Played this deck with few changes (No Ral!? Fine... -1 Ral Zarek, +1 Mizzium Mortars, plus swapping in Lifebane Zombie and Slaughter Games at 2x a piece into the side over Crypt Incusion and Rakdos Charm...) at a 24-man Monday Night Magic. I went 2-3, with the following matchups
Round 1, Dimir Mill
This was against a newer player who figured out what "All In" meant. Every. Stinking. Card. Milled. I narrowly escaped a game one loss on the back of Returned Phalanx and AEtherling being able to stop his attackers, while a continual bluff to stop his 37/37 Consuming Abheration worked well. Game 2 let me side in Slaughter Games to stop what I assumed was multiple copies of Traumatize. Hitting the single, the rest of the game led to an impressively one sided rollout of Ashiok-Jace-Ral-Aetherling.
1-0
Round 2, v Dega Midrange/Mythic Midrange
Yeesh...Blood Barons. I'm fuzzy on this matchup short of how hardcore a beating Turn//Burn is against Blood Baron. again, this card shutting down esper for the most part is 90% of the reason I'm developing Grixis.
I think that the matchup is winnable. The main reason for that is the ability to force them to play graveyard with Rakdos's Return and Thoughtsieze. It's important to note here that I sorely missed Rakdos' Charm in my sideboard during this match, both for its Destroy Artifact and Exile Graveyard modes. Crypt Incursion is another effect that would have been nice here to clear his dudes out of the grave. But, again, I feared the worst and went for Lifebane in for Obzedat and Blood Baron.
Another important event happened here, which revolved around Ashiok and the inherent randomness of the card. I was in a situation where the score was 20-15 in the opponent's favor and could use Ashiok's 5 Loyalty (He'd been attacked previously) to steal a Stormbreath Dragon and go Monstrous with it on the next turn. Instead, I elected to wait a turn to drain three more cards from his deck (Blood Baron, Slaughter Games, Dreadbore), and hope for the monstrous. My hellbent opponent top decked a Hero's Downfall, and with the deck's lack of counter magic, I got whopped in the face, losing out on both.
I was immediately ridiculed by everyone watching the game for not taking the Stormbreath Dragon when I had the chance. I pointed out that with an empty board, and no removal in hand, the better choice in my opinion was to go to 7, and hope to hit Planeswalker kill spells before trying to get teh creature. It was a risky move, but I believe it to be the better play because it holds greater card advantage. With Ashiok, the important thing to remember is that those cards are gone, and it effectively is half a thoughtsieze every turn. Most players will express in one way or another that they were "A turn off" or "just needed one more mana." That's what Ashiok does--She shuts this kind of wishful play down, and turns it into an advantage, especially if she lands on turn three or lands later on when against a topdecking opponent. Point is, taking options away before they're even options is strong, and that's part of what Grixis is able to do between Ashiok, Rakdos's Return and Slaughter Games.
Anyway, back to the match--I did eventually lose the match 1-2, getting the second game with the Ashiok situation through a nice double-aetherling play. I lost the third after a grindy match to Whip of Erebos, which is a card that this deck should, and after some updating, will, do better against.
1-1
Round 3, vs. Monoblack Devotion
This is a matchup that I was waiting to play all night. One of the major advantages Grixis has is the ability to either immediately ice Pack Rat through Anger of the Gods or Izzet Charm, or play Slaughter Games and turn the bogeyman of the format into a terrible aggro deck.
Game one went on 35 minutes. What dragged the game out so long was Steam Augury draws that forced the opponent to make a choice-- Hand me more removal, or hand me more removal and draw. Steam Augury allowed me to custom-pick my removal to the situation by loading the piles based on my hand and making one look too good and the other not as bad. I don't think that this is the ideal card, but it pairs VERY well with Opporunity in its own pile, saying "Let me draw 4 now for cheap or 4 later."
Another element runs in line with my own prediction that Anger of the Gods and Slaughter Games are two of the strongest in format cards against this deck, largely because Mutavault dies immediately to Anger and Slaughter Games can outright handle all four copies of Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Calling Gray Merchant literally hamstrings the superpowers of the deck. It doesn't do anything but swing big creatures without the Merchant, which is something this deck is well equipped to handle through Far / Away and Turn / Burn.
What went wrong here, however, has to do with both Whip of Erebos and Underworld Connections. Underworld Connections does a fantastic job game 1 of burying Grixis under a mountain of card advantage, adn we have very few ways of handling it, short of Swan Song and Annul, both of which are cards that I am not entirely ready to go full swing on bringing into my decks. (I lean towards Annul though because of its ability to cleanly counter Bestow). The first game eventually found me with no further ways to handle Mutavault before a late Pack Rat landed and tore me up.
This is again, a matchup where Rakdos Charm and more copies of Izzet Charm would come in handy. Izzet Charm lets us cheat out of Underworld Connections with the counter mode (Which they'll usually tap out to play) and drop off worse options for the all important Anger of the Gods. In addition, the deal 2 can sometimes seal the game up against them. Remember, I swapped Rakdos Charm out of the sideboard last minute and thoroughly regret it.
Rakdos Charm allows for us to stop Whip of Erebos' ability, or if they've loaded up the grave, dump their grave out from under them stopping double Gray Merchant shenanigans. It also allows us to remove the Whip if we are more under threat from the lifelink ability, which I think will be the case more often. The last mode is a sort-of way to make Pack Rat backfire on them, by hitting them for a smaller, but potentially threatening amount of damage at the end of a turn before an Anger. Wishful thinking, but possible. I also had Crypt Incursion in the side for this matchup, as the 3 life per creature adds up here, and can buy you time to make them burn themselves out.
Game 2? Pack Rat, and me siding out Anger of the Gods. Take my advice--NEVER cut all 4 Anger of the Gods against Monoblack. I lost 0-2
1-2
Round 4, v. Barely Boros Aggro
What's fun about this matchup is how laughable Anger of the Gods makes it. What's even more fun about this matchup is drawing multiple Angers and then immediately following up with Ashiok to keep them from coming back.
The important thing here is to remember that Boros Charm still shuts down Anger as hard as it does Supreme Verdict. They also can cheat out of your wipe or save a dude or two using Gods Willing, Brave the Elements or Pay No Heed (Anger is a damage source). The trick is to get them early when they tap out to play a Reckoner or Fabled Hero. Or have an Izzet Charm ready. This is another situation where Swan Song may be a perfectly reasonable sideboard card for the deck, as it makes Anger an effectively cannot be countered wipe.
This was a matchup where the Returned Phalanx did some AMAZING work, just by being generally bigger than anything else on the table. Yes, it did suck when I had to Anger away my own dudes, but surviving to that point was more than worth it. I feel like it has a place in control shells for block and 2015 Standard.
Anyway, with multiples both hands, I don't really have good info to report about this match aside from the above tidbits. I won 2-0, putting me to 2-2.
Round 5. v. Boros Burn
I friggin' hate this deck. It's dumb, you're all dumb for playing it, but I think it's a matchup that we can possibly win every once in a while. The key would be getting their hand to burn out and then using Ashiok and Jace to keep removing answers, usually through replacing Thoughtsieze with Duress or Slaughter Games to get rid of their big hitters Boros Charm and Warleader's Helix.
Another option is to use Crypt Incursion in response to Chandra's Pheonix's trigger to remove and gain life, but that's almost wishing for too much to happen all at once as they're throwing so many cards so fast that we can barely handle it. Negate and Elixir of Immortality seem like good cards here. I lost 0-2
Closing Thoughts:
I absolutely loved playing the Grixis deck again, and I actually feel like it's a solid choice moving into Born of the Gods as the deck has some great hits going for it. It may end up being too weak against Heroic if Hero of Iroas really takes off, but that'll be a "time will tell" situation. Mogis, God of Slaughter's sacrifice effect actually seems like a great place for this deck to be and I hope Phenalax is just as good of a control card.
Anwyay, for the present, I feel like the next move is to clean up the creatures. I want to go to the full 4 Frostburn Weird. They did very well. I feel like Returned Phalanx is a good sideboard card for the aggro matchup and may be relegated to there.
Shock needs to find its way into the side, as Hero's Downfall is just too specific against aggro... I'm just not sure if with the 4 angers and 2 Turn//Burn plus Mizzium Mortars if that's something we want to be doing, or if its fine as is. Or perhaps speeding the Burn part up a bit and getting the shocks would be nice.
Ral Zarek, though only present in single, wasn't anywhere near as good as he needed to be. I kept wishing he was a backup copy of Ashiok or Jace, and the third Mizzium Mortar felt like a happy accident that just kept doing better and better. I feel like he's going by the wayside.
I want to get Rakdos Charm into the side again. Absolutely have to get it there. No exceptions.
So....
Main
-1 Ral Zarek
-2 Returned Phalanx
+2 Frostburn Weird
+1 Izzet Charm
Side
Mishmashing till it's 15 cards again that includes at least 2 Rakdos Charm
