Grixis Phoenix

[Whitefaces]

Grixis Phoenix

Table of contents
1) Overview - about the deck
2) Card choices
3) Sideboard
4) Decklist
5) Resources

1) Overview - About the deck

Grixis Phoenix is a deck looking to abuse the interaction of Dark Ritual and Buried Alive fetching up three Arclight Phoenixes.

There’s a bunch of ways to approach this interaction. You could build it more combo oriented with Dark Petition and additional Rituals, or Infernal Tutor and LED. But the combos strength comes from the low resources needed to pull it off in my opinion. To round out the combo you’re looking for 1cmc spells. Cantrips and discard are the most obvious approach. This also leads into the best shell for it, which I think could be a Young Pyromancer based one which masquerades as a midrange or control deck, but has this high ceiling of the combo and turn three kills.

2) Card choices

Core

Dark Ritual: Dark Ritual is part A of the combo and leads to the most explosive openings. To maximise the decks power level I believe it’s an auto 4-of.

Buried Alive: Buried Alive is part B of your ‘Show and Tell’ plan. In my preliminary testing I was playing three copies to help avoid the problem of diminishing returns, but I quickly realised that the first copy is so powerful it almost fully negates that drawback. I believe Buried Alive to also be an auto 4-of in the deck. It's fine to be played as it says on the tin too. You can cast it turn three then follow up with some spells the following turn, or 5 lands is another sweet spot for the deck where you can chain two cantrips into a Buried Alive. Notably the spells don't need to resolve, so it's common to beat a Chalice by casting Buried Alive then throwing some spells into it.

Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordain: Cantrips are what make most of the best decks in the format tick, there’s nothing more to say on Brainstorm and Ponder. Preordain didn’t start in the deck though, they were Faithless Lootings at first but very quickly it was obvious that the deck just wants to chain these cantrips into each other to maximise the Phoenixes and rebuy them vs fair decks or to find your interaction vs unfair. There could be an argument for too much air and wheel-spinning, but the deck has such a high ceiling that I believe you want to maximise both its potential and consistency. There are also plenty of decks that use discard over countermagic as their interaction, like Depths decks, Grixis control etc in the format at the moment. When you’re getting into lower resource battles you’re always hoping to draw a cantrip.

Thoughtseize: This deck relies on a base of discard to disrupt opponents and power through our gameplan. The reasoning for Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy is they are able to be played proactively which is what both Young Pyromancer and Arclight Phoenixes want. Countermagic are also options in the deck, though, I ‘ll touch on that later. It’s not clear if Thoughtseize is always going to be a 4-of, but it’s inclusion is at least cemented in my mind.

Cabal Therapy: Cabal Therapy does so much in this deck. It synergises with Young Pyromancer, is often two spells to bring back Phoenixes and is a ‘discard outlet’ for Phoenixes (target yourself). Auto 4-of.

Young Pyromancer: Peezy is the the key that lets the deck play both fair and unfair. Coupled with discard it’s not hard to clear the way of removal then due to the decks heavy spell count is able to run away with the game. For those unfamiliar in how he synergizes with Cabel Therapy, the token created by casting Therapy in the first place is perfect sacrifice fodder for the flashback.

Lotus Petal: This was a later innovation that gives the deck even more explosive openers. Combos on turn one are day and night to turn two to the point that the card disadvantage is well worth their inclusion. It also gives the deck some much needed speed vs other combo decks.

Lightning Bolt - Lightning Bolt helps facilitate both the fair and unfair plan. Two hits from three Phoenixes is 18 then Bolt can finish the opponent off while it also picks off the decks hatebears, simply a great card with a lot of flexibility. Two copies is generally going to be enough, but in a metagame with more Delver or other creature based decks I'd play 3.

Lands

15 or 16 lands should suffice with the 12 cantrips and Lotus Petals, if you play less Petals I'd add another land or two.

Basics - the deck wants to be able to chain cantrips and from them the spells they find so duals are usually fetched out first. But we don’t always have this luxury and vs Wasteland decks we still need to fetch out basics, they’re important for Blood Moon matchups too. The deck is base UB so one of each is sufficient.

1 Island
1 Swamp

Duals and fetches - The rest of the manabase is made up of duals and fetches. As stated above, sequencing cantrips and discard spells is critical to the deck so having each fetch get any colour you need is important. Badlands takes after its name, it’s not great in the deck but necessary. You’re almost always fetching out Underground Sea first followed by Volcanic Island. Though a discard heavy hand may be getting Badlands or a second Sea first.

2-3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands

4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire

Cards that underperformed

The following cards I’ve tried but weren’t as good as expected.

Faithless Looting - Looting started as a 4-of but quite quickly I realised that the card disadvantage really hurt. Discarding Phoenixes with them was rarely a winning line and they went from 4 to 3 to 2 then 0. They became the Preordains which has been a massive improvement.

Thought Scour - The random draw off Scour is even worse in this deck than usual since you're looking to chain spells, you really want every cantrip to be filtering rather than just velocity. You also don't have a large density of cards you want to mill over, it's just Phoenixes which you already have a good gameplan to get them into the graveyard for and Therapy, which is not worth playing something like Scour for.

Entomb (plus all the cute targets for it) - Entomb was decent but rarely did anything before turn three, which it then relied on you being able to cast two other spells for it to turn into a Phoenix. It’s a decent rate for a single black mana, but the effect is still pretty low powered in the grand scheme of things. Entomb was also cut in basically every matchup for being low power level and to hedge vs GY hate. For these reasons I don’t think it deserves a slot. I tried it with all the cute targets like Lingering Souls, Deep Analysis, Creeping Chill etc but all they do is dilute the deck down and give it bad topdecks.

Bloodghast - Ghast falls partly under 'cute Entomb targets', but can also be an extension to Buried Alive. While it's kind of a way to play around Surgical, the power level is so low in my experience it wasn't worth a slot.

Intuition - I’ve not actually played with Intuition in the deck yet, but it’s suggested by every second person so I’d like to comment on it. It has a few problems to fit into Grixis Phoenix. Firstly and most obviously it’s only putting two of them into the yard, so you probably then want to play more cards to discard the one in hand. Secondly, and much more importantly, it can’t be cast off Dark Ritual. One of the most common lines in this deck is Cantrip/Discard T1 into Cantrip/Discard T2 into Rit+Buried, a large amount of the time you’re finding your second combo piece off the cantrip on turn two. Given that, Intuition is more likely getting back two Phoenixes ~T4, rather than 3 on T2.

3) Sideboard

When constructing a sideboard you should have a clear view of what you want it to be achieving. From testing so far the deck has been struggling most vs unfair decks, especially Dark Depths strategies and Reanimator, so I’ve been concentrating on them.

Card choices

Tormod’s Crypt - This may look like a weird one when Surgical Extraction is a card, but there is reasoning for it. Almost every deck you want Surgical for is also playing discard spells, most importantly BR Reanimator. This deck plays little to no countermagic so we’re not able to protect our hand from that, so I believe it’s important to have something proactive to play. Why I’ve chosen Crypt is because it can be cast T1 through a Chancellor of the Annex trigger, or if they don’t have one of them you can cantrip for it. This same reasoning is true for Dredge, and the mirror should it come up! It could be possible that we should play Surgical too, or a split but in favour of Crypt.

Alpine Moon - As I mentioned above, Dark Depths is proving to be one of the hardest matchups. Other options are Blood Moon or Unmoored Ego, but due to all their discard I wanted again something proactive and cheap to cast so you can cantrip into it. It may be a narrow card, but it’s what I’m testing for the matchup currently.

Flusterstorm - Generic good card vs combo decks.

Force of Will - Another good card for combo matchups, I think you want to play either Force of Fluster. Another thing to be tested more.

Abrade - The deck is pretty cold to Chalice of the Void so we need some answers to that. Abrade has fit the bill best so far, nice in Aether Vial matchups too where we can take a more control role.

Echoing Truth - Grixis notoriously has a hard time with Enchantments, Echoing Truth is an ‘answer’ to them as well as a nice catch all and has some cross application to help with Dark Depths decks. The key to Echoing Truth is it ‘combos’ with Cabal Therapy. You bounce everything, then name everything. Problem solved!

Pyroblast - Blast is just a generically great card, though I don't think it solves many of the decks problems. There will be some metagames, such as heavy SnS or control where it could shine, but I don't think it's worth a slot at the moment.

Diabolic Edict - Edict is another nod to Depths while being decent vs creature matchups where we can play control.



4) Decklists

My latest list

3 Dark Confidant
3 Young Pyromancer
4 Arclight Phoenix

4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
4 Buried Alive
3 Lotus Petal
2 Forked Bolt

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

Sb:
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Abrade
2 Goblin Cratermaker
2 Spell Pierce
2 Echoing Truth

6) Resources

Discord - https://discord.gg/PM5StrY

https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2...-callum-smith/

https://soundcloud.com/thecedricphil...-for-tommy-mtg

http://itsjulian.com/everyday-eterna...irds-the-word/

www.twitch.tv/ewlandon

www.twitch.tv/whitefaces

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgwtxBf0I88

Thanks Elfkid for the banner!