I’m glad that the Greedy Grixis list I posted got such a positive response. As promised, I have done some more testing since then. Aside from the random games on Modo and MWS (which I have been crushing) I decided to play a set against Kithkin with my friend Zeilend.

Before I get into the details of the matchup, I am going to go over a few changes to the list. Here is the list I initially tested this morning:

Greedy Grixis V2
Ajani Vengeant x3
Esper Charm x4
Bitterblossom x4
Cryptic Command x4
Sower of Temptation x3
Mulldrifter x4
Makeshift Mannequin x4
Reveillark x2
Siege-Gang Commander x3
Fulminator Mage x4
Shivan Reef x1
Underground River x1
Sulfurous Springs x1
Caves of Koilos x1
Rugged Prairie x1
Cascade Bluffs x3
Mystic Gate x1
Reflecting Pool x4
Sunken Ruins x4
Crumbling Necropolis x4
Arcane Sanctum x4

The big changes from the last list are -2 Shriekmaw, -3 Grixis Charm, +4 Esper Charm, +1 Reveillark. The Lark was added in because he has been good whenever I draw him, and a couple people commented that they thought more would be better. Grixis Charm and Shriekmaw were removed because I had been taking beatings on having these “bad” cards in my deck all week from both Gerard (Fabiano) and Jacob (Van Lunen). Jake was high on Esper Charm in general, and I decided to give it a try.

Since Zeilend is in Japan, and we both have Macs, we arranged to play over WebWizard, the Mac version of MWS (follow link to download, there are not many people on and it would be great to get more people playing).

I am not going to go into game-by-game breakdown, but the pre-board games were not pretty. I kept getting blown out by timely Unmakes and Rustic Clachan Reinforcements. At first I was pretty confused because I had played against Kithkin and WW variants a lot on MWS before and I have maybe only lost once or twice total to the deck. The difference was that she knew my list and was not playing around any kind of mass removal. When playing against random opponents I think they are often confusing this deck for some kind of 5c control and fear a Wrath or Firespout, so they hold back additional creatures and don’t apply enough pressure, allowing me to take control of the game with a Sower or Siege-Gang. Esper Charm was dead in this matchup, I was always under a lot of pressure and could never spend my mana to play it. I was very short on removal main deck since I no longer had Shriekmaw or Grixis Charm to help me keep her board from getting too built up.

I got crushed pre-board, so I reverted to the old build (Shriekmaw and Grixis back in) then we played a few games with sideboard. I brought in a third Shriekmaw and 3 Infest for the Fulminator Mages. They seemed like the best thing to take out, even though they have a lot of value against Mutavaults and Hideaway lands. I did not lose any games after sideboard. The highlight was Sowering her singleton Mirror Entity (Zeilend was using the list the got second from NY states), then using it to pump up my army of goblin tokens. Shriekmaw + Mannequin is a huge beating for Kithkin, and combined with Infest I was often making it to turn 5 or 6 with 15 or more life.

The big thing I learned is that it is always correct to play Bitterblossom on turn 2. This sounds obvious, but there was one game in the pre-board set that we played where I am pretty sure I would have won if I had played the Bitterblossom instead of playing my second Arcane Sanctum. I was worried that if I didn’t play my second CIP Tapped land then I would not be able to curve out into my Ajani. Of course, by not playing the Bitterblossom, I had no creatures on the board when I played my Ajani on turn 4 and it ended up just being an expensive Lightning Helix. I could have just played the Bitterblossom turn 2, played Arcane Sanctum turn 3 (foregoing the Fulminator Mage play, which did pretty much nothing against her two first-strikers) and still have been able to hit Ajani turn 4, but with two faerie tokens to protect.

In general I still think that Kithkin is a good Matchup for Greedy Grixis. Are there any other sideboard cards I should be considering? I don’t think I need to commit more than 4 cards to aggro in general. The Philly 5k is two weeks away now and I am getting excited. Is anyone else going to the 5k? Has anyone else gotten a chance to try out Greedy Grixis? Let me know with comments!

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-WillPoP