Traditional Historic - Nicol Bolas' Goblin Exterminator Service

16 47 12
6 24 4 26
Control

Well, I continue my quixotic quest to try and make a working Grixis deck. (because Dragons, I guess) Yes, I know the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So, lets try Grixis again! tongue-out

In my most recent games of Historic that I've done in testing this deck, by far the most common deck I've run into has been Goblins. The other two have been Elfball and some variation of Field. So, I've tried to tune the deck with those things in mind, but not make it TOO narrow.

As is usual, the main deck is a giant removal pile, with some hand disruption and a few premium threats. (I know, truly revolutionary for a Grixis deck, amirite?) As I am sure everyone knows, both Goblins and Elfball can snowball VERY quickly, so don't hesitate to be liberal in your use of the single target removal. There are 12 of them, after all, so odds are pretty good you'll draw more. Field is probably the worst of those initially, since it's harder to interact with what it wants to do. Elfball is probably the easiest of the 3 because it's not quite as snowbally as Goblins is. I've had Goblin games where you think it's going well, they draw 1 Muxus, and suddenly you have what feels like 87 goblins attacking your face.

Post-sideboard, however, things improve a lot for both of those matchups. Grafdigger's Cage completely stops Muxus from doing anything, since it doesn't let creatures in libraries directly go to the board. That alone makes the matchup significantly less scary. Having more AOE post-board also helps a lot vs gobbos. The other tech in sideboard for the Goblins matchup (and fields, which I'll get to in a minute) is Essence Scatter. There's enough goblins, like Matriarch, Muxus, Ruinblaster, Snoop, Ringleader, etc. where preventing the creature from entering the battlefield is MUCH better than removing it once it gets there. So don't hesitate to trim some of your single target removal to fit in the cages, scatters, and rituals of soot. Also don't hesitate to block with Atris. Once he's drawn you the cards, he's gotten most of the use out of him you need, so if it can trade with something before it dies, all the better.

For Field, Cast Down is not going to be of much use at all. Golos ignores it, Uro ignores it, etc. So, absolutely take those out for the scatters. You can also trim all of the Eliminates for the 2 Plagues and the 2 Cling to Dusts, to get rid of Uros. That leaves us with 1 open slot. So, trim 1 Atris (he's not as good in the face of potentially infinite 2/2s) and put in the 2 Necromentias. If you can get one of the Necromentias before he plays his first Field, the pick field with your choice, all day, every day. If you can hit that before any hit the board, you've about got the game won. Likewise if you can hit with one of the Plagues, though that's less sure since they can always bounce a plague with Teferi and make 897 zombies and then counterspell the plague when you try and replay it.

Anyway, good luck, and happy, uh, dragoning?

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limekiller70
Last Updated: 29 Jul 2020
Created: 29 Jul 2020
641 198 0

Mainboard - 60 cards (18 distinct)

Creature (6)
$0.35€0.100.02
$19.90€20.690.03
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (24)
$0.25€0.140.03
$0.31€0.360.76
$0.99€1.150.61
$3.30€2.860.02
$0.20€0.130.03
$0.21€0.140.03
$1.02€0.890.15
Land (26)
$12.98€11.630.33
$2.26€1.870.02
$15.78€14.550.43
$1.54€1.010.02
$13.86€11.501.63
$0.170.03
$2.99€2.390.02
$0.190.03
Planeswalker (4)
$3.20€3.640.03

Sideboard - 15 cards (6 distinct)

$0.30€0.230.03
$0.75€1.401.74
$0.25€0.180.03
$2.49€1.820.34
$0.49€0.450.02
$0.18€0.100.03

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Main/Sideboard Rarity Count
2 15 35 8 0
3 4 8 0 0