Post-DGM Grixis Control

Creatures [2]:
1 Olivia Voldaren
1 Aetherling

Instants [22]:
4 Think Twice
4 Desperate Ravings
2 Devour Flesh
1 Izzet Charm
1 Tribute to Hunger
3 Turn // Burn
3 Far // Away
4 Syncopate

Planeswalkers [4]:
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

Sorceries [5]:
3 Mizzium Mortars
1 Dreadbore
1 Barter in Blood

Enchantments [1]:
1 Curse of Death's Hold

Lands [26]:
1 Desolate Lighthouse
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Steam Vents
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Watery Grave
4 Dragonskull Summit
3 Blood Crypt
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp


Sideboard:
1 Dreadbore
1 Devour Flesh
2 Duress
1 Lone Revenant
2 Dissipate
1 Counterflux
1 Notion Thief
2 Pithing Needle
2 Slaughter Games
2 Izzet Staticaster

Edited OP with current build.

I'm realising more and more value in the split cards as time goes on, and they really help the lack of Sphinx's Rev by being essentially 2 cards.

Oh and a quick rules question: Would Turn stop Angel of Serenity getting anything back if it then dies to Burn?

Gisela wrote:Edited OP with current build.

I'm realising more and more value in the split cards as time goes on, and they really help the lack of Sphinx's Rev by being essentially 2 cards.

Oh and a quick rules question: Would Turn stop Angel of Serenity getting anything back if it then dies to Burn?

Yep. Same reason why Thragtusk won't leave behind a token if killed the same way.

Yeah, Turn // Burn's great for flexibility.

I can tell you for sure that a safe pick to put in your board for a lot of your matchups is probably going to be Slaughter Games. Even with Witchbane Orb around, you usually have enough copies to get around that and remove an important combo piece or take away their Thraggies.

I also think squeezing in a Rift would be good. Did me wonders against Reckoner.

I've actually avoided using Slaughter Games in a Grixis side before, mostly due to less narrow cards (especially thanks to Turn // Burn now alleviating the Thragtusk and AoS threats) just being better for the job. Slaughter Games right now would only serve the purpose of calling Sphinx's Revelation, and given my usual sideboard choices in these colours (Multiple Dispels, Negates, Counterflux) I don't really think it'll be necessary and I'd rather keep the tempo flowing.

Gisela wrote:I've actually avoided using Slaughter Games in a Grixis side before, mostly due to less narrow cards (especially thanks to Turn // Burn now alleviating the Thragtusk and AoS threats) just being better for the job. Slaughter Games right now would only serve the purpose of calling Sphinx's Revelation, and given my usual sideboard choices in these colours (Multiple Dispels, Negates, Counterflux) I don't really think it'll be necessary and I'd rather keep the tempo flowing.

It gives you an automatic win con against Rites.

Then again, most things give you an automatic win con against Rites. And personally, I'm more interested into how this form of control works post-rotation, but that's for M14 to decide, not DGM.

Probably a lot less in the value department.

Turn // Burn just makes Rites so much easier to beat, since their win con against control is looping Angels, which it stops them doing entirely.

And honestly, no, most things don't make it an auto-win vs Rites since Rites preys on slow control decks, and this is roughly as slow as no-Jace Esper.

Well, the manabase will probably deteriorate a bit, so it'll just fall to splashing a colour (likely UR splashing Black or straight-up UR) but it all depends on what's in M14 and Theros. I have high hopes for Chandra pushing the deck into UR, especially since she'll be with Ral and Jace.

Rites is highly susceptible to losing its things due to counterspells and removal tricks, though. That's why I enjoy using Slaughter Games on 'em. But I play way too much MBC for my own good, so I digress.

That's mostly counting on new Chandra being good, which they implied she would, but I'm still uneasy about that. Seems like she'll come with a new wave of everyone else, so this'll be pretty interesting for most decks.

UR seems like the way this would go, since you would have just enough removal, but then again, I'm just not sure how all of this will affect the use of stuff like Reckoner, since it means that the best control variants are the ones with single-target removal or just flat-up board-wiping.

It's a lot harder to beat them with removal than I wish it was, though, and counters require specific timing, obviously, but it means I can't actually pressure them with any threat in the mean-time since I'll need to be holding up mana.

Well, they're devoting a whole set to her, they can't mess up that bad. Either way, RTR block's given Izzet some wonderful tools for constructed, I just hope M14 and Theros either reprint some of the best cards or give good replacements. I don't want to say goodbye to Augur of Bolas in October. :c

Reckoner's just another reason that Turn // Burn is a fantastic card for this deck.

Updated with current build I've been working on since we got the full spoiler.

Ral wasn't holding his weight at all so he's been dropped for another Jace, which has been performing incredibly well as a source of card advantage and a pseudo-win con. Although, still haven't ultimated him yet, the threat of him doing so is awesome.

Upped Mortars to 3. 4 damage kills just about every relevant threat, and it's cheap, and gives me a board wipe at 6 mana. Magmaquake dropped to 1, due to it messing with Jace a bit too much.

Aetherling is the best finisher ever, obviously.

Thoughtflare upped to 4. It's just such an important form of digging, and it's better than playing more smaller cantrips, imo. They haven't clogged at all in testing yet, and are great for draw power in the mid game. Especially useful in control mirrors, since it's so easy to cast for value with counter magic up. People evaluating it always forget that you never discard 2 relevant cards, so it really is a Sphinx's for 4 for 5 mana, essentially.

Rakdos's Return was just not cutting it in the main for me. Worst part was always triggering Smiters and doing nothing against the faster decks of the format. I like it as a one-of against control and midrange decks, out of the side. Only 1 for control because or else I feel I have too many cards blanked by Witchbane Orb.

Might have to play some artifact removal in the side eventually if Needle for Aetherling becomes popular. I personally feel like I have the edge in Aetherling mirrors, since I can draw more to deal with their Aetherlings much easier than Esper can, since their draw power lies in Sphinx's Rev which just devours their mana (this is provided they even play Aetherling).

Pretty sure that covers all the changes.

Looks solid.

Every single time I play against Aetherling I lose. It's just so strong and inevitable.

I dunno if you really care, but what about running a Cavern of Souls for it? I don't think it'd hurt your mana base too much, though IRL it's a b**** of a card to buy, too expensive.

Cavern's not worth it, imo.

I really like my mana base in comparison to Esper, because I can run 26 always-coloured lands, and Desolate Lighthouse has far greater utility over a long game. Being able to cast Warped Physique and Dreadbore turn 2 and Dissipate turn 3 is incredibly valuable, whereas Esper rarely can rely so much on black early on. If I'm against control, I'll just wait until I can cast Aetherling and Dissipate and hold 2 blue up. The thing is, I still have more threats than control has counters. They counter Nicol Bolas, Tamiyo, Jace, for example, then I play Aetherling with 5 mana up with Dissipate in hand and they can do absolutely nothing to stop it resolving. Post-board, they virtually never win a counter war, and it's safe to pass with only 1 blue up since most of their removal is gonna be gone. So yeah, this is my justification against Cavern both ideally and irl.

Cards arrived yesterday and I've been fiddling around with numbers some more.

Magmaquake was proving to be a little too much of a dead draw, especially when I drew it alongside a Jace, it just made it so I either had to stall my own game plan, or I had to pretend I'd mull'd to 6, which is never a good sign. The fact that it had the double red cost didn't help either. It rarely ever became an issue, but when it did it made it that much worse.

So, Magmaquake has been dropped for another Warped Physique which I think is seriously good. It deals with Huntmaster with great efficiency, ignoring the 2/2 Wolf, and is a nice answer to Sire of Insanity. Both of these it does better than the alternatives in Victim of Night and Ultimate Price, while being usable on turn 2 to deal with BTE/Champion of the Parish draws from aggro decks.

Sideboard update is basically -1 Dispel for a Negate. Negate's just more flexible, basically.

This deck looks really interesting.

Yet to have the pleasure of playing against an Etherling, but I imagine it would be hard.

Woo, SB changes!

-1 Rakdos's Return (AEtherling, Tamiyo and Nicol Bolas make this redundant vs control)
-3 Devour Flesh (Almost all downside vs the decks I bring it in against compared to Nighthawk)
-2 Appetite for Brains (Only comes in vs Reanimator and it's not as good as I thought it'd be in the matchup)

+4 Nighthawk (Broad answer and a sweet one against aggressive decks. Also allows me to cut some win cons against the faster decks.)
+2 Evil Twin (Value all-round, about as broad as an answer can get.)

Massive update


-1 Dreadbore (Just not as good a catch-all as I want it to be, second one's good post-board though)
-4 Augur of Bolas (Running less win cons, this ships them to the bottom and the body is lackluster)
-2 Warped Physique (Just not as good as other options)
-1 AEtherling (2 clogged)
-4 Thoughtflare (Changed this ages ago to Desperate Ravings, just never updated this thread; Too expensive)
-1 Mizzium Mortars (Not as good as I want it to be vs my local meta, which is greatly midrange resilient threats and Junk Rites, the latter of which I hate this against the most. Just not as good a performer as it used to be either.)
-1 Island (More digging added so I can hit land drops easier)
-1 Blood Crypt (Traded for a Steam Vents for better mana)

+1 Think Twice (Again, old change, just finally OWN the 4th one)
+1 Turn // Burn (So, so, so good across the board, and a win con with Tamiyo)
+1 Far // Away (Just such a powerful card in general, another was added. Potential 4th copy was just worse than every option to cut for it)
+4 Desperate Ravings (Such good CA and digging)
+3 Pillar of Flame (Concession to aggressive decks and Voice of Resurgence - Rod's heard me b**** about the latter way too much, sorry man! D: )
+3 Forbidden Alchemy (Turns the draw engine of the deck into a CA machine)
+1 Olivia Voldaren (Wrecks rites decks and removal light decks. Annihilates aggressive strategies too, only bad vs control and removal heavy decks.)
+1 Steam Vents (For the Blood Crypt, so better mana)


Sideboard changes:

-2 Witchbane Orb (Not as good as Needle in so many matchups)
-2 Vampire Nighthawk (Not necessary with the new maindeck)
-1 Curse of Death's Hold (No one in my meta plays Aristocrats. If they ever pick up this would be Staticaster anyway)

+2 Pithing Needle (Deals with planeswalkers and lands, overall just better than Witchbane Orb atm)
+1 Dreadbore (Planeswalker killer. Not terrible vs aggro either)
+1 AEtherling (For control and removal heavy matchups)
+1 Crypt Incursion (Game winner against Junk Rites since the games last an eternity and gives me a chance (with Pithing Needle) against Humanimator)


One thing I still like about this deck is if Game 1 just takes forever and I can win it, I can just side out all my win conditions game 2 and just stall until time. It's dickish but definitely plausible, a lot of decks just try to explode game 2 to try to win in time anyway and it lowers variance if anything.

This deck is f****** sweet, as much as I complain about how good decks are vs control, I like the challenge it brings that makes me build decks like this.

Hey, I b**** as much as you about it. Which is why I run 4 Pillar of Flame myself.

Deck looks sweet. I'll end up building something similar in the next weeks.

Another massive change for the angle I want to take the deck.

Should be noted this is because of the lack of control and influx of midrange and aggro in my local meta. Sideboard will now be geared heavily towards the control matchups since that's where I have the most suboptimal or dead cards.

From the main:

-1 Turn // Burn (I feel like 4 was overdoing it, in hindsight. It's great when it's great, but it's way better with things like Augur of Bolas to gain actual value out of it as opposed to 1-for-1'ing.)
-3 Forbidden Alchemy (The deck just had too many cards that were purely cantrips, even if they all drew more than one card eventually, Think Twice + Ravings + Jace is plenty)
-2 Dissipate (Too slow and sometimes too awkward to cast. This might just be me singling out only the negative instances of this card, but they were just too abundant for me. Will likely be re-testing this card over and over again in future.)
-3 Pillar of Flame (Virtually no one at my LGS plays Voice, and I've found I was trying too hard to deal with it and it just feels so bad to play Pillar in general.)


+2 Syncopate (Very easy on the mana and a great catch-all at any point in the game.)
+2 Devour Flesh (Just an overall good removal spell, helps with the occasional aura matchup too.)
+1 Mizzium Mortars (Grown more fond of this card again over time. Mostly due to how powerful the overload is and how easily I overlooked that part of the card beforehand when I removed a copy.)
+1 Tribute to Hunger (Lifegain.)
+1 Barter in Blood (Mises some games by itself, great value card in a slot on the curve I can afford to play a good 2-for-1 that doesn't disrupt my Walkers like Magmaquake does.)
+1 Curse of Death's Hold (f*** Aristocrats.)
+1 Izzet Charm (For value.)


Sideboard stuff:

Overhauled it so I'll just go over the new board.

1 Dreadbore (For decks with Planeswalkers, pretty much. Sometimes in against aggro but very unlikely.)
1 Devour Flesh (Aggro decks and Auras.)
2 Duress (Auras, some midrange decks, namely Jund, and control decks.)
1 Lone Revenant (They remove all their wraths/edicts and this becomes fantastic against what would normally be removal heavy decks since they struggle to interact with it and it's a +1 every turn.)
2 Dissipate (Still good against non-aggro non-cavern decks.)
1 Counterflux (Winning all the counter wars.)
1 Notion Thief (For Prime Speaker/Sphinx's Rev decks.)
2 Pithing Needle (Mostly for troublesome Lands, Wolf Run is probably the biggest culprit)
2 Slaughter Games (I bring this card in too often for "value".)
2 Izzet Staticaster (Aristocrats and Blitz.)