@Gerudo74 - Expensive! Dies easily. See the two comments directly above yours.

@jokercrow - The deck's weakest matchup is certainly against aggro, but it does tolerably against it in my experience, and makes up for the weakness by being extra-special good against other control decks. I am hoping that a good one-cost kill spell will come along.

@zandl & Ohthenoises - See meecht's comment. I would never, ever, ever turn the keyrunes into creatures until I didn't need them at all anymore because they'd die; my opponents are always sitting on a thousand kill spells that they can't use.

@KrazyCaley i would think if you ran any creatures you would probably want Desecration Demon. they put good pressure on the opponent.

I'd've said that Lazav, Dimir Mastermind would be the go-to creature for this deck... with so many ways to kill creatures and that one of the win-cons is Nephalia Drownyard, though it doesn't help that Barter in Blood is the deck's sweeper and being a creature, Lazav would still be vulnerable to death by combat, sacrifice and maybe the odd Descent into Madness though i have never seen the card competetively played lol.

I think sticking to creatureless is the way forward. Had you considered Mizzium Mortars, Duress or Cyclonic Rift here?

Cyclonic Rift has seen action in previous builds, and was cut. It's a great cards, but others are better.

Duress is a little unnecessary as the deck already is very strong against control, and I need the spaces for more threatening matchups.

Mizzium Mortars is an excellent board sweeper, but if I can live to turn 5 or 6, I am probably winning anyway.

I've gone off the deep end! My deck is now different enough I feel it needs its own thread, so if you want to see my continued development of the decktype and its hilarious performance against the FNM crowd, check out 2016.

Zandl's Grixis Smackdown (FNM report!)

LOVE the deck. I was wondering though, what happens if they Pithing Needle or Nevermore your Bolas, and do you don't have a Counterflux to use. How do you win? +1

i'm looking to play this at my FNM, but I wonder how would you tweak you main deck if you knew your meta was aggro/midrange heavy? also what do you do if they get a turn 1 Pithing Needle naming bolas?

Nephalia Drownyard is a pretty decent win condition, especially since this deck draws games out long. If he really needs to there's pinging to death with Staff of Nin but even this deck doesn't want the game to go 20 turns.

@AlexOAwesome - Usually that would be Nephalia Drownyard . Staff of Nin can SOMETIMES get there as well.

Got into a situation where my opponent named Nephalia Drownyard on a Pithing Needle , named Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker with Nevermore , and cast a Witchbane Orb . LITERALLY the only card in my 75 that could win the game was a one-of Mind Grind .

Dude. Mind Grind won me 4 games by itself last FNM. You should be using it. You cast it for a ton of mana late-game (with Chromatic Lantern + Gilded Lotus ) and just deck your opponent all at once, or get there by casting it for nearly everything and using Mystic Retrieval .

Maybe drop 1x Devour Flesh just because it's effect is random and has a drawback (not that you care about the drawback), or a Counterflux , those are the only two spots I see other than Mystic Retrieval which I know you love.

@zandl - I have never yet run into a situation where so many win-cons were stripped down before I could retaliate with Slaughter Games or counter the problem. Mind Grind is, to me, a dead draw in most of the situations where I draw it, and it's bad card advantage even when it's not, especially given that against decks where it's useful, I will probably have to get it through a counterspell. Mystic Retrieval makes it a lot better, of course, but still. I am wary.

It's sideboard material against control decks. My games against control were always SUPER long and I never had an issue saving up counterspells and amassing mana to make it a one-turn kill. And Mystic Retrieval makes it fairly consistent.

Essentially, Mind Grind would be your Psychic Spiral , but a lot stronger and more consistent.

Ever thought about running Killing Wave ? With all the Mana production, card advantage and you never having to sack creatures. I think it would fit nicely

I am hesistant about Killing Wave because my opponents usually have plenty of life to spend and only a couple of creatures on the board. That's not always the case, but it's the most probable scenario. Thus, Killing Wave is not usually the best for me.

I play tested your deck, +1 imho, Grixis control is quite fun. I modified it a little, added in Mind Grind and changed tribute to hunger instead of devour flesh. And went with main board dissipate like others mentioned and loved it because you can tap out to play lotus then still have dissipate mana up.

@Ti22_HipHero - Dissipate vs. Counterflux is definitely a player-by-player call.

And yeah, the deck used to run Tribute to Hunger , but turn 2 Devour Flesh is something I really like to have.

Still in those cases that it is it may be useful as a sideboard card

Yea Carley thanks =3 Just wanted to add in my play test input. And again over all i love this deck. Right now at FNM i run two Rakdos decks, one is control one is midrange and was looking into a Grixis control when i found your deck list. So with your permission i'm thinking i'm going to take this to my standard event this week. =3Also no one has mentioned it as far as i have seen, love the single lighthouse it has come in handy many times over.

If you are still in the need for wiping power v.s. aggro Mutilate could prove devastating. Even -2/-2 would severely hamper most aggro decks.

Mutilate only counts swamps, I run it as a 4 of in rakdos but i have many more swamp options. This deck only has 7 options for swamps, because it sadly doesnt count dual lands.

@Ti22_HipHero - Single lighthouse is so awesome. Such a cool land. And no need to ask my permission, roll on that event and let me know how it went. If anyone asks where you got it, point 'em to the site; we always like having more folks around here.

@Ohthenoises - I only have seven swamps, though. Chances of an effective Mutilate are low enough to make it unreliable.

In this deck. -2/-2 for 4 Mana could be devastating too... its why I always prefer Killing Wave