I kind of feel like Tribute to Hunger may be a little more helpful in these kinds of Aggro match-ups. I really like my odds against Aggro with Tribute sitting in the sideboard of my Grixis deck, The Beast and the Harlot...

Yeah, but it's slow and you inevitably get 1 or 2 life. Bolas used to run Tribute, but I cut it for Devour Flesh to try and improve the speed.

I think the biggest difference between our two decks is that mine runs 12 total creature-hate (specific) spells, plus the playset of Dreadbore of course, and they're all under 4CMC. I do believe that the minute amount of life-gain is still more beneficial (in my eyes) than a turn later sacking two critters. As you pointed out, the speed is super important, and Tribute is just one turn faster, which is why it made my cut....

I'm sorry, I forgot about my Mizzium Mortars main-board on my deck. That would put my count at 16 with the Mortars being my board-wipey answer for Grixis colors in place of Supreme Verdict ....

Why not board in Slaughter Games to get rid of the thragtusks? And thanks - these are fun to watch/read :)

Slaughter games comes in too late against aggro. If youre wasting turn 4 stopping their Tusk then you're gonna take 8 off the stuff they already played.

Maybe you could board in more dedicated hate to aggro in your side, like pillars / slips / temblors? Really like the videos, even if I'm someway sad I can't read you at work as often as I used to =/ anyway, alternance is fine, and thanks again for your time spent on those articles, they are really thrilling, even more for a Grixis player !

@actiontech - landgrafb has it. I would love to be able to kill those Thrags with Slaughter Games, but I really need to have every fast kill spell in there.

is Turn / Burn or Far / Away going in here soon?

@cartwheelnurd - I don't anticipate putting in either of those cards until perhaps after the rotation.

This match-up just shows the absolute power of Mystic Retrieval , ever since seeing that card running in your deck I have loved it.

@KrazyCaley I think they both are fine candidates. Turn / Burn deals with Thragtusk and you seem to have a hard time dealing with him. Far / Away is also pretty good, and relevant against some decks with hexproof, but they are both really good and versatile.

@cartwheelnurd - Turn / Burn DOES deal with Thragtusk and Angel of Serenity and what not. It costs a ton, though. Might be a sideboard card, but Essence Scatter already fulfills this function for a better price, although of course I can still use Turn / Burn after the creature resolves.

Far / Away is just basically a flexibility card for me. It can be a worse Unsummon , a worse Tribute to Hunger , or a worse Barter in Blood , kind of. I'd rather just use the cards I have (I think), but many of them rotate soonish, so I'll be keeping these cards in mind.

Hey, I just noticed that this got posted under the Daily Draft Debate, not Daily Dose.

So it did. Fixing.

I think you were off on the count there. :P

I was. This was originally Daily Dose 56, but then I did a text version first.

Ahh. I see. Nvm then :P

Is there any reason you don't even consider milling yourself when you have a mystic retrieval in hand G1?

Or any other game, hoping to mill removal + mystic or tt?

@theobjection - The only time I would have done so in G1 would have been to find an instant-speed answer to Flinthoof Boar , but alas, Mystic Retrieval is a sorcery.

Hey if you don't mind me asking could you just take a quick look at my Grixis deck, I've been playing it and did ok at FNM. I came back after playing hardcore aggro and switched some things around. Thanks ahead of time, even if you don't look at it, and I love all the articles and vids :)

Mrs. Oliva Bolas

P.S. I know that i need to get better dual-lands than gates, I'm trading for them at FNMs.

im not particularly familiar with your deck but it looked to me that you may have needed to mull until you got an answer to thraggy in hand, essence scatter is a really good choice btw. i think you could afford to run more counters. havent seen a lot of Cavern of souls recently. probably cause my playgroup's a bit more casual. and i guess in a 3 colour deck, you don't really have much space for Ghost Quarter to fit in alongside Nephalia Drownyard in the mana base to deal with cavern.

@gheridarigaaz - Hard to mulligan against this deck when card advantage is so important in this matchup, but certainly a mulligan would be defensible. And you're right on with Ghost Quarter . Having the Drownyards and the Desolate Lighthouse is tough enough, I think.

Yeah... Up until the release of those uncounterable spells in RTR i thought mono-blue had a chance to shine for once. Considering that, it might be worth a try in the current standard due to decks being greedy with lands, so mono/dichromatic decks would stand a chance by locking opponents out of a colour with a well targeted Ghost Quarter . I think i've got my next deck idea :-)

I don't know, mono-ANYTHING is pretty tough to build right now. You can only run 4x Ghost Quarter , after all, and there's endless fixing to be had for multicolor decks. You can't really lock them out with Ghost Quarter anyway; they'll just go get the color they need.

True, though it is nice for getting rid of their utility lands when you dont really play the land destruction colours. I'll see what i come up with, send you the deck too if you wouldn't mind. Could be nice in a modern casual deck with Psychogenic Probe et al