Building Blocks: Griselbrand Control

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Quick disclosure: I was planning to do SCG Black’s UGw Spirits (“Geists”) deck today, because, you know, it’s a pretty good deck that did well at the Pro Tour. So I ran through a test Daily with it and went 2-2, and it was the worst thing ever. Don’t get me wrong– the deck is very good. But now that it is a known quantity, the mirror is a definite thing you’ll encounter. And the mirror is miserable. I am usually a big fan of mirror matches because I’m a big proponent of outplaying whomever I’m up against, and it’s easier to do that if I know all of their tricks and how to counter them. Enter the hexproof mechanic, which makes matches that feature it suddenly completely non-interactive. It’s a completely draw-dependent mirror match, and you kind of just have to hope you draw your haymakers quicker than they do.

So with a bad taste in my mouth, I instead scouted some Dailies and found a sweet list from lsv:

Remember to comment at me on things I did wrong (of which I’m sure there are multiple) or any thoughts I shared in the videos you’d like to pick up on.

Thanks for reading!

gardevior[at]gmail[dot]com
Gard on MTGO
@leemcleo on Twitter

-Lee McLeod

 
  1. R1G1 was interesting. Your opponent is a very good player, but he made a critical mistake.

    He was supposed to play Restoration Angel in response to the Fiend Hunter trigger. This would exile your Griselbrand permanently. Obviously, what he actually did failed, but he could have completely wrecked you there. Of course you would have been able to get a new hand of 7, but you would be critically behind on board.

    Also, you probably should have drawn 7 cards in response to the Fiend Hunter trigger. If your Victim of Night worked, you would win easily regardless of that 7 life. If your Victim of Night failed (due to e.g. Ranger’s Guile), you would need the 7 cards in order to win.

  2. r2 g3 if you take a hit from either of his first 2 castings of entreat, you buy yourself one more turn. You’d take 30 in the first swing, and snaps wouldn’t kill you before you ran out of severs.

  3. good points… tho in the opponents case, not sure if his intention was to do a permanent exile trick at that point, or to save the angel for later in the game. however since we know that that ‘trick’ doesn’t work on an already resolved fiend hunter, i’m sure if that trick is available, the correct play is to always run it.

  4. I think we all know what the biggest misplay was. In M3G3, you played Griselbrand and drew 7. You neglected to play a swamp that you drew and flip your Bloodline Keeper to overkill!

  5. I can’t speak to LSVs intentions, but when playing a similar deck I had Bloodline Keepers in the sideboard for creatureless/creature-light decks. I could take out some of my own removal and replace it with the Bloodline Keepers. Getting one to resolve and to put out a token could cause real problems for a similar deck relying on a lot of targeted removal.

  6. in M2G2, your opponent is tapped out and you chose to play sorin to make a vampire tokens with Bloodline keeper in play instead of using unburial rites from the yard for Griselbrand. I think I would have put the demon into play because as you stated in the opener…it’s very hard for decks to deal with it. even if he does deal with it, you can always play Sorin later and work your long game plan of flipping keeper.

    I agree totally about people who gripe about the shuffler. it’s pointless because everyone is on the same playing field where the shuffler is concerned.

    My request for a future video would be the R/G deck that won the GP last week.

  7. Tammy is such a problem. what about discard/ exile in black.

    Also is cavern of souls not good enough as a 1 of? You have a lot of creature control to stall and eventually cast him. Would the protential assurance of his resolution not be a consideration?