Grixis Control

so, does anyone else think that bant is totally viable with calcite snapper?
it seems like all the exalted and rafiq bonuses make the deck really competitive.

i don't own any rafiqs, so i am in no hurry to play it but it seems like a shroud guy like that is difficult for the average deck to deal with.

Good card is good. It's the wall I was waiting for to switch over to Grixis from UWr control. It's been fantastic so far--switching from defense to offense when needed and doing a great job of protecting Jace, the Mind Awesome. Also, Creeping Tar Pits is REALLY good...just thought I'd throw that in there.

Be_Nike wrote:

Good card is good. It's the wall I was waiting for to switch over to Grixis from UWr control. It's been fantastic so far--switching from defense to offense when needed and doing a great job of protecting Jace, the Mind Awesome. Also, Creeping Tar Pits is REALLY good...just thought I'd throw that in there.

yeah, i have to agree with tar pit. i also feel like i am the only !#$%^&* who hasn't opened a dozen manlands yet. everyone else had what seemed like two in every sealed pool. it was ridiculous.

and i have been a vanguard for grixis for a while now. it is tempting to dust that B**** off for my time out in the new constructed but i have to try to give some one an immortal coil first. once i get that out of my system, i gonna try to get my cruel ultimatums to take me back. we broke up on kind of bad terms the last time, so i still don't know if they will even talk to me anymore. i have also had fun rising iona from the grave lately, so its kind of a toss up.

I split for first with a grixis control list last night. Very efficient with man lands and calcite snapper to get people in the range of dying to a cruel.

JakeFaas wrote:

I split for first with a grixis control list last night. Very efficient with man lands and calcite snapper to get people in the range of dying to a cruel.

not trying to plunder your secrets but any planeswalkers in that fancy feast of a list?

I also split for first last night. Calcite Snapper is awesome as was Smother for killing manlands and keeping them off a fast start until I could stabalize. For planeswalkers I played three Jace, the Mind Awesome main and one Sorin in the side. I have to go to work now, but I'll post my list later tonight.

Be_Nike wrote:

I also split for first last night. Calcite Snapper is awesome as was Smother for killing manlands and keeping them off a fast start until I could stabalize. For planeswalkers I played three Jace, the Mind Awesome main and one Sorin in the side. I have to go to work now, but I'll post my list later tonight.

i knew someday my grixis would come back to me. i'm so glad to hear such immediate success from people playing cruel ultimatums.

jake was running sorvin and nico bolis...not sure if it was out of the side or not but he destroyed me in the semi's...im sure if he would have been trying to win instead of dooing cool control stuff he could have beat me alot sooner that he did!!!

chops wrote:

jake was running sorvin and nico bolis...not sure if it was out of the side or not but he destroyed me in the semi's...im sure if he would have been trying to win instead of dooing cool control stuff he could have beat me alot sooner that he did!!!

lol... isn't that always what happens?

i really think he was going to wait around to cruel me again before he'd finish me off...

I play 2 new Jace, 1 lilianna, 1 sorin, 1 nicol bolas all main deck. Diversifying the planeswalkers helps to force bad swings for people and it doesn't make you hold onto copies in hand. I was all around happy with my deck's performance last night, barring an embarassing scoop to a non-lethal Brave the Elements naming blue vs my board of Sphinx and Snapper, it was a pretty good showing.

DECK: "The Answering Machine"

Lands 27
3 Island
4 Swamp
2 Mountain
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Crumbling Necropolis
2 Dragonskull Summit
3 Drowned Catacombs
1 Magosi, the Waterveil
4 Scalding Tarn

Creatures 6
4 Calcite Snapper
2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle

Spells 27
3 Blightning
3 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Essence Scatter
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Liliana Vess
2 Negate
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
2 Smother
1 Sorin Markov
2 Terminate
4 Treasure Hunt

SIDEBOARD
1 Blightning
1 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Deathmark
1 Djinn of Wishes
1 Essence Scatter
3 Flashfreeze
3 Magma Spray
1 Quest for Ancient Secrets
2 Pithing Needle

Though I really enjoy smother, Terminate is still the order of the day to deal with big fatty Baneslayer. And before anyone says anything, milling in our meta is an honest to god strategy, so Quest for Ancient Secrets stays in the sideboard.

JakeFaas wrote:

I play 2 new Jace, 1 lilianna, 1 sorin, 1 nicol bolas all main deck. Diversifying the planeswalkers helps to force bad swings for people and it doesn't make you hold onto copies in hand. I was all around happy with my deck's performance last night, barring an embarassing scoop to a non-lethal Brave the Elements naming blue vs my board of Sphinx and Snapper, it was a pretty good showing.

DECK: "The Answering Machine"

Lands 27
3 Island
4 Swamp
2 Mountain
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Crumbling Necropolis
2 Dragonskull Summit
3 Drowned Catacombs
1 Magosi, the Waterveil
4 Scalding Tarn

Creatures 6
4 Calcite Snapper
2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle

Spells 27
3 Blightning
3 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Essence Scatter
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Liliana Vess
2 Negate
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
2 Smother
1 Sorin Markov
2 Terminate
4 Treasure Hunt

SIDEBOARD
1 Blightning
1 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Deathmark
1 Djinn of Wishes
1 Essence Scatter
3 Flashfreeze
3 Magma Spray
1 Quest for Ancient Secrets
2 Pithing Needle

Though I really enjoy smother, Terminate is still the order of the day to deal with big fatty Baneslayer. And before anyone says anything, milling in our meta is an honest to god strategy, so Quest for Ancient Secrets stays in the sideboard.

how was treasure hunt performing for you?
i've done some preliminary testing with it and love and hate it all at the same time. i think it definitely is the draw spell i've been looking for but every once in a while, drawing one card is a little annoying but stringing it together jace seems to be the ticket. this is a really good list, jake. i am a fan of the walker control angle and this seems really familiar already.

Treasure hunt is terrific. On its own, even at cycling, its oftentimes vastly better than most other draw spells (Divination, Courier's Capsule), because it leaves you with more mana to play with. Sometimes it was uneventful Treasure Hunt into Removal or jace, but the times when you string 3-5 lands (YES 5!!!) only to hit a cruel or nicol bolas really make up for the times you only cycle it into removal. And i'm going to go out on a limb and say i have yet to treasure hunt into another treasure hunt without at least hitting one land, so even in that situation, it dug me two deep and got me another go at treasure hunting. The amount of removal in the deck almost makes it into a fixed bloodbraid for removal sometimes. Definately the draw spell i've been looking for, but could easily go to 3 in the deck and feel probably very little impact if i replaced it with another removal spell (Bit Blast perhaps?)

JakeFaas wrote:

Treasure hunt is terrific. On its own, even at cycling, its oftentimes vastly better than most other draw spells (Divination, Courier's Capsule), because it leaves you with more mana to play with. Sometimes it was uneventful Treasure Hunt into Removal or jace, but the times when you string 3-5 lands (YES 5!!!) only to hit a cruel or nicol bolas really make up for the times you only cycle it into removal. And i'm going to go out on a limb and say i have yet to treasure hunt into another treasure hunt without at least hitting one land, so even in that situation, it dug me two deep and got me another go at treasure hunting. The amount of removal in the deck almost makes it into a fixed bloodbraid for removal sometimes. Definately the draw spell i've been looking for, but could easily go to 3 in the deck and feel probably very little impact if i replaced it with another removal spell (Bit Blast perhaps?)

the additional bonus from finding pretty much every other removal spell + hitting jace off bit blast is something that has been tempting me since jace was spoiled. i would definitely support such a suggestion.

ha ha. and i just noticed the one-of djinn in the sideboard. how did that one work out for you, jake? i feel like running that with both jace and liliana could make for shenanigans galore, in spite of how slow it might be.

I really like your list Jake, it looks like a winner. However, i am wondering how the Magosi was working for you? Every time i have played that card, i found it to be slightly less than impressive, so i was just curious.

I was going to ask the same thing about Magosi, I just don't understand the card. Or how you are supposed to use it.

Traetus wrote:

I was going to ask the same thing about Magosi, I just don't understand the card. Or how you are supposed to use it.

in a deck like jake's, if magosi happens to come down for you, there are alot of turns where you are playing draw/go. you're just eliminating their threats. so there will be times where, late in the game, all they draw is land or something and it doesn't hurt to give them another one. that way, once you drop a planeswalker, you get all the more value out of it. drop liliana, fetch a bituminous blast (i know its not necessarily in the list), take an extra turn. draw blast. fetch for blightning, pass the turn. their draw step, nuke their guy and destroy what remains of their hand. it is definitely a late game card but it definitely comes with a bit of a skill intensive learning curve. plus, if you just wanted to say you don't like it and never play it, i'm sure that's fine too.

That makes sense, thanks for the explanation!

Traetus wrote:

That makes sense, thanks for the explanation!

you coming to edh today?

No, haha I missed it. I should have went though. I ended up getting another fat pack today. So i have like a total of 21 packs of Worldwake. But in the fatpack I got 2 sets of doubles in the rares. I thought that was kind of frustrating.

Anyway, hope EDH was good!

The other topic was pretty much becoming a discussion for Grixis Control, so I figured it could do with it's own thread since I'm sure there will be plenty of discussion on the variance of lists. It sounds like people have been having good success with Grixis so far in the new standard, with Jake placing first in Roch and me placing first down here in good old Kansas. Anyway, here is the list that I took first with down here out of about the 16 or so we had at FNM:

Grixis Co--ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL. (cookie to whoever gets the reference first)

Creatures 6
4x Calcite Snapper
2x Sphinx of Jwar Isle

Spells 28
3x Double Negative
2x Essence Scatter
1x Negate
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Smother
3x Terminate
2x Earthquake
3x Cruel Ultimatum
3x Jace, the Mind Awesome
4x Treasure Hunt

Lands 26
4x Crumbling Necropolis
3x Drowned Catacomb
3x Dragonskull Summit
2x Creeping Tar Pit
1x Lavaclaw Reaches
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Swamp
2x Mountain
2x Island
2x Halimar Depths

Sideboard 15
4x Deathmark
1x Sorin Markov
3x Flashfreeze
3x Malakir Bloodwitch
2x Negate
2x Permafrost Trap



There's A LOT of Jund in my meta and that's why Double Negative is maindeck. My four rounds leading up to top 4 were UWR Control, Eldrazi G/W, Jund, and Persecutor Jund. The only match that was really close was Eldrazi G/W when they got a quick Hierarch start that I mistakenly kept a removal light hand on. I faced the Persecutor Jund deck again in the top 4 and then split for first.

The deck is really good, at least until Tectonic Edge sees more play (or you run into more Vampires). The combination of Jace, Depths, and Treasure Hunt is just stupid for ensuring that you get what you want when you need -- thank God blue has a decent draw engine again. Speaking of Jace -- he's ridiculous and Brainstorming is fun...that's really all there is to it. Locking midrange decks out of their creatures with the bounce ability is pretty good too and helps you get to the late game (read: Cruel Ultimatum). Smother killed many a man-land (which pretty much every deck is playing) and a few Leaterback Baloths in the Eldrazi matchup. The deck absolutely annihilates Jund and I'm thoroughly enjoying that fact. I for one am just glad to be playing Islands in standard again and not be embarrassed about it. Since the FNM I have acquired another Tar Pit (which is amazing btw) and replaced the Lavaclaw Reaches with it. I did end up winning one game on the back of Crueling and then attacking with a huge Reaches, but the Tar Pit is just so stupid good.

Maybe we can consolidate this with the other thread that discusses it and turn it into a full-fledged Grixis discussion?

Jake, I was wondering why you didn't play any Halimar Depths in you build? I would think it at least does more than Magosi.

I believe that to be the collectors form mass effect 2 old chum. LOL. Any way It looks like a jund killing machine. But a target for are long forgotten zombie friend from the 5 color control days

I AM KORGAN!!!!!!!

i would say a few things about this list, at first glance.
1) good to see double negative pulling is weight. a card i've loved as much as i've hated. not enough jund round these here parts to be as pressing a card to play but one i still hold close to my standard heart.
2) your side board seems really familiar to me. i dig it. even the permafrost traps. suck it eldrazi.
3) recognizing the lack of defenders, i will say that given the tempo and nature of our meta here, magosi certainly isn't an unreasonable card. the short discussion regarding misunderstanding it gives it game in really weird ways. it seems strange to say it that way but spending the first four turns blasting their hand and board, only to give 'em a free turn to fail to do anything else while you're working your way up to end game can be advantageous. against jund, perhaps not but they're really the only other deck that might top deck a card and end up playing three cards when they're done.
4) also, you're absolutely right about tectonic edge. i've been noodling around with a few mono and two color decks just to get a feel for how some cards interact and tectonic edge is silly good against a relevant portion of the field. kills oran reef. kills everything in jund. kills magosi . i just haven't found a good place for it yet. i've seen people advocating its place in vampires but i don't know if that is right yet. there are enough times that double/triple black will be necessary and you can't make it that i am hesitant to just stuff a colorless land into it. we'll see where it goes in a week.

all in all, great list, man. i am really glad that you finished well with it. now we just have to find ways to shore up the vampires match up. i feel like it really has to do with a few big things vampires does (note: this is from my experience of playing various grixis lists, since zendikar came out, against vamps): one, they mind sludge and disrupt your hand in general. a little hard to fight through but not the end of the world, unless it is just a straight up mind sludge. two, bloodghast. i cannot underestimate how devastating this one card is against grixis. you have to fight to stay about ten life for the first seven turns and if you do, you still haven't necessarily gotten anywhere by countering or killing a/many bloodghast. i have had so many games stolen from me with multiples hanging out in the graveyard just waiting for the land to hit play. either bojuka bog, relic or ravenous trap are probably in order if vamps sees more play in the coming weeks. furthermore, mass removal does little once they take to the skies, therefore more has to be put into neutralizing their threats, leaving you open to the possibility of aforementioned mind sludges. i could be wrong about these things being how the deck actually beats grixis (and i'd love feedback on that) but they are derived from direct experience against the deck.

TOPICS MERGED.

CiPT lands: The reason i'm not running Halimar Depths is because of the amount of CiPT lands i already have in my build. Putting one Depths in place of my one Magosi seems like a waste of potential. Magosi allows for extremely explosive finishes something along the lines of "Play Sorin, Magosi for an Extra turn, your life total becomes ten, play a tapped magosi, enter second turn. Untap, Drop land, Cruel, Sorin you for 2, Lightning Bolt you for 3." In short, Magosi, if unmolested, has real potential. That being said, it's not a great card to put in as more than a 1 of in my opinion. I have played this card as a 2 of in a deck before and it loses something. It's not the End all Be all, but its a great ability for a deck that could take you to an empty board and hand by turn 5. At that point, its already too late to amount a real offensive again even with 2 turns in a row. Magosi also charges quite early if you feel you can handle it. fourth turn charge just to counter their 5th turn spell with negate or essence scatter can be pretty frustrating, and even in most instances you are way further ahead in CA.

On a side note, i had some similar success against jund. If i am able to grind out their deck, its very easy for me to pick up the pieces at the end and cruel them with a distinct advantage for me. I'm going to use the game i played V. Dan to show what i mean specifically. He had Putrid Leech and Sprouting Thrinax on the board and i had New Jace on the board. On my turn, i bounce his Thrinax with Jace, then Cruel, getting the leech in play, and the three cards in hand, including the Thrinax. It was pretty epic, and very reminiscent of the annoyance that was 5 color control with Counter-Bounce Cryptics into Cruel.

I think this deck needs a sweeper somewhere. Earthquake obviously is the best solution since it is only one red. I didn't really have the need to sweep too often, so i'm not convinced that it's a Maindeck card for me, but the option to wipe their board for 3 leaving only glorious turtles makes me pretty happy.

As for vamps, people who play red need to have Magma Spray available somewhere. Its the easiest solution to Bloodghast and comes out on their turn after playing Bloodghast, so you can treasure hunt, turtle, whatever on your own turn. The other option for this deck is Nemesis trap. This could be a pretty devastating answer to something like malakir Bloodwitch, which happens to avoid the majority of the removal in the deck. What the Trap adds though is lifegain, and much needed lifegain. Imagine having one turtle on the board facing down bloodghast, nighthawk, and bloodwitch. Now, they attack all out and you Nemesis trap the bloodwitch, draining them for one, blocking the nightawk and basically two-for-one-ing their face. The scenario is of course infinitely better when someone sends a Baneslayer and thoctar at your face, but the principal is there. Nemesis trap has that little special extra word that makes it all worth it "EXILE". Sprouting thrinax and Leech coming at you, Trap the Thrinax and block the leech, forcing two life from them and getting you a permanent 3 extra chumps. Its just a great two for one machine and as a one or two of in the sideboard could really compliment the strategy.

Djinn of Wishes: This is mostly for me. Though i have put it in out of the side, it acts as a great wall that has the potential to be devastating with a Jace/Liliana out. I did manage to live the dream and brainstorm putting sphinx and cruel on top, untapping, and during my upkeep dropping eight mana into the Djinn, wishing twice and getting sphinx and cruel for 8 mana!! It again isn't an amazing card, but most of their removal leaves when they see they can't target any of your stuff, so siding it in seems a little more feasable. In a worst case scenario, its an Air Elemental that can throw down with any vampire and potentially give some amazing free spells. Obviously it gets better with Halimar depths, which may be a reason in and of itself to play that land.

I can see the argument for Magosi. I just think that the knowledge and manipulation that Depths provides for your Treasure Hunts is superior to anything that can be done with Magosi and is relevant in many more situations (i.e. all game). The CiPT isn't that big of a deal for the upside that it provides (and I think 4 fetches and 7 basics is enough for lands that come into play untapped, not counting when m10 duals are turned on). I'll probably end up going to 3 Depths and the only reason I'm not running more in my original list is because you don't want to hit 3 mono-blue sources before turn 7.

Earthquake has been effective as a 2-of. It's good against Eldrazi and Boros, decent against midrange concoctions and okay against Vamps as long as they aren't in control with an active Nocturnus or overrunning you with Nighthawks (which is what the other 10 removal spots are for). Casting it for 3 and still having Convertible Turtle afterward is also a nice upside. I hadn't thought of Magma Spray. I like it against Bloodghast, but that's about the only thing you'd really want to use it against. Nemesis Trap seems okay, but by turn 6 I'd be worried about Vamps being too far ahead already. There aren't a whole lot of Vamps players down here, so I haven't really had the chance to play against it that much. Thank you for the suggestions and I'll probably be giving them a try.

Jake -- how have the Blightnings main been for you?

Also, one last note. The more I play the deck, the more I think playing anything less than 4 Jaces is wrong. The card just takes over games by itself. Will test more.