A Short History This deck had many stages as I was creating it. It began as a R/B both people discard focus, then moved onto a R/B self discard (which is what we see being played now), then to a Jund version, before going back to R/B. However, I asked myself what it would be like to do a R/U version. I built that version too, and the discard choices were great since they allow for you to choose which cards go to the graveyard, but the power and resiliency were lackluster. This lead to the final version here of Grixis.
How it works In general the main idea of this deck is to run through your deck quickly by drawing and discarding cards rapidly and taking advantage of that.
Discard/Draw In the R/B version we still use Faithless Looting and Burning Inquiry to discard along with Cathartic Reunion or personally more favorable Goblin Lore . However, in this deck we use more choice based discard which is provided to us through blue, such as Izzet Charm . The reason we want choice based discard, is so the deck runs more smoothly in practice and isn't quite as random.
What to Discard When casting all these discard outlets, you want to have cards that do well by being in the graveyard. Bloodghast Flamewake Phoenix and Prized Amalgam are your prime targets to send to the graveyard, as you can pretty reliably get them back. Prized Amalgam works well here since we now have access to blue and it can come back for free if you return a Bloodghast or Flamewake Phoenix. Street Wraith is another good card to discard, but you want to cycle it instead of using a discard outlet on it. Street Wraith is also a contributing factor as to why we want as few shock lands as possible.
Taking Advantage Our main purpose is to discard cards, get damage in quick, and do it for little mana. To do this, we have Flameblade Adept , Hollow One , and Gurmag Angler . These tend to cost us 0 or 1 mana to cast, meaning big bodies for little mana. These three can also trigger our Flamewake Phoenix which can in turn trigger Prized Amalgam. As a side note, Gurmag Angler can be effective against decks with scavenging ooze, allowing you to exile creatures you may or may not get to the battlefield before scavenging ooze takes advantage of them. Hollow One and Gurmag Angler also get around Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt effects, which is helpful in many control match ups.
Removal/Damage This deck really doesn't interact with our opponents much in the first game. All we have for removal are Lightning Bolt and Izzet Charm which can also act as a counter spell if needed. However, the reason we use these and not destroy effects first game is so we can ensure we get as many opportunities to get damage across as possible.
Land Choices This deck was designed to run on 3 lands and 4 at the max. Since we usually want only 3 lands, Blackcleave Cliffs and Spirebluff Canal are the better lands to use as they won't hurt you, especially since there are 4 Street Wraith in the deck. However, to ensure mana fixing, there is one Steam Vents , two Blood Cyrpt and two fetch lands in the deck. The basic lands are there to ensure we have something to get against Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter , and so we aren't completely out from Blood Moon .
Sideboard Choices This deck doesn't have many ways to interact with opponents' board states so the sideboard is there to fill the gap where needed. First Fatal Push is almost a catch all in this format and for one mana, dealing with problematic creatures early game so we can build into the mid game. However, Fatal Push doesn't hit everything, so we have extra damage spells like Dreadbore to deal with things like opposing Gurmag Angler , Hollow One , Goblin Rabblemaster , and planeswalkers such as the newly unbanned Jace, the Mindsculptor or Liliana of the Veil. Rakdos Charm works well against graveyards and graveyard hate, which is important to us. As for decks using enchantment based graveyard hate such as Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace , we have Destructive Revelry to handle enchantments while also dealing damage. This brings us to the Forest and Stomping Ground. These are here simply for the destructive revelry. They are not in the mainboard because they can be awkward, especially since destructive revelry is only in the sideboard. Spell Pierce is an extra counter at a cheap cost mostly as a way to interact with Anger of the Gods. Grim Lavamancer is there for games that will tend to drag out longer. They provide a way to deal direct damage and make use of otherwise useless cards in the graveyard, and is a secondary way to exile cards before Scavenging Ooze does.
