I like the deck but I feel that your sideboard is all over the place, it would best to focus your sideboard to countering your biggest threats such as burn: I recommend adding in atleast 3 Dragon's Claw as it should bolster your chances during that matchup.

On a side note your comments section could use a reset to facilitate more relevant comments to the current iteration of the deck... That and to reduce people's scrolling time.

Thanks JaceArveduin and ArchFline! I can't respond to your posts right now, but that's some good advice. However, since 2 of you jumped on commenting here, but only one of you can post on the advertise your deck, I'd be happy to comment in the other person's deck. Since jace already commented on the forum, ArchFline, any particular deck you'd like me to comment on? Thanks guys!

Kalitas fixes for burn. And that sideboard is what a control sideboard looks like. A little bit of this and that because ultimately, the game plan barely changes.

I was only commenting to comment :P but thankyou for the thought.

I ordered a playset today of a seemingly terrible card in Alms of the Vein from SOI. It's an Epic Experiment of mine in tech against aggro mainly burn! It'll never be Lightning Helix as it only goes to the face. But if discarded its a one mana 'vampiric' Lava Spike. Seems like a card that's somewhere between my deck and yours. Mine is more aggressive but yours has Lilly. Gets ghast to haste territory too but doesn't fuel delve! I'm mainly concerned with its dependence on looting. Pros and cons will become more apparent with testing... Thoughts?

This deck is too grindy for alms of the vein, but dang is that card good in your deck to combat burn and other decks you want to race. I'm going to go comment on your deck with more thoughts because the aggro version of the deck is so interesting and different from this build.

In other news, I've decided I'm going to concede to tron. It's so dismal even with dedicated sideboard answers that I'd rather focus on other matchups instead, like burn, which are at least winnable post-board. So, I've upped to 2 Spellskite and 2 slaughter games to help against combo decks and more help vs burn. Perhaps this is a bad time to concede to tron since it's the 2nd most played deck in modern right now according to modern nexus, but I don't think it's worth trying to fix the matchup since fixing it would screw me in so many others. I'm still 1 card over in the board, but am in the process of doing elephants right now, so I'll cut that last card soon.

How do you guys think I should board against jeskai nahiri control? I'm thinking board in 4 Counterspells, 2 Fulminator, 2 slaughter games, and hero's Downfall. Counterspells let me jam stuff through, Fulminators kill their man lands, Downfall kills manlands and nahiri, and slaughter games deals with the nahiri combo beautifully. I'm planning on boarding out 2 terminate, murderous cut, and 2 Kalitas, but don't know what else to cut. I don't want to cut any discard because path to exile, or any burn because it's how I get reach, and I don't want to cut bloodghast because they're a control deck, however they board into angers and have path and other grave hate which scares me. Any thoughts? Maybe cut 2 bolt and something else? I can't decide.

I just dont see alms and looting being in the right place at the right time. If only I could fit (and afford) lilly... I'd say keep kalitas. If he can stick u can exile their one win con once and for all. They need path for ur bloodghasts and perhaps big beaters tho snap bolt can kill tas too. But path ramps you which is dumb relevant. They only play 4 snaps and emrakul, right? Tribute to Hunger might be your best tech. Kalitas on the board and that's game. Just bring a Dispel for counter wars and MAKE SURE its cast at their EoT when emrakul hits. You have more discard so you'll likely have an idea of what's in their hand so when it's time if they get that emrakul through you'll know what to look out for. (Have never played the deck so this is all theoretical, lol)

Sadly, they've met us grixis type before and have taken measures to prevent it from being that easy. They play 4 Celestial Colonnade to have a backup wincon. Some of them also board keranos. Also, with 4 bolt, 3 Helix, and 2 Electrolyze, they can easily burn us out. So no, dealing with nahiri is not gg. Far from it.

I board out Kalitas because he is 3 power for 4 mana, which is really bad, and he gets countered by cryptic command far too often.

The problem with tribute to hunger is that they run just enough creatures where I can't reliably make them sac Emrakul, especially not through counterspells.

The problem with the nahiri control matchup is that my deck has a lot of different ways of attacking their deck, but none of them really mesh into the same strategy very well. I guess that's fine, but it makes it hard to find a good board plan. I might be dropping both Fulminator for 1 Crypt Incursion, which would make boarding easier, but I'm not convinced that's a good idea yet. I'm getting very hyped about Crypt Incursion though!

Wellp. Blood Moon is tried and true. (And expected, but, we play disruption) I play 2x Spreading Seas and one Blood Moon. The card draw on sea's is relevant and all the scry and looting effects dig for SB cards pretty well. Their burn is real tho. A very solid deck. Black needs better lifegain! If I could make 4x Alms of the Vein WORK main board w Vampiric Link and Tribute to Hunger side I would! But at that point I'd probably cut blue altogether. And Rakdos is pretty unimpressive these days. Lol.

The problem I have with blood moon is that it's just as hard on my mana base as it is on my opponent's mana base. I consistently need double or even triple black and single blue, otherwise I just can't cast enough spells. I tried spreading seas, but only changing the identity of the land and not actually removing it means that if they get to turn 6 (which they likely will) they can just hardcast wurmcoil and at that point they usually win. Spreading seas would be fantastic in your deck since you can set a clock much better than I can. Your deck should be close to 50/50 or possibly even better vs tron because of goblin guide.

I've settled on Crypt Incursion as my last sideboard card and have been thoroughly impressed with it against burn. Its relevancy vs some tier 2 decks is even better, so I'm very excited to play it. I still have to test scapeshift and jeskai, but this deck is feeling near tuned.

Scalding Tarn. 10 fetches is optimal

Decks like bgx or jeskai sometimes have 10 (jeskai in particular) but in here I have had extremely minimal mana consistency problems, so I'd rather not have the pain of 2 more fetches.

alex, do you even play magic? a lot of decks have 10 fetches lol. most do. it is optimal for filter.

bah-bammmm Alex magics quite a bit. His deck was the inspiration for this deck and this deck wouldn't exist without him. He's also the uncontested grixis expert on tappedout. Basically I usually value his input above everyone else's, sometimes even over my own.

In this particular case, you're both somewhat right. Decks playing 24 lands and burn tend to play more fetches, however in this deck 22 lands is just right, and the additional fetches are not necessary. This mana base has been very consistent for me, but the pain is real. Against decks like burn, Cliffs is at its best to save me life when a fetch would just be too painful. So while 10 is common in other big slow decks, 8 fetches is exactly where I want to be.

a "grixis expert"? grixis midrange has existed long before this deck was ever made.

Hi there,I really like the version of grixis you are running, and I think it is the best build to test out the new card Bloodhall Priest. I am trying to build a more aggro version of this deck and I would love to hear your feedback. Do you think that Heir of Falkenrath is a good option to make the deck more aggro? It requires a full 7 slots to run, so I am not sure if it is worth it... Here is a link to the build I am thinking of: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/30-06-16-grixis-midrange/

Hi there,I really like the version of grixis you are running, and I think it is the best build to test out the new card Bloodhall Priest. I am trying to build a more aggro version of this deck and I would love to hear your feedback. Do you think that Heir of Falkenrath is a good option to make the deck more aggro? It requires a full 7 slots to run, so I am not sure if it is worth it... Here is a link to the build I am thinking of: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/30-06-16-grixis-midrange/

Thanks! I've been having a blast playing this in modern.

Sadly, I don't think Bloodhall Priest will get a spot in here. At 4 mana, it's competing for slots with Kalitas and Tasigur, both of which are amazing. Getting a nearly guaranteed shock on ETB is nice and the potential for additional shocks over time is awesome, but the problem is that I think Kalitas and Tasigur are better. Tasigur is much less mana than 6, so he can come down much sooner and the card advantage he supplies is fantastic. Kalitas is a source of life gain, so while bloodhall will take over the game vs Affinity or infect with the over time burn, it will do nothing vs a much worse matchup like Burn. And against grindy decks, getting shocks is good, but getting zombies off Kalitas is usually better.

It does have a lot of value associated with it, so there's definitely the potential, but I just don't think it's quite there. At least, not in this list. Your list looked like a much better shell for it since it can take advantage of madness and is much more aggressive. Gosh, if it had lifelink instead of madness, it would be so good. Easily enough to get a spot or 2. The thought of that thing with lifelink makes me excited.

Thanks for the advice! After some testing, Bloodhall Priest really didn't preform very well. It mostly ended up being a 4/4 for 4, which is much worse then either Kalitas or Tasigur. One card worth considering in your list is Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. I stuck 2 copies in because of it's synergy with Bloodghast, and it has been preforming very well. Helps fuel delve, get Bloodghast out, and is a sorcery-speed card advantage. I've found it to be everything the deck wants. I would try it out over the Liliana's in your list.

My other question is your sweepers in the sideboard. It seems like Anger of the Gods would be hitting your Bloodghasts often. Do you find this to be the case?

Good observations. I've tried jace before, and it's surprisingly not very good for some subtle reasons. It plays very well when playtesting without an opponent, but when playing it in the context of modern, it gets much worse. Lightning Bolt is probably the most played card in modern, a 4-of in every red deck. Jace dies to lightning bolt, which normally wouldn't be a problem, but jace would be the only card in the deck that dies to bolt. Right now I actually gain advantage in games because my opponent's lightning bolts don't have anything great to target, but if I played jace, he would die to bolt almost every time.

With Anger of the Gods, any time I side it in is a matchup where I side out bloodghast and play traditional grixis control.

That makes sense about Jace. Blanking lightning bolt is important, but at least he can be recurred with K-command. I'm going to try jamming him a bit longer since he has been doing well for me so far.

Have you ever tried a Keranos in the side for grindy match-ups? A good portion of grixis lists seem to run him, but they also forgo Bloodghast, who does great the longer the game runs.

I've never really needed keranos. Bloodghast is fantastic attrition already to the point where I usually don't need additional wincons past the creatures already in my deck.

Keep trying jace to see if he works, but the thing to keep in mind is what you're cutting. Always ask yourself if the other card could have worked better. Thanks for all the feedback!

hey,ive been playing this deck at my lgs lately, and im frankly said having a total blast with it. SOOOO much fun. but with being a relatively new player to the game in general, i would like to ask some questions regarding this deck.

1. how do you think you rank agast most modern meta decks ( maybe with examples)
2. what do you do against matchups like naya burn which i feel like not having a chance at all, at least when i play with the deck:D / what do you sideboard besides spellskite or crypt incursion
3. what do you do against decks that play path to exile and snapcaster mage for an effective total of 8 paths?
4. what do you think of cards like ancestral vision or goblin dark dwellers

thanks for answering beforehand.if anything ive asked isnt clear, please tell me, english isnt my first language

greetings

I'm honored to hear that you play this deck! Sorry it took me awhile to respond. I wrote half of a comment then it got deleted by my computer so I had to start over.

To answer your questions, I'd say this deck is as good as most tier 1.5 or tier 1 decks - it beats a lot of tier 1 decks, but not all, and most decks that are less than tier 1, but not all. Here's a quick breakdown of the tier 1 meta plus a few more decks:

Jund: very favored. They can't beat bloodghast very easily and wet can kill all their stuff. We're just the better grinding deck, simple as that.

Suicide zoo: neutral to slightly favored. It is very difficult to make the right plays against suicide zoo so at first it will feel like a hopeless matchup. But if you play patiently and never give them the opportunity to win, the matchup gets easier.

Affinity: favored. We have a lot of removal including Kolaghan's Command, which is really good against them. Etched Champion beats this deck if we can't gain life or kill them faster, but otherwise this matchup favors us.

Infect: favored. This matchup is a lot like Suicide Zoo. If you play perfectly it's pretty favored since we have a lot of removal, but any small misplay and they can win with ease.

Burn: slightly unfavored: this matchup has gotten a lot better with the printings of Kalitas and Collective Brutality. For sideboard, remove 4 Bloodghast, 2 Faithless Looting, 1 Dreadbore, 1 Murderous Cut and 1 Terminate. Add 2 Spellskite, 1 Crypt Incursion, 1 Mana Leak, 1 Countersquall, 2 Dispel, and 2 Engineered Explosives. Countermagic and life gain and discard are all really good. I go back and forth on Engineered Explosives in this matchup, but I think it belongs. If you beat burn, it's a close game usually. Don't be afraid to play Snapcaster Mage to block a creature without being able to flashback a spell. Fetch basics if you can. Making them discard with Kolaghan's Command is really tough on them. This matchup is very winnable, although it does feel hopeless.

Jeskai Nahiri: neutral. Be sure to sideboard in Slaughter Games to exile nahiri if they don't have her in play already and to exile Emrakul if they do have nahiri in play. They do have a lot of paths to exiles, which is very annoying. Luckily, with 4 snap, 4 ghast, and 2 tasigur, we have 10 creatures that can win and they only have 8 path, so we do outnumber them. More importantly, turn 1 discard should usually remove a path to exile or Snapcaster Mage, making it easier to resolve a creature.

Dredge: unknown, but probably slightly unfavored. Dredge is a pretty new deck to modern. We usually lose game 1, but can win games 2 and 3 with much more ease.

Eldrazi: unfavored, but not super unfavored. Kalitas, terminate, and discard are super good against them. Burn is insufficient and bloodghast doesn't do much, so we need the right hand to win.

Merfolk: neutral to slightly favored. Kalitas and tasigur and Snapcaster Mage are very good against merfolk, but bloodghast is very bad and Master of Waves is amazing against us. Always save either murderous cut or Hero's Downfall for the Master of Waves unless it's necessary to play it on something else. Make sure their Spreading Seas don't lock you out of your mana!

Tron: automatic loss. If you have the ability to play Blood Moon in your sideboard, you might want to try it in this matchup since it should make it winnable, but otherwise tron stomps me.

Abzan Company: neutral to slightly unfavored. This is another matchup that takes patience and perfect play. Kalitas is amazing against them. Voice of Resurgence is amazing against us. Always side out bloodghast on this matchup and plan to win with Kalitas, tasigur, and Creeping Tar Pit.

I hope that answers most of your questions. If you have any more or need clarification on anything, please ask. Thanks!

EDIT: I missed your question about dark dwellers and ancestral. In this deck, with Kalitas and Snapcaster and tasigur and Faithless Looting and Kolaghan's Command, we have no shortage of plays late game, so I never feel like I need the extra cards off of ancestral nor do I need a big beater like dark dwellers. What I really need is a way to beat tron.

wow, thanks for the quick and detailed response. and thanks for letting my ask even more questions:D

since i dont have damnations due to budget, i play 1 languish and 1 anger of gods, which i feel both make the abzan matchup hugely favored on our side, with all the removal in the mainboard as well, i think i win like 70% of matches against abzan and abzan company decks. but havent played too much abzan decks so it could be lucky hands on my side :D.

tron is one of the most played decks at my lgs. rg tron is probably my most played deck against. so i had 2 crumble to dust in my sideboard. the thing about them is, they are just too slow. if i dont start the game they usually come after he already played a wurmcoil and a karn and whatnot. so i proxied 2 fulminators to try them out. im still trying them out and so far they are a lot better than crumble to dust since they can delay him enough for me to win some games. so thats my take on tron:Dalso i dont play heros downfall in the sideboard and another mana leak instead, which can stop their turn 3 karns as well.

another question id like to ask, is if urborg is a needed card, i feel like it often even has use for my opponents and it doesnt produce any mana on its self, so at the moment i just play another watery crave instead.

i hope i can go to some turnaments soon, after ive finished buying/trading my sideboard. because one more time: this deck is the most fun ive had since playing magic.