ToolmasterOfBrainerd Creature - Super Saiyan Legend

• Edit User
• Edit Profile
• Enable styles
• Disable styles
• Unblock user
• Block user
• Disable chat
• Enable chat
• Remove friend
• Add as friend
• Gift Tokens
• Settings

I'm sold on Drown in the Loch . That card seems so good. Not just in esper, but in Grixis too. Thank you for drawing my attention to that card.

Don't discount spell queller with Teferi! And giver of runes is a very good way of stretching your opponent's removal. Just a spell queller is easy to deal with, but when you back it up with Teferi and giver it becomes much harder for them to simply remove it.

I'm not really a fan of drown in the loch, but I probably should be. It at least seems like a reasonable replacement for fatal push, another card I'm not a huge fan of.

I'm definitely not playing thought scour. Milling the opponent in modern is a terrible idea. So many decks like having a graveyard, even in the post-hogaak world.

This deck looks fun but also looks way too fair when the meta has a lot of Amulet Titan and Tron.

Hey, anyone have Once Upon a Time for trade? Also looking for Noble Hierarch , and some other cards too. Binder

What? No. Most casual decks and every control deck (except in a few unfortunate standard formats) have win conditions. No other deck has cards which they consider 'win conditions'.

If you're playing a burn deck you don't play 'win conditions' because every card in your deck is either a land or it deals damage to the opponent. Talking about win conditions doesn't make sense because every nonland card in the deck is technically a win condition.

Even in a midrange deck, Tarmogoyf isn't a wincon. It might be an efficient threat which is oftentimes used to kill a player when the time comes, in many matchups its primary use is to win in creature combat. It is, by no means, a win con.

A win con is typically something mana-intensive which is played after you have established control of the game in order to end the game. You can personally define the term however the want, but it will be useless for you because this is the use most often intended within the magic community.

What do you currently play?

Tempo doesn't really play wincons. Wincons are a thing in control decks. Typically tempo plays efficient creatures that eventually win the game while you use your disruption to keep your opponent from winning.

Delver of Secrets  ^Flip is the most celebrated tempo creature.

This already exists. If you go to the page of a card, click on the trade tab, it shows you a list of binders that have it and want it.

It's because it's from a new set. Tappedout takes time to update. Ignore it.

Wastes isn't banned. It's simply not standard-legal. It is not in a currently standard-legal set, and is therefore not legal to play with.

TL;DR Forest is still inferior to Island.

Homelessguy lol I have that playmat.

alexjustdoit Unfortunately, I don't have time to play modern during the school year. And frankly, I don't think this decklist is very good.

But I've been thinking about Grixis in my free time, and I think Unearth should be incorporated into the deck. Graveyard hate has declined, so we can start dipping into graveyard synergies again.

I've become convinced that Force of Negation is not the way to go. I like the card, but modern doesn't require it. It doesn't counter creatures, and Wurmcoil Engine and Primeval Titan are creatures that we want to counter.

I think Inquisition of Kozilek , Kolaghan's Command , and Tasigur, the Golden Fang have never been better. Tasigur and Inquisition are really good vs Burn, which is the most popular deck right now. K-command beats artifacts and midrange, aka Whirza and Jund, so it's really good. Tron is the only problem, but Fulminator Mage out of the sideboard can make the matchup passable.

I really like the idea of Nimble Obstructionist , and I'm going to keep testing it, but I think it's a little too slow in practice. Unearth might be able to fix its problems.

I'm not sure where counterspells fit into Grixis right now. We need to play a few, or we're playing a worse deck than Jund. I think 2 Spell Snare is the best way to start, with a split of Mana Leak and Countersquall , and maybe 2 Cryptic. And I like Force or Dispel or Countersquall or Disdainful Stroke in the sideboard, depending mostly on how the Tron and Burn matchups feel.

If you want to play grixis with counterspells, I highly highly recommend 6-8 counterspells in the main with another 3-4 in the sideboard.

Honestly I think the best thing to do is add more Collective Brutality and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip. Playing bad loot effects is definitely not the right way to adapt.

As sad as it is to lose this deck, it was completely unplayable because of the other graveyard decks, and modern is now in a better place without looting.

Interesting.

Jund is a matchup you should feel confident in. I've never played a Grixis deck without a good Jund matchup. Snap and k-command put in tons of work. But they don't play Bob anymore, which actually helps them against us.

Part of my success vs Jund might be due to my loyalty to Terminate and hated of Fatal Push . I always try to have a few removal spells that hit big creatures. For this deck, I'd count Bolas as a removal spell for big creatures.

I'll test the Tron matchup a bit and let you know how it goes. I'm intrigued.

Some small tweaks: in this meta, I think you should play 3 Kolaghan's Command . Whirza is one of the best decks, so artifact removal is good. And it's a 2-for-1 against UW and Jund. And it beats equipment. Lavaclaw Reaches is really bad. I'd remove Lavaclaw, 1 swamp and 1 island, and add 1 watery grave and 1 or 2 more fetchlands. And I don't like Prismatic Vista.

I'm down for that.

Concerning counterspells, a lot of my opinions of counterspells in modern are shaped by the old meta of Humans and Phoenix. Phoenix ate the hammer and Humans has basically died. Looking at the metagame, counterspells look really good right now. So they are probably as good as you say and my reluctance is an artifact of being out-of-touch with the meta.

I do want to say that counterspells are a terrible way to answer creatures. Creature-heavy decks tend to rely on Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls . Again, Humans is basically gone, so you can actually mana leak creatures again, but I'm still wary of the lingering anti-countermagic cards. Spell Snaring a Tarmogoyf , Stoneforge Mystic , or Eidolon of the Great Revel are among the best feelings in modern. Especially Eidolon. Historically I've loved Terminate ; these days Dreadbore is decent.

Targeted discard I can swing over and agree. If you're trying to set up to slam Bolas, discard spells look a lot better.

I still disagree on cantrips. They are good precisely because you have diversity in your answers. You will invariably need to find a particular card or card type. If you need to kill a Tarmogoyf, then you want to use your cantrips to find Fatal Push and avoid hitting, say, Inquisition of Kozilek or Mana Leak when it's already too late. Opt is very lackluster in general. I'd play Serum Visions instead. It feels so much better to cast. Sorcery-speed is fine; especially if you already have Inquisition and Thoughtseize.

I still think Vraska's Contempt is standard crap. It seems very very mediocre vs Jund. Against Jund, efficiency is where you can stay ahead. That matchup is won by trading favorably early (spell snare the Wrenn and Six , bolt the Bob, push the Scooze, mana leak the Liliana), and then pulling way ahead with Snapcaster Mage , Kolaghan's Command , Cryptic Command , and planeswalkers. Vraska's Contempt is so mana-inefficient. And it doesn't do anything meaningfully better than Lightning Bolt .

On the flip side, there are so many problems with Vraska's Contempt vs Tron, and that approach to Tron as a whole. Without testing the matchup, I expect that your Tron matchup is nearly unwinnable in game 1. Even if you can counter the planeswalkers, they will get you with Ulamog or Wurmcoil. In the long run, they almost always have more threats than you have answers. I have found that keeping them off of tron is the best way to beat them, but it's never better than 50/50.

Going 14 turns is fine, but the big mana decks love to feast on this style of deck. Especially Amulet Titan and Tron. Amulet Titan can fetch Cavern of Souls to push Titans through, and once the chain starts it's almost impossible to keep up with removal spells.

So, I've played a lot of Grixis, and I am very supportive of Bolas in Grixis.

I have a few inputs. First, you have a lot of counterspells. I've had very good luck by playing a little heavier on the removal in game 1 and then packing more counterspells in the sideboard for when you want them. There are too many matchups where counterspells are dead. Humans is the biggest offender, but it has fallen off in popularity. You can maybe get away with the counterspells now, but the meta has been very hostile to them for a long time.

I don't like your particular split of counterspells. You should want to counter Primeval Titan , Reality Smasher , Wurmcoil Engine . Cryptic Command is the best for doing this. I like 3 copies in a grixis control deck, but 4 might be fine in your list.

I'm very on the fence about whether I like Force of Negation . I find myself casting it for 3 mana almost always, and I don't exactly enjoy it even when I pitch to cast it for free. I almost want like 2 Spell Snare , 3 Mana Leak , and 3 Cryptic Command in the main with 2 Countersquall and 2 Dispel or Disdainful Stroke in the board.

So, the thing with grixis and hard control is that we don't have anything like Assassin's Trophy or Detention Sphere . We can't deal with any permanent. I solve this by playing tempo. Tasigur, the Golden Fang is, in my opinion, one of the best cards in Grixis. By playing an early Tasigur, trading for a few turns, and then going Bolt-Snap-Bolt on their endstep into swinging with Tasigur, Snap, and Tar Pit, you can close games out of nowhere. Of course, this isn't the same hard control as you initially set out to play.

Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize are pretty bad in hard control. They're crappy topdecks and tempo-negative. I totally agree that they're powerful and probably make the deck better, but there's merit to adjusting the deck to support them better.

I advocate for cantrips. Drawing what you want is really helpful. I'm highly opposed to Vraska's Contempt .

Sorry if this is rambly. I'm writing it in a really distracting environment.

You won't face many surgicals. You should probably diversify your creatures and run more big beaters. Griselbrand is very good.

Deck is on another site? You slut!

PTsmitty they come in every prerelease kit, right? I'll message you one tomorrow

Modern horizons is this year's masters set, except without masters in the name. The minimal support they go give is appreciated, but modern decks shouldn't be routinely over $1000, with the cheapest (burn) still nearly $500. And the modern format has been crap for over a year, with Hogaak summer as the worst format experience in a long time. With the recent ban updates it's been a lot better, but major fixes have been long overdue. It doesn't change that I couldn't enjoy playing modern over the summer, and summer is the only time I get to play tournament magic. If I'm going to own thousand dollar decks then I feel entitled to an enjoyable experience. Not something so miserable that I'd rather sit at home and save $10 on entry.

Note that you don't get to use Once Upon a Time until after you decide if it's a mulligan or keep. But I agree that the consistency it brings to your opening hands is bonkers. I'll be playing it in a Naya zoo / toolbox deck, where it has felt very very powerful.