I said it's "potentially" better.

I just think it's a bit more consistent overall. If Monkeem is clicking then it's basically unbeatable, but this deck gets its Obelisk much more reliably and having a singleton Banefire as a tutor target closes games as well.

Traumatic Visions has taken this deck's consistency to another level and covers up the weakness to enchantments. Rune-Scarred Demon finds whatever you need for the matchup at hand and is a huge threat in his own right.

You consider these your two best decks now, Hakeem? Where's this Monkeem v2 deck? I haven't even seen it

Here you go Barney

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=4995&start=20#p234179

I am running it in the Xbox360 tournament.

omg that war monk must be insane against early aggro, what they hell can they do to deal with that? lol

I'm not seeing how this Grixis deck could potentially be better than that one, especially against aggro

I get analysis paralysis with Rune-Scarred Demon too so I think I might prefer the Monkeem Project V2.

Now I need to decide which deck is better between that or Naya tokens...

I've actually temporarily gone back to Boros Auras for the moment.

If you like to play control then you can't go wrong with either of these lists. I guess I'm partial to Grixis because it's my favorite color combination and it was the first deck I built in D15.

My adjusted "Cards and Discards". I added Monomania for more discard goodness and Obelisks to discard it (or Mindrot) late game if needed. Added Tribute to Hunger because I found out most times after early discards, my opponent will hold on to one fatty. I feel it's more consistent than the previous version. Obelisks bring a new dimension to the game.

I'd personally like to see another wincon or two in there.

Also.. in such a discard heavy/creature light deck, Suffer the Past is almost as good as Banefire. I think that could make another nice wincon.

Charmbreaker Devils and Suffer the Past don't synergize well IMO and the Devils are great in this build. If I had to add another wincon, it would be Soul of Ravnica for even more cards. The deck, however, has decent draw power, so you'll always end up with some sort of decent late game card when I'm drawing with Think Twice, Inspiration and Graveborn Muse.

Monomania is just overkill here and will either be an overcosted Mind Rot or a completely dead draw. The free wins are fun, but the card is bad overall.

Why Vapor Snag over Voyage's End? I would think card selection would be more important to this deck than some random life loss. Bottoming a dead Mind Rot would have way more value.

I'm sure you beat up on slow decks or against opponents who draw poorly, but against a decent deck with a decent draw I can't see this being overly competitive. Too many of your spells don't impact the board.

It'll cripple an opponent early game. Late game it's poor. Once Obelisk is out though, it can easily be swapped.



I've been thinking about this swap. I'll probably make it.



It's simple. You're attacking your opponents hand which reduces what hits the board so the threat is less.

I've had good success out of it regardless of the deck I'm playing. I'm certainly winning more games than losing.

I think the amount of draw in this build is overkill. You could easily cut two Inspiration for removal IMO. 10 cards dedicated to draw is kind of absurd.. as Hakeem said, you need more tools that can impact the board. Especially in the early game vs aggro.

I'm thinking:
-1 Vapor Snag
-2 Inspiration
-1 Monomania

+1 Suffer the Past
+3 Shock

Red with a lack of shocks is ABSURD!

The deck is built to make your opponent top deck early so as I mentioned, the threats are less when he can't cast anything. I can get away with Banefires and Tributes because that's typically what's on the board in front of me most games for Control-based decks. If it's more Aggro, I'm trying to draw as much as possible to get an Anger of the Gods and I can typically do so with the extra draw power. If I can't, I then stall my opponent enough with Snags or Voyagers Ends to get out an Obelisk which also deals well with aggro. The average game, I'm drawing through half of my deck so I typically get the cards I want at some point.

If I had more cards, I'd slot Shock in somewhere but it got cut for more draw and discarders. It situational though and doesn't fair well with slow Control-based decks.

I get it that there will be less to deal with bc of all the discard.. but that still doesn't mean you shouldn't plan your deck around facing top notch opponents.

Spider Spawning would crush this deck.. Triplicate Spirits could be problematic too. You really need at least one Suffer the Past IMO.. I'd probably rock two. With Shocks, Suffer and Banefire.. that's enough face burn to win without creatures almost. Another reason for having Suffer in there is all the new Unearth cards. If I was your opponent, those would be the first cards I'd be looking to discard.

Dinrova Horror could also be really good in this list to protect you from troublesome enchantments or other people's Obelisks. Angelic Accord could be a really big issue, especially if they stick a Seance with it.

The problem with this is that your discard spells don't come online until T3 so your opponent has plenty of time to resolve threats that you're ill-equipped to answer. I understand the strategy, but you need more board interactivity. You've basically said that your aggro matchup is Anger or bust and that's not a good place to be in this metagame.

Monomania has to go; if your opponent has less than four cards in hand you're getting an overcosted Mind Rot or worse. I've played with the card and would estimate it's a dead draw in 19/20 cases. If it's number one on your list of cards to throw away with Obelisk then it should be number one on your list of cards to remove from the deck.

I don't think you need Graveborn Muse here, either. Your eight draw spells plus Charmbreakers should be fine to keep you gassed up and you really don't need the life loss.

The card you really want in here is Rune-Scarred Demon. This lets you run singletons of your powerful top-end cards because you can find them when you need them and he's a win-condition all on his own.

I also like megabeast's suggestion of Suffer the Past in a discard-themed deck so I would try to make room for it.

I would try this:

-4 Vapor Snag
-1 Banefire
-2 Graveborn Muse
-2 Monomania
-1 Obelisk of Alara

+3 Shock
+1 Suffer the Past
+4 Voyage's End
+2 Rune-Scarred Demon

You now have a powerful toolbox of Banefire, Suffer the Past, and Obelisk of Alara and you can get away with a singleton of each because of the Rune-Scarred Demons.

The Demons also search up Anger of the Gods or Inferno Titan against aggro opponents who manage to recover, and he increases your threat density because a 6/6 flier is huge.

The Banefire doubles as your fourth copy of Shock and you can be a bit liberal using it as creature removal because of the Charmbreaker Devils.

Thoughts?

monomania should be run in a mid range deck that runs no other discards.
why mid range? because aggro decks strive to win when opponent still have cards in his hand, and playing control means you will often draw it late game when opponents hand is empty.
If you have ramp and no cards draw it is even better (T4 monomania is great, and drawing it in late game sucks).

getting monomania and another discard means one of them is quite useless.

Still waiting to see someone build around it successfully with ramping preferably. I have tried but haven't came up with anything consistent enough to bring here.

After a long time lurking I finally made an account to post this deck I created. It started off as pure U/B discard with 1 splash of red but eventually I added more. I'm about 10/3 with my loses mainly coming from aggro god hands and mana screw/flood. Once I get going though I feel like I have an answer to everything. The discard is the main focus of the deck but you can still win without it. All the bounce, burn, drawing, and good sized creatures just flows off eachother. I'm looking for advice on improving it. Considered Angers, but the red cost is really steep.

How bout turn three?