I never played Decay or Dread or Demise in my board. Never been a big fan of sweepers, although I would assume in certain scenarios that Jitte can act like a sweeper. Remember, we are a tempo deck not a control deck.Originally Posted by meffeo
I guess it's both. It costs you always B more than gurmag angler, and also most lists run 2 underground, 3 volcanic and 1 tropical main.
One thing I'm considering is to use the 3rd underground instead of the tropical main, and put it on the SB like storm decks sometimes do. What do you guys think? I'm concerned about both the awkwardness of a land that doesn't generate red nor black and wasteland locking out of B.
- Opening with only the Tropical feels bad.
- The Tropical is usually searched for last.
- The green is only really needed when DRS is preparing to disrupt Griselbrand, et al.
- Running out of black sources is awful.
- Abrupt Decay is hard to cast with just one land green source already, the only other requirement is for Ancient Grudge in the side
Am I missing anything? Actually, looking at the mana, why is it 3 Volcanic, 2 Underground when Black is represented more heavily in the deck?
DRS (Okay, it could be the Tropical, but you're going to search for Underground first most likely unless you're fearing the early Wasteland and have more fetches. But creature removal is more likely, isn't it?)
Dismember (Yeah, Phyrexian mana, but there are cases where you want to save that two life if you can.)
Angler and Cabal Therapy require the black.
Pre-siding that's four absolute black, 4 very likely black and 2 probably-not but maybe black.
Versus the 7-8 (depending on the YP count) of required red. Pyroblast, Forked Bolt, and Ancient Grudge in board notwithstanding.
Am I missing something? Where did the 3 Volcanic, 2 Underground, 1 Tropical come from?
Most important non-blue plays are turn 1 DRS (3 lands capable of doing so), turn 1 Lightning Bolt, and turn 2 Pyromancer (3 lands again). Red mana is important later in the game as Lightning Bolt becomes a kill spell, and it is important early in the game as removal or Pyro (to generate board advantage). Once you have cast DRS off of black mana, you still have 2 sources of black mana thereafter unless one or both are removed. Once you have cast DRS from green mana, now you have access to black. Lightning bolt and pyro cannot later produce red mana. Gurmag is only a lategame (which for us basically means turn 3 lol) spell, so you don't need black as early. Having green mana in your deck makes DRS way better in way more matchups than just reanimator, namely literally every damage based fair one.
Thanks. I'm new to this and still learning.
I asked him on Twitter, but could someone shed some light on the Fire Covenant in Noah Walker's side? I know that Toxic Deluge would wipe our side as well but it just seems the safer play. I could be missing something, though.
Dark blast also seems consistent but kind of curious.
I suspect he went with Fire Covenant because it's instant speed. So you can use it in response to a mom activation, an Aether Vial, or even in response to Craterhoof Behemoth hitting the table.
Darkblast seems awesome except for all the graveyard hate. So it's probably a meta call.
It's safer from the perspective of "more castable", but it's only barely more castable as you still have to get to three mana, and it's highly likely that one of those will be red anyways by the time you're casting it. Usually the life is irrelevant, so let's think about what Deluge hits but Covenant doesn't (the key factors being that Deluge is untargeted and gives -X instead of damage):
- Mother of Runes
- Mirran Crusader
- Anything equipped with a Sword of Fire and Ice (or Feast and Famine)
Deluge might be better against Death & Taxes, but Deluging for even 1 or 2 is likely to wipe out everything except for your Anglers, and in general the ability to instant-speed one-sided wrath is crazy and has much more application.
The ability to leave your pressure on the board (and also not reduce your pressure that turn) is a big deal. Deluge can be better in the average case of a grind-fest; but delver is a tempo game. Losing your delver, even in a 4-for-2 is pretty lackluster as that is 3-6 damage you're not going to get in the next turn or two; easily enough t win the game by. Covenant, because it's instant, will also have a good chance of hitting one more duder since you can do it EoT on the opp's turn; giving you not only more dead-opp's creatures, but none of your own lost. It effectively turns off Mom as well anyway, as either she will be the only thing left on the board, or she'll tap out to protect something, which means you're probably swinging uncontested anyway; or you've opened the door for your other removal.
Also, FC has the ability to break YP parity while Deluge is going to wipe yourself to wipe your opponent. The FC will make up for your extra lost health immediately because you're going to swing freely with at least a couple damage, if not a whole ton if you've both been stale-mating.
Darkblast is generally pretty good against D&T, Grixis Delver mirrors (YP, Delver), and Elves. The added bonus of making your Angler a potential T2 casting without doing anything fancy is nice (DB a Mom or something, Dredge 3, 2 fetches, tap for 2 => 5 cards in the grave, 2 mana => Angler T2.) While that hand is going to be somewhat rare, it's still noteworthy that even a single dredge is enough to drop a 5/5 ready to go. You can even spend one of that two mana on a cantrip and still cast the angler. It's much more conditional on whether you have Elves, D&T, and other Grixis Delver players; but that's not the craziest thing to expect to see for a single sideboard slot.
Thanks, everyone!
I somehow assumed Fire Covenant was a sorcery! (I blame it being an Ice Age card.) Now everything makes a lot more sense.
I was thinking of Deluge also from the Eldrazi standpoint (I seem to encounter it a lot in my area.) but Fire Covenant is going to take out Mimics in response to the triggers. I still like that Snuff Out that I've been packing since it was mentioned earlier.
Just ordered myself a copy of Fire Covenant.
Covenant is the bomb! Pretty much every time I cast it vs a fair deck it turns the tables. We are also usually the aggressor, so tYeahhe life loss is negligible. It is also one of the only ways to take out multiple eldrazis that we have.
Don't play it on modo right now though, it's bugged and will crash the game/match. I am using K Command instead until they fix it.
Huh, that is good to know. Taking it out of my sideboard.
MTGO: Maxtortion
It didn't crash the game for me. But I cast it, selected the targets and amount of life I was paying and it just wouldn't take the last mana out of my mana pool.It kept saying "Pay 1" when I had blue floating. I fumbled with it for way too long, forfeit the game and then played another where I lost because the timer went up right before my attack for lethal went through. :(
Anyway, Fire Covenant is totally bugged, yes.
I might try a Jitte in that spot too, I like having some sort of powerful effect for fair matchups.
Edit: yeah, that same thing happened to me, but I kept trying instead of conceding. The game restarted with new hands, and when either of us played a land it disappeared and we just kept playing back and forth. Eventually I scooped.
Last edited by ironclad8690; 11-18-2016 at 09:37 PM.
Any thoughts on Make Obsolete?
Instant speed, 2B, one-sided -1/-1 seems quite powerful. Obviously not the overall power level of Fire Covenant for dealing with Eldrazi, but it seems very powerful against a variety of decks nonetheless.
Super powerful in Kaladesh limited. I definitely had that experience multiple times.
But what would it go in against? The mirror? Something (non-merfolk) running True-Name Nemesis? Just seems like you'd want Fire Covenant and hope you can counter TNN. I mean, Elves, maybe? But I can't think of many matches where I'd be really wanting for that. Maybe D&T? But it doesn't hit a fair chunk of their stuff anyway.
Chiba is this weekend and I'm super fretting over my sideboard. If you were taking it to Chiba, what would you side?
Hey guys, long time Miracle player here who wants to try something different, so I switched to Grixis. I played my first league ever yesterday going 3-2 beating Enchantress and Miracles x2 and losing to Elves (Julian Knab) and another Miracle.
My current Decklist is:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Spell Pierce
1 Dismember
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
Sideboard:
2 Baleful Strix
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Winter Orb
2 Flusterstorm
2 Painful Truths
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Darkblast
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Sudden Demise
The one Sudden Demise would be a Fire Covenant, but since it's bugged on MTGO... yeah.
Deck seems sweet, but i have a couple of questions for you: first one, i really want another sweeper like Demise/Fire Covenant in my SB: i had Darkblast and Bolt in my opening hand both G2 and G3 against Elves and yet i was still overwhelmed by little green men. I felt like spot removal isn't enought against these kind of decks. Is something you have experienced too or i just need to practice more? This applies to D&T too, i don't think only one sweeper is enought, but i don't really know what to cut to make room AND if it's necessary or not.
Second question, matches against Miracle were very close and i won both matches by capitalizing on my opponents mistakes + Winter Orb. What really scares me is that against a very skilled player i have little chances to come out on top. What i tried to do was playing very carefully without overextending into Terminus while saving my counters for Counterbalance. That card is a nightmare without Decay (which i don't think is playable in this deck with only 1 Tropical + Deathrites tbh). My board plan was the one suggested in the first page of this primer:
-4 Daze (matches go long and it's hard to mana screw them)
-1 Wasteland (same logic as Daze)
-1 Probe
-2 Bolt
+1 Therapy
+2 Painful Truths
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Winter Orb
+1 Surgical (silver bullet, extracting Terminus/Swords while shuffling their sculpted top seems nice to me)
Is that the common strategy against Miracle or new lists have different plans? I really feel an underdog, and since both online and here in Italy Miracles is the most played deck i would really appreciate any help you guys could give to me.
Thanks a lot in advance, i'm sorry if somethings looks unreadable to you, English is not my mother tongue and i may have left behind some spelling mistakes.
I go -dismember -some bolt/daze/therapy +fluster +orb +reb/grim if I have them
I think truths is bad, it does nothing under CB. Daze is insane with winter orb so I leave in at least two. I'm more all in on the tempo plan and have had great success this way. The cuts depend on what you see (mentor) and if they play around daze. Most people don't play around daze g2
Thanks a lot for your input, i'll definitly try your approach next time i face Miracles and i'll let you know how it goes.
Truths is mainly there for BUG Cascade, in my current SB i don't have any specific card for that MU and i like a draw three that can help me getting my last bolt or creature to close the game. I don't like Orb against them and i really want a card that helps me the same way Orb does against Miracles. Do you think Truths doesn't have a place in Grixis' SB or it's just bad against Counterbalance? If you think it's better to cut it, what will you use in it's place against grindy MUs?
Truths against Shardless is fighting on an axis that they're way better at; they'll have 4 draw-3 spells compared to your 1-2, and they're more likely to successfully cast them. Rather than trying to out-grind them, I think it's more effective to go under them. Stick a single threat and force them to play defense. They don't run very much countermagic and tend to be more of a tapout control deck, so that's your opening.
Good cards: Pyroblast (save them for Visions and JTMS, if you counter Shardless the cascade trigger still happens), Winter Orb (they can't do much with just 1 mana), Pithing Needle (for Liliana, JTMS, Tar Pit, or DRS/Wasteland if you're desperate), Baleful Strix (anti-Goyf and extra card advantage).
Bad cards: The Therapy/Probe package isn't great here.
That's actually very nice to know, i thought Therapy was good since they are mostly a tap out deck and that's our only answer to Tarmogoyf beside the 1-of Dismember. I was boarding out some number of FoWs on the draw and Dazes on the play, but i can get the logic behind keeping Dazes OTD if we manage to stick a Winter Orb.
So basically the boarding would be:
OTP:
-2 Therapies
-2 Probe (i like to keep 2, having information regarding their hand/removal helps a lot in sequencing my plays, at least for me)
-2 FoW (daze is much better OTP, expecially against a deck that plays lots of 2 for 1)
+2 Pyroblast
+2 Winter Orb
+2 Strix
OTD:
-2 Therapies
-2 Probe
-2 Daze
+2 Pyroblast
+2 Winter Orb
+2 Strix
I'm not playing needle atm, i would cut a probe probably to fit it in G2/G3.
Sorry for my flurry of questions, noone here plays Grixis and that's probably the best place to ask
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