Vampire_Lord - I've been playing ONLY GRIXIS since DTK. I will always play Grixis no matter what. I always find a way to make it fun and competitive, some have been on the quest with me since the beginning. Sometimes their souls get corrupted and they go play something else, but most of them always come back! So YES I think that this deck will still be good in Ahmonkhet, because our core is very solid no matter the archetypes we need to fight. This is fundamentally why I love Grixis, we are running nothing but Removal, Counters and Counterspells; with access to these 3 colors there's always a way to optimize that suite, sometimes one color becomes worst so I just play less of it.

Yeah, it's easy to get over-excited by Yahenni's Expertise because the ceiling is so high! But since we got access to so much removal, Radiant Flames and Chandra, I wouldn't recommend playing more than 2.

Why no Shock? Well, I could see running some, but I prefer to have Harnessed and Grasp instead since they can also bring down important 3-toughness threats, and sometimes up to 4 or 5-toughness in combination with Lili. (The 2-damage to the face argument is not really relevant).

Ok wellI'll build this deck and let you know how it works!!

What could I use to replace one lilianna and one Gearhulk

Vampire_Lord: maybe another Goblin Dark-Dwellers and Ob Nixilis Reignited?

Both are unique in their abilities. They don't have direct replacements BUT you could replace one gearhulk with another Goblin Dark-Dwellers. As for lili, her role is to provide potential repeat removal vs aggro decks and a win con vs other decks if they can't deal with it before she emblems. She can also recur your creatures. Maybe Ob Nix? He can remove creatures, give you card advantage and his ult is a win con of sorts. Hmm..

Haha Demon86RM we thought of the same things :) My only concern is the 5CMC of ob nix. We already have a high curve so if that becomes a concern maybe a lower cost card would be best. Another counter / removal spell / card draw basically.

Noctem same cmc concern here :D
instead of lily and gdd i was also thinking about a 2x Saheeli Rai, although this deck might not be the right shell

Saheeli on her own isn't impressive without some pretty big revamps of the rest of the deck. sure, she can copy torrential, but other than that she's pretty useless without other artifacts / felidar.

I'd replace Hulk with Confirm Suspicions, instant-speed, same CMC range, counterspell + card advantage. Ob for Lili seems ok.

hm interesting.

Have you been bringing your deck to any events EastsideRock? I'll be bringing it tonight for FNM. I'll post my results once I get back :)

Hey do you mind writing what to put in during different matches like red green energy Agro or sahli combo or control?

Noctem Been insanely busy in my personal life + work in the last few weeks but will probably fire up a Competitive League on MTGO soon. Good luck!! And sure thx for the results, always appreciated!!

Vampire_Lord VS R/G Energy you want to be sure to have SOME ground presence so I usually put in all the creatures from the board (except the Barals), then you want to make sure to kill the hasty 4/4 dudes so keep all cheap instant removal spells, keep Slaughter VS the damn Hydra, you can pretty much get rid of all counterspells and keep only Dispels for the pump spells (+ Negates only if they have PWs). If ever they happen to run the Pummeler, be sure to keep those Lilis, and add Weaver too! ;)

VS Sahili combo, you want to have all the counterspells (except maybe Rejection unless they run Void Shatters), and all 3 Transgress. You can get rid of all the sweepers and side some of the removal out (depending how aggressive/control they are about landing their combo). Baral can be good in this matchup.

EastsiderockThanks for the help plus I am buying the cards I need right now so wish me luck

Vampire_Lord Awesome! Good Luck!! And remember to be patient, I don't know if you have a lot of experience with control but this kind of the deck is A LOT more regarding when you know it very well, and know the opposing matches. Sideboarding wisely IS crucial. If you need more help, just ask away! :D

So last night I brought this list with a minor change to the SB for FNM. I removed Metallurgic Summonings and added a second Release the Gremlins. Deck went 3-1. It lost the finals and ended up in second place because the pilot never drew a torrential in game 3. If he had, he would have been first with 4-0. He played against nothing but aggro of various kinds. My friend played the list while I played something else so I won't be able to give as much detail as I would normally. I'll be playing it next standard.

Match 1 vs G/W tokens

Lost the first game, won both second and third after sideboard. To the Slaughter was very useful here to kill the PW's as they came down and tried to create a token. It gave us multiple ways of dealing with Gideon, which was important.

Match 2 vs G/B aggro (with Nissa)

Won 2-0. The g/b player kept a questionable hand filled with late game in g2 which meant that by the time he tried playing it, our hand was full of answers. Didn't go well for him.

Match 3 vs Mardu Vehicles

lost the first game, won the second and third after sideboard. The sideboard change paid off here.

Match 4 vs Mardu Vehicles

Lost 2-1. No Torrential Gearhulk game 3 caused the loss of the match.

Overall, we were both pleased with the list. Some changes we discussed:

Contraband Kingpin was useless in all the matches we played vs decks he's supposed to be used against. The amount of quality removal for creatures currently in standard means that he really isn't a problem to deal with by other decks. The creatures being used nowadays, when attacking, won't have only 1 toughness (outside of Veteran Motorist but that's going to be used to crew and not attack directly anyway in most cases) and our gameplan to kill or counter everything the opponent plays also means that his job as a wall is kind of redundant since he's not a win con himself. The mana cost could also be annoying to play if we don't have one of the 2 colors on turn 2-3 when you actually want to play him. The lifelink is basically meaningless since you won't want to attack with him as he's a defensive tool. The scry won't matter since you have 3 6CMC artifacts in a 75 card deck. SO, our thoughts were to put in Thing in the Ice  ^Flip instead. At least that can flip into a win con by doing what we're going to be doing anyway and you keep the 4 toughness wall angle. -2 Contraband Kingpin +2 Thing in the Ice  ^Flip for the SB imo.

Metallurgic Summonings is too cute and greedy imo while another Release the Gremlins was very useful vs matchups with high artifact counts like Mardu Vehicles but also including outlyers like Aetherflux Reservoir, Dynavolt Tower and Aetherworks Marvel lists.

All in all the deck went against the top decks of the format and did pretty darn well. You should be proud of your list.

Noctem All this is gold, thank you very much for the detailed report!

I can 100% agree with your SB changes, the Kingpins have definitely been a little lonely in the SB and I AM playing more instants/sorceries that I was when they joined the roster. I'm really excited to try some TITIs in there, bouncing back GDD or Hulk also seems hella-decent in some states (like when we are dying to recast that Slaughter for example). The 75th card of the deck is definitely a preference-choice but I have been very impressed with Gremlins since day 1, so it's very justifiable that one could run the 2nd copy instead of Summonings (kind of a meta-call also). Personally I've won quite a few games with it and haven't face TOO much resistance from artifacts so I'm on the fence about this one though.

okok gotta get me a couple of TITIs and try em out! Thx again and yes I AM very proud of this list, and it makes my day to know that other people enjoy it as much as I do! I'm going nowhere and will always play Grix...even if Cawblade comes back!

What do you bring in Summonings against?

This is one of the better grixis control decks I have seen, I still believe esper control is better though. Also, are you on cockatrice?

This deck should also take cruel control off its hubs, cruel control is a control deck that uses the card Cruel Ultimatum specifically.

Decided to bring this to a PPTQ today, 28 players/5 rounds:

-Round 1: vs G/B Snake: 0-2, never got off the ground in either game due to slightly off mana/spells. I was still settling in, so this one was consigned to the bin as a learning experience.

-Round 2 vs W/B Control: 2-0. Lili up to emblem when the opponent's on a lot of creature removal plus well-timed counters/kill spells = pretty easy win in Game 1. Chandra on an empty board can also do a lot of damage, which won Game 2. Notable for getting my first ever official Warning in Game 1... Pilot Error as I mulled to seven. Only took me seven PPTQ games to get that out of the way, yay.

-Round 3 vs U/X Inspire: 0-2. Ulamog sucks. Ulamog for six/seven mana with Improvise REALLY sucks. At least I got one of them to the bin with To The Slaughter... needed about five more of those plus a couple counterspells to cover. Or just play more aggressive in Games 2-3. And Release the Gremlins showed up a couple turns too late in Game 2, that could have been a game changer.

-Round 4 vs B/U Control: 2-1. Three close, tense games... Liliana BOSSED her way through the counters and Gontis, both wins were Lili Emblems + Counters for Disallow to force them to stick, then send the army of shamblers for the win. Game 3 was especially funny as two separate Gontis took two Disallows... one used on my Grasp to kill Gonti 1 and the other used on the emblem attempt. Each was eaten by Negate/Dispel, to my opponent's sadness.

-Round 5 vs G/B Snake: 0-2. Bleh. Game 1 was lost to just too many threats early enough to avoid my control, plus a sad mull to five. Game 2 was lost on Turn 2 when my sketchy keep was busted to hell by a Transgress. Five lands, Lili, and Kalitas turned into an exiled Lili, Kalitas ending up on the wrong end of a 2/3 Snake (Blossoming Defense is good), a lonely Kingpin that ended up on "Don't let me die now" duty and utterly failed, and all the lands.

Unlucky finish to a 2-3 day, but the deck's definitely powerful. I definitely agree with canning Kingpin for Titi, but Summonings is getting a second chance at FNM. Deck MVP: Lili. Four wins, three of them with her emblem, two of those with both players still on 20. Deck LVP, Main Deck: Void Shatter. Not the card's fault, but I do not believe it was ever in my hand in eleven games. Radiant Flames and Harnessed Lightning both did a little work, but drawing Radiant into a seven Zombie board nearly won it the award. Deck LVP, Overall: Contraband Kingpin. He's... not good here. I never felt comfortable bringing Weaver into the deck, but that's more due to my opponents's decks than Weaver's qualities. The ping for one, even if I could pop it twice in a turn, just didn't feel strong enough in any games.

EDITS: Round 3 should be U/X Improvise. Whole lotta low-mana artifacts, Metallic Rebuke, and Marvel/Ulamog/Kozilek

Yeah I'm playtesting replacing the Weaver of Lightning with Noxious Gearhulk for those matchups where another body + life gain would be useful. Especially vs the counter decks for example. I don't see many spirits in my meta and I don't feel that weaver can do enough.

On top of replacing the kingpins with TitI, and removing metallurgic for another release the gremlins.

Noctem I found Summonings the best VS midrange decks that get out of hand in the late game (not so much of them right now though). It's also great VS dedicated combo decks that don't run many counters, and just another win-con in control matchups.

viperfang4 We don't fucks with other colors other than UBR 'round here son!...haha! I'm on Cockatrice from the time a new set is fully-spoiled up to release on MTGO. Regarding the Cruel Control hub, it doesn't really makes sense to me that they would keep a hub for a deck that showed up in Standard for a couple months several years ago...many refer to Cruel Control the kind of decks that run mainly answers and kills/counters everything opponents play ;) + It's so Bolas, so yeah, Ima keep it! :D

kbjone Thx for the report!! Seems like you had some fun despite the results! And that's good because the more you play this deck, the better you get at piloting it, and the more fun it is! Cheers!

Noctem That's fair, personally I do like to keep Weaver as I've been facing quite a few W/B tokens and Energy decks with Pummelers. It's also boss when wanting to take down x/4 dudes with Flames or Harnessed. I've had Black-hulk in the side at the beginning of its printing but never used him enough, he is good when he lands though. As far as Titi, it's pretty much a done deal, I'll be doing a little bit more testing but 90% sure that I'll make the change.