menu

Deck Overview: Modern Grixis Control

Are you a Quiet Speculation member?

If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.

This weekend I piloted Grixis Delver to a 7-1 record in the Modern portion of the Columbus Invitational. The deck is great, and the interaction between Snapcaster Mage and Kolaghan's Command makes playing an honest game of Magic against the deck extremely difficult. The weakest card in the deck has been Delver of Secrets, but I haven't been able to find a way to cut the card. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) for the Magic Community, Matt Costa broke it.

Grixis Control

creatures

1 Spellskite
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Keranos, God of Storms

spells

2 Vedalken Shackles
2 Blood Moon
2 Cryptic Command
2 Deprive
1 Dismember
2 Go for the Throat
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Mana Leak
3 Spell Snare
3 Thought Scour
4 Serum Visions

lands

6 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
1 Academy Ruins

sideboard

2 Engineered Explosives
1 Spellskite
1 Blood Moon
1 Counterflux
3 Dispel
1 Murderous Cut
1 Negate
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Anger of the Gods

I'm not much of a Blood Moon guy, but the card solves most of the problems that the deck has when you cut Delver- that is wanting for a clock against decks like Tron and Amulet Bloom. Turns out that you don't need a clock if you cut them off of the ability to execute their game plan in any sort of timely manner.

There was an error retrieving a chart for Blood Moon

This change does make you weaker against decks like Infect where your deck just isn't as efficient and you can't really race, though Blood Moon does at least shut off Inkmoth Nexus. I would be wary about playing against something like Collected Company Elves with this build, but the sideboard Engineered Explosives do some serious work there. Which reminds me of one of the cooler pieces of technology from this deck...

There was an error retrieving a chart for Academy Ruins

Ruins is great not just for recurring Engineered Explosives, but also for combating all of the opposing Kolaghan's Commands in the format in games where you want Spellskite and/or Vedalken Shackles. It's also worth noting that once you've drawn Academy Ruins you can rebuy any of these artifacts that you mill with a Thought Scour. Ruins and Blood Moon are certainly at odds, but the impression that I get is that Blood Moon is either winning you the game or you're not casting it.

Join the conversation

Want Prices?

Browse thousands of prices with the first and most comprehensive MTG Finance tool around.


Trader Tools lists both buylist and retail prices for every MTG card, going back a decade.

Quiet Speculation