Love Pilfered plans. Might swap that out for Divination in my own build! +1!

Mizzium Mortars is a mainboard MUST in any red deck in the current standard meta, other than that it all seems pretty good, my only other concern is running two gods of entirely separate colors, both mogis and thassa are great in grixis, but both of them seems a little sketchy to me.

STABtrain Neither god is used as a creature. They are abused for the static abilities.

i know that they arent used as creatures, but using two of them in way different colors just seems odd to me, personally Id rather run 1 god and more removal spells that two different gods

STABtrain, it may be better, as you suggest in your last update, to put Mogis into the SB and Main the two Mizzium Mortars. I've noticed that DrFunk27 doesn't use him anymore either.

I like this build, it's similar to the Grixis control that I run My Mind > Your Mind except mine is a little heavier on the Walkers and removal. My personal fav card your running is Mogis, God of Slaughter because it works double time with Desecration Demon . Good Build, +1

Johnny5 Thanks a lot. It was my intention to pair those together for that very purpose. We'll see how well it works in practice, but as I wrote above, I may sideboard Mogis for matches vs. Control and Midrange.

@Omphaloskeptic:

Hello! Thanks for liking my deck and I'd be happy to look at yours. DrFunk27 and I have been giving advice on each other's Grixis builds for a few months now, and I for one love that more people are starting to embrace the colors of Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker :)

First of all, I am by no means an expert on the archetype or a pro player. In fact, I have only been to one decent tournament (Spring States 2013 where I got 70th out of 336 players going 6-3 on the day). I am attending a GPT for Cincinnati this Saturday, and am looking to take my Grixis build there as I think it's in a prime spot to take advantage of monoblue, monoblack, esper, and the other midrange decks.

Now that THAT'S been said, I will be happy to give you my critique:

1) I like the win cons you have going, but it could be hard game one against a majority of the field. It's best to pick one and stay with it. I also had packed Desecration Demon and Stormbreath Dragon into my deck as well, but I came to find out that when I DID land a Desecration Demon vs aggressive decks, they would just sacrifice a newly casted creature and continue hitting me. I personally made the switch to running with AEtherling as my only "true" creature as he can dodge removal by himself, and it allowed me to focus on the "control" part of Grixis with more removal/card draw. I say "true" because I added a couple of Haunted Plate Mail to mine as it is not a creature until you activate it (for free) and at that point you block most aggressive decks efficiently and they can't just tap him by sacrificing a creature. I can also "suit up" a creature I steal with Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver to close out the game quicker, AND if they remove the creature I still can activate Haunted Plate Mail for free since I'll be back to no creatures. I also added 2x Jace, Memory Adept as win cons in my deck if the life point attacking doesn't pan out (usually happens in long games or control matchups)

2) Psychic Strike seems good in theory as you get an extra "mill" option out of it, but I believe that the extra scry tacked on by Dissolve helps smooth out your draws. I would either go with 4 of them or replace Psychic Strike with a different counterspell in Essence Scatter or Syncopate . The former gives you another 2 drop out to an annoying creature like Blood Baron of Vizkopa or any of the "gods". The latter gives you more versatility and exiles the card (relevant vs monoblack and control matchups that use Elixir of Immortality to recycle their win cons)

3) Mizzium Mortars should be main deck. It deals with Blood Baron of Vizkopa , and can be overloaded mid game as a one sided board wipe. WIth my build, it allows me to overload and then swing with my Haunted Plate Mail

4) Speaking of board wipes, Anger of the Gods should be a good fit here. None of your creatures have 3 or less toughness so it's not a problem, and you can still swing after casting it.

5) Anger of the Gods is better than people realize. Not only does it "board wipe", but it exiles which is HUGE with Voice of Resurgence and Chandra's Phoenix type creatures in the format. I don't know how your local metagame is set up, but if you start seeing decks using these types of creatures I would put two in the main deck. It also helps me vs monoblue as the only creatures to survive it are Frostburn Weird and Master of Waves although all of the elemental tokens are now gone.

6) Drown in Sorrow is going to be a bust in my opinion. Most "weenie" decks are going to start running things like Loxodon Smiter , Brimaz, King of Oreskos , etc and it will not help at all. I had originally thought to include this vs "white weenie" decks as Brave the Elements would prevent all red damage from the board wipes. From looking at a lot of the lists online now, they have anticipated this and have moved to using guys with "bigger butts"

7) Assemble the Legion will be your undoing. You should name this with Slaughter Games against ANY red/white deck to make sure that you don't auto-lose to this problem spell (enchantments are difficult for Grixis to deal with). I have included 2 x Illness in the Ranks in my sideboard now to combat this (having to rely on Ratchet Bomb to remove it is VERY bad. At least Jace, Architect of Thought can hold them off for awhile)

Hope this advice helps. +1 from a fellow Grixis player!

P.S., As DrFunk27 said I am stealing your idea for Pilfered Plans for the draw spell as it helps me with the milling part if I decide to go with that plan. Not to mention it helps thwart scry attempts :)

harrydemon117: Great suggestions. Thanks for your detailed and careful analysis. I really appreciate it. I think that you are right about some of your suggestions. I shall likely try to work Mizzium Mortars s and Anger of the Gods into the main. I shall also give Syncopate a try and may even up my number of Dissolve in the process. There are a few questions that I have for you though:

First, I'm not entirely sold on Haunted Plate Mail . How does it compare to Rakdos Keyrune , which generates mana and has first strike?

Second, what do you think of moving the two Desecration Demon s, the two Stormbreath Dragon s, and the two Mogis, God of Slaughter into the sideboard? In game one, my deck would look like pure control. Then in game two I could board in the big creatures after they have boarded out some of their removal. This could wreck control and MBD.

DrFunk27: I'd love your opinion on that last idea above, i.e. moving the creatures into the sideboard.

Omphaloskeptic I like the idea of changing your deck. The only way to see if it would work is to playtest. Haunted Platemail is an iffy card. In theory it has a lot going for it, but in my playtests I never really used it. That's not to say it isn't worthy of a spot, it is just my personal playstyle that wouldn't use it. I like syncopate as a 1 or 2 of, but no more. It's a very situational card and can be a dead draw later in the game. I'd say Mizzium Mortars and Anger of the Gods are both very relevant with G/R, White Weeny and Esper Control. I lean more to the play them sideboard and bring them in, but that's always a game day decision. I really like dissolve. I used it a ton when it was released but I wanted to see what other options were out there. I am convinced like it's better big brother Dissipate it is the best 3 CMC counter spell available. I'm not completely sold on Mogis but I have not thoroughly playtested him. Only played 5-6 games total and I only played him twice. In conclusion, I would love to see an experimental deck where you SB your creatures in the second game. If you did this I would suggest bringing in 2 Desecration Demon, 2 Stormbreath, 2 Lifebane Zombie. I would keep both Gods because you can still use them. I'd also like to hear everyones ideas of playing Erebos, God of the Dead over Mogis. It stops Sphinx's Revelation flatout, Gray Merchant, Fiendslayer Paladin, Blood Baron, etc. Life gain can really put someone out of reach. I'm really thinking Erebos is the best Enchantment available for Grixis. You can always dig for a removal spell if you really need to.

I like having creatures in the sideboard if you don't run any main. Most tournament players are going to think you're running Stormbreath Dragon in the sideboard if you come across Esper/U-W control, or Selesnya weenie/midrange. There's simply nothing that they can do to stop him once he's active as pro white is huge vs them just like Blood Baron of Vizkopa . When I first started building control decks, I started trying to jam "all the good creatures/spells" into it and ended up deviating from the main goal and made it less consistent.

Haunted Plate Mail is a personal choice I made as I needed a 4 drop win con to replace Desecration Demon that I ended up dropping. Like I said above, against aggro (mainly monoblue) they would simply activate a Mutavault or cast a new creature and sac it and thus push through more damage. I can always "blink" him, activate Haunted Plate Mail for free and block. I can even suit up a lowly creature I steal from Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver and bash for +4 damage with it equipped.

As far as the keyrunes go, let's propose a scenario: Turn 4 you Haunted Plate Mail to be able to block a creature on the ground. You can activate it for free to be able to block. With the keyrune, you have to have 2 extra mana up (turn 5) to be able to animate the keyrune to block. Rakdos Keyrune seems good, but it can't block Boros Reckoner , Blood Baron of Vizkopa , Brimaz, King of Oreskos ,

I think that Mogis, God of Slaughter will only be good vs certain control decks. If an Elspeth, Sun's Champion hits the field he is null and void, but other than that the 2 damage per turn COULD add up. Just Slaughter Games her away and you will be all set.

I like Syncopate the more and more I talk about it. Against aggro it's only good if you can out pace them in mana. I usually end up using it on something they tap out for llike Fanatic of Mogis or Stormbreath Dragon if they go bigger. The thing I like is that it exiles the card so there's no shenanigans to bring it back. I also run 26 lands in my deck to make sure I don't miss any land drops so I can keep pace with most decks and surpass them easily enough in total mana

Speaking from experience, Haunted Plate Mail is awesome. I'm never unhappy to see it. Equipped to an AEtherling late game brings it from being a 3 turn clock into a 2 turn clock. On a Frostburn Weird it's devastating, and if they do manage to kill the Weird, they still have to deal with the Plate Mail itself next turn. Most creatures in the aggro decks aren't big enough to swing into it, either, and it dodges all of the sorcery speed removal spells of the control decks, like Esper.

Mogis is, I feel, a solid sideboard card. It's great against the mirror matchup, and pretty good against Esper. However, Mogis is simply awful against the speed aggro decks, and irrelevant against Black and Blue devotion decks. Not sure how good it is in the midrange matchup, but I don't think it's effective against the G/R monster deck, either.

I dropped Thoughtseize out of my list completely. I moved it to the sideboard pretty early on, and almost never brought it in. It's a great card, but in most of my games, I never thought to myself "I wish I had a Thoughtseize right now." Of course, this is due to my local meta being mostly aggro decks, where I couldn't afford the life loss just to remove one card.

I agree with Kaitoghost on everything. I also moved Thoughtseize to the sideboard mainly for control or midrange matchups where it was CRUCIAL for me to take away their Assemble the Legion , Blood Baron of Vizkopa , or something equally as devastating to Grixis (add Mogis, God of Slaughter to the list as well).

I don't agree with suiting up AEtherling though. If they're tapped out it's one thing, but I wouldn't suit him up unless I had at least one blue mana open to blink him to dodge removal. This also allows you to "surprise block" your opponent because you can now activate the plate mail for free since you don't have any creatures on the field until that end step.

I would also drop a couple of the scry lands. It's hard enough to get mana on time let alone when it has to come into play tapped. IF you start with 2+ scry lands in your opening hand you will be in trouble vs aggressive decks. 6 of these seems good to me, and you can put in a couple of basic lands to replace them. This will also help you against a resolved Burning Earth as well

I think that I will keep the Thoughtseize in the main deck for now. You are right that it's less useful for aggro, but I haven't found it an issue as I only have two. Plus it's very useful against MUD, MBD, R/G Monsters, control, and midrange. There are just too many archetypes out there for it not to be useful. Duress , however, will be in my sideboard and will be brought out against some of these match ups as needed.

Scry lands are too useful to drop. Sure, they can sometimes be a problem in the first few turns, but this is much less often than so. This is a fair trade off for the opportunity to scry more often, which has the effect of improving draws dramatically. In fact, I would say that I notice this benefit much more often than the aforementioned downside.

If what I'm running above doesn't work out; however, I shall follow your advice regarding the number of creatures and cut it down to two or three in the main, drop the Desecration Demon s and Ral Zarek s altogether, and move the Stormbreath Dragon s to the sideboard for MU's against White. I would then add two more Jace, Architect of Thought , one more Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver , a Dimir Charm , a Dreadbore , a Far / Away , and another Dissolve .

Cool deck!!

Have you considered running Rakdos' Keyrune?

Thanks. I have, but I'm not sure about it. What are your thoughts on it?

It can be a pretty good beater/blocker depending on the situation and the mana ramp/fix is actually quite useful with Mizzium Mortars and Rakdos's Return. I ran two RR in a build similar to this one and was always pleased with it!!

I'll think about it. I'm reluctant to take out anything else right now, but we'll see.

Somehow i feel he master of cruelties is unnecessary. It's a good blocker but let's say you actually manage o sneak it through and get them to 1. you've got no way to finish them off. you've already got 2 aetherling, it just seems like you're giving their removal spells relevance

Also I reccomend the new chandra. She's my favorite red card in standard right now and she's just so powerful

SuperSkene, you are right that there is some redundancy with Master of Cruelties . Usually this is bad for a control deck, but I find that it leaves opponents surprised and in disarray to the extent that it's worth it. You are incorrect that I don't have a way of finishing them when they hit one life. Rakdos's Return does direct damage. Rather than taking out the Master, I have been instead considering dropping an AEtherling as I'm not sure that a second one is necessary, especially with an Elixir of Immortality in my deck.

I'm not so sure about Chandra. Her first ability is good when I need to eliminate blockers, but that doesn't seem as necessary for a control deck with a lot of removal and AEtherling . Her second ability is decent draw, but I'm not sure it works as well with control as it does with burn and midrange.

Cool deck!!

I suggested this before but I would really see Rakdos's Keyrune in this deck... maybe something like:

-1 or 2 Pilfered Plans

-1 AEtherling,

+2 or 3 Keyrune

cheers!!

drloomis, I may remove an AEtherling , but I need the Pilfered Plans for draw in order to keep up with control decks. What's your take on keyrune?