Alright. I'll take your word for it. The reason I bring it up is because I've been going back and forth on making a Grixis or a Dega control deck. I would much rather play a Grixis deck because I like having the removal and the planeswalkers (Ashiok and Ral Zarek) that having Black affords. But I'm concerned about the lack of lifegain it provides.

My bad, I don't mean the removal of black, but the countering of Blue and the planeswalkers (Jace, Ral Zarek, and Ashiok) that require blue.

Yeah, I know what you mean. The lack of lifegain is a problem myself and others have been facing since Theros was released. It's one of the main reasons Grixis is not a Tier 1 deck, but it's a ton of fun to play and I haven't let that stop me.

I decided to go with Grixis. Since I really like your deck, I hope it's alright that I use a modified version of it. If you don't mind, I'll post it and credit you as inspiration. Essentially, I want to run a different planeswalker configuration (2x Jace, 2x Ral, and 2x Ashiok) while sideboarding the dragon and using two desecration demons in the main.

What brought about the most recent changes?

Fantastic deck. Reminds me of my Dega deck, but slightly more aggressive and less control oriented. Which is Ironic as you play Blue and I don't!

Just played 5 test games with my deck against this one: good lord, each one was pretty long and pretty crazy. I mean, we kept destroying each other's win conditions and countering whatever advantage the other could get. I won the last game with 3 cards left in my deck after two of the Ashiok's had milled me about 25-30 cards and Jace (after Jace... after Jace) had stalled assemble the Legion until I had over 20 tokens and finally took him down. Crazy, like I said.

I suppose to be more specific, why the Flame-Wreathed Phoenix ? Most commentators seem to think that it's not as good as Chandra's Phoenix .

Chandra's Phoenix needs to have a lot of red direct burn spells, and usually Chandra herself, in order to be good. Since he's only running 2 red burn spells, odds are not good that he'd ever be able to return Chandra's Phoenix back to his hand.

Omphaloskeptic Flame-Wreathed Pheonix is leagues better than Chandra's Phoenix in a deck like this. The tribute effect is the best I've seen so far. There's really no downside to the card because you either have a 5/5 for 4CMC or you have a 3/3 Haste that dies and goes back to your hand. I'm attempting more of a midrange control deck here using the best creatures available for all 3 colors. Yes, I don't have Demon nor do I want it.

Why do you not want demon?

Have we discussed adding Mogis, God of Slaughter . Yes, the obivous is, you'll never get him to be a creature.

Not so obvious, he's an indestructible enchantment 4CMC that forces opponents to sack a creature each upkeep or take 2 damage.

I could see dropping 2 Mainboard just to force my opponent to board something to handle him. I hate aggro match ups. :-D

Mogis isn't good against aggro. They'll just take the 2 damage, and continue to swing at you. It's more for midrange/control matchups.

That being said, I fully intend to run 2 Mogis in my Grixis list mainboard.

I couldn't resist the name :P

I was not let down! Great deck.

+1 for the name! :)

Big changes. Let us know how they work out.

Yeah, I made some huge changes this weekend after getting input from a good friend. So far in my playtest it's been very good.

For those who are following this deck and it's struggle to compete, I made some changes, most notably to the sideboard, this weekend.

1. I did not feel that Mogis and Phoenix were working with how the deck wanted to play. It was almost like control and midrange were clashing and I was dropping games left and right. I took them out and added 2 CounterFlux and 2 Psychic Strike. So far I've enjoyed both additions immensely. Strike is awesome at disrupting scry.

2. I took out magma jet because, although it works well with Master of Cruelties, I didnt need the extra point of damage because I would either draw into or play Rakdos's return. This leads me to my 3rd point.

3. Rakdos's Return is incredibly amazing in hand disruption. I quickly found out a turn 4 Return would put me ahead by quite a bit and if I could wait until turn 5-6 it was devastating.

4. I've changed the SB to work well with the cruel control scheme of the deck. If I'm facing a G/R or white weeny deck I take out all creatures except Aetherling and deny them anything on the board. If I play Control, I SB in Sire of Insanity. I've really enjoyed the new SB much better, and it's working well even if I don't use Thoughtseize.

5. Dimir Charm >>>>> Thoughtseize. Wow, this card. Being able to counter sorceries has been huge for me. I'm also a huge fan of the charms and the utility they provide.

I will update you with how this deck does tomorrow afternoon.

I'd love to hear about it. You've been an influence on my down deck, which I just finished building.

Interesting changes. Dimir Charm really seems like a good idea. I'll have to find a way to fit it into my build.

Kaitoghost Dimir Charm has been a real diamond in the rough! So much so i may cut Izzet Charm and add 2 more. Most notably it stops Thoughtseize and kills Nightveil Specter, Packrat, Mutavault, Master of Waves, Voice of Resurgence, Scavenging Ooze, etc. It also stops an opponents scry or can aid you in digging for a card yourself.

This leaves me wondering if I shouldn't add two more Dimir Charm s as well. Im curious: what is the reason that you are using Izzet Charm s? And why Turn / Burn over more Far / Away ?

Omphaloskeptic Turn and Burn allows me to kill 2 toughness creatures as well as using Turn to deal with Gods or other large creatures. I decided to take Izzet Charm out, but I was using it to counter planeswalkers, or draw cards or deal damage as well. I like the card a lot, but I feel like there are better cards to use.

Fair enough. I'm thinking about adding two Turn / Burn into my sideboard to deal with gods.

needs Anger of the Gods