one. I absolutely loved damnation in grixis control and was even up to 2 copies at times but I don't think it's as useful for this list. The benefit to those smaller, conditional sweepers you mentioned is that it's usually going to be 1 sided in our favour so we still have threats on the field once it resolves. Goyfs and the like can be handled by the playset of push and the terminates in the list, not to mention our creatures aren't exactly small either.
The most useful matchup for damnation is against e tron but in that matchup we have to go under them and play the beatdown/disruption. If we start trying to play like a control deck and take a turn off to reset the board, we're going to give them too much time and their creatures/planeswalkers especially post board are just going to be so much better than what we're playing.
I don't think the card (hollow one) would be very strong in this list. A 1 mana 4/4 after faithless looting isn't as good as a 1 mana 4/5 with an ability or a 1 mana 5/5 after thought scour. Plus not running thought scours make tasigur and angler far worse and become unreliable to cast early on. It being an artifact is also relevant in the mirror due to k command. Thought scour is also a better topdeck in the late game as it actually cantrips whereas looting would be a dead draw.
Maybe in the side as an additional threat to go around grave hate but even then grave hate takes out flashback from looting making it much worse and I think we simply have better options (planeswalkers, removing or countering the grave hate, etc)
Valid target is different from "high impact" target are two different things though. Firing it off at whatever jank is in their graveyard is often not very useful in matches. Don't get me wrong; sometimes an early Surgical is a slam dunk against your opponent. You cast it, hit something nice in their grave and then find 1-2 more in their hand. Those few and far between moments feel pretty good, but half the time it sits in your hand, waiting for an opportune target.
It does do major work against Dredge and a handful of other decks, but against the entire field, it's better to just have consistency over a card that randomly hoses a deck sometimes and sometimes does nothing.
Agreed, I don't think main deck surgical is a good idea. The lists with pyro could potentially benefit from it as a much weaker cabal therapy. Even then, to act as cabal therapy you would have to have information of their hand via a discard spell and then they have to have multiples of that spell in hand. Otherwise if they only have the 1 copy in hand then the discard already did it's job and you're not getting any additional benefit other than the 1/1 token from pyro. Surgical is at its strongest when, as already mentioned, it's removing a key piece from the other deck. For example: a tron land (from gx tron), valakut, ad nauseam, living end, etc. You then cripple that deck and sometimes you'll just get a concession on the spot.
However against other decks it's nothing more than a mild inconvenience. If you're against jund for example and you go to exile their tarmogoyf from the graveyard and they reveal a hand containing Bob, removal spells and lili then you're gonna feel very silly since you just spent a card to deal with something that they haven't even drawn yet, which puts you at a disadvantage. Another example mentioned is against control and trying to exile path. Sure, got that out of the way but they still have verdict, blessed alliance, counter spells and planeswalkers. And that's if they even have targets for you in the first place, if there's a rip in play then surgical is actively dead weight since you can't even pay the 2 life to cast it to pump your shadow. Street wraith may not be the most impactful card in all matchups but because it cycles it's always guaranteed to do something and sometimes the body can be relevant.
I'm all for innovation and revisiting the stock list but putting in main deck discard, more delve creatures, stubborn denial, etc at what point do you just become deaths shadow? Nothing wrong with that since it's an amazing deck but you might as well just adopt their stock list and work from there. Removing shadow from that list and using more delve threats and slow reactive cards doesn't seem like a good idea.
Also by increasing the amount of delve threats, I think you become far too reliant on the graveyard and you'll get hosed by graveyard hate that practically every single deck is packing and you're gonna struggle closing out games. Just my 2 cents
Hey all, figured I'd introduce myself here. I don't post too often on these forums but I was on Corey's Grixis control list and just started cruel control not too long ago to satisfy my inner control Timmy. I love Bolas so actually casting him has been very rewarding, tiered decks be damned. I've been experimenting with my deck and here's the list so far. Just came back from a modern fnm type event and came 7th out of 17 going 3-1 so a decent showing. Write up is below the list:
My deck was the above but -1 brutality and +1 dispel. I changed that after the event tonight to see if that improves my burn matchup at all since it's been absolutely abysmal for me.
Round 1: Jund Burn 0-2
Interesting deck, was mostly red green but splashing black instead of white. The only creature different than usual was vexing devils and as far as I could tell the black was there for claim/fame which actually gave him some resiliency so it was interesting to play against.
Game 1
Actually lasted much longer than I thought I would but I ran low on cards and couldn't keep up. With no clock on my end he was free to just keep jamming card after card at me and it got rough
Basically just cut the slowest cards and the weaker of my win conditions against burn since the life gain from Cruel makes it strictly better
Game 2
Got ran over again, never had a chance to get set up. Was caught in an awkward position at 2 life with an eidolon in play and terminate in hand. I hate this matchup lol
Round 2: Storm 2-1
Game 1
I countered the first gifts but it wasn't enough and he eventually found the second one and I had nothing left for it
Again just cutting the slow cards in favour of more interaction. Rakdos charm would be good in response to past in flames and could potentially be a cute way to win if he goes nuts with goblin tokens
Game 2
Early snapcaster and a lot of permission to back it up got me the win, surgicalled his gifts after I countered it the first time which slowed him down tremendously
Game 3
This was a long one, I had 5 mana up along with jace, dispel, surgical and a land and he had an electromancer with 4 lands. I figured I had to try to get some cards so I slammed jace and held up dispel. On his turn he got me down to 5 with a grape shot and then cast past in flames. Unfortunately dispel was dead in my hand so in response I surgicalled his grapeshot instead. He tried to swan song and I used the dispel on that instead. I removed it and went through his deck and found he was down to just that one grapeshot and the only other storm card was goblin tokens. If I could keep jace alive he couldn't kill me so I crossed my fingers and hoped. My opponent then went off and created 36 goblin tokens. I upticked jace on my turn and my opponent went to read it because I don't think he realized it basically locked him out of the game. I drew a logic knot and just held up mana for that while attacking with creeping tar pit every turn. He eventually tried to bounce jace with his one echoing truth and he scooped when I countered it. Drew quite a crowd on that last game too it was very tense until I removed grapeshot
Round 3: Ad Nauseam 2-0
Game 1
Got incredibly lucky this game and won even though I thought for sure it was basically a straight to sideboard type of game. He kept a hand of every mana accelerant possible and ad nauseam. I tried to play an ambush viper turn 2 but he actually caught me with censor (didn't expect that one at all). He eventually ran out of cards though and cast ad nauseam by itself to refill which I countered. I started beating down with tar pit and snapcaster but he had unlife in play so it was an extremely slow clock. My opponent bought several turns for himself too with casting angel's grace to stay at exactly 1 life. I finally got him down to -1 and I had jace out. Eventually ulted him bringing in Bolas which destroyed unlife for the win on the spot. I got very lucky here early, by the end though even if he had drawn it I had virtually every counterspell I could ask for so he would need at least a pact or 2 for back up.
Took out the removal and expensive counters along with the weaker of my win conditions. Brought in almost every card in my sideboard, more or less just replacing bad cards rather than putting the best ones in
Game 2
Very smooth game for me, kept him low on mana by either countering or blowing up his mana rocks. Had snapcaster and fulminator out early as clocks and they eventually got there
Round 4: Goblins 2-0
This match was especially sweet for me; earlier in the night someone mentioned that there was someone playing Bolas tonight and he said something to the effect of "if you actually play Bolas in modern you're an idiot" and acted very smug about it.
Game 1
Easy game for me, resolved about 3 visions which got me so much card advantage that the few times he ever resolved a spell it was immediately killed. Snapcaster beats eventually got there
Took out one of the win conditions as always (depends on the matchup) and brought in every sweeper I could get my hands on.
Game 2
Now at the start of this game I'll give my opponent the benefit of the doubt but here's what happened; he finished shuffling before I did and had his deck out in front of me. I was in the middle of pile shuffling but to make things go faster I cut his deck and continued shuffling mine. When I looked back up he was shuffling again and I asked him, "going down to 6?" To which he said no he just wants to shuffle it again just to be sure. Now maybe he looked at the starting hand maybe not but it wasn't worth the hassle so I let it slide and just played the best I could. I had to mulligan down to 5 this game too but eventually got there. I had 2 damnations in my hand by turn 2 so I pitched one to brutality. I guess due to this my opponent overextended later into a jace thinking he was safe and got bushwhacker out there with 3 other creatures. I used cryptic to tap his team and then cast my other damnation on my turn which basically sealed the game even though it took another 3 turns to get there. Jace eventually ulted getting cruel ultimatum, my opponent was at 10 so I just showed him I would get back snapcaster with it to flash it back and he scooped. Goblins may be aggressive but due to most of their damage coming from creatures it's far more manageable than burn
Overall thoughts:
Burn was a miserable matchup as always and not quite sure what to do about it. It's tricky with grixis colours and being a slow deck but hopefully the extra brutality helps out. I'm also tempted to just give up on that matchup altogether and use the sideboard slots to give me an edge in closer matchups.
Jace is an absolute all star and I would never go below 2 in this deck. He consistently overperformed today and on other days gives me main deck outs to lingering souls and the like.
I used to run more creatures in this deck briefly but was thoroughly unimpressed with everything I tried (tasigur, kalitas, etc) since the overall creature count is so low that everyone has plenty of removal for it. I've been having better luck with a spell/planeswalker focus but it does worsen my combo matchups a bit since I lack an efficient clock
Fulminator mage is good vs tron variants,valakut,uw control(any control that uses manlands as a winxon).
Rejection is only good vs tron and affinity.I think its too narrow to play it.
I dont think you need x2 staticaster cause many times they may have buffed their token to 2/2 so u cant kill them or their birds may have beed buff from gavony ,etc u get the point .
I think ceremonious rejection is actually in a really good spot right now personally; as you mentioned it's amazing against e-tron and affinity as it answers everything they play for just one mana (granted e-tron has cavern but with only 4 maps it's no guarantee they always have it). My meta is infested with those decks so I run 2 in the board and they've been doing great. Fulminator mage on the other hand I've been less impressed with lately, especially since e-tron has basically replaced gx tron. They're still good but doing your standard destroy urza land and surgical doesn't actually stop e-tron and just slows them down, sometimes not at all if they have multiple temples. E-tron's creatures are much lower on the curve so they can still play pretty effectively. Just my experience
Also sorry about my earlier post, I had every intention of following up on it but since the time I posted that I had a job interview to prepare for (which I got so I'm very happy about that) and I coach as a volunteer so between those 2 I got incredibly busy and just forgot all about it. I ran more tests with the blue jund version and I can safely say I really don't think it's a good place to be. Discard is great but the deck is so slow that it can't capitalize on poking holes in your opponents hand like shadow or bgx decks can. Discard is also a very bad topdeck late game and since this deck is so slow it's trying to get to the late game anyway which seemed like a nonbo. Also I hated being incredibly weak to the opponent's top decks. Discard doesn't mean anything when your opponent slams a karn/primeval titan/living end/etc off the top and you're giving the other player so many potential draws to do so. It was fun don't get me wrong but I think if you wanna be proactive in grixis (moreso than control at least) you should either play shadow or delver.
I'm messing around lately playing cruel control which has been hilarious but when I get serious about gp's or something along those lines, I'll be playing something close to the "stock" list again
Just did a fnm type event, not a huge crowd but went undefeated with grixis midrange beating grixis shadow and living end (had a bye the first round). Made some misplays for sure but felt I did a good job overall. I'll post a more detailed write up later, deck list is here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/21-05-17-grixis-midrange/
That's the current iteration anyway, it's not perfect and constantly shifting around but it's been working so far. I still have all the cards for the burkhart version but I've been having more success with discard vs counters right now
All the cards you listed for Slay could also be killed for 1 cmc with push except for prime which you're in a horrible position at that point and most likely to get burned out by valakut triggers. I always side out terminates against valakut for that reason, at best it's a bandaid solution but you're still very likely dead really soon.
And electrolyze is not better than bolt at all. There's at reason almost no decks run electrolyze versus every deck that's running red having the full playset of bolts. It all comes down to mana efficiency and for 3 mana electrolyze doesn't really do enough especially in this meta. If you have a bunch of x/1s running around then maybe but that's meta specific not overall.
Edit: as for Thoughtseize, discard is at its strongest in the first few turns and an abysmal top deck later on. Doesn't matter if you can cycle through and guarantee you find it by turn 5 or 6 since by then it's usually too late to grab what you wanted to stop
Olivia Voldaren looks out of place but it's my best card vs. Bant Eldrazi. A mix of Clique and Fulminator are the tron predators -- you don't want a bunch of either since they become redundant after the 2nd.
Slay is good vs. the uptick in Goyf decks. It's probably not necessary but it is a lot of fun. I like cantrips.
While I agree with some of what you posted I disagree with quite a bit as well. Ancestral visions is a big part of what helps this deck grind and allows it to play so much one for one removal. I agree multiples hurt especially late game but running any less than 4 is a mistake imo since it's our strongest turn 1 play for a lot of matchups.
As for sideboarding: What is Olivia doing for you in the bant eldrazi matchups? I don't really see how she would be useful, It's 7 mana to start controlling creatures and you even have to discard 2 cards if you want to use it on smasher so wouldn't more removal just be better? And on that note, I don't see the point in Slay over fatal push especially vs goyf decks as you mentioned. Is 2 extra mana over push worth cycling? The Thoughtseize also seems really out of place, especially as a 1 of, Doesn't seem like it would come up very often and if it does its even less likely to be in your opening hand where it's most effective.
Doesn't really further anything this deck is trying to do. We already have bolt (same damage for one mana and instant speed) and don't play any discard as is let alone mind rot which is worse since the opponent chooses what to discard. Maybe in a less counterspell heavy list that doesn't mind tapping out, but even then I think you have much better options
i just want to ask you Grixis player if Defense Grid would hurt you much? i think that it's a great card but really underplayed especially now when Control is on the rise..
It hurts grixis a lot less than esper or jeskai since we run 3 kolaghan's command in the main. Enchantment based hate it a lot more effective against grixis
The deck felt really weak against MonoG and Scapeshift, and generally I felt doing nothing beside "land-go", other than always rely on Tasigur. Fulminator-SE were poor against Scapeshift since it never played Valakut, and poor against UWR since he knew that Colonnade would have been killed by Push (sided out), Terminate and Fulminator and those games were very grindy and he couldn't afford to tap 5 for a risky attack anyway. Clique performed very well.
I know fighting three decks only isn't enough to judge, but even on Cockatrice I had the same feeling and watching the deck playing out confirms my fears: it relies too much on Tasigur and even then it isn't always going well.
I'm going to the GP in Utrecht but I don't know if I would bring this version instead of the Delver one.
For the rug scapeshift match up you can actually do some serious damage to them by surgicalling their dual lands not just valakuts. They don't run as much redundancy for mountains that regular scapeshift or Titan breach does so if they're sandbagging the valakuts you can try that out instead. I've had some success doing that against the deck.
Mono green stompy is a weird deck and also runs a lot of hexproof so its good against our single target removal stuff, luckily it's a super fringe deck so you shouldn't run into it too often.
I disagree with relying too much on tasigur, I mean sure he's a big part of the deck and a great card but I've won games where I've had literally every copy of tasigur pathed/exiled, it just means your clock is substantially slower. Regardless,good luck in the GP whichever deck you decide to use!
1 Blood Crypt
3 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Drowned Catacomb
1 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Cryptic Command
3 Fatal Push
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Logic Knot
1 Negate
2 Spell Snare
3 Terminate
4 Ancestral Vision
1 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Serum Visions
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Ceremonious Rejection
3 Collective Brutality
2 Damnation
1 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Rakdos Charm
2 Surgical Extraction
If I were to take away simply fun cards like bolas and cruel and trim the deck down (including the land count slightly, and replace a steam vents with a wandering fumarole for an additional manland) this is very close to what I would run in modern as grixis control. I liked av in this list but there were a few situations where I either died before it came off suspend or it came up mid to late game and I wanted it to be basically anything else. I think running think twice (similar to when I tried esper it's nice to use open mana if no counters or removal are needed as well as cycling to ensure land drops) and a pull from tomorrow would be what I would personally use. I also like the idea of keranos as a win condition and would probably include that as well. Basically it would be very similar to wolf's list with slight differences.
Right now I'm focused on grinding out reps with shadow (finally bit the bullet and tried it, way more fun than I thought it would be even though I still miss casting cryptic loops) since there's going to be a large amount of pptq's, iq's and such in my area over the next 2 months so I want to get as good as possible with that deck. Once that's done I'll definitely see what I can come up with for control at fnm type events and post write ups here. I'm still keeping tabs here in the meantime though, control will always be something I'm interested in.
I fully support the idea of trying out keranos and I think after the nahiri craze when she first came out is why he dropped off the map in the first place. Nahiri is virtually non existent as an answer to him and Keranos is never going to be a creature in this list barring some extreme circumstances so he's completely immune to pretty much all the removal most decks play. Sure he can be discarded but then easily bought back by k command. I'm not surprised to hear he turned out well for you, congrats on the games as well btw good showing. I think the only place I disagree with is batterskull, at least in the main. Too much k command running around right now for it too be amazing. Against burn or aggro sure but even then I still see destructive revelry in a lot of burn side boards which would be a complete blow out for us.
I'm also a fan of the increased man lands and dropping tasigur. Great creature but as you mentioned having a creature based win condition with no other real targets means opponents will always be able to answer him. I'm not a fan of ashiok at all in modern in general. I keep trying to make it work as a fun of in occasional lists since it's an amazing planeswalker flavour wise but it just never pulls it's weight.
Another card I've really grown fond of but in cruel control was jace architect of thought, speaking of planeswalkers. Generates value and a main deck answer to lingering souls but comes down at sorcery speed so that's a potential drawback.
Arngothia, I don't think you're taking into account how much this deck actually wants to use the cards in the graveyard though. Yes we could probably support another delve card or 2 but they're directly competing with snapcaster mages and k commands. My fear is you'll run into very awkward situations where you have snapcaster with juicy targets in your gy or a k command and creatures to bring back but also want to play a delve threat and now you have to weigh your options since you can't do both. Taking more turns to wait to fill the yard more means you have a dead card sitting in your hand that whole time, I just don't know if it would work. Also your English is fine don't worry, and I'm not taking what you say personally aha as I hope you're doing the same with mine. It's all just good debate, we're all trying to make grixis as good as we can
And darkvoid I think the 3 cmc hard counters are just very awkward and are either too slow or too low impact. I much prefer a split of earlier conditional counters (I'm a big fan of logic knot just not in tasigur lists) with cryptic commands as our hard counters that also generate additional value.
Sorry for the double post didn't see this one. I absolutely loved damnation in grixis control and was even up to 2 copies at times but I don't think it's as useful for this list. The benefit to those smaller, conditional sweepers you mentioned is that it's usually going to be 1 sided in our favour so we still have threats on the field once it resolves. Goyfs and the like can be handled by the playset of push and the terminates in the list, not to mention our creatures aren't exactly small either.
The most useful matchup for damnation is against e tron but in that matchup we have to go under them and play the beatdown/disruption. If we start trying to play like a control deck and take a turn off to reset the board, we're going to give them too much time and their creatures/planeswalkers especially post board are just going to be so much better than what we're playing.
Maybe in the side as an additional threat to go around grave hate but even then grave hate takes out flashback from looting making it much worse and I think we simply have better options (planeswalkers, removing or countering the grave hate, etc)
Agreed, I don't think main deck surgical is a good idea. The lists with pyro could potentially benefit from it as a much weaker cabal therapy. Even then, to act as cabal therapy you would have to have information of their hand via a discard spell and then they have to have multiples of that spell in hand. Otherwise if they only have the 1 copy in hand then the discard already did it's job and you're not getting any additional benefit other than the 1/1 token from pyro. Surgical is at its strongest when, as already mentioned, it's removing a key piece from the other deck. For example: a tron land (from gx tron), valakut, ad nauseam, living end, etc. You then cripple that deck and sometimes you'll just get a concession on the spot.
However against other decks it's nothing more than a mild inconvenience. If you're against jund for example and you go to exile their tarmogoyf from the graveyard and they reveal a hand containing Bob, removal spells and lili then you're gonna feel very silly since you just spent a card to deal with something that they haven't even drawn yet, which puts you at a disadvantage. Another example mentioned is against control and trying to exile path. Sure, got that out of the way but they still have verdict, blessed alliance, counter spells and planeswalkers. And that's if they even have targets for you in the first place, if there's a rip in play then surgical is actively dead weight since you can't even pay the 2 life to cast it to pump your shadow. Street wraith may not be the most impactful card in all matchups but because it cycles it's always guaranteed to do something and sometimes the body can be relevant.
Also by increasing the amount of delve threats, I think you become far too reliant on the graveyard and you'll get hosed by graveyard hate that practically every single deck is packing and you're gonna struggle closing out games. Just my 2 cents
1 Blood Crypt
3 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Drowned Catacomb
1 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Cryptic Command
3 Fatal Push
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Logic Knot
1 Negate
2 Spell Snare
3 Terminate
4 Ancestral Vision
1 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Serum Visions
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Ceremonious Rejection
3 Collective Brutality
2 Damnation
1 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Rakdos Charm
2 Surgical Extraction
My deck was the above but -1 brutality and +1 dispel. I changed that after the event tonight to see if that improves my burn matchup at all since it's been absolutely abysmal for me.
Round 1: Jund Burn 0-2
Interesting deck, was mostly red green but splashing black instead of white. The only creature different than usual was vexing devils and as far as I could tell the black was there for claim/fame which actually gave him some resiliency so it was interesting to play against.
Game 1
Actually lasted much longer than I thought I would but I ran low on cards and couldn't keep up. With no clock on my end he was free to just keep jamming card after card at me and it got rough
Sideboarding
- 4 ancestral
- Bolas
+ 2 dispel
+ 2 brutality
+ 1 engineered explosives
Basically just cut the slowest cards and the weaker of my win conditions against burn since the life gain from Cruel makes it strictly better
Game 2
Got ran over again, never had a chance to get set up. Was caught in an awkward position at 2 life with an eidolon in play and terminate in hand. I hate this matchup lol
Round 2: Storm 2-1
Game 1
I countered the first gifts but it wasn't enough and he eventually found the second one and I had nothing left for it
Sideboard
- 4 ancestral
- 2 cryptic command
- 1 Bolas
+ 2 brutality
+ 2 surgical
+ 2 dispel
+ 1 rakdos charm
Again just cutting the slow cards in favour of more interaction. Rakdos charm would be good in response to past in flames and could potentially be a cute way to win if he goes nuts with goblin tokens
Game 2
Early snapcaster and a lot of permission to back it up got me the win, surgicalled his gifts after I countered it the first time which slowed him down tremendously
Game 3
This was a long one, I had 5 mana up along with jace, dispel, surgical and a land and he had an electromancer with 4 lands. I figured I had to try to get some cards so I slammed jace and held up dispel. On his turn he got me down to 5 with a grape shot and then cast past in flames. Unfortunately dispel was dead in my hand so in response I surgicalled his grapeshot instead. He tried to swan song and I used the dispel on that instead. I removed it and went through his deck and found he was down to just that one grapeshot and the only other storm card was goblin tokens. If I could keep jace alive he couldn't kill me so I crossed my fingers and hoped. My opponent then went off and created 36 goblin tokens. I upticked jace on my turn and my opponent went to read it because I don't think he realized it basically locked him out of the game. I drew a logic knot and just held up mana for that while attacking with creeping tar pit every turn. He eventually tried to bounce jace with his one echoing truth and he scooped when I countered it. Drew quite a crowd on that last game too it was very tense until I removed grapeshot
Round 3: Ad Nauseam 2-0
Game 1
Got incredibly lucky this game and won even though I thought for sure it was basically a straight to sideboard type of game. He kept a hand of every mana accelerant possible and ad nauseam. I tried to play an ambush viper turn 2 but he actually caught me with censor (didn't expect that one at all). He eventually ran out of cards though and cast ad nauseam by itself to refill which I countered. I started beating down with tar pit and snapcaster but he had unlife in play so it was an extremely slow clock. My opponent bought several turns for himself too with casting angel's grace to stay at exactly 1 life. I finally got him down to -1 and I had jace out. Eventually ulted him bringing in Bolas which destroyed unlife for the win on the spot. I got very lucky here early, by the end though even if he had drawn it I had virtually every counterspell I could ask for so he would need at least a pact or 2 for back up.
Sideboard
- 4 ancestral
- 3 terminate
- 2 fatal push
- 2 cryptic
- cruel ultimatum
+ 2 dispel
+ 2 brutality
+ 2 rejection
+ 1 explosives
+ 2 fulminator mage
+ 2 surgical
+ 1 rakdos charm
Took out the removal and expensive counters along with the weaker of my win conditions. Brought in almost every card in my sideboard, more or less just replacing bad cards rather than putting the best ones in
Game 2
Very smooth game for me, kept him low on mana by either countering or blowing up his mana rocks. Had snapcaster and fulminator out early as clocks and they eventually got there
Round 4: Goblins 2-0
This match was especially sweet for me; earlier in the night someone mentioned that there was someone playing Bolas tonight and he said something to the effect of "if you actually play Bolas in modern you're an idiot" and acted very smug about it.
Game 1
Easy game for me, resolved about 3 visions which got me so much card advantage that the few times he ever resolved a spell it was immediately killed. Snapcaster beats eventually got there
Sideboard
- 2 spell snare
- 2 cryptic
- bolas
- negate
+ 2 damnation
+ 2 brutality
+ 1 anger
+ 1 explosives
Took out one of the win conditions as always (depends on the matchup) and brought in every sweeper I could get my hands on.
Game 2
Now at the start of this game I'll give my opponent the benefit of the doubt but here's what happened; he finished shuffling before I did and had his deck out in front of me. I was in the middle of pile shuffling but to make things go faster I cut his deck and continued shuffling mine. When I looked back up he was shuffling again and I asked him, "going down to 6?" To which he said no he just wants to shuffle it again just to be sure. Now maybe he looked at the starting hand maybe not but it wasn't worth the hassle so I let it slide and just played the best I could. I had to mulligan down to 5 this game too but eventually got there. I had 2 damnations in my hand by turn 2 so I pitched one to brutality. I guess due to this my opponent overextended later into a jace thinking he was safe and got bushwhacker out there with 3 other creatures. I used cryptic to tap his team and then cast my other damnation on my turn which basically sealed the game even though it took another 3 turns to get there. Jace eventually ulted getting cruel ultimatum, my opponent was at 10 so I just showed him I would get back snapcaster with it to flash it back and he scooped. Goblins may be aggressive but due to most of their damage coming from creatures it's far more manageable than burn
Overall thoughts:
Burn was a miserable matchup as always and not quite sure what to do about it. It's tricky with grixis colours and being a slow deck but hopefully the extra brutality helps out. I'm also tempted to just give up on that matchup altogether and use the sideboard slots to give me an edge in closer matchups.
Jace is an absolute all star and I would never go below 2 in this deck. He consistently overperformed today and on other days gives me main deck outs to lingering souls and the like.
I used to run more creatures in this deck briefly but was thoroughly unimpressed with everything I tried (tasigur, kalitas, etc) since the overall creature count is so low that everyone has plenty of removal for it. I've been having better luck with a spell/planeswalker focus but it does worsen my combo matchups a bit since I lack an efficient clock
I think ceremonious rejection is actually in a really good spot right now personally; as you mentioned it's amazing against e-tron and affinity as it answers everything they play for just one mana (granted e-tron has cavern but with only 4 maps it's no guarantee they always have it). My meta is infested with those decks so I run 2 in the board and they've been doing great. Fulminator mage on the other hand I've been less impressed with lately, especially since e-tron has basically replaced gx tron. They're still good but doing your standard destroy urza land and surgical doesn't actually stop e-tron and just slows them down, sometimes not at all if they have multiple temples. E-tron's creatures are much lower on the curve so they can still play pretty effectively. Just my experience
Also sorry about my earlier post, I had every intention of following up on it but since the time I posted that I had a job interview to prepare for (which I got so I'm very happy about that) and I coach as a volunteer so between those 2 I got incredibly busy and just forgot all about it. I ran more tests with the blue jund version and I can safely say I really don't think it's a good place to be. Discard is great but the deck is so slow that it can't capitalize on poking holes in your opponents hand like shadow or bgx decks can. Discard is also a very bad topdeck late game and since this deck is so slow it's trying to get to the late game anyway which seemed like a nonbo. Also I hated being incredibly weak to the opponent's top decks. Discard doesn't mean anything when your opponent slams a karn/primeval titan/living end/etc off the top and you're giving the other player so many potential draws to do so. It was fun don't get me wrong but I think if you wanna be proactive in grixis (moreso than control at least) you should either play shadow or delver.
I'm messing around lately playing cruel control which has been hilarious but when I get serious about gp's or something along those lines, I'll be playing something close to the "stock" list again
That's the current iteration anyway, it's not perfect and constantly shifting around but it's been working so far. I still have all the cards for the burkhart version but I've been having more success with discard vs counters right now
And electrolyze is not better than bolt at all. There's at reason almost no decks run electrolyze versus every deck that's running red having the full playset of bolts. It all comes down to mana efficiency and for 3 mana electrolyze doesn't really do enough especially in this meta. If you have a bunch of x/1s running around then maybe but that's meta specific not overall.
Edit: as for Thoughtseize, discard is at its strongest in the first few turns and an abysmal top deck later on. Doesn't matter if you can cycle through and guarantee you find it by turn 5 or 6 since by then it's usually too late to grab what you wanted to stop
While I agree with some of what you posted I disagree with quite a bit as well. Ancestral visions is a big part of what helps this deck grind and allows it to play so much one for one removal. I agree multiples hurt especially late game but running any less than 4 is a mistake imo since it's our strongest turn 1 play for a lot of matchups.
As for sideboarding: What is Olivia doing for you in the bant eldrazi matchups? I don't really see how she would be useful, It's 7 mana to start controlling creatures and you even have to discard 2 cards if you want to use it on smasher so wouldn't more removal just be better? And on that note, I don't see the point in Slay over fatal push especially vs goyf decks as you mentioned. Is 2 extra mana over push worth cycling? The Thoughtseize also seems really out of place, especially as a 1 of, Doesn't seem like it would come up very often and if it does its even less likely to be in your opening hand where it's most effective.
Good luck regardless
Doesn't really further anything this deck is trying to do. We already have bolt (same damage for one mana and instant speed) and don't play any discard as is let alone mind rot which is worse since the opponent chooses what to discard. Maybe in a less counterspell heavy list that doesn't mind tapping out, but even then I think you have much better options
It hurts grixis a lot less than esper or jeskai since we run 3 kolaghan's command in the main. Enchantment based hate it a lot more effective against grixis
For the rug scapeshift match up you can actually do some serious damage to them by surgicalling their dual lands not just valakuts. They don't run as much redundancy for mountains that regular scapeshift or Titan breach does so if they're sandbagging the valakuts you can try that out instead. I've had some success doing that against the deck.
Mono green stompy is a weird deck and also runs a lot of hexproof so its good against our single target removal stuff, luckily it's a super fringe deck so you shouldn't run into it too often.
I disagree with relying too much on tasigur, I mean sure he's a big part of the deck and a great card but I've won games where I've had literally every copy of tasigur pathed/exiled, it just means your clock is substantially slower. Regardless,good luck in the GP whichever deck you decide to use!
Edit: typos