Just want to let you know that your description is a little off. You are mixing up Rise and Fall , and you first Smallpox is linked to a deck.

Guys...Loved your Green Devotion deck and was very happy when I saw you on Grixis. Grixis has been my favorite archetype for over a year now in both Standard and Modern. My current Modern list is much more skewed towards traditional control with counters and targeted discard, but I played a list similar to this (as I love Sedraxis Specter as well).

If you're going this route, I'd recommend Blightning as it really does a number on an opponents hand. Being sorcery speed is a drawback, but it doesn't seem to be bothering you guys with this list.

TBH, if you guys are serious about making this list competitive, I'd love to see you over to the more traditional control side of Grixis with more counters and less creatures at some point. We need more strong Grixis brewers and players. I think the archetype is poised to to big things in Modern.

Thanks Femme_Fatale! Cleared up the typos.

Contoro....we were able to make a few changes and you are right, Blightning HAS to be in the deck. It is a beating. We have two because after a while they don't have any cards to take :)

We started with the traditional "Grixis Control" deck but wanted to gear the deck a little more in favor of using Sedraxis Specter and more of a resource management/distruption deck vs. control. We don't wait turns to get to a Cruel Ultimatum or anything like that (the majority of our damage comes from Creeping Tar Pit , Lightning Bolt , and Snapcaster Mage ). And of course Sedraxis Specter :)

We chip away at the opponent while destroying, sacrificing, or discarding any resource they have on the field or left in their hand.

Having said this, the Grixis Control builds are amazing! Playing those builds are always a great idea, and you are absolutely right that it is poised to take Modern by storm! We just wanted to provide our own take on it. And you have made it MUCH better with Blightning so we thank you a ton!

Thanks to both for suggestions as well as +1's!

I think your mana-base is a little bit off, you need more black mana sources, since you have a lot of double black mana cards and many of your 1 and 2 drops require at least one black mana. I would have 4 Blood Crypt , 4 Dragonskull Summit , 4 Scalding Tarn , 4 Watery Grave , 1 Creeping Tar Pit , 2 Drowned Catacomb , 1 Lavaclaw Reaches and 1 Swamp . Let me know what you think, don't know if I'm off base or not.

Thanks fadetoblack1183! I've cleaned up the base quite a bit. At first, I concerned myself with the damage I take from the lands. Fortunately, with the low curve (the deck tops at at 3-drop), I don't have to take the life loss if it is too large of a trade off.

The only slight difference I have is that I didn't put in the Lavaclaw Reaches and kept the three Creeping Tar Pit 's. They have just so much work for the deck (often counting anywhere from 6-12 unblockable damage) that I think they are too important to take out.

The one Steam Vents is the only land that cannot immediately produce black mana; so I think I should be ok on that front now. My only concern now is having enough red mana; however there are no cards in the deck that require double-red; so I think I should be ok there as well. Of course, we will test the deck in its current form to see if mana is a little tighter now. Thanks for your help!

this website is great for figuring out mana requirements. It is where I figured out that you need a lot more black mana sources than the other two. Feel free to play around with it, as with anything it is a tool to help but playtesting will show what the best balance is

http://bopmtg.net/misc/mana-tables

fadetoblack1183...that is a neat site! I will study this and see if there are any further improvements to be made. Thanks again for all of your help!

Basic lands. Not many, but you definitely need some. At least 1 Swamp , and 1 Mountain . Few creatures get hit by Path to Exile as much as Bob does, so you might as well be able to take advantage of the drawback. Also, it will allow you to play around Fulminator Mage , Sowing Salt , and Tectonic Edge . I'd also up the fetchlands count to 6, and add in 2 Marsh Flats .

I'd also include counterspells, in the sideboard at least. Mana Leak and Remand are good options. Cryptic Command is powerful, but too mana intensive for this deck.

I'm also not sure on the mainboard Fulminator Mage . I think it would be better suited for the sideboard, and replaced with 2 more lands. In a control deck like this, 21 lands just seems too low.

Thanks so much Kaitoghost! You are exactly right about the basic lands. We had one of each in the base prior to the last change; and will be adding swamp and one mountain back in. We appreciate the suggestion!

We are adding an additional land to the deck. The deck is not a pure control deck (in the sense that it doesn't run a lot of counterspells); however it is a control/disruption deck in the sense that it's job is to reduce the opponent's cards and resources. The goal is to get the opponent to no cards and only a few permanents by turn three. The Fulminator Mage has an interesting use in the sense that it allows us to cut of mana early to 90% of the decks in mondern (very few run all/majority basic lands). By doing so, it keeps their spells in their hand. We want this, because we have so many cards that can take it from their hand.

It is absolutely true that Fulminator Mage is a great sideboard card and sees the majority of its play in the sideboard. We haven't tested enough to ensure that it won't end up in our sideboard as well :) This is just our current reasoning; and based on the testing we've done thus far; it has actually paid off to have it in the main board. We will of course keep everyone updated on this with our continued testing.

The counterspells in the sideboard is a brilliant idea. Remand is literally one of my favorite cards in all of MTG. I will certainly build a "control" sideboard to move into a more "counter-based" control after board (just in case they start playing cards like Leyline, etc. that nukes my hand destruction. Thanks again for all of your help and your +1 Kaitoghost!

Thanks to an idea by Kaitoghost; we are going to build a "control" based side-board (remand, rune snag, etc.) so that if and when our opponent plays a Leyline to try to mitigate the discard and burn spells, we can still hold up against them. We are testing it now and will post our initial sideboard list this evening/morning (you know gamers...this evening is 3:00 AM :)

for the sideboard, I'd recommend Spell Snare and perhaps Stifle as well as the obvious Mana Leak and/or Remand ... and here's why.

Stifle, in particular, does EXACTLY what this deck wants to do. Your opponent goes to crack his fetchland? Well, he just lost a life... you countered the ability with Stifle... and your opponent is out his land drop for the turn. Spell Snare is good for an opponent who is getting control of the board early with one of the many excellent extremely-powerful 2-drops.

hurr I'm a retard on the Stifle thing haha -- modern, not legacy. Still. spell snare would be great.

mattrva77...Stifle would be AMAZING if in modern! I wish I could. The other cards are great too. Spell Snare is a beater in Modern...so yes I will definitely be playing some of those cards! Thank you so much for these suggestions. They are going directly in :)

Trickbind is the Modern version of Stifle . And it can't be countered.

Awesome deck. +1

I would rock the Raven's Crime s MB as a 2-of in place of 2x Rise I would drop the other 2 copies of Rise for Wrench Mind or 2 more lands.

Sword of Feast and Famine seems like it could fit into your SB.

I like the Fulminator Mage MB. I think it works great with Pox because u can sac it before u Pox & while U loose a land, your opponent looses 2. which means they're already a turn behind on the recovery process.

If u r going to run Pox, u really need a minimum of 24 lands. Would add a Snow-Covered Swamp in case u come across an Imprint deck. Would run Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth as the 24th.

Another great SB option for Pox is Rain of Tears I recently replaced it with Choke but Crucible of Worlds is a thing to make Pox unfair.

thanks APPLE01DOJ!!!

Raven's Crime does work with Smallpox as we can discard it and still get use out of it (like Sedraxis Specter . We removed one Rise/Fall for now. It's been pretty darn good in the deck though . We've actually ended up using both sides. But four is probably too much. We'll try out all the SB cards you suggested as well. Thank you!

I made a mono-black discard deck similar to this. It was based round Megrim (only because I couldn't afford any Liliana's Caress at the time), but if your targeting your opponents hand its worth adding a couple of either. and I'm surprised theres no Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

May I sujjest nicol bolas, planeswalker , and other cards like cyclonic rift and mizzium mortar

Cyclonic Rift and Mizzium Mortars are spectacular suggestions Ab15243! I will test with both as both can remove powerful threats in Modern. Thank you!

RickySmith123...I need to try a version with Megrim (think how crazy it would be with both :). You wouldn't need as many creatures for damage; but Lei e might hurt more. There would be a great build with these though! Great suggestions.

My only concern with Bolas is his interaction with Dark Confidant...I don't have a ton of mana each game; and I have to keep the curve low. Having said this, however; as a one of it may still end up bring a great idea. Its definitely worth testing. Thanks!

Wow, this deck is very strong. It beats my Twin build handily.

This has trouble racing Jund, though the same could be said of Jund itself. We'll call it 40/60 in favor of Jund in terms of win %. Still very impressive.

Unfortunately I don't have any other tier 1 archetypes loaded up to test against. I think that your worst matchup will be Affinity.

I agree with you iamacasual...we need to work on Affinity. May even call for a third Hurkyl's Recall in the board...while it does only bounce the artifacts for a turn, it puts them far back of where they wish to be.

I do appreciate your initial confidence, especially coming from you (as I've seen your comments on numerous decks, and it's obvious you know what you are talking about and have a firm grasp on the Modern meta). We were extremely happy with how this has tested so far...we were surprised with the initial build; as it was winning against some of the top decks in the meta (Twin, UWR control, Zoo, etc.). Not that we don't try to build good decks; but often times it takes quite some time before we get a deck to a point where it feels somewhat competitive.

We are testing the deck quite a bit more; but we'd love to hear any other suggestions, comments, etc. that you may have if you continue to test it as well. Thanks so much for taking the time to let us know what you think thus far!

When I get around to testing against other decks, I'll let you know how it works.

Thanks so much for your help iamacasual! This is one we are excited to work on.