Fires of Grixis (Fires of Invention build #1) 1v1 (Standard)

I've been engrossed in finding the best build for Fires of Invention. This is my personality, I see a card and have to make it work. Over the weekend I played between 10-15 games with this deck. I'd say it has been over 60% win percentage overall, which is fine but not great for ranked 1v1.

The issues with the deck are as follows:

1) The mana base.
*I am playing some ugly lands in the form of Dismal Blackwater and Bloodfell Caves. In practice they are not as bad as I originally thought, as gaining a couple life has not been so bad. The issue is they are slow lands in a slow deck, however I need to come out of the gate untapped early for Thought Erasure and it gets tricky sometimes.

2) Narset
*I want to play her because she is amazing card draw and also foils some great cards opponents are playing. My problem is that two blue is hard on turn three when also playing Cry of the Carnarium and Murderous Rider. Something has to give here.

3) Cry for the Carnarium
*going a step further into my turn three dilemma is that cry is not wiping enough boards. 1v1 has always been full of decks going wide, now it is full of decks going fast. The destinction is these decks are dropping 3+ toughness creatures early and Cry does not catch me up often enough. Flame Sweep would have the same issue, with the additional issue of not killing small flyers.

4) Sarkhan the Masterless
*Sarkhan is just not good in the deck. Truth is if I have three or more PW's on board then I'm probably already winning. If I have only Sarkhan on board then he does nothing, because that token gets killed immediately since the opponent has a hand full of unused creature removal.

5) Carnival // Carnage
*This was a pet card of mine in the previous standard. Turn 4 it was often great and a lot of games it was a turn 1 Elf killer. Now it kills very little. It is great to blast off Carnage on turn 4 off of Fires of Invention, but the deck could be doing better things a lot of the time.

6) Balancing early game survival with late game power
*You need to survive early to be able to play late. But some of those early survival cards are dead late. Hard balance to find. An example is Thought Erasure and early removal. Not so great playing them late for free as they have little to do, but you don't survive without these cards.

What is good about the deck?

1) Fires of Invention
*Over-powers midrange decks or in games when you get to stabilize. If you have card draw on board and can get the engine going there is little the opponent is going to do to keep up.

2) Nicol Bolas, Dragon God
*OMG the way Bolas takes over games is something else. No matter what you are doing with it you feel like you are winning every time you activate an ability. You can literally feel the panic in the opponent when it hits the board (even on Arena lol).

3) Chandra, Awakened Inferno
*She has not outright won me as many games as I thought she would, but she serves as a great second wave board wipe. Also, she only ticks up a couple times before the opponent scoops.

4) Murderous Rider and Angrath's Rampage
*Both these cards have done quality work killing all kinds of threats. No complaints.

5) Chandra, Fire Artisan and Ral, Izzet Viceroy
*They have served their main purpose: draw me cards. They could actually be upgraded in future sets and I'm still searching for possible upgrades, but in Grixis they may be the best card draw on a stick I'm going to find (not named Bolas).

6) Ritual of Soot
*It is the sweeper we have, not the sweeper we want. The sweeper needs to cost 4cmc. Playing it off of Fires of Invention is a game ender against certain decks. I just really wish it killed all creatures, one can dream.

7) Thought Erasure
*Has been a little hard to cast on curve and is a dead card late, but it really helps the deck survive those early turns.

8) Tyrant's Scorn
*I've seen better, I've seen worse. It is good most of the time. Could be upgraded, but hasn't been awful.

Upgrade 1.0

1) In- x4 Lava Coil
cutting Carnival // Carnage and Tyrant's Scorn
Lava Coil just hits more targets regularly and is easier on the mana base to cast.
*I have had many situations where I thought I wish I could exile this creature or this 4cmc creature is a pain in the butt. Soulution = Lava Coil.

2) In- +1 Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God +1 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
cutting Sarkhan
Sarkhan is not getting it done for me. I've looked for a third Grixis threat and have not found one...so my thinking is to up the numbers of those that work.

• I want Bolas every game, the percentage of games where he hits the board and I win are very high. So I'm maximizing on that.

3) In- x2 Flame Sweep
Out- Cry for the Carnarium
easier to cast and instant speed, just a better card overall. Exiling the dorks is not essential right now, the things you want to exile tend to be higher on the food chain.
this change allowed the deck to fix the mana base so that Narset was more playable on turn three.

Upgrade 2.0

Cut- Murderous Rider x4
I still feel it is an excellent card, but not for this current meta. The top decks are not planeswalker heavy and those that are are slower, meaning you have time to find other alternatives.
A few times I have rolled the dice on Narset and came up empty because Murderous Rider is a creature. The body is not as important as consistency right now.

In- Bedevil x2
*It is non-creature and still instant speed. The casting cost is not such a big concern in this deck.

In- Shimmer of Possibility x2
*The deck needs a low casting cost card that can fix your hand on turn two and also still be relevant later. Digging four cards deep for any card type is pretty sweet. Perfect fit for a deck where instant speed is not as relevent.

Upgrade 3.0

Out- Chandra, Fire Artisan x2
*she does nothing when she hits on turn four. Seeing an extra card every turn is good, but not as good as the replacement.

In- Fae of Wishes
I am playing this in all the other versions of Fires, I don't know why I was so slow to add it here. Originally this deck was a Superfriends type build, but as it evolved Chandra was allowed to linger too long.
Fae of Wishes opens up the full toolbox and takes the deck to another level.

Upgrade 3.1 (sideboard)
This provides the deck with multiple tools to answer the format

a) Legion's End
*Tokens mostly, but also good against aggro. I found that when it was in the main deck it was often a dead draw, however out of the sideboard it can be the perfect answer.

b) Bedevil
*When you really need to kill a true pain in the butt.

c) The Elderspell
*This is a big swing card. Against Superfriends it is a board wipe and it pushes your own walker closer to ultimate (for Bolas probably to I win status)

d) Unmoored Ego
Some decks are very narrow in how they win. This is a great response to that, especially since it says card.
Answer for Field of the Dead.

e) Command the Dreadhorde
*In very long games this can simply say "you win".

f) Sarkhan, the Masterless
*Another card that can just finish a game upon entry.

g) Ashiok, Dream Render
*weakens a few powerful cards right now. Searching for lands is pretty important in this meta.

h) Fires of Invention
*if you have all the threats and just need the engine.

i) Enter the God Eternals
*I was looking for a card to help pull you back from the brink. Grixis does not have a lot of cards to help you gain a little space against red or black aggro after you stabilize, but killing a creature, gaining 4 life and getting a 4/4 blocker is decent against those types of decks.

j) Ritual of Soot
*it is the closest we get to a sweeper in the colors.

k) Ugin, the Ineffable
*giving you 2/2 tokens and pseudo card draw on the uptick and fantastic removal on the down.

l) Mass manipulation
*can be a little difficult to hard cast, however when played off of Fires of Invention for free you are probably looking at stealing the majority of the opponents board.

m) Expansion // Explosion
just looking at what Explosion can do. It can finish long games by just doing damage to the face, even if it doesn't finish it off it can totally refill your hand.
Another powerful X spell for Fires of Invention.

n) Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
*so powerful, it would be nice to have access to it out of the side.

o) Fabled Passage
*sometimes you just need that one extra land more than anything. Perfect mana fix since you always have 4+ lands when you play it.

Upgrade 3.1

Cut- 1x Bolas main deck
*with a Bolas in the sideboard I think the deck can cut one in the main.

In- 1x Shimmer of Possibility
*early game deep dig card draw spell is big for the deck.

Upgrade 4.0

Cut x1 Narset
*One less seems the right number for the deck as I often see it in multiples.

In- +1 land.
*Going to 27 lands is perhaps the best thing I could change for the deck. The deck really needs to see lands on curve, even with all the card draw you can still stall out short of the mid game sometimes.

Upgrade 5.0

Cut- x1 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
*nice, but not-essential.

Move- x1 Chandra, Awakened Inferno to sideboard

Cut- Enter the God-Eternals from sideboard
*If you are grabbing a card against aggro it is Ritual of Soot in most cases.

In- x2 Drawn from Dreams
*major card draw. Much better against slower decks, so if the format goes really low to the ground aggro then this card may be too slow.