What does grixis mean to you?

[Pygyzy]

ridiculous card, ignore

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Build-A-Buccaneer
Stuffing
(This card has no type. Stuffing is not a card type.)
Stitch — To cast this card, put a permanent card in this card as you cast that card. It takes that cards place. Put a type counter on this card for each of that cards types. These counters remain between the stack and the battlefield. It has the text box and power and toughness of all cards in it.
When you cast a permanent card, you may put it in this card. It takes that cards place. Put a type counter on this for each of that cards types. These counter remain between the stack and the battlefield. It has the text box and power and toughness of all cards in it.
If there's a Head, Brain, Body, Heart, and Appendage in Build-A-Buccaneer, you win the game.

Just trying out type counters. The cards a mess but it might "work"? I honestly don't know

So I'm stuck. Grixis, my faction, has turned out to be a lot harder to get working than I wanted. So I'm looking for inspiration. What do you like about grixis? If you designed a grixis shard that plays how you want it to, what would that be?

I was focused on the things I like, turns out the things I like, the majority don't (kinda knew that). To me, grixis is the embodiment of my catchphrase, "Sorry, not sorry." "Sorry I had to feed you to my carnivore beast but they were hungry" that kinda thing.

What is grixis to you?

[Mimicvat]

For me grixis is pretty much "kill a thing, then it gets up and serves you". Any grixis card that isn't doing that feels off to me

[benjameenbear]

For me, Nicol Bolas's character (before the War of the Spark DEBACLE) is the consummate Grixis mage: selfish power as his motive (b trait) backed by supreme cunning and knowledge (U trait) with an intuitive understanding of emotions for power's sake (r trait). Grixis mages want power for the sake of power and to justify their actions.

If I were to reflect this into a custom set, I would think about powerful cards that come at steep costs or require great knowledge to implement. My Bolas cEDH deck is all-in on winning via Reanimator creatures or Thassa's Oracle combos and can die if disrupted correctly.

[Pygyzy]

@Mimicvat That is fun. I have Kess, Dissident Mage and Marchesa, the Black Rose decks that both do that. I have like 5 grixis commander decks lol. Also I love Sedris, the Traitor King

@benjameenbear That's a good one. It's like suicide black but instead of suicide it's "I guess he just fell on a bullet I dunno" grixis. I too love all-in disruptable combos decks. My sedris was kinda like that just mill your entire library unearth your entire graveyard with a million mana and do it til everyone's dead or you exiled every card you have

[spacemonaut]

To me Grixis is about cunning, expoitation, selfishness, wild sorcery, and defiance of the natural order. Those who embody Grixis are employing genius to pursue their personal passions, likely at the expense of others. They're predisposed to be chaotic rather than regimented, and on Grixis the shard we saw them entirely see the cycle of life and death as a tool to be unwound and taken apart and put back together the way individuals wanted.

Necromancy comes up as a strong theme because it's most of those things, but it's not the be-all end-all. There's also willingness to make war (secret or overt) over a tide of bodies, and delving deep into the dark arts with a sorcery theme as seen in Kess or Jelava. In Ixalan we saw a more lighthearted version of that with passionate clever pirates willing to burn their way through villages and forests to obtain their hearts' desire (mostly riches and often a good party).

[Pygyzy]

That's a perfect explanation. I kinda see it in terms of what it isn't. Green-White. Order and Unity. So instead of that, the opposite would be individuality and havoc.

I think what I'm going for is similar to Pirates with a tweak. Pirates are solely self-serving. I want Pirates but mutually beneficial although the benefit comes at a price. Example:

First Mate UBR
Creature — Pirate Assassin Buddy
Cut of the Booty — When First Mate enters the battlefield, each player creates a Treasure token.
Whenever an opponent sacrifices a Treasure, destroy target non-Pirate creature.
2/3

At first this type of mechanic didn't feel grixis but when it overwhelming benefits you, that definitely does.

[Mookie]

I'll echo prior comments about Bolas being the quintessential Grixis character. To me, Grixis represents cartoonish villainy - the sort of color pairing that will steal candy from a baby both to make the baby cry... but also because it feels like eating some candy. It considers the suffering of others and the advancement of its plans to be equally valuable - see the symmetry in Cruel Ultimatum. Breaking down a bit further, you have the spectacle and hedonism of Rakdos, the scheming and backstabbing of Dimir, and the creativity and curiosity of Izzet, which sort of combines into an essence of 'I'll deal with my opponents eventually, but I want to see them dance first'.

Looking at Grixis cards in general, I would say that a lot of them are characterized by duality - something good for its controller, plus something bad for its opponents, usually in equal (or at least symmetric) measure. See Blood Tyrant (+1/+1 counters vs life loss), Inalla, Archmage Ritualist (tokens vs life loss), Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge (free spells vs mill), and Nekusar, the Mindrazer (card draw vs damage).

In contrast, I would say that Selesnya cards are usually characterized by ignoring the opponent, and focusing exclusively on helping its controller. Meanwhile, pure Rakdos is the color pair that feels most likely to exclusively harm its opponent.

[void_nothing]

I think everyone's interpretations of Grixis colors above are valid simultaneously, because you can build a faction from two or more colors using some combination of goals, methods, and mindsets from all of them.

It's possible to have a UBR faction that is completely different in essence from the shard Grixis from Alara, for example. The philosophies of the Alaran shards are less well-defined than, say, the Ravnican guilds or Tarkiri clans, partially because they're geographical (and metaphysical) locations that contain multiple cultures each rather than organizations unto themselves. But I would say that most Grixians have a black goal - mastery of death and undeath - undertaken with various blue and red means.

If you had a faction elsewhere that sought out ultimate knowledge of the mortal condition and believed it could only obtain this by causing as much mayhem as possible to see people's response to this suffering, you'd have a U goal with BR means, as well as a group that would feel very different than the various necromancers and demonlords of Grixis, but it would have all of the same colors.

[Pygyzy]

@Mookie Good points. A cartoonishly over-exaggerated Bolas is what I was trying to play up. Like Judge Doom from who framed Roger rabbit. You mentioned basically all my favorite things about the shard. Those are the sort of characteristics I wanna over-exaggerate.

@void_nothing That's a good point as well. I wanted my shard to still have its own distinct feel and not just be "silly grixis" or "friendly backstabbing pirates". I did try to separate each color a bit so that it plays up it's particular strengths. I was having trouble coming up with proper approach for that but you gave me an idea.

Rather than have one overarching grixis faction I could have them work together but have an intra-faction identity separation. Just for example, "Goth Izzet", primarily u, secondary R, tertiary b, "Emo Rakdos", Primary R, secondary B, tertiary u, and "hipster Dimir", Bu, r.

Spiteful Ex-Girlfriend would be Goth Izzet, Emo Peter Parker from Spider-man 3 for Emo Rakdos, Trendy Jace Fan-boy for hipster dimir. They're all intolerable in different ways, but they all do it in a grixis way.

Spiteful Ex UR
Creature — Human Rogue
As Spiteful Ex enters the battlefield, an opponent recites either mind or body.
If they recited mind, Spiteful Ex has, "T: Fateseal 1 or Surveil 1.
If they recited body, Spiteful Ex has, "T: Chasten or goad target creature until end of turn."
2/2

[Ryder]

Another way to define Grixis would be to take any GW faction like Selesnya, and see UBR as its opposite.