I've been building this deck and playtesting and it does rather well against everything I've come up against apart from Red/Blue spellslinger into Dynavault Tower - not many creatures to remove and not enough hand disruption but there is always a tough matchup I think.

The only changes I've made mainboard have been to replace Radiant Flames with Kozilek's Return as it can be recast easily by the entire deck and really kick off via Yahenni's Expertise to produce a big wipe, and replace the Void Shatter with a Disallow as I find it more useful in more situations now Emrakul is gone.

Finally I don't have 3 torrential Gearhulks (sadly) and low/midrange value is a big deal where I play, so I replaced it with a lovely Demon of Dark Schemes who can start filling out my board by stealing my opponents creatures back or bringing back the other gearhulks, not to mention the mini wipe and evasion. So far its been more situational than a turn 6/7 gearhulk but if they can't remove it the Demon wins games.

Sideboard : To counter Spellslinger I've added a second Metallurgic Summons to the sideboard, along with what I hope to be 2x Release the Gremlins to hopefully either give me board presence and protection after I side out my wipes.

Also I've increased the count of Ruinous Path in the sideboard to 3 to try and stop infinite combo in its tracks. This means I bounced the 2 drop creatures out to fit these in and added another Kozileks Return.

Anyway, +1 and best of luck.

@lords2001 You can't stop the infinite combo in its tracks with Ruinous Path, it's a sorcery. No competent player will put out sahili or guardian with no protection and/or just to watch either of them get killed at sorcery speed. That's not a realistic plan.

Not to mention you can do it on turn 6 by playing Guardian, bouncing a land and then playing sahili and start the combo that way.

I realize we're talking about an entirely different deck here but I'm wondering what you'd think about a grixis artifact flavored control deck with the new AER cards like new Tezzeret, Pacification Array, Metallic Rebuke, Reverse Engineer, and then going up a copy or two of Disintegration? I netdecked a UB Improvise list that hits pretty hard and am thinking we could put a nice twist on it with the addition of burn/sweepers. It's possible that in a deck like this we may not be utilizing GDD or Torrential Gearhulk (however I could see the Gearhulk staying in order to re-cast Engineer or kill spells, but the artifacts might dilute his utility). Herald of Anguish is soooooo good.

Anyway, I'd love to hear if you'd entertain a list like this! What do you think, would we still want Torrential Gearhulk in a list like this? After all, he is an artifact.

By the way, very nice build you have here, +1. I'll definitely be booting up your list on Xmage and will likely assemble the deck in paper as well. It's actually really nice to only be utilizing a couple of the new sets cards as I don't need to invest much more to have your list in it's entirety.

Wish I could edit comments, I see now you're sitting pretty at 3x Unlicensed Disintegration, ignore that.

I have a deck Can't Even Count all the Counters does anyone have sideboard suggestions for decks like this?

Do you mind giving my deck a look

Caw Blade Resurgent

Standard* ArmyJM07

14 VIEWS

I strongly recommend fatal push instead grasp of darkness

lords2001 Thx for your input. Depending on your meta, it is very understandable that a few changes like the ones you did be better for you. Although I did consider Kozilek's Return, I think that killing 3 toughness is too much of a must to justify not running Flames or Expertise instead (unless again your meta is full of tokens deck and what not...). The Mardu Vehicles is gonna obliterate you if can't wipe their 3 toughness dudes! As for demon, I did playtest with him before and he did lead to some nutty plays but in the end I just didn't use him enough, we have enough threats and wipes that I had put him in the side and found myself never boarding him in. Very cool card though.

CoreGon It's hard for me to vouch for such a deck when our build destroys it pretty reliably. All these artifacts decks are cute but are very all-in and fragile to the long game - we usually have no problems getting them out of gas and taking over. The only versions that put up a good fight are the Colossus versions so if you are serious about artifacts I suggest starting there.

bafromme, ArmyJM07 Sorry, Bolas prevents me from fucking with any other color combinations other than UBR!! UB alone is acceptable in some occurances! :P

Xkillerborn I recently dropped two copies of Push for the 3rd Anticipate and 2nd Disallow. It's just not doing enough in our build and in the current meta...Creature decks are no real threat to us, it's all about winning the long game VS Combo/Control and Big Midrange decks. Definitely an important card to always keep in mind though...

lords2001 I forgot to mention that yes UR Tower is one of our toughest matchups. It's all about post-game 1, dropping almost all removal and boarding in all counterspells and tempo-ing them out. Counter the towers at all cost, make sure you leave mana-up. Be VERY patient and you'll see that it can be like a 50/50 matchup, but yeah very skill intensive. Summonings definitely is a great card VS them, and obviously so is Release the Gremlins.

I haven't faced TOO much of them so I like my current sideboard. It's also a great bonus that our mainboard is even more controlly now that the meta seems to shift a little bit away from creature decks.

To achieve a better record than 50/50 VS tower would mean making too many additional changes which is not worth it currently considering all the other builds we have to beat and are doing good against.

Hey man. Been following the discussion and playtesting the deck for the last couple weeks. I'm a big Grixis fan myself, and I'm thinking about ordering some of the cards and building a similar list. I've only been playing it in Modern recently.

Did you play FNM last night? I'm curious to hear how it went and what kinds of decks you faced. The only things I've been struggling against are U/B control shells. Their mana is obviously much smoother, and the fact that we play red usually works against us in the matchup.

Ran this last night at FNM and went 4-0, against Marvel, GB Energy, RW Vehicles, and UR spells. Release the Gremlins was a surprise superstar, and I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to play against one of the cat combo decks there.

OnWingsOfShadow The way to beat U/B shells is to get them out of counters...in that way Transgress is MVP in this matchup because either they waste a counter on it, or we get to see how many they have in hand. After they start running out of counters (hopefully), you try to set your hand up to play Gearhulk on their EOT, followed by another threat on your turn (preferably Chandra, or Summonings, or anything really). You gotta be the aggressor and you'll be more successful if you can somehow manage to ''get into their head''. Not an easy matchup, very skill intensive indeed, but not unwinable.

arglebargles AWESOME!!!! Very stoked to hear that man! Hurray for Gremlins! Please do let me know when you do compete with the deck again, and/or if you end up making any changes (perhaps to adjust to your local meta). Peace!

I ended up taking a boros humans to FNM last night. Went 4-0 so it went well. I'm still looking around for a deck to play once the meta settles though :) I'll keep this one in mind.

Noctem Boros Humans or any ulta aggro deck is a great meta call currently because the majority seem to be on combo/control.

Yup. I played against saheeli combo, Aetherworks, vampire tribal and U/W tempo. Saheeli combo was never able to go off because of Thalia + Authority of the Consuls. I think if you're going to play in the current meta you need multiple ways of defeating / stopping the combo. Boros humans has many natural ways of doing that.

Do you think it would be possible to shave off a few lands for some more cards? Like a few Fatal Pushs or Yahenni's Expertise. Granted I would put in another harnessed lightning but thats just because I like a lot more removal. Everyone has their own playstyle.

I think Walking Ballista is something you should strongly consider.

Biohazerd579 Definitely no way to shave-off lands buddy with this kind of control curve. If you want to run more removal to adapt to your local Meta (or playstyle), I suggest shaving-off win-cons or counters!

Noctem It's a very cool card, but I don't see us running more win-cons, granted it also has built-in removal, burn and mana-sink which DOES make it a great card, but we have all the win-cons and removal we need. It's such a good card that I could literally see ANY deck run it but I don't think I PERSONALLY want to take turns off to cast this.

Ah, okay. I've been trying to think of some good synergies with Baral, Chief of Compliance since it's a pretty strong card especially in a control deck. I completely understand why you have him in the side instead of having him in the main. If you were to even make a deck around him, the opponent will most often side in kill spells. Jace, Unraveler of Secrets looks more appealing than the Chandra, Flamecaller since it could most often come out before chandra and the fact that it could get in the way of a turn 6 Torrential Gearhulk. I also like the mini preordain that Jace does as well as the bounce if something has a lot of +1/+1 counters on it. On the other hand, Chandra has a board wipe for those pesky token and aggro decks and since it's in the main she gives you an upper hand game 1. The more and more I type this paragraph out, the more I could just put jace in the side against another control or stall deck. I love the deck, though. :) upvoted.

Have you thought about Chandra, Torch of Defiance? Lower mana cost and I think more versatile for this deck.

Hi Zezmey300, thx for dropping by! I already answered this a few months ago, I just reread it and am still standing the same ground!

(repost)

Chandra, Flamecaller

+1: Mode used 70%+ of the time. Ideal when we are leading and opponent's board is cleared. Amazing finisher because it is very hard for opponent to deal with; 6 damages in 2 cards which have to be killed at instant speed, leaving wipes useless. This mode is also solid when ressources are equal, dropping a 5 loyalty PW and 6 attacking power is no joke. The opponent's focus almost always goes to this, buying us even more time to set a soft-lock.

-x: Mode used pretty much the rest of the time. Even more important now that we lost Languish. This mode often not only one-side wraths the board but leaves us with Chandra to make dudes the next turn. Love it.

0: Fringe application here, but still a very nice-to-have! Sometimes can be game changing in late game.

Chandra, Torch of Defiance

+1: 19 of our 34 cards are best played at instant speed during opponent's turn. I'm not saying this is useless but when board is stabilized, I much more prefer having two dudes attacking for 6, than dealing two damage.

+1: The ramp is very attractive but again...we are playing most our deck during opponent's turn. In many cases we have enough mana and don't need the main phase RR. This WOULD BE the best mode for our deck though. Landing a GDD turn five and keeping 3 mana open would be the dream.

-3: We are Grixis, our creature spot-removal is the best in the format, we don't need a 4CMC deal 4 to creature...

-7: Christmas land mode is insane, no denying there. But as we all know, you never really expect ultimates to really happen more than in 5% of the games...

In conclusion, Torch IS a great card, but not for control... Its place belongs in the top end of a RDW, or in pretty much any and every midrange deck ever.

Why no fourth Glimmer of Genius, that card is very good at giving you gas and it is great at finding a sweeper for aggro, or card advantage in control, I see no reason not run 4, also, 3 Torrential Gearhulks means you pretty much always want one in the grave just in case.

MTGsoccer13 I don't think it would be wrong to play the 4th copy but I just think that 3 is enough. Basically I don't want to see multiples in opening hand; as long as I cast a copy on 4 or 5, the second casting usually comes around turn 6-7 naturally from Gearhulk, from there if I'm to win the game I'm usually already in good shape; the 2nd and 3rd copy will help seal the deal. A 4-drop to dig for sweepers against aggro is not a healthy way to try to survive! Anticpate serves us way better in the early turns! I rarely expect to win game 1 VS aggro anyway, our Sideboard has us covered.

Thx for your input though and despite what I said, I could easily see how someone would want to run 4 copies, I just happen to be happy with the current balance.