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Grixis Cruel Control (First at FNM)

Standard Control Cruel Control FNM UBR (Grixis)

Armenius


Sideboard


A Grixis Control deck revolving around denying your opponent resources and then winning with hard-to-kill win conditions. (Mainboard is tuned towards an aggro meta)

Let's breakdown the deck.

-16 kill spells (mainboard) (counting Cyclonic Rift): Your creatures will die. Frequently. Including your Planeswalkers

-5 Counterspells: 2 are uncounterable as well. I don't want you to have important spells.

-3 Hand Disruption: I tear your hand apart and strip you of your win-cons.

-8 draw power: I need answers, and 1 card a turn isn't enough.

-3 win cons: Keranos gives me advantage and damage, AEtherling is a 3 turn win if they are at 24 life or below, and Elixir of Immortality just gives me them again, or gives me more resource denial.

Pros: Wastes your opponents removal because you have no creatures

-Destroys aggro

-Answers to every creature deck in the format

-Mainboard control hosers

Cons: Gets destroyed by control decks game 1 due to so many dead removal cards

-No major draw power like Sphinx's Revelation

-Land base can be inconsistent

-Life total can get sketchy

-The Burn matchup, though untested, seems awful even after postboard

Matchups: Good against Mono-Back, Mono Blue, most aggro decks, U/W Control, Esper Control, BUG Control, Dredge, and G/R/Jund Monsters, and really anything that relies on winning with lots of creatures

Bad against Burn, B/W Humans, Mono-Black Aggro (untested, just seems bad), Hexproof

Even with America Control (assuming they have a sideboard against the control matchup) and WW (Brave the Elements is harsh)

All in all, the deck is a ton of fun if you enjoy control decks, and is well tuned for a very aggro meta. Suggestions welcome.

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Pretty standard run through. My locals is known for the love of janky decks mixed with top tiered ones. Only one substitution was made: 1 Ring of Three Wishes (I know, super bad. Couldn't find the other card for some reason) for 1 Opportunity. It served me well, so. I was happy. Anyhow, onto the matches

Match 1: Bant Midrange (2-1)-Game 1 I wrecked his hand and then played an AEtherling. Nothing he could do to stop Counterflux taking out his important spells or the AEtherling beat down. Game 2 he took with back to back Mistcutter Hydras, which I didn't have removal for, as well as a Mutavault. Game 3 I won by Slaughter Games... I hit him twice: once for Elspeth, Sun's Champion and once for Mistcutter Hydra. With no win cons besides a miser AEtherling that I raced with my own, he was quite dead. I notably used the Ring of Three Wishes to tutor up a Doom Blade to kill his first Mistcutter Hydra for 6 that would have honestly killed me otherwise.

Match 2: Rakdos "4 Rack" (2-1)- The deck used Shrieking Affliction and discard to keep me off balance, then pressured me with some good creatures. Game 1 I just had all the answers. Nothing really stuck and I bolted him with Keranos, God of Storms until he died. Game 2: Thoughtseize into Pack Rat. Enough said. Game 3 was the closest game I've ever had. We exhausted all our resources until I was at 18 and he was at 8. I had an Opportunity in hand along with a Negate. He had Slaughter Gamesed out my AEtherling and was desperately digging for the other to hit Keranos. He slammed Sire Of Insanity, so I dug with Opportunity, but hit lands and a kill spell for his Pack Rat he couldn't use, but would have to discard to Sire's trigger. We went down to 0 cards, a lot of lands, but he had a Shrieking Affliction. I ripped a Dreadbore, killing his Sire. When I was at 10 and he was at 8, I ripped a Keranos, and the race was on. I simply bolted him to death, the game ending with me at 1 and him at 2, drawing a Cyclonic Rift for the final kill. (He got 4th)

Match 3: Budget Selesnya Hexproof (0-2)- A horrid matchup. All your spot removal is dead. Yay. Game 1 he went turn one Gladecover Scout and turn 2 Tower Archer. Quickly decimated me from there. I did counter a Witchstalker though, yay. Game 2 was slower. He went turn 2 Sylvan Caryatid and turn 3 Witchstalker. Turn 4 was 2 Etheral Armors and an Ordeal of Nylea. Turn 5 was a SUPER random Hunter's Prowess for game.

Match 4: Mono White Heroic Enchantments (2-0)- Pretty easy matchup. I had all the kill spells and counters game 1. He scooped when he had no cards in hand. Game 2, he made the mistake of having no creatures in his opener and not mulliganing. I showed him 6 kill spells on turn 4 and he scooped. Pretty boring match, but whatever.

Tie breakers ensured that I placed 3rd, leaving myself happy with how the deck performed. Hopefully I'll be able to repeat this next time. For now, I'm off to some M15 prereleases.

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Date added 10 years
Last updated 10 years
Legality

This deck is not Standard legal.

Rarity (main - side)

4 - 2 Mythic Rares

30 - 5 Rares

11 - 2 Uncommons

11 - 6 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.86
Folders Standard, Calon, Sexy decks, Decks to Try, Wanna try, Competitive
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