Grixis Midrange (deck 8b in series) (Frontier)

*I've been working on a series of three colored midrange decks. this is my second Grixis deck. The other focused on a midrange control shell.

What the deck does:
*The deck utilizes the opponents resources and turns them against them.

What inspired the deck:
*There are a lot of solid cards in the format that allow you to gain advantage from your opponents resources.

Step 1: What are the key cards in the build.

a) The Scarab God. 2 copies.
*The best card in frontier for using up your opponents resources.

b) Hostage Taker. 4 copies.
If it just exiled a creature it would be playable.
Getting to play the exiled creature is super fun times.
*So good to be targeted by TSG.

c) Dragonlord Silumgar. 2 copies.
A beast on its own.
Difficult to remove, helping you keep your stolen creature.

d) Angrath, the Flame-Chained. 1 copy.
*you have to return it, but only if it costs 4cmc or greater.

e) Gonti, Lord of Luxury. 1 copy.

• 4 cards deep.
  can be a dud if your opponent is playing something based on synergy, but at worst you probably get a land.
  deathtouch is important to help grind us into the midgame.
  *great target for TSG.

f) Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh. 1 copy
First turn rips two cards out of your opponents hand.
every turn after, gives us a chance at a free cast of a spell while ticking up by 2.
*worst case, you just deal 7 damage.

Step 2: Decide on a subtheme.
The deck is great in the midgame at causing all kinds of headaches. Now we need a strategy for turns 1, 2, and 3.
My thinking is disruption, counterspells, and removal.

Step 3: Disruption (6 slots)

a) Despise. 2 copies.
helps with planeswalkers, which our midgame has little interaction with.
can take an early game creature to buy time.
great for any hexproof or otherwise difficult creatures.
feeds TSG

b) Transgress the Mind. 2 copies.
*deals with so much.

c) Kolaghan's Command. 2 copies.
instant speed disruption.
very versatile.

Step 4: Counterspells. 6 copies.

a) Disallow. 4 copies.
This is what we want to be doing on turn three/four.
interrupts fetch lands, totally throwing off the opponents curve.
*can even shut off a planeswalker ability, creature activation like TSG, or Aetherworks Marvel for a turn.

b) Censor. 2 copies.
We want to use it in the early turns when it is most useful.
In the midgame we will not care as much if we counter things as we will be looking to steal them.
*Most people want to curve out as best as possible so this is a hard counter until the late game most of the time...then we simply cycle it away.

Step 5: Removal.

a) Fatal Push. 3 slots.
*we want to kill low cmc stuff since we are stealing high cmc creatures.

b) Grasp of Darkness. 2 slots.
*Kills Hazoret and everything underneath it.

c) Languish. 2 copies.
*Snuffs off the pesky aggro decks that we will have trouble with.

Step 6: The remaining 4 slots go to card draw.

a) Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. 4 copies.
*Filter our hand to maximize having the right cards to get us to the midgame.
In some games certain cards will be dead or at least very weak, JVP lets us discard those cards.
*fuels TSG. We can dump our midrange creatures into the grave to be targetted by TSG later.

Step 7: Build the mana base.
26 lands.
JVP lets us either draw into land or discard land, helps avoid flooding or being short.
*Sources needed- blue 18, black 18, red 12.

a) Polluted Delta. 4 copies.
b) Bloodstained Mire. 4 copies.
c) Sunken Hollow. 4 copies.
d) Smoldering Marsh. 2 copies.
e) Swamp. 2 copies.
f) Island. 2 copies.
g) Mountain. 1 copy.
h) Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. 1 copy.
i) Wandering Fumarole. 2 copies.
j) Drowned Catacomb. 2 copies.
k) Field of Ruin. 2 copies.

Step 8: Sideboard.

a) Insidious Will and Dire Fleet Daredevil. 2 copies of each.
*side for Hostage Taker when its a dead card.

b) Chandra, Torch of Defiance. 4 copies.
*side in for Languish and Dragonlord Silumgar.

c) Sorcerous Spyglass. 2 copies.
*great for many of the problem cards and for fetch lands.

d) Disdainful Stroke. 2 copies.
*catches the real threats in the format.

e) Languish. 2 copies
*when the panic button needs to be pushed harder.

f) Murderous Cut. 1 copy.
*when you need to kill something bigger.

Final Thoughts

A) The deck can actually play out very strong in certain matchups. Much better then the typical "thief" decks.

B) The cards that make up the midgame synergy are strong on their own, so they hold up.

C) If your opponent is light on creatures you have cards that are weaker, but Silumgar can target planeswalkers and Taker can target artifacts, so at least they are live cards in some way until you can side them out.