Have you ever thought of stealing something?
Maybe you’re standing at the checkout counter at the grocery, and you see a candy bar, a roll of mints, or a four-pack of batteries and, just for a split second, think about taking them. Will anyone notice? Will I feel guilty? How will I feel when I use what I steal?
Whether it’s a greedy proclivity to take, an adventurous, spontaneous heart, or just plain human nature, theft from those who have more than us is a dangerous crime for most and a way of life for others. In the right context, though, theft can be beneficial. Look at Robin Hood; the hero of the story steals all day, and yet we cheer him on. Theft is a paradoxical balance between fairness and superiority. If a thief steals enough, doesn’t the thief become the rich one?
Don’t worry, though. Even if you’ve contemplated stealing before, our topical card today is a veritable kleptomaniac by comparison. Do you think you know what today’s card is, or do you just have a notion?
As the distinguished and erudite philosopher Andy Dwyer once declared, “We steal from the club, and we give to ourselves.” This is our Thief in a nutshell, really. [Editor’s Note: All Parks and Recreation references will garnish additional wages.] It drinks Sphinx’s Revelation, Think Twice, Azorius Charm, and even the stray Faithless Looting or Izzet Charm. It combines a continuous Plagiarize with a great creature with the same flashy surprise to catch your opponent’s draw spell midair.
If you’ll notice, though, to be utilized as a card stealer for the cards mentioned above, you have to play the Thief reactively. This makes it difficult to pull the same trick on your opponent twice, and it also requires that you play against a deck that accumulates cards outside of the draw step, both of which are suboptimal ways to use our pilferer. Sure, it might see the sideboard in some Esper matchups, but we’re not here to discuss a conditional sideboard card in one archetype. What if Notion Thief was the front man of our deck and we coerced our opponent to play by our rules?
For those who got as excited as I did when Notion Thief was revealed, some instantly saw the in-block, in-color synergy between the Thief and its indelible accomplice.
That’s right—Windfall on repeat. Make your opponent discard their hand and draw nothing; then, you get to draw a fresh hand plus whatever your opponent would have drawn. Pretty sweet, huh? Intriguingly, Reforge the Soul, the resident Wheel of Fate variant, is actually better in most instances. Drawing fourteen for two mana? Sign me up! In today’s world of perfect mana, why not have our cake and eat it too?
That’s a fun start, but what’s the next step to defeating a hellbent opponent? Why, with a purpose built enchantment, of course?!
I’m already excited. I’m a big fan of Grixis, but it has been consistently weak in today’s Standard, the reason for which I think is obvious. If you think about it, it is one of the few color combinations/archetypes that can’t cast the best cards in the format:
Grixis does have impressive, versatile removal, counterspells, and a draw suite available to the ambitious caster waiting to command the bruise-colored shard. Let’s fill out the middle with the buffet of Grixis options and jot down a drafted list.
Creatures (9)
Lands (24)
Spells (27)
- 3 Think Twice
- 3 Reforge the Soul
- 4 Pillar of Flame
- 4 Searing Spear
- 3 Izzet Charm
- 3 Shrieking Affliction
- 2 Whispering Madness
- 2 Aetherize
- 3 Warped Physique
Sideboard
More than any list in a while, I have fiddled, tweaked, tuned, and crunched the cards in here, so it should be ready to go out of the box. First off, Precocious Notions, despite its two extra colors, is a burn deck at heart. Your plan is to swat their best creatures, dig for your Notion Thief and choice of Windfall effect, and then go off and plug away at their dome with burn. Easy, right?
Creatures
Only nine creatures made it into the starting 60, which pretty low for any deck, not to mention one that’s trying to survive in such a combat-heavy environment. I did play an eight-creature list to a 4-4 Open finish, so don’t completely write it off. Snapcaster Mage rebuys your burn and removal and acts as an Ambush Viper, much like Notion Thief. I’ll have you know I almost typed “Notion Viper” right there, so I’m not blind to the reality that these combo/value creatures are going to hop under that combat bus frequently.
I added one Aetherling, and that was after paring down from three. I figured, “If you need an Aetherling, you’ll draw him, and if you discard him to one of the loot spells, you probably didn’t want him anyway.” I know, leak-proof reasoning. He can push through eight damage a turn, though, and you’ll never need more than one out, so I felt comfy with just one.
Removal
Fourteen targeted removal spells dot the maindeck, with a pair of Aetherizes to backs them up. In a world of 32+ creature aggro decks, you’ve just got to have removal ready for your opponent’s biggest offenders. Pillar of Flame is fast, cheap, and can go to the face, and in a perceived future rife with Voice of Resurgence, I predict you might see a billion opening hands you have to throw back because they lack this one mana wonder. Searing Spear is, as you know, a tried and true staple. Izzet Charm and Warped Physique are a little more unique.
Izzet Charm can still kill a Champion of the Parish before he gets too big, stuff a Farseek, or double as a Careful Study to seek a more powerful spell or land. This replaced Faithless Looting early in the building process, and I haven’t looked back. Warped Physique is a very exciting card, acting as a painless answer for an early Loxodon Smiter or Boros Reckoner. If you’re lucky, it can even deal with an Obzedat, Ghost Council or a Predator Ooze before they get out of control. This card has a lot of potential, and this deck is in the business of drawing cards, so it fits like a glove. Aetherize was just too sweet not to include. It bounces their team, and then you resolve your Windfall! Bang! Well, that’s the hope anyway.
Combo Suite
I included five copies of the new Windfall cards, and that was after piddling with the numbers on both variants for a while. Reforge the Soul has a much higher power level; I won’t be able to connect too often to make the cipher trigger happen on Whispering Madness, but it’s a mana cheaper and has the potential to give you some card advantage against certain control decks that devise their plan in their hand.
Think Twice, while being a good old card generator, also can set up Reforge the Soul’s miracle cost. If you discard it to any of the deck’s many outlets, you can still scrape a card out of it, too. I like Shrieking Affliction because it’s so cheap; if you’re planning to toss your hand, you want to discard as few cards as possible. It’s cheap enough to let you cast it and a burn spell. Then, when you Wit’s End, you’ll be ready!
Lands
I tried to find room for some tricky lands, but I just couldn’t make them fit. A single Cavern of Souls went to the sideboard, and Reliquary Towers were cut from the final draft. As cool as they were, their uses were niche at best. Even a Stensia Bloodhall, originally in here when I tried Master of Cruelties as a win condition, got the axe. Mountains make up the basics; as much as I’d like that to not be the case, you’ve just gotta have that Pillar of Flame on time.
Sideboard
This moved around a lot, but it’s still pretty fluid. One thing that hasn’t budged, even in count, is Rakdos Charm. An awesome, Snapcaster-friendly answer for G/B/W Reanimator and a backbreaking spell against a creature deck trying to survive the burn, this Charm does it all. It breaks Witchbane Orb, Grafdigger’s Cage, Keyrunes, Trading Post (I’d cry, though), and even a stray Runechanter’s Pike. One of the best tools a Grixis spell deck can pack.
Counterflux is such a nice go-to counterspell against control, and it does fine against midrange and non-Cavern creature decks if you can stabilize. There are no creature counters maindeck, so your opponent might not bring them in if they’re stowed away for game 1. Mizzium Mortars comes in against creature-heavy decks. This deck finds lands consistently, and it nearly guarantees you will win if you ever overload it. Dispel is a nice, fast way to protect your Notion Thief from a Searing Spear, an opposing counterspell, or problematic pump spell.
Pack Rat gives you an outlet to toss all those drawn cards. Against a removal-light deck, Pack Rat can reach. Feeding the Rats your hand then refueling with Reforge the Soul is right where you want to be in some games. Olivia Voldaren is a mighty queen as always. There are a lot of decks where she will be unkillable, and keeping something like Jund Midrange on the topdeck with her out has got to be satisfying. Got a Thragtusk? Mine. Got an Aurelia, the Warleader? Thanks. Obzedat, Ghost Council? Let me just reach over you here…
A single Cavern of Souls helps push that Notion Thief through a hail of counterspells or resolve that one Aetherling when it matters most. Maybe calling Vampire will seal the deal? If I don’t need it at the moment, I love calling off-the-wall stuff, too, like Dragon, Horror, Wurm, or even Lhurgoyf, just to mess with them. You’re Grixis, remember? You could also put it on Atog…
A couple cards came to mind outside the Standard canon while brewing with Notion Thief, and I felt that caging it in our current format was selling it short. The card quality and depth that an older format offers makes a casual, multiplayer-based deck a vibrant possibility. The more people playing, the better Notion Thief becomes. Seasoned multiplayer veterans will tell you that both card power and card advantage have a lot to do with staying afloat in a melee. If you deny your opponents these two things, what’s stopping you from winning by a landslide?
I popped open my 5,000-count card box, or my “pizza box” as my wife calls it, looking for inspiration across the annals of Magic. Pretty quickly, I found a lot of great fodder for a fun, lockout style deck that can put a vice on your opponents while still being relatively fair and interactive to avoid playgroup aggravation. After all, you can’t counter a concession.
Creatures (15)
- 3 Psychatog
- 1 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
- 3 Lore Broker
- 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
- 1 Psychosis Crawler
- 1 Jace's Archivist
- 1 Laboratory Maniac
- 4 Notion Thief
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (23)
Spells (21)
As you can see, the deck focuses on ways to let everyone draw and no one draw at the same time. Lore Broker is just a Disrupting Scepter for each opponent while you draw a card for each player and discard only one. Psychatog will be the final push; throw a Whispersilk Cloak on it and attack any one opponent for lethal. The singleton creatures each serve a specific purpose, and with the draw power this deck can produce, getting the one copy you need will be a breeze.
Laboratory Maniac protects you from overambitious table sizes. Hitting a massive Whispering Madness might just put your whole library in your hand, so you need to be prepared. Jace’s Archivist is just a repeatable Windfall to make sure your opponents’ hands stay empty. Psychosis Crawler, our first of two Maros, can also serve as an insta-win condition. Windfall for any amount and you’ll be hitting the table for a massive chunk of each player’s life total. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir helps with the lockdown plan, and Kagemaro, First to Suffer is a great sweeper when you need it, acting as a massive Mutilate effect for a small commitment.
In the spell category, our set of Forbids will act as our reliable answer. Pitching the extras to its buyback is a perfectly fine option if your hand size isn’t in double digits yet. Being in the Legacy pool lets us play two Urza’s block powerhouses (yes, that sounded redundant to me, too). Time Spiral and actual Windfall allow you to reset hand sizes, and it combos with our old Thief, of course.
Time Spiral is much meaner, but it and the single Psychic Spiral allow for a nice graveyard reset. There’s only one Time Spiral, but you’ll only ever need to cast it once. Cyclonic Rift, an unintentional nod to the Evacuation combo some players used with Psychatog back in the day, is a good way to make your opponents discard their board. I’ve cast it in my Commander deck a dozen times, and it is very impactful. Nearly every time, someone dies the following turn, and it should be no different here.
Mystical Teachings is a perfect fit, allowing me to search for any instant, Teferi, or Notion Thief without a problem—twice. Darkness is really important. This black Fog offers a simple, easy to cast way for you to blank an angry team from coming at you for a turn; it also leaves the aggressor exposed to counterattacks from other players. I was in so many matches as a younger player where I would have killed for just one Fog, just one more turn. Darkness offers that, and in black of all things! Zombie Infestation offers another non Psychatog way to drain your hand. Converting a 28-card hand into a fortnight’s worth of Zombies is chilling. I added one Jace Beleren because, hey, I like drawing four-plus cards a turn.
The lands straddle the line between colorful and utilitarian. Reliquary Tower seems like a good plan so you can hold off on unloading your cards until you’re ready. I love Mikokoro, Center of the Sea for the same reason I love Jace Beleren. Lands shouldn’t draw you and you alone multiple cards each turn. Bojuka Bog is great to void a graveyard that concerns you, and coming in tapped is a small price to pay for this potentially vicious effect.
I have two anti-counter lands, as many other decks rely on blue magic to stop their opponents. Cavern of Souls will most often go on Human, but you might need to put it on Atog and slap a Whispersilk Cloak on it right away in a hostile environment. Boseiju, Who Shelters All is great for that Windfall you have to push through. Be mindful, though; with no way to gain life, that Boseiju can put you on a real clock.
I think this deck would be best suited for a multiplayer variant, such as Two-Headed Giant or Planechase. Archenemy, where you are the Archenemy, might be particularly enjoyable. Many people love playing lockdown decks like this, but I wanted this particular brew to have the air of fairness. Notion Thief is fragile, after all, and in an environment where burn, removal, and reactive answers can often be your best spells, it won’t get out of hand too easily. An aggro deck can still smash this one to bits, so be sure to make pals at the table so that laser dot disappears from your forehead. This deck is technical and reactive, providing a fun, defensive feel while also killing them with damage instead of arbitrarily infinite combos or the like. I always prefer synergy over infinity.
Thanks for dropping by today, folks! As a side note, I am working on making the transition to Magic Online for my Standard playtesting and deckbuilding. I’ve been on there for years, mostly drafting and playing Momir Basic, but I believe this will be a smart move to provide more pertinent and practiced decklists for you folks. It’s much easier to make, tweak, and test brews there, so make sure to hit me up online if you want to playtest or chat!
Over the next few months, I’ll be working on Return to Ravnica Block in cyberspace, and I have several brews set aside for that format, too. If discussing a Return to Ravnica Block brew would be interesting to you, let me know in the comments below and I’ll highlight one of them in the coming weeks. Maybe video content of some of my brews could be on the horizon. Oh, ask Cedric first, you say? I’m…I’m sure he’ll be fine with it.
Join me next week for another slick brew, and until then, don’t forget to check your pockets on the way out!
– Matt
CaptainShapiro on Magic Online