I just feel like it costs too much against most aggro decks. You most likely don't want to use it until you have 6 mana, and how many cards could you even get rid of in their deck? They'll have played their Hellrider s, Huntmaster of the Fells  ^Flip s, and Thragtusk s before you have the mana to cast it. You would be limited with your targets, if they even have cards in their hand at all. If it was an instant, it'd be better.

I'm hesitant to use it in this deck, but then again, we won't know until we test it. It wouldn't exactly surprise me to see it do well, of course. If you do find that even aggro decks have cards in their hand by the time you can cast it, that card will do nasty, nasty work. Combining it with Slaughter Games and Mystic Retrieval would upgrade the combo into a full-blown win-condition.

Oh, if you get the other lands you need, do you think that the Cluestones would replace Chromatic Lantern ? Depending on which one(s) you pick, you'd still get 2/3s of the mana fixing you need, and when you no longer need the extra mana, you could sac it on your opponent's turn to draw a card.

Cluestones could never replace the utility of Chromatic Lantern .

I just figured that if he got the 4x Blood Crypt and 4x Dragonskull Summit , he wouldn't need the mana-fixing as badly.

I think I would still like the Chromatic Lantern better even with the extra lands. You can never be too careful in fixing a three-color deck, and I already have tons of ways to draw cards.

There's also a lot of very color-intensive cards in here - Counterflux is UUR, most of the removal (plus Lily) is at BB, Dreadbore BR, and of course Bolas himself asks for UBBR. There's so much demand for specific combinations of colors in here that the Lantern's effect is pretty terrific.

@MagnorCriol Very true. It gets tricky to manage things properly without the ol' lantern.

Caley, I love your Daily Dose articles and just wanted to let you know that this Grixis list has been an inspiration for my own since I began testing it. Thank you for what you do and +1 from me!

@bluemax87 - Thank you so much! I'm always at your service if you want to talk shop.

@KrazyCaley, a card worth considering, though mostly unnecessary, is Pilfered Plans. The biggest problem I see with it is Sorcery Speed, but drawing 2 cards for 3CMC on it's own is pretty good, and making the opponent mill 2 is a bonus.

Maybe. Milling two is almost irrelevant. Drawing two cards off of one cast is always nice, but sorcery speed is very ugh.

Yeah I agree that the Sorcery speed really lets it down, but it may be worth thinking about when rotation comes around, assuming you stick with RUB control-style

Caley, have you considered Chandra, the Firebrand ? She would help you to save kill spells by pinging weak creatures and doubling the ones you do have to cast.

She could also copy Mystic Retrieval , allowing you to retrieve two spells without having to flash it back.

I second that suggestion from meecht.... Maybe try her out as a proxie for a bit?

I know you probably have thought about it, and have reasons for why you haven't done so. But I'm curious, why are you using those REALLY expensive cmc artifacts when you could use keyrunes?

@dbrannon, in a deck like this, it is easy to get enough mana out to cast those cards, Chromatic Lantern is there to ensure he can cast those tricky cost spells like Counterflux , and Gilded Lotus let's him ramp into Bolas easily.

The Keyrunes cost the same to play as Chromatic Lantern , yet do not provide anywhere near the mana fixing that Lantern does, and KrazyCaley would barely ever use them as creatures.

Ok I agree with Chromatic Lantern but, I feel Gilded Lotus is outdone by keyrunes in this perspective. One because he has to almost always tap out to use it. Keyrunes have the added Mana and blocking or attacking abilities if need be. But are much cheaper to cast, won't have to tap out to use and can Mana fix if needed. He doesn't need that much anyway when he's got lantern out. Why not use the other spot for something more useful and flexible?

I've also read a ton of daily doses but he rarely uses Staff of Nin although he has referred to it as staff of win before

I can see your point, but I personally feel that Gilded Lotus is better here, except for a few of the Keyrunes.

If he ran Golgari Keyrune , he can use it as a good blocker, ensuring at least a trade due to Deathtouch, however, it doesn't mana fix that well.

Izzet Keyrune could be used as an attacker with an effect like Desolate Lighthouse , costing 1 less mana and dealing 3 damage, assuming unblocked.

Rakdos Keyrune could be a good defence, being, 3/1 and First Strike.

The three-mana boost provided by Gilded Lotus is huge. It lets him cast Bolas a ton earlier that he might otherwise, but perhaps more importantly, it gives him so much more mana for his kill spells and counters. Keyrunes only set him one mana ahead; Lotus puts him three turns ahead, and in an attrition deck like this that's important.

The keyrunes being able to turn into creatures is a nonentity. He's talked several times (mostly in older comments, which are now swept under update pages) about how he doesn't want any creatures, and would not use the keyrunes as creatures even if he had them in here, because he doesn't want to give the opponents' kill spells anything to target. By completely eschewing creatures he's nullifying a whole subset of their cards.

He uses Staff of Nin quite frequently, actually. The card draw it provides him has been pretty invaluable.

If he was going to replace Gilded Lotus with anything, I would up the count of Chromatic Lantern and Staff of Nin by 1 each, meaning he gets the Staff out more often, and nearly always gets the Lantern going, leaving the others as discardable by Desolate Lighthouse .

@Denial048, MagnorCriol, dbrannon, meecht, bluemax87:

Re: Chandra, the Firebrand - Your ideas interest me and I would like to subscribe to your pamphlet. Chandra is dollar-cheap, mana-cheap, and has two really good effects for this deck. Generally she's a terrible planeswalker, but she might be pretty awesome here. Very good suggestion from meecht. I might try her out a bit.

Re: Keyrunes. I would almost never turn them into creatures. My opponents will kill them and I will be left sad and manaless. Chromatic Lantern cures so many headaches.

Re: Gilded Lotus - I don't need it for fixing, just ramp. MagnorCriol has it right. It's especially a huge bonus against other control decks, where mana-racing is always key. Frequently against Esper Control, it will get counterspelled, which is fine with me. Along with Chromatic Lantern , it sets up turn 5 Bolas a lot of the time, which is awesome.

Re: Staff of Nin . I don't often care about the Tim effect. I care about drawing two cards every turn. Against Naya decks and their ilk, or really anything that can run me out of creature-killing fuel, it is an invaluable card that effectively acts as a win condition, since I pull decisively ahead in card advantage.

I can't believe no one has suggested this card yet...

Warped Physique (U)(B)
Instant
Target creature gets +X/-X until end of turn, where X is the number of cards in your hand.

If you can keep a decent sized hand, which you usually do, it can be a cheaper Murder, still at Instant speed, though it is situational.

Situational removal isn't what you want in a control deck, at least not in the mainboard. I think it's worth the extra 1 mana to cast Murder to be able to destroy any creature.

KrazyCaley have you considered Rakdos Charm in your sideboard over Grafdigger's Cage ? You lose the persistent effect of Cage, but you gain instant-speed graveyard exile that doesn't effect your own and the ability to remove annoying artifacts like Pithing Needle and Witchbane Orb .

@meecht - Excellent points all, and certainly Rakdos Charm is a great graveyard-clearer, and I think about as good as Grafdigger's Cage as a card. However, I find that my style of running this deck is best complemented by a fire-and-forget anti-graveyard weapon; I really do prefer the permanence of Grafdigger's Cage .