TheAlexGnan

Yeah, I stole your competitive tag in the name. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as I've been told.

What do you think? I'm loving the list. I'd like to find room for 1 more Serum Visions, but that's it. I think it's pretty much perfect otherwise. I might swap the Damnation for Languish because against Merfolk, one of our worst matchups, letting Tasigur or Angler survive is amazing for their manlands, but Damnation hits bigger things. Not sure what's important for it to hit, but it hits more.

As for the matchups, here's what I'm anticipating:

Burn: more favorable than the other versions because of Vampiric Link, Rise/Fall, flash snap into Dispel to counter + block, and still with Nighthawk to run away with the game.

Affinity: less favorable than Rocket Science because of 1 less Pyroclasm and 2 less Nighthawk. Nighthawk killed that deck, but with 4 pieces of artifact hate, EE to hit anything, and tons of removal it shouldn't be terrible.

Merfolk: better, but not fantastic yet. More removal helps, snap is amazing vs them, and Nighthawk did nothing which is why they were bad for me. Less Nighthawk should help.

Delver: much better. We have snap and lili now. Enough said.

Elves: probably about the same. This was an easy matchup anyway, so it couldn't change much. I don't think I've lost to elves in a long time.

Jund: better because of Snap and Lili. Much better card value and Rise/Fall from the sideboard is a blowout.

Abzan: also a lot better. I still don't understand how this is unwinnable for you. We have resilient threats, lots of removal, great card value, as well as a better topdeck (if that's even possible) so we can beat them fairly easily.

Tron: better. Game 1 is better because of a faster game 1 due to less Nighthawk. Games 2+3 aren't quite as good because of less cantrips and less burn, but it's still very winnable. Snap is basically more burn and Lili can run away with the game if they have to discard all of their threats, so it's not too bad.

Grixis Control: better. Bolt-snap-bolt is fantastic and lili can run away with the game. No nighthawk means a faster game 1 as well.

Twin: Better. Snap and lili. Enough said.

Bloom Titan: Probably better? RSC (rocket science competitive) is faster than RS, so that probably helps. I sided out nighthawk, so no loss there. This is a matchup I haven't tested a ton, so unknown.

Infect: slightly better. Lili -2 is unavoidable removal, and her +1 reduces their pump spells, but this was pretty heavily favored anyway.

Company: unknown. 1 less Pyroclasm hurts, but I have no idea how the rest of the changes will affect the matchup. Another one I haven't tested extensively.

And that's it! I'm super happy with this deck. I'd love your opinion on it. It's a happy median between your deck (with snaps and lili) and my deck (with nighthawk, random 1-ofs, and my sideboard). I think it's the best among them so far.

Overall it helped almost all of the matchups. Mainly it solidified the BGx, twin, control, and combo matchups. The only one it hurt was affinity, but we'll see how relevant that is. Merfolk is likely still a problem, but less so than before. Overall it feels super fun. I'm going to build toward it as I open more prize packs over the next however many years, starting with the snaps. I'm open to any and all suggestions!

Thanks for the input!

Oftentimes when playing this deck, I've found that for odd card choices, such as Murderous Cut, Echoing Truth, Thoughtseize, etc, that no matter how bad they look in theory, they're the cards that make all the difference in good and bad matchups. Because of that, I'm just going to trust you on Murderous Cut and Thoughtseize. My reasoning on Dismember was that I wanted mono-black removal because Master of Waves ends the game against us. My ways of killing it in game 1 are Dismember, Echoing Truth, and flashing in a snappy to block it out of nowhere. Murderous Cut kills master of waves just as well as Dismember, so that swap is fine and the life loss is relevant. Although this deck and my deck have Vampire Nighthawk, which annoys aggro players to no end. The lifegain from him isn't much, but it's enough that he absolutely kills.

For Thoughtseize, I am curious about which cards it hits that are so bad for us. I know it hits things like Ad Nauseam, Scapeshift, Splinter Twin, Siege Rhino, but are those relevant enough to justify the life loss against Burn, one of our worst matchups?

I know how miserably awful Echoing Truth looks in theory, but it has literally won me games on multiple occasions. I have yet to draw it without it being helpful, which is odd because it looks like a bad card. Think of it like Murderous Cut in your deck - it looks bad because of the delve stress and I am completely unconvinced that it's a good card, but in your experience it's one of the better cards in the 75.

I've been playing Rocket Science a lot recently at tournaments and it does awesome, but it is tough to play. Because every play you make depends entirely on the board state, nothing is intuitive and making the intuitive play leads to a loss almost every time. It's so much fun yet maddening to play with.

I made a couple of changes since I wrote my original comment. I swapped 1 Vamp Link out for 1 more Pyroclasm because pyroclasm is relevant in more matchups and with only 3 big creatures between the main and the side, we don't have a lot to equip it to on our side, which makes it less good. For this reason I don't think Vamp Link belongs in Bloody Singleminded, although it is great in here as a 1-of or 2-of. I still need to test vs burn, so we'll see if not having the second is relevant.

Tron is really the only deck I can think of where I'd want another Serum Visions. Visions is a great card to smooth out land drops and draws, but with Snappy to give us more versatility, I don't think 3 is necessary. We use it to flip Delver, but Delver isn't the main card in the deck. Ghast / looting takes that prize, so I think 3 is fine.

Thanks for the input!

I personally don't even know how to play Rocket Science, but why Izzet Charm and Dispel over Spell Pierce?

Don't worry about not being able to play it well; I've gone to turns against naya burn. It was kinda sad, but it happened. I also won in the end, so that was nice.

Izzet Charm is used because it has more versatility than pierce. It can be used to burn small creatures, notably Dark Confidant, naked Scavenging Ooze, and most aggro creatures. Charm can also be used as a Faithless Looting in a pinch. We really only do this one as an end of turn play when we have a Bloodghast in hand because without flashback, it's pretty inefficient when looting, but it's a great option when I have a ghast in the hand.

Dispel is used because Path to Exile can destroy us in the late game. Dispel offers us a way to counter Path to Exile, Lightning Bolt, and Kolaghan's Command without them being able to pay more mana and jam it through. Against BGx in particular, mana cost isn't an issue after turn 4 or 5, so pierce becomes worthless whereas Dispel becomes fantastic insurance for our threats.

Good question!

TheFoilAjani As I think about it I might swap the Dispel in the mainboard for a Spell Pierce. There are enough decks where Dispel is completely dead or just not as good and I'd rather have a Pierce. Things like Tron, Bloom Titan, Living End, Merfolk, Tokens, Scapeshift, and Bogles come to mind. Dispel is really only dead vs Tron, but I'd rather have Pierce against the rest of those decks because what I want it to hit is either played early or is a lot of mana. Dispel is better against BGx and Grixis Control, but BGx is a good matchup anyway and a single Path shouldn't matter too much if cast late game, and Control is still very annoyed by Pierce. Plus, I have a Dispel in the sideboard if I need it.

TheAlexGnan Unfortunately I just can't justify running Thoughtseize. It's just so bad against burn and not really worth it elsewhere. Against twin I wouldn't take Splinter Twin anyway I don't think. Master of Waves is relevant, but against Merfolk I uaually take Vial to slow them down or a lord because they're what make them fast enough to kill me. Against BGx I'm picking out their removal almost exclusively. It's relevant vs Grixis Control I guess, but I usually pick Snappy first because that's their best card against us in my opinion. Although Cryptic is tough to get around. Hitting Coco and Scapeshift isn't super big because they are fringe-played it feels.

On a side note, have you noticed how unbelievably awful our Aristocrats matchup is? Not necessarily Podless Pod, but that's bad too, but any form Aristocrats seems like a terrible matchup to me.

How I would build the manabase:

4 Polluted Delta, 4 Bloodstained Mire, 1 Scalding Tarn

1 Blood Crypt, 1 Watery Grave, 1 Steam Vents, 2 Swamp, 1 Island, 1 Mountain

2 Creeping Tar Pit, 1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, 1 Darkslick Shores, 1 Drowned Catacomb

Basically, cut Urborg for Drowned Catacomb and Blackcleave Cliffs for Scalding Tarn. This feels more streamlined. Urborg isn't necessary, so I'd play an additional land that taps for blue. Cliffs is OK but I like another fetchland better because you do want BB into UR into UU or U into BR, etc. The deck can afford 1 fastland, but 2 is pushing it.

Not sure why you have Echoing Truth maindeck. What are you trying to bounce that you couldn't deal with normally? Murderous Cut should be Go for the Throat IMO because you've got a bunch of stress on the bin already.

I don't think you should be playing both Liliana of the Veil and Snapcaster Mage. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip is better alongside Liliana, or you could cut Liliana and play something else.

Your sideboard seems really all over the place. Why do you have a Languish? I understand leaving your X/5s alive, but your opponent can and will have Goyfs and their own Tasigurs and will kill your guys too. Damnation is just more consistent. Rakdos Charm is poor; there are better disruptive spells, and you could play the third Kommand here. Having a Fish in the board is weird, but eh. Spreading Seas should (probably) be Fulminator Mage. I remember you saying that it's good against Burn, but I'd rather play a better anti-Burn card or just play the card that actually works vs. big mana decks.

Thanks for all the input.

I like the idea of 1 more Fetchland, but I really like Urborg in here. I've actually been toying with the idea of a second Blood Crypt because having 2 mono-U lands means that when I get a mono-U land I need to have 2 other lands that tap for B and in certain matchups I need RR as well to cast enough removal quickly enough. There have been enough occasions in playtesting to warrant thinking about it.

In playing Rocket Science I've found that trying to run check lands with fast lands, manlands, and oboro that they have to come in tapped more often than I'd like. Blue lands are also not as important as Black or Red lands, surprisingly. I'll make the swap of Cliffs for 1 more fetch, but I think I'll keep Urborg in over Drowned Catacomb.

Echoing Truth is pretty useful in a lot of the matchups. Think of it as a Vapor Snag with more utility and a worse mana cost. It most notably hits enchantments, which are a huge problem for the deck, but it also hates on BW tokens (a bad matchup for us), twin, Delver, Merfolk (Master of Waves), Bogles to some extent, Tron to some extent, and Infect to some extent. It has singlehandedly won me games in some scenarios when a normal removal spell would not have, and it has yet to hold me back. It provides a different and much needed angle. It is terrible in goldfishing because it never feels useful, but in practice I have been genuinely surprised by its performance. I'll be honest, I threw it in during a moment of desperation against enchantments expecting it to fail, but it has worked extremely well for me, to my own surprise.

I don't know about Go for the Throat. Affinity's a pretty big deck and removal is pretty good against them. It was Dismember, but life loss kinda sucks. Thealexgnan has said that his 1-of cut is amazing. I haven't tested it yet and I've been skeptical of the card for a long time because of the grave stress, but greez assures me that it'll work. I at least want to give it a chance, but you're probably right that it should be something else.

Jace is a no go. Too fragile and a woeful topdeck. He has great synergy with the deck I have to admit, but he's just impractical. I don't see him helping me if I play him after turn 3, and even when I do play him before turn 3 I don't see him living long enough to benefit. I did some math. Around 50% of the time Jace will die just to Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile, Abrupt Decay, or Terminate. And the matchups where that happens are the matchups where I want him the most. I just don't like him as a card too.

What's wrong with playing both Lili and Snap? I haven't seen anything wrong yet, but I think I see what you mean with Lili's +1 tending towards no cards in hand, whereas I want to be holding Snappy in my hand for my opponent's turn. I don't know why yet, but I haven't seen that problem yet when playing Bloody Singleminded (Competitive).

I think you're right about Damnation. I'll make that swap. I forgot about the Seas to Fulminator swap. I'll make that one too. I've done enough sideboarding with the deck to know that the fish in the board belongs. I'm confident of it. Rakdos Charm belongs though. Its versatility cannot be overlooked and all of its modes are very relevant. I can't justify running pure grave hate because it doesn't help in enough matchups, Rakdos Charm is also artifact hate and twin hate. I considered running another Kommand, but I like spell diversity. Kommand is powerful enough where I am not too wary of having another, but I don't want to drop a Rakdos Charm for it because 1 piece of grave hate is not very effective, plus the 3-drop spot is a little tight as it is.

So if I make the fulminator swap, for what decks do I side it in? I know that I should side it in against Tron, Amulet Bloom, and likely Infect, but is that it? It is worth siding in against BGx or Merfolk for the manlands? What about against control for their manlands? I just don't know how to properly use it yet.

Thank you for the input! I'll make some of those changes for sure and test the rest.

Best anti Tron package:

1-3x Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
1-4x Magus of the Moon/Blood Moon
3-4x Fulminator Mage
2/>2 Rakdos Charm
3-4x Slaughter Games

Slaughter Games is also good vs Twin, Alesha is not great but not the worst thing in the world against Naya ggro, Fulminator Mage is good with Alesha vs decks with a precarious mana base or that want to get to 5 drops quickly. Not sure if you need this since you are a combo deck but it's how decks would deal with Karn along with the usual Discard.

Alesha also comes in handy after you blow up a Wurmcoil Engine. You just have to play around turn 2 Whipflare and turn 3 Karn then you crush them.

Thanks for the help!

Tron isn't a huge problem deck at the moment. It's a hard matchup, but I have a surprising amount of game even after they drop a Karn or Wurmcoil. If they get to eldrazi, I'm dead, but it's not a terrible matchup with the testing I've done so far.

What do you name with Slaughter Games, out of curiosity.

My problem with most of the anti-tron cards you listed is that they're almost dead in other matchups. I'm even starting to question Fulminator Mage because I don't know when I'd want to use it other than Tron, Bloom Titan, and Scapeshift. I'll go to the forums for help with Fulminator.

I dunno about Alesha. If I'm going to play a 3-drop in bolt range, I'd rather have Vampire Nighthawk. Alesha's undoubtedly better against tron, but elsewhere I like Nighthawk.

Moons are way too hard on my mana base. I can't handle them.

I need to do more testing against tron to know what I need against them. With artifact hate and hand disruption I'm able to slow them enough to win usually, especially because I can handle 1 Karn or Wurmcoil from them, but a second is pretty deadly.

Thanks for the help!

ToolmasterOfBrainerd

Long time no see, eh? Liking this build. my god. Modern isn't my format, but if i were to get into it, this might be what i try. lots of great removal, ways to cycle cards in and out of the graveyard, and delving with Tasigur is just plain silly. Bravo, and kudos to TheAlexGnan for the original build!

Thanks for the kind words Gepetto and Hagosha. I am absolutely loving this deck, although I wish I could afford to get the Snaps and Lilis. Lili is less critical to the deck and more expensive, so I don't think I'll get her in paper until a reprint, but snaps I'm trying to pick up sooner rather than later. With shadows over Innistrad speculation and the off season, snap should drop a bit. Hopefully.

Fulminator is definitely staying in the sideboard. I didn't realize how versatile it was due to my inexperience with the card, but now I understand why people like it so much. Against, say, tron, Vampire Nighthawk is too slow to be useful, so Fulminator would replace him. The same is true of Scapeshift, Bloom Titan, and really any deck where I'm the beatdown. As much as I love my mainboard creatures, by nature they have good and bad matchups so I'm siding at least some of them out for game 2 almost every time. Because the deck is inherently midrange, I need to have hate and tempo plays, such as Fulminator, to beat the combo decks and Tron.

I tried Surgical Extraction and I really like the card, but I found it was a do nothing more often than not. There just aren't enough matchups where I'd rather have Surgical then other grave hate like Rakdos Charm. I know surgical can be used with hand disruption to hurt combo decks, but most combo decks have high cmc combo pieces, such as Ad Nauseam or Scapeshift, so I can't remove them with Inquisition of Kozilek and switching to Thoughtseize is too painful against burn. For Living End or Goryo's Vengeance, Rakdos Charm is just as powerful and hurting affinity as well is very relevant.

Thanks again for the help!

Your background is extremely large. I tried to view your deck and the background lagged the page load for a long time. You could easily reduce the size of the picture and keep the same ratio and it would make this deck much easier to view.

I pity the phone users who try to load the 6 megabyte background...

Anyways, if you are looking for extra removal, I'd say to go for Dismember or a fourth copy of Terminate.

Thanks. I'm on pretty good computer, so I don't get too much lag. I reduced the size of the image. Is this better?

My problem with Terminate #4 is pro red such as Master of Waves, and casting cost of terminate. If I play a mono-U land, then I can't cast Terminate turn 2. Both of those are surprisingly relevant scenarios, enough that I know I want 1 mono-black removal spell, but I don't know which one.

Murderous Cut can be a surprise card because I can cast it on just B, but it's grave intensive in a deck that's already grave-heavy. Plus, I (usually) can't cast it turn 2.

Dismember is either expensive or painful, and I don't really like either option. Pain is bad against aggro decks, which is when we'd want to play it fast usually, so it's inefficient in either life, mana, or both.

Go for the Throat is bad against Affinity and Tron .... to gain a fringe good card against merfolk?

Let me know if the background is still laggy, because I'd like to fix that. Thanks!

Go for the Throat is bad against Affinity and Tron to gain an edge in life against Zoo, Burn, Merfolk, Company and Delver. GftT and Terminate are honestly equally bad against Tron, so really you're only worried about Affinity. It's your choice with regards to whether you want to save some life in those matchups or kill Affinity creatures.

Personally, I think your Affinity matchup is good enough that you can play a GftT.

Surprisingly, creature removal isn't as bad against Tron as it seems. Wurmcoil Engine, if unanswered, is crushing, but creature removal can answer it. Card advantage is more or less meaningless against Tron because I either win fast or I don't win at all, card advantage or not. I oftentimes will attack, then Terminate their Wurmcoil Engine before damage to prevent their lifegain and get damage in. Or I'll only attack with my fliers, then terminate when they attack the next turn. It feels dirty to play around what should be 'unanswerable', but it works wonders in stretching my reach and gaining turns against them.

Now, will a 1-of GtfT in a matchup where removal is already pretty bad going to make a difference? No. Well, not noticeably, because Karn doesn't care about creature removal, and KC is already mainboarded artifact removal so it balances out. Dismember is too life intensive, so that's a no. So I guess it's between Cut and GftT. Cut has been performing surprisingly well, but there's always the risk of not being able to delve enough and being after turn 2, and when it all comes down to it, I have to say I think GftT makes the most sense.

Thanks! Is my background any better?

@ToolmasterOfBrainerd I can see your reasoning for the Go for the Throat. You could always change up the Serum Visions for Thought Scours if you wanted to support the Murderous Cut, but if affinity isn't a large portion of your meta then it is perfectly reasonable to run GftT.

Also your background loaded instantly. Much better!

I would recommend Dismember or even Victim of Night over Go for the Throat. Affinity isnt going anywhere. Also something on your page, I'm guessing your background, is making the page lag. Cool deck idea.

Uggh still lagging? Guess I'll reduce the resolution again. Are you on mobile by any chance?

So I did some playtesting against affinity with them on the play where I put 6 random cards and Go for the Throat in my hand. I won most of the time, and the times I lost I would have lost anyway if the GftT was a Terminate. I think I'm fine with it mainboard because affinity is a pretty good matchup and I can find a way to ditch GftT if needed most of the time. Dismember is life-intensive and Victim of Night is almost as color intensive as Terminate in regards to Mono-U lands, and there are a few vampires, zombies, and werewolfs running around. Notably Huntmaster of the Fells  ^Flip and Olivia Voldaren.

Thanks for the help everyone!

What does the deck do? How do you win?

Having read through the deck's description and comment section, I think the only card which could really be replaced by a Serum Visions would be Echoing Truth. This said, I do realize that this card is far better in practice than on paper, and that this swap might not be a reasonable one to make. The list is simply too tight for anything else to be conceivably replaceable.
As to the extra copy of Vampiric Link in the sideboard, I would advise against this. The deck runs a total of two big beaters, three if you count the fish in the side board. That means that at best, you have 1/20th of your deck which qualify as decent targets for Vampiric Link. Running two of them just to eek out some extra life seems a little too optimistic for such a small upside, given that all three targets for the spell are already must remove threats.
If you really need the life-gain, another Vampire Nighthawk or a Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip would be better options IMO. Her pulling back creatures like Snapcaster Mage gives her a pretty high value ceiling, so as a one of she could be decent. I won't profess to know what the best alternative is, as this deck is nearly impossible to goldfish, but those are my two cents and my recommendations. Quite the impressive list!

You can put Vampiric Link on an opponent's creature as well, effectively negating it.

jesmister This is a grixis midrange deck. It usually wins through a longer game of attrition where it tries to gain card advantage through card re-use and card value to overwhelm the opponent. It wins mainly through beatdown with evasive flyers such as Insectile Aberration and Vampire Nighthawk, or resilient threats such as Bloodghast that can only be killed by exile. It's grounded Tasigur, the Golden Fang is also bigger than most creatures in modern, making him no small threat either. It's main driving force is the value engine between Faithless Looting and Bloodghast. You can cast Looting, then draw some cards, discard a Bloodghast and something worthless, then when you play your next land you can bring your Bloodghast back to the battlefield. The end result is that by paying 1 mana, you've sculpted a perfect hand to crush your opponent and you've put a 'free' attacker on the battlefield, both accelerating your game and filling your hand with the quality cards you need. It also employs a couple of 2-for-1 cards to pull ahead in value. These cards include Kolaghan's Command and Electrolyze primarily, but Liliana of the Veil to some extent as well. Finally, the deck has Inquisition of Kozilek, Terminate, and Lightning Bolt to remove any threat the opponent has, disrupt the opponent's plan, and make the game last longer, giving us the advantage. Overall the deck is versatile, resilient, prepared for the long game, but able to excel in the short. For more explanation of the deck, I have a longer primer on Rocket Science that you can read. Also feel free to ask any other questions that you may have!

DuTogira Wow. Thanks for the analysis!

I've been playing this deck pretty often since I built it, and after playing with it, I don't think there is a need for 1 more Visions. It's been performing very well as is.

I think you're right about Vampiric Link. Here's how I currently use it:

When I'm facing most any aggro deck, Bloodghast is sided out, and Gurmag Angler is sided in to have a great blocker as well as to have more creatures to block with. I will usually also side in Vampiric Link to have another source of lifegain. I choose Vamp Link over other lifegain because equipping it to Eidolon of the Great Revel is the most annoying thing to burn, maybe second to Leyline of Sanctity. Gaining 4-5 life off of a Tasigur or Angler swing is also a fantastic life swing to slow the aggro rush. In a pinch, if I don't have a Tasigur or Angler, which is fairly likely, I can equip it to an opponent's creature to make it ineffective.

Given that's my planned use for it, I think you're right that I should stick to 1. I do want that 1 though, because it does help.

I'm going to have to think for a bit about Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip. I played with it a couple of months ago in a wildly different deck before I was playing competitive, but I haven't tried her since. I could see some potential, especially with Snapcaster Mage, as you said.

Thanks for the tips!

Hey!

Thought I'd swing by the new list. Looks like the same cool roguebrew like before. The bloodghast/looting combo is really cool. Not really my style as much, but its still cool.

Anyways, is there a reason for the snow covered swamps?

Sadism. Sadism is the reason.

@SwaggyMcSwagglepants You can mess with them when they try to Surgical Extraction your Swamp.