So, 2-2, while not too shabby for a homebrew, is nothing to be totally proud of. This week at TNM I want to win. I’m gonna try to focus on building a more solid version of my Grixis Mid Range deck. Here’s the list from last week:
Grixis
75 cards, 15 sideboard
1 Stensia Bloodhall
1 Swamp
2 Desolate Lighthouse
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Blood Crypt
4 Drowned Catacomb
1 Mountain
2 Sulfur Falls
4 Steam Vents
1 Island
24 lands
2 Desecration Demon
3 Falkenrath Aristocrat
2 Thundermaw Hellkite
1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
3 Snapcaster Mage
11 creatures
2 Essence Scatter
3 Rakdos Keyrune
1 Mizzium Mortars
2 Sever the Bloodline
2 Dreadbore
1 Murder
1 Rakdos’s Return
4 Pillar of Flame
3 Syncopate
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Dissipate
3 Jace, Architect of Thought
25 other spells
Sideboard
1 Bonfire of the Damned
2 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Slaughter Games
2 Clone
2 Ultimate Price
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Witchbane Orb
2 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Negate
Let’s Start by looking at the good stuff. The cards that over preformed in the deck last week were, Thundermaw Hellkite, Pillar of Flame, Desolate Lighthouse, Stensia Bloodhall, Snapcaster Mage, Dreadbore, and Syncopate.
I like these cards in the deck at the numbers they are except maybe for Thundermaw Hellkite. I overheard Anthony Lowry played four in his deck last week. There never seems like a bad time to be beating on your opponent with this guy. For now he stays at 2 (until I procure another) but I want to leave some room in the deck for other innovations.
Let’s talk about the cards that didn’t do it for me. Falkenrath Aristocrat, Jace, Architect of Thought, Essence Scatter, and Murder. Falkenrath was too fragile vs Lingering Souls tokens and I really do not play enough creatures to support her. Essence Scatter seemed good until my opponent busted out Cavern of Souls then is was just a card to toss for Desolate Lighthouse. And Jace… Jace is good, but he’s not good for this deck. I want to be smashing stuff, I thought his card draw would even out the deck a little, but he just kinda felt deflated with all my removal doing the work for him. He’s too slow for this deck. Murder was just too wonky in the CC. I still like the card. It was a tough cut, but for now we’ll see what happens. Desecration Demon was fine last week, but I wanna open up room for 4 Hypersonic Dragons.
In comes:
+2 Olivia Valderan, +4 Hypersonic Dragon, +3 Divination, +1 Cyclonic Rift, +1 Dissipate
Out goes:
-3 Falknerath Aristocrat, -2 Essence Scatter, -3 Jace, Architect of Thought, -1 Murder -2 Desecration Demon
Right, Why these cards? More specifically why add the card I picked. Olivia is a simple choice – she’s cheap and if left on the board she takes over the game. I like “I win” cards and this is one of those cards, left unchecked. She kills little guys and Control Magics big guys and she gets huge. I can’t wait til my opponent gets hit by her at 5/5 or 6/6 after killing all his weenies.
Hypersonic Dragon is a gamble here. I want him to be good. In this deck, he does some interesting things. We are sorcery heavy at 13 main board. Thats 13 spells that I should not be allowed to cast on my opponents EOT, or during combat or on my EOT when he taps out to play something. Could be awesome, as it stands a 4/4 Haste Flyer is nothing to laugh at. I do wish he was 4/5 though. I guess we’ll see what happens.
Divination is tech Luis suggested. I was skeptical at first, but he’s right about a few things, my deck needs more card draw, it’s got to eek out card advantage where it can. I thought, “what about Think Twice?” It’s an instant, right? Well, Divination gets me two more cards with Snapcaster Mage… Think Twice is only cheaper. Turn 3 this deck plays land and says go. Presumably to counter some BS my opponent is playing. I have a playable turn three option now, and I have late game card draw without pitching lands I may need for a Counter War. I’m not totally sold, but I respect Luis’s sage advice enough to see if it works.
The one card I wanted in my hand all the time was Cyclonic Rift. It just breaks up the board and lets you win. It gives you a tempo play. You can counter your opponent’s spell he snuck into play when you Divinationed on turn three.
Dissipate because it still never hurts to say NOPE! And more graveyard hate is good too. I may move to four and only two Syncopate just because Syncopate was dead in my hand a few times. But I’ll leave it for now.
As per usual I’ll leave my sideboard hidden until the tourney, you’ll see what I used when I post my results in the next article.
Until then, may all your counterspells resolve and your top decks be bombs,
Z