Much Abrew: Grixis Monument Control (Standard)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Much Abrew About Nothing! While the impact of Aetherdrift on Standard hasn't been massive so far, I'm a little bit addicted to one card from the set: Monument to Endurance! We played the artifact in Izzet Sharks a few weeks ago, but we're heading a very different direction with Monument to Endurance today by playing it in a control deck! The idea is to stack Monument to Endurance and Artist's Talent so that we get to discard and draw whenever we cast a non-creature spell, which will trigger Monument to draw us a card, make a Treasure, or drain our opponent out of the game. The beauty of the plan is that once we get our key pieces on the battlefield, we can just play a normal control game—casting removal, sweepers, and card draw—all while almost accidentally winning the game with the absurd value of Monument to Endurance! Is Monument to Endurance really a control card? How good is it with Artist's Talent? Let's get to the video and find out!
Much Abrew: Grixis Monument Control
Discussion
- Record-wise, Grixis Monument Control felt solid. We went 6-3 with the deck, good for a 67% win percentage!
- As I mentioned in the intro, the plan is pretty simple: rather than loading up on cards that let us discard to trigger Monument to Endurance, we're mostly planning to play a normal Grixis Control game plan and trusting that Artist's Talent will mostly take care of triggering Monument for us. Artist's Talent is by far the best Monument card in our deck. Being able to discard and draw whenever we cast a non-creature spell means that we typically can max our Monument to Endurance every turn to draw a card, make a Treasure, and drain our opponent, all by doing what our deck wants to do anyway in casting removal and sweepers to keep our opponent's board in check.
- That said, we do have a few extra discard cards for Monument. Collector's Vault essentially lets us loot for one mana each turn (thanks to the Treasure it makes). Stern Lesson is surprisingly good in the deck since we can use the Powerstone to cast Monument to Endurance or Cryptcaller Chariot. Ill-Timed Explosion gives us a sweeper that also lets us discard cards, while Broadside Barrage is similar for targeted removal and Three Steps Ahead does the same for counters. Thankfully, all of these cards are good cards anyway, so it's not like we need to overload with unplayables to make Monument to Endurance work.
- Speaking of Cryptcaller Chariot, it's basically our backup Monument to Endurance, giving us a 2/2 Zombie token whenever we draw a card. Even after playing a bunch with the deck, I'm still not sure how good it really is. We did have a couple of games where it popped off, but it felt slow and clunky much of the time. We also discarded it a lot to trigger Monument to Endurance. While I think it's worth a slot in the deck, it's certainly way, way worse as a discard payoff than Monument is.
- The rest of the deck is pretty straightforward control stuff—a bunch of removal, a few counters, and some card draw—with our only creatures being Thundertrap Trainer to dig for our combo pieces and one Harvester of Misery as another removal spell that discards.
- Here are a couple of quick notes on playing the deck. First, when it comes to Monument to Endurance, when you first get it on the battlefield, it's best to spend your triggers drawing cards and making Treasures, with draining the opponent being the last option. Drawing cards ensures we always have something to discard in the future to trigger Monument to Endurance, and the Treasures lead to some super-explosive turns where we can cast multiple removal spells or counterspells. Actually killing our opponent with Monument can wait. Eventually, all the value that Monument generates gets us into the spot where we can trigger all three modes each turn. At this point, we can drain our opponent aggressively by discarding during our turn and our opponent's turn, likely killing our opponent in two or three turns. Basically, generate value first to pull ahead and then kill the opponent later, once you have a ton of resources.
- Second, the last mode on Artist's Talent doesn't do much in our deck. While it technically can improve some of our removal spells like Torch the Tower, Broadside Barrage, and Ill-Timed Explosion, this typically isn't enough of a reason to level up Artist's Talent fully—it's just not worth the mana. On the other hand, getting to the second level to reduce the cost of our noncreature spells is very strong and worth trying to achieve early in the game.
- So, should you play Grixis Monument Control in Standard? I think the answer is yes! The deck felt competitive, and I found it super fun to play. Monument to Endurance is just such a cool and powerful card. If you like being the control player or just like discarding your own cards for value, give the deck a shot!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
