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Thread: NOT TODAY, SATAN – 3-0-1 with Grixis Demonic Pact combo

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    NOT TODAY, SATAN – 3-0-1 with Grixis Demonic Pact combo

    Hey so I hardly ever post after just playing a few matches at my local, but I got a profitable result with a weird combo I hadn’t seen discussed before, so thought I’d share.

    To be clear, this wasn’t my invention. I’d been tinkering with various flavors of 4c Leovold and turbo-Angler for months, but wasn’t in love. Then, a couple weeks ago, I stumbled across this monstrosity via Clashed:

    http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16156&d=299668&f=LE

    Pros:
    - You make a deal with the devil, and then when your debt is due, your opponent is the one whose soul gets harvested? So awesome.
    - Moreover, the key component is a card illustrated with a furuzzable kittycat ? Yes pls.
    - You get to play fun Grixis control stuff like Baleful Strix, Fatal Push, Bolt and Snapcaster, while eschewing lame Delvers and Pyromancers? Nifty.
    - And the final selling point: having already assembled some kind of Grixis shell, the remaining combo pieces required like $15 of extant store-credit for me to assemble. Sold.

    Though highly neat, I don’t relate to choices like Wipe Away, Damnation and Ob Nixilis in the list above, and found myself looking for a) more efficient options, b) disruption and c) the fourth Ponder. (Ob Nixilis is rad, but I feel there’s a limit to how much silliness I can cram into 75 cards)

    With that, my first time out with this shell was not covered in glory. I’m not used to playing Burning Wish (I’d been quietly hoping to trade/sell mine off for months before this gave me the excuse to sleeve them up again) and didn’t really know the sideboard as well as one should.

    Consequently I lost to Storm and Death and Taxes at my local and went home and tuned this pile:

    4 Deathrite Shaman
    4 Baleful Strix
    3 Snapcaster Mage

    1 Collective Brutality
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Force of Will
    2 Thoughtseize
    2 Fatal Push
    2 Lightning Bolt
    2 Echoing Truth
    4 Burning Wish
    4 Demonic Pact

    1 Swamp
    1 Island
    1 Mountain
    3 Volcanic Island
    2 Underground Sea
    1 Badlands
    1 Tropical Island
    4 Polluted Delta
    3 Bloodstained Mire
    3 Scalding Tarn

    sb:
    1 Blazing Volley
    1 Whipflare
    1 Toxic Deluge

    1 Duress
    1 Hymn to Tourach
    1 Lost Legacy

    1 Void Snare
    1 Dreadbore
    1 Painful Truths
    1 Ruination

    2 Surgical Extraction
    1 Null Rod
    1 Harmless Offering
    1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

    -

    Second time around, playing the above list, I went 3-0-1 at my local (~24ish players). Here’s that report:

    R1: Seren with White Stax

    G1 She wins the die roll and plays T1 Ancient Tomb into Chalice. I’ve kept a grip of like Brainstorm, Thoughtseize, Deathrite, four lands. I just play lands and pass, but she is slow to add more lockpieces or present a win-condition. We play draw-go for awhile.

    Eventually I play a Snapcaster just to have a beater. She Oblivion Rings it. Somewhere in here she a) tries to Armageddon but I have Force, pitching the Brainstorm her Chalice has been blanking, and b) plays a Crucible and presents Wastelock but I have all three basics up and then some.

    Around this point, I draw an Echoing Truth, and go end-step Echoing Truth two Mox Diamonds to be obnoxious, then my turn Snapcaster > Echoing Truth the Chalice, play a Deathrite.

    Because Ancient Tomb has tugged her life down to around 12 at this point, Snap beats and Deathrite are just enough to get there; she resolves a late Armageddon but I mize into a fetch to power the lethal Deathrite drain.

    G2 I don’t remember as well, except that there came a point where I was slowly beating down with Baleful Strix and could’ve sat behind that and hoped to draw ways to stay relevant and not die for 11 turns and get there.

    But that is not what I sleeved this deck up for, so I played a Demonic Pact, theorizing between the extra draw-two, Burning Wish, cantrips and Echoing Truth I had better than 50/50 odds of finding a way to avoid dying to my own card four turns later. That is a coin toss I did not win. Suppression Field holding down my fetches was a factor I recall, I think in conjunction with Trinisphere.

    G3 My grip was like Ponder, FOW, Burning Wish, Pact, three lands. I think she had to mull and was not stoked on her six. She again worked her way up to Wastelock, this time with Magus of the Tabernacle, but I had FOW for her Armageddon and my combo got there.

    -

    R2: Colin with Nic Fit

    G1 I win the die-roll and play T1 Thoughtseize. I see Cabal Therapy, Green Sun’s Zenith, Pernicious Deed, two or three lands and expensive shit. I take the GSZ. Colin replies with Therapy naming Brainstorm, which whiffs but reveals three Baleful Strixes and a Demonic Pact.

    I play the Strixes out, and Colin slowly develops and plays his Deed.

    Somewhere in here I Burning Wish for Hymn to Tourach, which hits a Thoughtknot Seer and Hornet Queen. He eventually finds and sacks an Explorer to Therapy my Pact away, but my value-birds are pecking at his life total and he eventually has to blow Deed. When he does, I Echoing Truth all three Strixes back to my hand and, after rebuying them, conclude with Burning Wish for Ruination because I am a miserable wretch.

    G2 Starts similarly, but Colin is able to actually do his Explorer/Therapy combo – except when he goes to Therapy he does not name Brainstorm, and I am holding one. He whiffs, and I’m then able to use Brainstorm to hide my action (which includes Burning Wish) from the flashback.

    Anyway Explorer happens (I’m able to use the trigger shuffle to put away cards with Brainstorm) and I’m glad to be running basics. Somewhere in here Colin casts a huge GSZ for a Titania that makes a 5/3 token. Gulp. Here I cast Burning Wish for Toxic Deluge, which resolves, but Colin fetches for a Dryad Arbor and gets another 5/3 when Titania dies.

    On his turn he beats me to 10 and plays a Thoughtknot Seer that takes a Baleful Strix. However, because I am a terrible man, on my turn I topdeck a Baleful Strix, play a cantrip, then resolve another Strix. “Stop having three Baleful Strixes against me every game, bro” may have been a sentence that was uttered. So these two birds are now able to hold off Colin’s 4/4 and 5/3. I am rude.

    We play draw-go until I find the Jace, the Mind-Sculptor I boarded in. I bounce the token and start +2 sealing Colin’s fate. While he draws mostly blanks, I’m able to double Demonic Pact for 8 life (I held Echoing Truth in hand) and eventually end it in a flurry of double-Bolt plus Snapcaster.

    -

    R3: Ryan with Dragon Stompy

    Ryan wins the roll. I know what he’s on and mull to a six with FOW. I Force his T1 Chalice of the Void, play a Thoughtseize taking Blood Moon, let his T2 Magus of the Moon resolve, and Bolt that. Things could be worse.

    I then proceed to casually walk two Deathrites and a Baleful Strix directly into Fiery Confluence because I’m an idiot. We are now both low on action, but at least I’ve survived long enough to fetch my basics.

    I get some Snap beats going, but eventually Ryan sticks an Ensnaring Bridge, and thus we play draw-go and spend some time contemplating the life choices that have led us to this. During this time Ryan plays two more Ensnaring Bridges, persuading me that Burning Wish for Void Snare is not the solution to this problem, so I get Painful Truths instead and dig for Echoing Truth.

    At some point in here Ryan resolves a Chandra, Torch of Defiance, but next turn I am able to Burning Wish for Dreadbore and shut that down before she gets out of hand.

    I also spend an inordinate number of turns contemplating a Bolt in my hand and how best to point it at Ryan’s face, but when he resolves a Magus, with no Chalice up to protect it, I’m like “that’s fine” and let it ride the stalled board for several turns. I think around this time I’m able to find a Deathrite capable of clocking Ryan through the Bridges (thanks, basic Swamp!) and eventually cantrip into the Echoing Truth on Bridge.

    At this point he plays a Hazoret but has too many Bridges in his hand to block with it and can’t shoot enough of my guys at once to survive.

    G2 He mulls to five. I talk myself into keeping a hand of like Deathrites, cantrips, nonbasics and fetches. He sticks a T1 Sin Prodder. I go fetch, Deathrite, pass, and on his T2 I pay three life to keep him from drawing a second Sin Prodder. He crashes in for three and then points six damage from a Fiery Confluence at my face. I begin my T2 at nine life.

    I cantrip into Collective Brutality, using it to kill the Prodder and pitch a land to escalate and drain because I worry I need the life.

    I wish I could remember more of how this game ended, but I think Ryan ran out of gas around this point. I remember him playing an Ensnaring Bridge and me not caring for reasons to do with Demonic Pact; I think I burned him out with Deathrites and a second Pact before the first one killed me?

    -

    So yeah. My local is four rounds and cut to standings, so my final opponent (Storm combo of some kind) and I intentionally drew and called it a night, pocketing $25 store credit for a $5 event because Eudemonia is a great shop for Legacy.

    FINAL THOUGHTS:

    This deck is a lot of fun. Demonic Pact feels like a planeswalker your opponents can’t attack to death, and all the modes are relevant.

    You spend a lot of time kind’ve masquerading as the fun parts of vanilla Grixis control, which I enjoy. But having this highly silly combo to fall back on is extremely fun, as is the wishboard. It also feels good to sleeve up Echoing Truth for the first time in many years.

    I’m not 100% on the Null Rod in my board; I put it there after losing to Storm and D&T because it shuts down LED, Lotus Petal, Aether Vial and Equipment, but it wasn’t superb against the Chalice decks and I sometimes wanted it to be Meltdown so I could Wish for it… Outside that, not much comes to mind in the way of changes.

    Hope this has been helpful. Good luck, have fun and do weird stuff, okay?
    Last edited by danpo; 07-25-2017 at 05:41 PM.
    "It possesses no intelligence, only counter-intelligence."

  2. #2
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    Re: NOT TODAY, SATAN – 3-0-1 with Grixis Demonic Pact combo

    Great report. I love the deck (Stryfo's). Good luck!

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