There is really no difference between Pestermite and Frost Lynx if you cast Pestermite on your opponent's turn in terms of ow many potential attacks you prevent. If you use Lynx and pass they don't get to use their creature next turn. If you Pestermite on their turn, the same thing happens.

The difference is that Lynx allows you to attack through a blocker twice while Pestermite only allows this once.

The upside of Pestermite is because you don't have to decide what to tap until the last minute. Against something like Hunter's Prowess, for example, Pestermite eats your opponent's full turn and forces him to discard a card. Against a Lynx, it's just going to target a different creature. The same goes for something like Armored Ascension or against Ogre Battledriver just off the top of my head.

Pestermite also has evasion, so after the trickery he's actually going to present your opponent with a clock combined with your Strixes and tokens. After you drop a Lynx he just kinda hangs out waiting to chump block and doesn't really do much.

That's just my opinion, however.

Why are we playing three mana one power creatures in a tempo deck? I get that one of them grows, but by the time it starts paying off, you should be winning already. I'd rather play more of the evasion, or shocks to clear the path/reach. Your 3 slot is crammed anyways, the bad ones can go.

This. I don't like skulker without a surplus of draw. I don't believe muse is enough to justify him.

Speaking of curve, your one slot is empty. Tormented hero is not a bad card, especially in the deck you're trying to build. I find it a stretch to say that chasm skulker is good at all, although the depressing amount of people I run into who run zero removal/5 mana removal is good force me to say otherwise, at least in the confines of duels 2015.

12 taplands ? Isn't that a bit too much in a tempo deck?

Now with the new cards I think I should revise my grixis build from the past. It was decent back then but now with the expansion and the cardpack I think it has far more potential!

Slightly modified my grixis control list to win on the deckout plan, for the "win without damage" achievement.



Changes from the other list:

-1 Griselbrand
-1 Inferno Titan
-1 Kozilek
+1 Elixir of Immortality
+1 Negate
+1 Dead Weight

The deck's biggest weakness previously was a turn two krenko's command followed by a turn three krenko's command without an anger in the top 30 cards of the deck, or a spider spawning. Cutting creatures and adding a negate stops that. The other big weakness, bloodghasts and masked admirers, are held off by a turn by the added dead weight, which is sort of nice. Those two guys are the reason why obelisk is still in the deck though. My solution to kozilek previously was to kill it, then kill the other guy, but now that my plan is to mill, my only answers are to break with that and kill with obelisk, or to anger+tribute the kozilek. The game really needs syncopate or dissipate for kozilek though. the deck does entirely blank creature removal with the new wincon, which is a sort of card advantage. The deck does actually still feel solid, has a slightly better early game than the old version and has a similar oppressive late game to the other one. Only, instead of eventually mercy killing over 2/3 turns with a wincon, I draw-go my opponent to death. Elixir is not a turn one play, you need it to not deck out before your opponent and you cannot be leaving the elixir open to 1-in-50 maindecked naturalizes. Elixir must be played with mana open to crack it, preferably more so that you don't tap countermagic mana down and let a threat resolve. Banefire is in neither version, you don't tap out at sorcery speed as control, and you've already won the game if you've made it to 21 mana.

Rise from your grave!!!

Derped big time.... anyways: Warden for flying fatties!

Isn't anger a mismatch with a bunch of other creatures you want out? Also why the exlixers? They don't seem to fit in my opinion, especially at 2 and with Sheoldred.

sorry, still rather in 4FFA mode. =/ Maybe replace them with Suffer the Past as a way of healing? Also having mixed feelings with Anger of the Gods seeing how 1 of the nicest creatures dies to it permanently: the wardens. What removal shall I add instead?

Siege Dragon kinda replaces a need for Anger IMO. More denial maybe?

I already have 5 counters: 3 Dissolve and 2 Traumatic Visions, that not enough? :o I suppose 2 more Traumatic is doable since it also has a fetchland ability....

Win win.

So the post below is very much a work in progress. This is a timmy deck. I have to refine it, but I think most of it is in place. I want to thank Felbatista for discussing some of what I wanted to do in this deck.



The planner does not include Darksteel Collossus. That is the 60th card.

The basic idea is to have two different ways of cheating the collossus into play. Jalira will put him (or one of the two Runescarred Demons) directly into play from your library, while Counterlash will help get him and Kozilek out of your hand if you drew one of them. Counterlash into Archaeomancer is your alternative game plan if you do not have a fatty in hand, usually I will just have Archaeomancer recur counterlash so I can do it again. If you have Jalira in hand plus counterlash, cheating her into play on your opponent's turn is a great way to have her survive and use her ability.

Frankly I expect this deck to fold pretty frequently against aggressive token starts if I do not draw Anger. This is really built with ramp or control matchups in mind. I have enough counterspells to lock down the board once I get enough mana. The deck is not fully tested yet and I may make some refinements.

I wanted to fit Undying Evil into the deck to combo with Jalira's sacrifice ability and to protect Talrand and Jalira, but I couldn't find the space. I also wanted to include a few more creatures to stall the game out, but again I didn't find the space.

As it turns out, relying on the dragons to remove stuff like tokens...is a tad too slow: I get overrun easily so having a 3 mana mass removal seems to have it's use.

True, not enough ramp. Still, Anger kills over half your board, so that might not be the answer.

@Henwen

That's a pretty cool Jalira/Counterlash deck.. I like what you're doing there. How often are you able to get Jalira out, keep her alive and use her ability?

Not often! My deck is not working very well. I am cutting Jalira and Talrand and moving to a different plan. I don't consider steam very competitive but I have gotten loss after loss with the above list.

I really just wanted to do something with counterlash, and just throwing both copies into a conventional control build doesn't feel like exploiting it fully.

Jeskai will welcome you back with open arms