After more than a year of grinding PPTQs, I finally won one. Playing Grixis on Saturday at my local game store, Pandemonium Books and Games, I managed to go 5-1 through the Swiss and take down three separate Bant decks in the top eight.
On a personal note, it felt really good. I’m never sure how to talk about my place in competitive Magic because in the scheme of things, I’m a pretty average player. Of course I’d like to break through to the next level, but for the most part feel content where I am; cashing a reasonable number of local tournaments and having an okay rate of GP day twos. I play a couple of nights a week and read articles every day but don’t test as much as a lot of friends do, as much as I should if I want to consistently put up results.
I will say though, over the past couple of weeks I’ve played more Standard than I have since playing every week for my installments of Ensnaring Cambridge. For GP New York, I found myself on GR Ramp, hoping to play “easy mode” through a format I wasn’t intimately familiar with. I went 4-5 with the deck getting crushed by GW Tokens, Mono White Humans, and splitting games with Bant Company. I decided then that if I was going to play Standard, I should play a more interactive deck. I started building Oliver Tiu’s Grixis Control list that weekend and have played the deck, with a few tweaks, over the past couple weeks to moderate success.
Here is the list I registered for Saturday:
Grixis Control
This deck isn’t a pure “control” list by any stretch as it plays no countermagic and more creatures than I’m usually comfortable with. The reason it’s good is because Standard is full of creature-based decks low on interactive elements outside of tapping creatures with Bounding Krasis, bouncing them with Reflector Mage, or blinking them with Eldrazi Displacer. While Bant Company and Four Color Rites are objectively powerful decks, they don’t match up well against discard, spot removal, and the insane value generated by Kalitas and Goblin Dark-Dwellers. While Four Color can go on the Eldrazi plan post board, bringing in Reality Smashers, or opt to play their own spot removal in the form of Declaration in Stone, Grixis Control is much better at playing the long game.
I’m going to write up a brief tournament report with some sideboarding notes. While I do group the Bant Company, Four Color, and Bant Humans together as good match-ups, they each demand a different removal suite. Ultimate Price, for example, isn’t fantastic against Four Color Rites because it only hits Recruiter, Loam Dryad, Sylvan Advocate, and the one-of Zulaport Cutthroat (13-ish creatures). However against Bant Humans it hits upward of twenty creatures, so it’s a perfectly passable. I still am not sure of all of the intricacies of sideboarding with this deck but the notes should give a reasonable overview.
In all honesty, most of the games I won just by curving out. This deck is really powerful in that it generates value from traditional one-for-one removal and interacts profitably with the creature-based decks of the format. One single Grasp of Darkness can be flashbacked via Jace or Dark-Dwellers while also creating a zombie via Kalitas. It’s easy to bury your opponent in card advantage with simultaneously beating down with 3/4 lifelinkers, 4/4s with menace, and a horde of zombies. Don’t even get me started on how busted Kolaghan’s Command is in this deck. A reasonable hand will allow for something like this:
T1-Tap Land
T2-Jace
T3-Removal Spell or Transgress or Read the Bones
T4-Kalitas
T5-Goblin Dark-Dwellers + Removal Spell/Transgress/Read the Bones
While the mana isn’t perfect, having two mana available on turns two and three allows you to play Jace plus removal spell while allowing for a turn four Kalitas.
ROUND ONE—Four Color Rites (2-0)
Sideboard:
+2 Radiant Flames
+1 Silumgar’s Command
+1 Dark Petition
-2 Dragonlord Silumgar
-2 Ultimate Price
Post-board they generally bring in Reality Smasher and Thought-Knot Seer, so Ultimate Price, which was already questionable, gets even worse. The best way to deal with Reality Smasher is to Transgress it before it hits play, but if it does, Kalitas races it very well and Ruinous Path can take it out, even if it is a 1-for-2 trade. This deck does get a lot of value with Kolaghan’s Command, Jace, and Dark-Dwellers so the occasional bad trade is okay. It’s tempting to keep in Dragonlord Silumgar but I’ve found it to be a little slow and pretty miserable against Displacer/Reflector Mage.
In terms of stuff to bring in, Silumgar’s Command deals with Ormendahl, Radiant Flames kills everything short of Reality Smasher, and Dark Petition gives you a way to search up the correct answer while also paying most of the cost. Dark Petition is always a little clunky but it can save you from Ormedal, Reality Smasher, or an army of creatures in a way that no other single card does.
ROUND TWO—GB Seasons Past (2-1)
This match-up feels unwinnable pre-board as your creature removal spells are basically useless and they play a much better long game. Post-board I try to bring in more hand based disruption as well as additional ways to win the attrition game.
Sideboard:
+1 Dark Petition
+2 Dragonmaster Outcast
+2 Duress
+1 Negate
+1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
+2 Pia and Kirin Nalaar
+1 Silumgar’s Command
-2 Fiery Impulse
-3 Ruinous Path
-1 Radiant Flames
-2 Ultimate Price
-2 Dragonlord Silumgar
I sided out all of my removal with the exception of Grasp of Darkness as it kills Hissing Quagmire, Kalitas, and Tireless Tracker which were the only creatures I saw from my opponent. Most of these switches are pretty self-explanatory I think.
ROUND THREE—Bant Company (2-1)
Sideboard:
+2 Radiant Flames
+2 Pia and Kirin Nalaar
+1 Dark Petition
+1 Negate
-2 Dragonlord Silumgar
-1 Kolaghan’s Command
-3 Ruinous Path
Unlike Four Color Rites, Bant Company doesnt have a bunch of Eldrazi post board, so you can cut the least efficient removal spell Ruinous Path. They still have Displacer/Reflector Mage so Silumgar is out and while Kolaghan’s Command is a great toolbox card, the two damage doesn’t do much against a bunch of X/3’s so I shave one down. Pia and Kirin doesn’t do anything exceptional in this match-up but I think it’s fine to bring in, Radiant Flames is obviously great, and Negate works well against Declaration in Stone, Collected Company, and Ojutai’s Command (they usually side out Dromoka’s Command).
ROUND FOUR—Four Color Rites (2-1)
Same board as earlier.
This round was against my friend Nik, while it felt bad not being able to split here, he still made top eight.
Top Seed!
ROUND FIVE—Esper Control (2-0)
This round was against my friend Giovanni. He was 3-0-1 and couldn’t really split, so we played it out. His list was closer to the BW Control decks rather than Esper Dragons but played blue for Jace and Ojutai’s Command.
Sideboard:
+1 Dark Petition
+2 Dragonmaster Outcast
+2 Duress
+1 Negate
+1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
+1 Silumgar’s Command
+1 Virulent Plague
-1 Radiant Flames
-2 Fiery Impulse
-2 Grasp of Darkness
-2 Ultimate Price
-1 Kolaghan’s Command
-1 Ruinous Path
I had to bring in Virulent Plague to deal with Secure the Wastes which is pretty difficult to beat otherwise. Plague is slightly awkward with Dragonmaster Outcast but even 3/3 dragons should enough to get the job done.
ROUND SIX—Esper Superfriends (0-2)
Sideboard:
+1 Dark Petition
+2 Dragonmaster Outcast
+2 Duress
+1 Negate
+1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
+1 Silumgar’s Command
-1 Radiant Flames
-2 Fiery Impulse
-2 Grasp of Darkness
-2 Ultimate Price
-1 Kolaghan’s Command
I didn’t see any Secure the Wastes here hence no Virulent Plague. I did see a bunch of Planeswalkers, maindeck Duress, and other bad stuff for me. I lost each game when my opponent had multiple Planeswalkers out.
Despite losing the last round, I had 15 points which was good enough for second seed going into the top eight.
The top eight had five Bant/Four Color decks, along with one UR Eldrazi deck, the Esper Planeswalker deck, and me playing Grixis Control. I hoped to avoid Eldrazi and Esper Walkers and did so successfully.
QUARTERFINALS—John Paul playing Bant Company (2-0)
SEMIFINALS—Griffin playing Bant Humans (2-0)
FINALS—Anthony playing Bant Company (2-1)
While I hate to group all my match-ups together, they felt similar. Any game where I could set up Kalitas and Radiant Flames, I won pretty handily.
I do want to give props to all my opponents, especially Anthony who I’ve played quite a few times in the past couple of weeks. Anthony is an expert UB Faeries player in Modern and an all around excellent player. Despite the fact that Grixis has a reasonable Bant Company match-up, Anthony perfectly understood his role in the match-up an made me sweat through every game.
After winning the PPTQ, I walked down the street to meet up with my friends at a nearby tavern. I got a round of applause after flashing the thumbs up and spent the rest of the night trading stories, drinking beers, and enjoying my moment in the sun. I also made everyone take a victory photo with me and Kalitas (the real MVP) before celebrating too hard.
I’m really excited for the RPTQ at the end of the summer and glad that I will be eligible to play in PPTQs again when Modern season is in full swing. As always, thanks for reading, I’m happy to try and answer questions though I’m certainly no authority on the deck.
In terms of Magic, Shawn Massak is a Modern enthusiast, with a penchant for tier two decks, counterspells, and pre Eighth Edition frames. In terms of life, Shawn lives in Brighton, MA where he works as an employment coordinator for people with disabilities, plays guitar in an indie-pop band, and spends his free time reading comics, complaining about pro-wrestling, and wishing his apartment allowed dogs as pets.