KTK Details: I want to play Grixis control. The mana base won't let me play Grixis control. I badly want Crumbling Necropolis to be reprinted in this block. MaRo may have ruled out wedges in DTK, but he didn't say anything about shards... right? Right!
Since I cannot run Anger of the Gods and Steam Augury, a straight list seems like the best control option around. This list is a sort of marriage between Sullivan's and Floch's build. I prefer Sullivan's list overall, but I only have three Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver currently; it seems a bit too fragile to run as the primary wincon without the full playset. So Pearl Lake Ancient is there mainboard as a backup plan.
I've decided to try the Interpret the Signs one-of in place of the third Jace's Ingenuity.
The sideboard has been evolving. I once hoped to splash a couple of the red scry/fetch lands to bring Keranos and a Mountain out of the board, but that was building with my heart more than anything. I've switched all of the Despises out for more Thoughtseize.
Whelming Wave has been in Jim Davis's U/W Control sideboard for about a month now, but it doesn't seem to be getting much traction for U/B. I like it against tokens and UW Heroic.
FRF Update: With Fate Reforged we get a few new tools, most notably being Crux of Fate and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Crux adds another sweeper to our arsenal and seems the perfect card to dig into when you need a wrath effect. The question becomes what is the correct balance between it and the Vault. I prefer the Vault to be the dominant option, but it may be right to flip the numbers.
The question becomes how many copies of Thoughtseize do I play? I liked having access to 4 of them, but there are certainly times when it gets stuck in your hand. Now that there are fewer spots in the main, I've decided to go down to 3 total, moving them all to the sideboard.
DTK Update: Anticipate is a huge gain for this deck. Other tools also come in (Ultimate Price, Dragonlord's Prerogative, Duress, Encase in Ice, &c.), but Anticipate is the card I'm most eager to play.
A couple of lands and big card draw spells were cut; I think I may need a 2nd Prerogative, but I'm going to initially try it with 1.
With more dragons around Crux of Fate becomes an even more suspect sweeper. It's nice to have access to it in the board, but I'd rather have the pure reset button of Perilous Vault. Drown in Sorrow helps in the abysmal mono-red matchup and helps bridge the gap to the first Vault activation.
ORI Update: Origins drastically changed this list. Languish may not be the sweeper we want, but it's much better than what we've had (save Perilous Vault, love you so much). Jace, Vryn's Prodigy is a very powerful card, but it forces us to lean more heavily towards spells that can be played at sorcery speed. That makes Thoughtseize more tempting and countermagic a bit weaker.
The list I'm currently playing has been nudged in this direction thanks to Reid Duke's UB list.
