Grixis Control

(Jan 2020 Build)

I built this to take advantage of some of the more powerful control cards and non-creature spells available to play in the format. I normally play some kind of control deck and normally gravitate to Esper, but I've played this deck the last few weeks, had pretty good success with it, and have enjoyed playing it a lot. Below is a breakdown of the cards in the deck, interesting interactions and key plays, and a section touching on how the deck has performed against various matchups. 

Non-Creature Spells

The non-creature spells are the backbone of the deck, and the variety of spells lets us balance somewhere between a tap out control deck and a more traditional approach of leaving mana open and passing the turn back to interact on the opponent's turn. 

Moving up the curve, the cards break down as follows:

One Drop

I know, I know, this is supposed to be Thoughtseize. Here's the thing though: Thoughtseize is expensive and I don't have any. Also, this card is better than you think at first glance and I'm not mad about running it. First, that may section is actually pretty important because it gives us a choice: if they have something in their hand we absolutely cannot or would struggle to deal with, we can take it. I know it's card disadvantage for us, but I would almost always trade this spell and the worst card in my hand for the biggest threat out of theirs, and if there is nothing too scary or problematic, you dont have to take a card or exile a card from your hand. Unlike Thoughtseize, this card hurts way less when you 'miss'. Seperately, there are a number of decks running around with black somehwere in the build, and the mono-black decks are still running strong. Oh also, the most fun card to rip with this one is...Thoughtseize. 

Two Drops

Angrath's Rampage I think the most obvious comparrison/swap out for this is Dreadbore. Personnally,  I have been very impressed with this and dont think I will switch. Trading the ability to target or having the opponet choose is not ideal, but it gets around hexproof creatures (looking at you Sylvan Caryatid) and hits artifacts as well. In two differnt games I was able to use this to great effect, forcing opponents to sac Sorcerer's Spyglass and an un-crewed Heart of Kiran. There are enough instant speed creature/planeswalker hate cards in the build to allow us to play this sorcery as we dont usually allow for more than once creature at a time. This card has just been great. 

Cast Down An absolutely great piece of removal, this is an auto-include for me. There is always the risk of a legend resolving, but we have enough removal to save other spells for those cards and to use this one aggressively. 

Censor Card draw and counter spell in one, I am never mad to see this card in my hand. T2-4 its usually good as a counter spell, and even late in the game tapping out can become a huge mistake. I've had 2 mana open and folks tap out for a huge spell thinking they can get around a counter, and this hits hard in that moment. Seperately, the ability to cycle this is huge as it replaces itself if you think you wont be able to use it for a counter. I will run this over Opt in almost every situation for the counter-spell upside. 

Drown in the Loch Maybe my favorite new card? Having two modes here is great, and outside of a pure control matchup we usually have enough in the opponent's graveyard to turn this on at a very high number. I've been very impressed with this card so far and I expect it to continue to be good. 

Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin Being able to filter the draw each turn is a great feeling, and we cast enough spells early on we can usually get 7 cards in our graveyard pretty quickly. Having a Narset, Parter of Veils on a land is great, as once this flips it becomes very difficult for opponents to interact with. The may clause is important yet again, as there have been games where I will just leave this unflipped to continue to filter the top of the deck on the Draw Phase. 

Thought Erasure Its like a Thoughtseize and a Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin had a baby. Auto-include. 

Tyrant's Scorn I think folks underrate this card. As a two of in the deck it feels perfectly positioned in the deck to be a great flex card: if they are playing a lot of 3 CMC or less creatures, this is good, cheap removal, and if they cast a bigger creature, this can bounce it back to their hand (usually wait until combat/trying to combo) and give us another turn or two to either find or mana-up for a more premium removal piece. 

Three Drops

Swift End Could this be Hero's Downfall? Sure. Can Hero's Downfall turn into a 2/3 lifelink creature? No. We can't get this from Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin or Narset, Parter of Veils, and that's not great. This coming back as a creature, especially with lifelink, is better in aggro or burn matchups. I'm still not 100% sure, but I think I still prefer this. 

Bontu's Last Reckoning This card is only a joke till it's not. We don't have a lot of good options for true wraths (lot of X damage to each creature, less destroy all). Not having lands uptap feels very bad, but after wiping the board they usually need a turn to recover too. I wouldn't normally cas this unless I had another removal spell for the turn lands untap, but sometimes you need a big red button to hit when things are bad. This is that button. 

Kolaghan's Command Full disclosure, I dodn't really start playing until Kaladesh, so I didn't have the priviledge of casting this card until now. This is quickly becoming one of my favorites, as it gives us so many options and powerful plays. This is a prime target for Torrential Geahulk or Jace, Vryn's Prodigy // Jace, Telepath Unbound. It also helps us get Gearhulk or Jace back, can two for one in all kinds of fun ways. I expect to continue to find strong plays with this card and suspect it will be a staple of the deck. 

Disallow A great counter, great target for Torrential Gearhulk. Being able to counter abilities is great to have when needed. An absolutley great counter spell. 

Narset, Parter of Veils Do your thing Narset, do your thing. Obviously it hurts when you whiff on the top four cards, but how quickly this card can churn through the deck to find a good spell is worth it. Turning off opposing draws is great too, especially against other control decks or even decks like Izzet Phoenix. 

The Final Spell

This started as Banefire in this deck, but after playing Torment in my Esper control deck, I think this is just a better option almost all of the time. Banefire has the benefit of being counter-proof, but you need to make it much later into the game for it to be a true finisher. This can effectively end the game, without actually getting them to 0, as having to sac your board, discard a huge grip of cards, give up almost all of their life, or some unfortunate combination of the three will ususally lead to a scoop. This card for X=7 (9 total mana) is way more of a finish than Banefire for X=8 (still 9 total mana). 

Creatures

They Who Cast the Spells

Jace, Vryn's Prodigy // Jace, Telepath Unbound and Torrential Gearhulk let us do what we want to do: cast our good spells. These are both strong late in the game, and we dont want to run them out unless we have spell or plan in mind, but getting a chance to recast some of our stronger spells is usually game changing. 

The Gods

God of Spells, God of Creatures

Even if God-Eternal Kefnet only copies a spell (reducing cost is great too), we get cast good cards more and more. Befitting a god, Kefnet is particulary hard to actually remove, so even running this out early (T4 if needed) puts the opponent in a tight spot. 

The Scarab God rules over graveyards. We have a lot of spells that put other creatures in graveyards. Getting to take opposing creatures and turn them to our side is good; taking a great threat from the opponent's graveyard and use it against them is wonderful. 

FEBRUARY 2020 Changes

After a few weeks playing this deck, some changes were in order. A review of overacheivers and underwhelming perfomers: 

Overachieved

I've been very impressed with this card so far, as it has done everything I wanted it to be doing in this deck. In the JAN 2020 write-up I outlined why I chose this instead of Dreadbore, and I stand by those reasons. This card makes the Overacheive list for the frequency with which it has been effective and it has felt good (or good enough) to cast this card. I am almost never mad to see this in an opening hand, and even as a late game draw (or top deck) it still has yet to feel bad. 

I will never get tired of folks tapping out for a spell and forgetting this card exists (even if they've seen me cycle it). Foes that have fallen to this include Dance of the Mance, Questing Beast, Ilharg, the Raze Boar, Teferi, Time Raveler, and the Arclight Phoenix decks have been hurt over and over by having their draw-enabling spell countered or giving up a precious mana to resolve. The cycling has also been as impressive as I remembered it being during its time in Standard, and I feel the deck is much better with this than with Opt for a similar effect. 

So here is the thing about this deck (and maybe Grixis as an archetype): We are most equipped to handle things at quality over quantity level (I can handle your one good thing with my slightly better one thing), but 2s and 3s can eventually overwhelm us and burn out our quality. God-Eternal Kefnet has overperformed as a spell copy-machine, as copying our 2 and 3 CMC spells can sometimes be all the difference in a game. In most of my playtime with this deck, this is the threat opponents, no matter their deck or strategy, have had the most difficult time dealing with. The Scarab God and Torrential Gearhulk are both outrageously powred in their own right, but they are a bit more easy to deal with. There has been almost no answer for Kefnet. 

Underachievers

I want to be clear, of all the cards that have underperformed, this one was closest to keeping its place in the deck. There was nothing wrong with this card and no times it hurt to draw this or have it in hand, it simply lost out to another version of this effect (more on that below).

Maybe this was never the deck for this card. Maybe there is just too much efficient removal running around (for creatures AND/OR planeswalkers). Maybe we just dont have the right spell to cast back off from the yard. This sekdom survived and a lot of times gave opponents a play when they wouldnt have otherwise had one. The other creatures in this deck dodge way more of the removal running around, and we arent running other plansewalkers (spoiler) so we made removal spells dead in a lot of cases. This just turned them on. Even casting this with a full yard didn't feel great, as I think something like Mission Briefing may be more effective as we get a similar effect and have the option to do it at instant speed and to see the top two cards of the library. I had heard so much about this card, but it has yet to impress me or live up to its hype in this deck and in this format. 

So turns out, whiffing hurts. A lot. Turning off extra draws can be great sometimes, but playing this on T3, seeing two lands, The Scarab God, and Swift End and going down to 3 loyalty usually means Narset isn't going to make it to the next turn, and we just tucked two very important answers down at the bottom of the library and had a pretty bad turn. This will likely find a spot in the sideboard, due to its static ability slowing down a lot of draw strategies, but taking this out has made room for an old favorite to make its return. 

New Kids On the Block

An old favorite found its way back in. The scry 2 is great, as it lets us get past things we dont need and give us a better chance at drawing two good cards. The energy is useless in this deck, but thats fine by me. This makes a good target for Gearhulk too, which is always nice. The biggest reason this card (and other in this section) have been so helpful is that they can draw any kind of card. Sometimes, we NEED a land. Sometimes, drawing one of our creatures could completely turn the game for us but Narset, Parter of Veils moves that card straight from the top of our deck to the bottom and breaks our heart. Flexibility and options are critical, and the more we can give ourselves the better. 

There are a lot of good options here, and even though folks will focus on 1,3, and 4, even the number 2 mode can be disruptive, as we can bounce a land and set the opponent back a turn in terms of resources. Just like with Kolaghan's Command, when we draw this we immediately start to think of ways to maximize it, and that's where this deck wants to be. It lets us get a a leg up in the quality vs quantity equation, as this will 2 for 1 the opponent no matter what. Even if you have to chose mode 2 for the second option, the other three modes are strong enough that those plus mode 2 for one spell is great. The only reason its a one of is due to the casting cost. 

So here's the thing. Disallow is a very good card, but the Surveil mechanic on this card is crazy useful in this deck. I knew it was strong from playing this in Standard, but in Pioneer it is even more impactful. Sometimes, decks care a lot about which/how many spells are in a graveyard. Sometimes, you need to be able to clear a land or otherwise less-useful card off the top for a chance at an answer to the next threat. Given it has the exact same casting cost and speed of Disallow, and there are few abilities that I ever hit with it, Sabotage is taking over the counter spell slot in a commanding way. Surveil is crazy useful, and I would challenge anyone playing Disallow to try this in its place and see how it works for them.

This is what took the place of Narset, Parter of Veils. This can grab creatures, this can grab lands, and this can counter spells. Narset isn't bad, but keeping this back catches a lot of people off guard, and casting this off Torrential Gearhulk ususally means countering a threat or getting a really good card into our hand. Has not felt bad, and folks have not been prepared for this card in the slightest. I loved this card when it was in Standard, and it feels great to have it back in the deck. 

Of all the new cards in the deck, this is the card I have seen the least (just haven't drawn it a ton). It seems like it would be usefl in most matchups given its ability to remove a creature, gain life, and exile cards that are part of any graveyard strategy. Time (and meta) will tell if this keeps its spot or if it makes way for something from the Maybe list.