Lets go back to the basics. 22 lands, 38 spells. Interaction is the name of the game, and brother we got a lot of interaction to fit into those 38 slots, in fact we got some interaction we can fit in those 22 slots too. Lets start with the basics of what we know. We know:
- There is a lot of ways in the current metagame to cheat out creatures and other impactful spells like Archon of Cruelty and Portal to Phyrexia
- There are even more ways to cheaply interact with other players plans in order to counteract this
- Delirium is a cute mechanic that turns on powerful spells but at the cost of speed, whcih is coincidentally the same problem Delver of Secrets
faces in Modern. A very playable legacy card just doesnt have the interaction to back it up and save face until it can chip in enough damage to win the game.
- Snapcaster Mage is my favorite card of all time in the history of magic the gathering. I bought my playset at $60 a pop and now its safe to say that I lost a lot of money on them
- I plan on never losing money again on buying the hot cards, I know thats not how metagames work, a card is expensive if its good in the meta and cheap when its not.
- Spell Pierce is incredibly well positioned in the meta game with a lot of decks requiring big or specific spells to resolve in order to win and SP just stops that
- Death's Shadow strategies need Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer to apply early game pressure and get ahead to keep the opponent on their toes, make mana and eat up removal along side the Dragon's Rage Channelers and Ledger Shredders of the world
- I will not buy ragavan, the nimble pilferer, not at $65 I won't
- I love control, Its a great archetype and truly challenges a mind.
- Hall of Storm Giants is a great man land, being able to come in untapped and swing in as a 7/7 with ward 3 is a great way to close out games and considering we will likely be through with half of our deck by the time we either win or putter out (due to the nature of control), it is very likely we find one of them per game
Lets brew a Grixis control deck based off of cards that I have, synergies I've seen online and a whole lot of reckless ambition.
Similarly to how Teferi, Hero of Dominaria works in the azorious control deck, Kess, Dissident Mage provides turn five advantage and ultimately acts as a source of stabilizing power for our shell. We have a tempo swinging card in Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger by providing a powerful etb with a massive 6/6 body as soon as turn four, but the goal of stabilizing and ultimately winning the game is clear cut going to come from casting our removal and card advantage spells twice every game in Snapcaster Mage and again kess, both of whom are decent bodies for their mana costs and both allow us to utilize our graveyard.
Jus play ledger shredder over kess at this point, a.) it blocks ragavan very effectively, b.) it keeps us on even mana cost creatures for extinction event, and c.) it provides a similar kind of incidental value that kess can in the late game, growing big to eventuall yswing in. I think i tend to undervalue ledger shredder for the same reason people did when SNC first came out, its not card advantage, its card selection. I tend to play ledger shredder on turn two whenever I play it... NO! just wait a turn or two until you can back it up in a "protect the queen" environment. As well, the value of making your opponent choose whether they double spell or let you look for answers is just such a powerful, controlling aspect of the card that makes it still command its high price even after GDS fell off
