Grixis control

[jdsnider]

i thourughly enjoyed playing the grixis planeswalker deck during the last ptq season and due to this was wanting to attempt to adapt it to the legacy format as it has dominating matchups vs aggro decks and with the current legacy metagame shift due to the banning of mystical tutor this seems like a good call.

For a reference point, here (http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=31656) is the original list from the last extended season.

the core of that deck was to lock out whatever strategy you opponent was attempting to employ through the power of blood moon (dual lands) and night of soul's betrayal (for thopterdepths and faeries) and eventually win through eventually using jace, the mind sculptor's ulimate ablity.
Obviously the night of soul's betrayals aren't nearly as good here as they were in legacy and could easily be replaced by engineered plague or more counterspells/card draw.
Also, i have seen that engineered explosives is much more popular than damnation/wrath of god in this format due to its multiple applications in not just destroying creatures, but also due to its ability to hit everything else as well, and its ability to come down much earlier than either of the previously mentioned options, this could also be a viable option.
our wincons in this deck are sitting at cmc 4 or greater so most of these are able to easily dodge any countertop shenanigans and are going to come down unless our opponent wants to engage in a good old fashioned counterwar...

The manabase is easily adaptable:
5 island
1 mountain
6 swamp
3 scalding tarn
2 bloodstained mire
1 underground sea
1 badlands
1 volcanic island

this could require some tweaking from the original numbers due to changes in mana costs and colors and such, but this is acceptable...

On to the topic of wincons:
I like the idea of nicol bolas in legacy, but at the same time, that cmc 8 is quite the hefty price tag for this environment, no matter how devastating the effect... and due to cmc 2 being the most popular one in this format and because we may be utilizing engineered explosives, the ravnica block signets do not seem like adequate 'ramp' for this deck in its new incarnation and so because of this I believe that Nicol Bolas is not a viable option.
4x jace, the mindsculptor is a necessity for this deck and i would play with no less than this number.
i also like the idea of liliana vess as her discard and tutor ability (especially with jace on board, and the capability to play brainstorm in this format) are great for control mirrors, therefore she could be acceptable in this deck, but at the same time the 'dark confidant ability of Sarkan the Mad seems like it could fill this slot with this deck packing so many brainstorm effects in the deck.

in this format, i've also noticed that if you don't have any way to interact with the combo decks that you are usually dead in the water, so i feel that having 4 force of wills in the deck is necessary.

brainstorms seem like a must and could be a decent replacement for thirst for knowledge, as well as interacting well with both liliana vess and sarkhan the mad, if either of them turn out to be solid additions to the deck.

Other ideas for swaps/additons to the deck would be:
diabolic edict, innocent blood, lightning bolt, duress, counterspell, daze, stifle...

All in all I'm not super familiar with the format or if a deck like this would even be viable but that's why i brought the idea here to the good people of the source, which im told is the best place for legacy disscussion on the 'net. So, please, let me know what you think and if there are any ideas that could be applied in order to make this deck work.

[kinda]

It'd be helpful if you came up with a decklist...landstill is as far as I know the only control deck with red...but it runs manlands which don't work too well with blood moon.

[Aggro_zombies]

Not wanting to get blown out by combo is nice and all, but combo is much less of an issue now than it was before Mystical Tutor was banned. Now, the "combo" you need to worry about is most the two-card sort, or decks that are combo-like in the sense that they're built to be deliberately non-interactive (like Lands).

That said, there are a couple issues with Grixis control in this format. First, all of the black targeted removal spells suck compared to their white counterparts (Swords and Path). Secondly, black doesn't offer anything to a control deck that you can't already get in white - the sweepers in black are the same or worse, the utility creatures in white are potentially better, you don't want to run discard in a control deck, and running a color just to have access to the best graveyard hate is...pretty shitty. Third, most control decks that dip into red do so exclusively for Firespout (and maybe red Blasts) because Firespout is currently the best sweeper in the format. If you don't want to be greedy with your mana, it's fine to go with three colors, but because red does so little on its own you'd be better off in three other colors with red for Firespout.

It's also worth noting that control decks that don't have a combo finish of some kind are not very good in this format, despite what their fans might claim. Lands is basically a control deck that is extremely consistent and extremely good at punishing specific classes of decks, but outside of that most control decks in the Landstill vein are less consistent, less explosive, and more prone to losing when things go wrong. On the other end of the spectrum, you have Thopterbalance, which is also very good at punishing specific classes of decks and has a variety of two-card combos in it that are extremely difficult to beat when protected with counters. Furthermore, the deck has a tutor (Enlightened) that finds all of the pieces of all of the combos.

I don't see why you'd want to build a control deck that falls between these two extremes, because you're almost guaranteed to be worse than either of them. As a Landstill-esque control deck, you're doing much more work than either deck to both come together and hold down a favorable game state, and you're still in a position to randomly lose games to good draws from the opponent or bad draws from your own deck.

Furthermore, many of the cards you're mentioning don't really do much in the format, and they take your deck in a more proactive direction (making it more like Lands). Yeah, Blood Moon can be randomly backbreaking, but it also requires you to make concessions in the form of a jankier mana base, and there are still several decks in the format that don't get screwed by it (for example, Merfolk not only loves to beat up on blue control decks, it also doesn't give two shits about Blood Moon). The presence of Lands is also forcing rethinks on how to design mana bases in metagames where it exists as a relevant deck - most people will opt to play more fetchlands and more basics to dodge recurring/multiple Wastelands. Night of Soul's Betrayal is terrible because it (a) costs four mana, (b) is Legendary, and (c) doesn't actually do very much to contain aggro decks, your primary nemesis as a control deck. Engineered Plague is only marginally better; naming Cat against Zoo does a reasonable impression of NoSB, but it doesn't do enough for three mana, and Merfolk has enough lords to just completely blank Plagues.

Having your win conditions cost four or more seems pretty terrible against tempo decks that will attack your fetchlands while using tax counters like Daze, Spell Pierce, and Cursecatcher to make your basics less relevant. Having a mana base full of basics in a three-color deck also makes it harder to cast board control cards with varied color requirements in a relevant time frame against fast aggro decks like Zoo, which can usually just burn you out once you get to the point where you can repeatedly sweep.

In short, what you want to do sounds worse than :u::w:/x Landstill, which is already worse than Thopterbalance, probably weak to Lands without lots of sideboard concessions, and not as good against Zoo as most people might think.

[jdsnider]

well, now I have the input and opinions that I was looking for. I thank those of you who posted and appreciate not only the fact that you were able to let me know that this type of deck isnt viable, but why it isn't as well. Good luck to those of you who are brewing new decks and making tweaks to existing ones.

[Hanni]

If you like the Grixis color scheme, consider looking into Faeries (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?10720-Deck-Faeries). It's different in many regards than what you have suggested, but it's the only viable Grixis deck that I know of. It's also possible for you to tune it around to add some of the concepts you have suggested, if you really want to play with those (like Jace).

(I linked to the first page, but you won't start seeing Grixis lists until much further in thread. The last few pages have several Grixis lists.)

Just for reference, this was a Grixis list I was toying around with:

U/R/b Grixis Control

Lands (20)
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Island (2)
4 Mutavault

Creatures (5)
4 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Vendilion Clique

Spells (35)
4 Bitterblossom
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Predict
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Terminate
2 Firespout


There's obviously alot more ways to go about Faeries, or Grixis Control in general, and it is definitely possible for some number of Predict's, Ponder's, and/or Bitterblossoms to get cut for Jace, the Mindsculptor.

-1 Bitterblossom
-2 Predict
+1 Ponder
+2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

That would probably accomplish what you're looking for. As far as Blood Moon or Back to Basics goes, those aren't something you're going to want to run in a 3 color control deck.

[Combo Winter]

I think the best shell for a grixis deck is togless. It plays exactly the same as old school tog except you play tombstalkers for finishing and jace over fof. You just try to out control every matchup as most blue decks play daze which is terrible vs you and you play thoughtseize which is amazing vs control and aggro control. I think the faires deck posted by hanni is pretty good if you wanna go in a more aggro control version. The wish board is terrible ignore it but i think the concept is pretty strong.

4 terminate
4 bs
4 ponder
3 cunning whish
4 thoughtseize
3 counterspell
4 fow
4 spell snare

4 tombstalker
3 jace

3 chrome mox
4 delta
4 scalding tarn
3 underground sea
3 volcanic island
1 tropical island
1 swamp
4 island


side
2 fire spout
1 ghastly demise
1 reb
1 exterpaite
1 fact or fiction
4 ee
1 krosan grip
4 leyline of the void