Grixis Blossomstill at EW

[cpankiewicz]

At Eternal Weekend I had the fun of playing a budget Grixis Landstill with the inclusion of Bitterblossom.

4x Standstill
1x Brainstorm
2x Dig Through Time
1x Vampiric Tutor

4x Force of Will
3x Mental Misstep
3x Mana Drain
2x Flusterstorm
1x Misdirection
1x Mindbreak Trap

3x Lightning Bolt
3x Engineered Explosives
2x Bitterblossom
2x Crucible of Worlds
2x Dack Fayden
2x Jace, The Mind Sculptor

3x Volcanic Island
3x Underground Sea
2x Island
1x Mountain
1x Library of Alexandria
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Polluted Delta
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
3x Mishras Factory
1x Faerie Conclave

SB
4x Grafdiggers Cage
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Energy Flux
2x Ravenous Trap
4x Ingot Chewer
1x Toxic Deluge

The deck worked wonders and I was extremely happy with it, especially playing a budget version without power. Running a full 24 lands made my shops matchup that much better, I ended up going 1-1 against two versions of hangar aggro. The large amount of board dredge hate made my one match against dredge manageable. This all left me susceptible to creature matchups where I had to rely on heavy counters or removal through bolt and EE to keep the board clear. The pair of crucibles along with Faerie Conclave proved to be a difference maker in the mirror and Bitterblossom stole the show. I lost only one game after resolving a Bitterblossom all day long. It was just that good and I cannot wait to play it more going forward.

Moving ahead to events where I can play with proxies I have been testing the following

+ Ancestral Recall
-Brainstorm (to me this is just a pure upgrade)

+Black Lotus/Mox Sapphire
-Island/Volcanic (again, upgrades)

+Energy Flux
-Engineered Explosives (3 felt like too many and the amount of damage Energy Flux did to even non shops decks was amazing)

+Spell Pierce
-Mana Drain (Getting to UU all the time was tedious and having that first turn counter is just more desirable. Keep 2 Mana Drains still because, Mana Drain)

Other cards I have tested

Demonic Tutor - I absolutely hated this in testing and then Vampiric was recommended to me. I am never looking back.

Sol Ring - for budget purposes but just could not do what I needed

Treasure Cruise - 3 cards is great, but doing things at instant speed just always was better for me

Pyroblast - Intrigued for the reason that I could potentially use it in combination with a dack ultimate but felt that having 7 automatic cuts versus shops was just too many. This is why the spell pierce coming main since it is still live against shops and also useful against Oath

Snapcaster Mage - Just not enough for me to want to flashback and doing so would often just require too much mana for what I wanted to do. At no point over the weekend did I wish I had a Snapcaster Mage in hand so I think this was the right call.

New Jace - Similar reasons to Snapcaster, just nothing really worth the extra card to recur.

Sudden Shock - I have used this in other decks for the Mentor matchup but Lightning Bolt proved to be just as good in all but 1 instance. Plus sudden shock will never take down an incoming Lodestone.

Fire//Ice - Dack/2 for 1 capabilities but just never quite did what I wanted it to.

Null Rod - One of my main sources of removal were the 3 Engineered Explosives. This just would not work.

Cards I am considering

Any piece of targeted removal. Whether in board or main deck, this was something the deck lacked. Whether it was a Terminate, Murderous Cut, maybe even a Dismember, but I needed something in a couple games that I just did not have. My best piece was a Toxic Deluge out of board and I never cast it in any game (but I would have loved to on at least 2 occasions)

Merchant Scroll - Grab Ancestral, Dig, a counterspell, lots of great options but not sure if I would like it better than Vampiric which I used all weekend to grab up necessary pieces at opponents end step. Having a hand full of permission and then tutoring up a Bitterblossom was the play most games.

I am very open to suggestions as I have fallen in love with this deck and plan to continuing learning it. Thanks!

 

[JACO]

Chris, congrats on the performance. I was happy to see you win the budget top prize with this, as I love the cards Standstill and Bitterblossom, and your decklist stuck out to me while writing up the Champs report.

Some additional cards to consider:
Thoughtseize - Not as dead against Workshops as the Flusterstorm/Misstep/Spell Pierce/Pyroblast group, and extremely potent for the mana cost in every format. It also ever-so-slightly reduces need for targeted removal against aggro-control, in that you can pre-emptively jack their Mentor/Confidant/etc.
Terminate - Instant speed targeted removal that gets around Chalice @ 1 from Workshops.
Dreadbore - Don't laugh, but this card is actually decent, as it gets around Chalice @ 1, and can be brought in against opposing planeswalker control decks. As a 1 or 2-of it's been pretty good for me out of various sideboards as a catch-all answer that you probably won't love, but will rarely hate. 
Yixlid Jailer - Another anti-Dredge option to further help you mix up the cards they need to answer post-board; often best as a 1 or 2-of for this vary reason (also something you can tutor for if need be).

Why did you hate Demonic Tutor specifically? That's basically the best black card that's legal in Vintage (apologies to Yawgmoth's Will), so I'm wondering what about it didn't work for your deck in testing.

Also, what decks or situations did you lose against, or have trouble with at Champs? That might help us better tailor the deck moving forward.

[cpankiewicz]

Thanks! I had an amazing time all weekend, you guys did an amazing job with the event.

Thoughtseize! This was a card I played with in my head but was never really sure what to remove for it, definitely worth playing around with!

Demonic Tutor struggled for me since I found myself usually unable to cast whatever I tutored for and was left two mana down and forecasting whatever I was doing. It also meant my opponents could plan their play around whatever they could assume I tutored for, in one case I grabbed a ravenous trap with tutor only to watch my opponent draw a card and then flash back therapy before dredging. With vampiric, either casting in response to sphere effects or at end of turn to get whatever I needed just proved to be much stronger and left me a lot more options.

Dreadbore is something to consider, I did run into opposing planeswalker issues, mostly when ones were powered out against me (Brian Kelly with a turn 1 Jace and Josh with a turn 2 Dack into turn 3 Jace) but in both those cases they just always seemed to have the right answers to my threats unfortunately.

Jailer is something I was considering as a 1 of but I really liked the ability to nuke opponents yards, Nihil Spellbomb came in against most blue decks to limit their digging through time capability or preventing bomberman from going off, and cutting down to 3 cage just did not feel right. I still think the Oath match can be troublesome.

My loses came to Paul with his Hangarback fro bots, game 1 he just went triple lodestone after a metamorph if I remember correctly and left me with no chance, game two again sphere effects prevented me from getting my Energy Flux to land.

Brian Kelly did his work on me, just had the answers when I had the threats. Plus Dramoka kinda takes the wind out of your counter sails.

Last loss came in roung 10 to Grixis Theives. Holy crap did he just have the counter everytime and more efficiently. I probably misplayed this game with the mind set "theres no way he can have ANOTHER counter" and paid the price for it. I would love to have that match back to play correctly but yeah, 10 rounds, fatigue set in.

[Highsididy]

Congrats on your finish...great budget list.
What are your thoughts on Cabal therapy in this deck and Notion thief.

[cpankiewicz]

Cabal Therapy could be good with Bitterblossom tokens, but with the way the deck is built it would end up being a blind therapy pretty much every time. Not always bad but I think Thoughtseize is a better option to run with.

I am on the fence with Notion Thief. He is something I have considered but have not tested. He feels like a sideboard card in the this deck (otherwise why not just play grixis thieves?) and my SB is rather clustered for the shops and dredge matchups (trying to see how I can alleviate some of those slots though). I might test him out though.

I have played a few games cutting a flusterstorm for a thoughtseize and I have been very happy with it!