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Drafting Conflux Part 4: Grixis February 2, 2009

Posted by James in : all, strategy, tips, limited, draft, sealed , trackback

The best thing about Grixis is the fact that it can make use of many cards in Jund that have the same exact theme (sacrificing creatures.) The second best thing about Grixis is the fact that Dark Temper is better in Grixis than in any other deck.

However, there are three problems with drafting Grixis.

  1. Grixis is almost strictly worse than Jund. Grixis is all about the “sacrifice a creature/unearth” theme like Jund but without the option of big green creatures/green mana fixing.
  2. Wizards of the Coast apperantly forgot that “sacrificing creatures” was the whole point of Jund/Grixis. There are three cards that lets you sacrifice creatures, but they all require green mana. (Not to mention they aren’t very good anyway.) In order to make a successful Grixis deck, you will either have to get lots of sacrifice themed cards from the Shards of Alara booster packs, or you will have to just take all the unearth cards you can and hope that somehow unearth is so great that you will win anyway.
  3. When considering “cards worth mentioning” for Grixis, I have almost nothing to talk about unless I expand what I consider to be “worth mentioning.” That is exactly what I have done, and here is the list of the best Grixis cards:

The very best (bombs)

Really good cards (first picks)

Good cards (second picks)

Notable Commons and Uncommons

Black

Grixis Slavedriver is playble even in a Jund deck, but it is a little bit slow. Even so, this is the biggest non-rare black card worth playing.

Voices from the Void is a bit pricey, but even if you can cause the opponent to discard only 3 cards, that is enough. The fact that this card has a high mana cost (and a dependance on domain) means that you might not be able to play it until late game when it is too late.

Wretched Banquest is playable in any deck with black, but I am not sure how good it is yet. I have had great luck with it so far, but there are definately situations when it won’t do anything. It might be best when splashed in a Naya deck with lots of big creatures.

Sedraxis Alchemist is only good if you are playing a lot of blue, but it can be devistating when it returns a big creature at the right moment.

Absorb Vis is worth playing just because it is one of the best options for manafixing in a Grixis deck. You don’t want too many of these in your deck, but a couple of them would be a good idea.

Fleshformer is only good if you are going to splash for all five colors, but it is a great card when it works.

Blue

Although blue isn’t as great as red in Conflux, there are some notable cards that work well in a Grixis Deck. Parasidic Strix’s ability is actually better in a Grixis deck than an Esper deck because you are more likely to have a black creature. However, the ability doesn’t exactly help the unearth theme.

Brackwater Elemental on the other hand does have unearth, so it helps the unearth theme quite nicely.

Red

Hellspark Elemental in particular works well in Grixis since it has unearth. The most notable bonus for playing red in any deck is simply that it has a lot of the best creature removal.

Multicolor

Shambling Remains is the best unearth creature in Conflux for drafting. Although it can’t block, this card should help you get into the offensive early game.
Related:

Note: Since I haven’t played Conflux enough yet, this article is speculative. 

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