Grixis Countertop

[HopDizzle]

Recently, I've been interested in playing a counter-top deck, but I'm not interested in playing a UW version, so I threw this Grixis list together. I realize the deck may be trying to do too much, but I want to try and make it work.

Lands (19)
4x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Swamp
2x Island
1x Mountain

Creatures (8)
4x Spellstutter Sprite
3x Vendilion Clique
1x Tombstalker

Instants (17)
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
4x Brainstorm
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Dismember

Planeswalkers (2)
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Enchantments (8)
4x Bitterblossom
4x Counterbalance

Artifacts (6)
4x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Umezawa's Jitte

[zathe922]

Your mana curve is terrible, to many cmc2 spells and to few cmc1 spells. You need more lands as well, counterblance decks are very hungry for mana. i sugest dropping the dazes and the tombstalker for some spell pierce's and spell snare's to begin with.

[Kich867]

Recently, I've been interested in playing a counter-top deck, but I'm not interested in playing a UW version, so I threw this Grixis list together. I realize the deck may be trying to do too much, but I want to try and make it work.

Lands (19)
4x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Swamp
2x Island
1x Mountain

Creatures (8)
4x Spellstutter Sprite
3x Vendilion Clique
1x Tombstalker

Instants (17)
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
4x Brainstorm
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Dismember

Planeswalkers (2)
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Enchantments (8)
4x Bitterblossom
4x Counterbalance

Artifacts (6)
4x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Umezawa's Jitte

There's a lot of confusion in this deck. I'm not convinced of spell snare, but at 19 lands you're looking to get wrecked. Bump that up to 24 or so.

Drop daze. Drop Tombstalker. Drop Jitte. I'd drop Spellstutter Sprites for Snapcaster Mages for sure. Dismember doesn't seem great either.

The issue with running a Grixis version of this deck is Grixis just doesn't have many meaningful interactions with counter-top or a reason to use it. It seems like you're going for a tempo deck by using the most grindy, slowest, controlly cards ever designed with a splash of burn and free counter magic which just doesn't jive.

If you're going for the long game, go for the long game. You'll want more lands, you'll want better counterspells, point discard would be pretty swanky. I'd run duress over Thoughtseize here as you want to maximize your time with Bitterblossom.

I don't think you have particularly too few one drops--for one, Top itself covers the one drop area quite well if you really need it to, but he's also running 4x Brainstorm/Bolt and top itself, so 12 is pretty nice. Two drops he's running 18, to me this makes more sense since more threatening cards will be your two drop slot and top can flip itself to cover the one drop slot. He's light on three's, Liliana would be good here, and 4+ is sort of irrelevant.