I have since revised this list and will upload it in my next article I write about picking out the trash in your deck.

Spellcheck is your friend. And as good as Forbidden Alchemy/Desperate Ravings are, why no ponder? Also, Stensia Bloodhall kills em faster than Nephalia Drownyard.

Spellcheck?

Alchemy and Raving are far better than Ponder in this deck because of your ability to want multiple answers, dig, and not get suck with a draw mechanic that cannot flashback.

Ponder is a tempo card and the only reason it is seeing play at all is because of Delver. If Delver did not exist we would see more though scour's and think twice's.

Ha, actually thought you were referring to a card.

Well I DO use spell check but I write my articles from work and it uses Word 95 or something out dated like that where I cannot just F7 and bring it up and lacks the utility I have from my laptops version.

Desperate Ravings isn't +1, it's +0. You don't get +1 out of it till you flash it back.

And Ponder is awesome, especially paired with gitaxian probe. No need to draw that counterspell or boardwipe this turn if you know they haven't got it.

As for the deck, playtest it. If it beats honolulu top 8 consistently, pat yourself on the back, you cracked the meta.

Desperate Ravings for a dig and destroy deck is much better than probe and ponder. Those 2 are perfect for the delver deck as I mentioned before.

Also yes, I constantly beat the entire Pro tour top 8 and the more interesting decks in the top 16 as well. My revised version is much better that this one and as I said I will be posting that up soon.

Bant is better. That is all. (Controlled Ambushes went and rolled my sunday magic tournament with a worse sideboard)

Bant has some things that are good but lacks in a lot of areas and I hardly consider Sunday magic tournaments to be very competitive.

Spellcheck - 1U

Instant

Return target misspelled word to its owner's hand. That player may put a correctly-spelled word onto the battlefield without paying its mana cost.

I like this analysis. Grixis has been skulking around the metagame since, well, "Grixis" itself first debuted in Alara. Seems like DKA has given it some nasty tools.

Grixis is most certainly the best control deck in standard right now. But as for everyone saying that ponder or gitaxian probe should be used, just no lol. Ponder is not good for this deck by any means. Like he said, ponder is only good in the very specific circumstance that is delver, other than delver, id rather just run think twice over ponder. But id definitely run some Curse of Death's Hold in this thing siseboard. I even run 2 main 2 side, against delver, tokens, humans, zombies, etc.., i win 9 out of 10 times with that card, it's so under rated and unexpected half the time. Is grixis the best deck in standard? No, put delver spirits behind the hands of a truly great player, or wolf run, and grixis is still just slightly lacking. But i do love me some Olivia Voldaren :)

Faithless Looting > Desperate Ravings anyone?

Whipflare would make a great addition

@Pingulo, the problem i find with Faithless Looting is if you have limited cards in hand then it becomes worse once you have to discard. they are made more for decks with Burning Vengeance where you flashback a lot of spells.

for the article I agree grixis is amazing it has all the best control cards and has been my favorite since i started playing unfortunetly I don't have one built right now cause mine rotated out and I haven't gotten around to replacing the cards yet but reading this article I will definitely finish that next.

I agree that Grixis is the best control deck out there, esp. because of its strengths against the Standard giants, primarily Wolf Run. More importantly, other decks out there have left control hate out of their SB, since it has largely left the meta and aggro has taken over.

I would however (I'm sure this has been said before) switch out Sphere of the Suns with something...else. Maybe card draw? More removal? More snapcasters? Idk. It just seems out of place.

I played U/B Control before DKA released though so maybe I'm just used to taking it slow until I'm ready to drop bombs.

Lol, just came to the same realization today. Started testing and it's amazing. Wizards is adding all kinds of ways to make aggro decks more resilient against board wipes (, Moorland Haunt, Undying, etc.). This may seem bad for control decks, but I still think that Wizards is promoting aggro decks a lot, and the fact that they are basically all of standard at the moment makes mainboard wipers good. You used to have 1 or 2 mainboard board wipers, and the rest in the sideboard and side them IN against aggro. Now you mainboard a lot more of them and side them OUT against ramp or control. Having red in a control deck at the moment is also amazing. You can use the cheap burn spells to kill the aggro decks Plan B (traveler or haunt spirit, flipped cathar, etc.). However, I still hate how much Black Sun's Zenith sucks against undying. I run 2 mainboard Curse of Death's Hold and think that it is amazing. I also use Geistflame instead of Galvanic Blast. It does suck when they don't have a lot of 1-thoughess guys, though. I think that Red Sun's Zenith has gotten A LOT better, and I have three in my sideboard. Desperate Ravings is an all-star and a must have in any grixis control deck. Grave Titan is my go-to win-con, but I sideboard Wurmcoil Engine in often against heavy aggro.

I love Grixis, but I still think that Esper is a VERY close second. Grixis falls to the same problems that U/B control has: enchantments like Tempered Steel, Honor of the Pure, and Intangible Virtue absolutely destroy you. Meanwhile, esper is sitting over there with their Day of Judgment, which doesn't give a f*** about creature toughness, and o-rings and revoke existence to get rid of pesky enchantments.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I'm loving Grixis atm and I really need to get my hands on some Olivia Voldaren (don't have any atm).

Y u no Liliana? Since you are running the Geth's Verdict which does the same only once (plus Snappy) and Liliana can just take games over. Maybe as a three-of.

How come everywhere I go, Hellrider gets no love from anyone? Last night was local standard night and after an hour an a half of convincing, I finally got some people to take a look and they were all really surprised. while he isn't mythic material, he's twice the creature that Hero of Oxid Ridge is and he takes his three damage and rides you to hell with it. hes a pain in the butt to get rid of, aside from bouncing, but he has haste, and the beauty is he doesn't need to connect to be DEVASTATING. He can get blocked all day, and all your other little guys going to town with him can get blocked too...but when the dust settles you're still taking 5-6 to the dome, and unchecked, he does 4 all by himself. I've been re-tooling Kuldotha Rebirth and had a turn 4 Hellrider swinging with a Myr Battlesphere dealing 17 damage unchecked and 5 direct (non combat damage) I also seriously doubt that by that time you have any board presence, which means you're blocking the meatier guys just to prevent damage, so I'm guessing you're getting hit for about 10 damage (with two blockers, lets say flipped delvers, killing my Hellrider and blocking the sphere would still amount to 10 damage from the unblocked 1/1 myr's ontop of the 6 dealt by creatures attacking).

he can't be fogged, and given you play him at the right time (meaning hesitantly), you set up your battlefield with a few tokens and or creatures, play him, hit him with an Apostle's Blessing and he is your nail in the coffin. and if you can manage a blue mana?????????????? FORGET ABOUT IT! Curiosity makes him card advantage city....take 8 direct damage please, oh yeah ill draw 8 while I'm at it, thanks. I just can't decide who he plays nicer with, White or Blue. with R/W, you get goblin tokens and Intangible Virtue and the benefit of being able to ditch and Unburial Rites with whatever you want to reanimate and do so next turn. With U/R you can Cackling Counterpart him and keep him safe. or just keep him in mono red and dump red stuff til the shrine is about to burst and kill your opponent turn 5 lol.

Take another look, he's MEAN.

I never said he was bad o.0 I think he is Hero 2.0, he has a different role than hero as a different kind of finisher and both can be devastating in the right deck. I played a mono red deck at a tournament the other day and leaked him the first chance I got and he had no other threats beyond that.

Beyond Shrine of Burning Rage Mono Red has little to no late game and as long as you can survive the opponent running out of gas a control deck should win. Not saying it happens all the time but Absolute Control will beat Absolute aggro 75% of the time before luck is added into the equation.

Wait for my next article and you will see the Grixis I tuned up a bit more.

We don't run Hellrider because we're not aggro. Simple as that.

Oh and Check Liliana is not as good as she used to be with as many tokens decks going round you will almost never get the card your want to get. I like her but at the moment she is not useful

Well, she has a recursive Geth's Verdict and if that's bad, don't run Geth's Verdict. My reasoning is for, say Geist or Thrun, she just shuts them down, like the Verdict but better.

I personally use Victim of Night, I find the lifegain useful most of the time. Also, the mana is easier.

Tlan you mean Tribute to Hunger right?

I think Whipflare is better than Slagstorm.

Well, Whipflare does answer most of Delver's creatures, however with the Spirits version gaining popularity I think Slagstorm is better positioned. It also can go to the dome which is surprisingly useful. Also, Slagstorm is significantly better against tokens because of their multiple Anthem effects. Therefore, Slagstorm wins out for me.

We also have problems with Tempered Steel so Whipflare just deadens us even more.

Lol yes, I always get the names mixed up xD

So I was browsing on the Magic Toolbox and I found a couple spells we might find use in. So far Sorin's Vengeance as a one of game ended seems good. Also, this is the one that I'm really interested in is Charmbreaker Devils. I'm not sure how it would play but it does give us incremental CA and a big win con although it rlly has no evasion and is a prime vapor snag or removal spell target because it doesn't give us anything when it hits the board. Let me know your opinions on this one, thanks!

Sorin's Vengeance is a great card for the deck. I think you said the important things about Charmbreaker Devils. Its too flimsy.

Great! Now I feel good about myself for finding a good card XD haha yea I wasn't sure about the Devils, even with their powerful effect they felt weak.

Haha they would be much better if they maybe cost 4-5 mana with maybe less of a bonus. Otherwise, its much more prudent to play a titan =P

But S.V. is an awesome card and I have won several games with it in U/B Control!

Yeah Sorin's Vengeance is actually nuts. I have even pulled off the Sorin Markov into sorin's vengeance and won easy more then once. But even without Sorin Markov, vengeance is great for this deck.

Thats must be good then haha and I am considering running a 1-1 split of that and Devil's Play for non-creature win cons. And of course Blast and the Drownyard.

I really like Sorin Markov in my Grixis deck. The lifegain is useful and the 2 damage kills A LOT of relevant creatures in standard atm. It's nice that his main ability does +2, and his -3 ability is a really good win-con. Play sorin, use -3, then use Sorin's Vengeance, or play Grave Titan, next turn play sorin and use -3 then attack for 10.

Yea I really like Sorin Markov in the deck, but it can be difficult to cast. Triple black is hard for a three color deck. But it is really powerful. I run two and I can only consistently cast by T8.

Hey guys I am running my awesome Grixis Deck at the DKA Game Day today! I just have one problem. I have one extra spot, which is currently filled with 1x Olivia Voldaren, and I REALLY need to fit another Sorin into the deck, so should I cut the Olivia for the Sorin(I currently have 3 Olivia's and 1 Sorin) or find something else to cut? Check my deck out here deck:oh-that-dead