What is Magic: The Gathering's best Standard Grixis Hellraiser deck?

Grixis Hellraiser is a three-color deck that’s been taking Magic: The Gathering by storm. Thanks to the March of the Machine expansion, players are able to put this deck together and overwhelm their foes with a swarm of powerful dragons. Thanks to the way such interactions work, they can take advantage of the Capricious Hellraiser and See Double and start flooding the board with threats in short order. It’s not an especially complicated deck, but you do need a little luck to really see major results.

That’s because Grixis Hellraiser uses Capricious Hellraiser’s ability exile cards from your graveyard at random. You get to cast one of those (noncreature, nonland) without paying its mana cost, but if you don’t exile something useful, the combo falls a bit flat. That said, it’s still a powerful, not to mention fun, deck to run in Magic: The Gathering’s Standard meta.

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Exploring the strongest Standard Grixis Hellraiser deck in Magic: The Gathering

Grixis Hellraiser

• 4 See Double
• 1 Mountain
• 4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
• 1 Swamp
• 4 Capricious Hellraiser
• 4 Invasion of Amonkhet
• 4 Shipwreck Marsh
• 2 Nahiri's Warcrafting
• 3 Jace, the Perfected Mind
• 4 Bloodtithe Harvester
• 3 Corpse Appraiser
• 2 Go for the Throat
• 1 Make Disappear
• 1 Negate
• 4 Xander's Lounge
• 2 Underground River
• 2 Sulfurous Springs
• 4 Haunted Ridge
• 2 Shivan Reef
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Stormcarved Coast
• 1 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 1 Darkslick Shores
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 3 Siphon Insight

Sideboard

• 2 Reckoner Bankbuster
• 3 Duress
• 2 Brotherhood's End
• 1 Burn Down the House
• 2 Unlicensed Hearse
• 1 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Negate
• 2 Cut Down
• 1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

Grixis Hellraiser is a Magic: The Gathering Standard deck that runs a handful of creatures and spells that benefit the deck's overall combo. You will want to use both Grixis Hellraiser and See Double to start triggering a wealth of creatures coming into play back-to-back. This particular deck came from SaffronOlive, a well-known MTG content creator.

See Double in Magic: The Gathering (Image via Wizards of the Coast)

However, See Double is a spell that you can’t copy in Magic: The Gathering. It clearly states on the card that you cannot copy it, but that only counts when the blue spell is in the stack. Once it’s in the graveyard, it’s fair game. That’s how this all works. Grixis Hellraiser wants to pick See Double from the graveyard to copy a target spell and/or create a token that’s a copy of the target creature.

In this case, you’re going to pick a Capricious Hellraiser in play. It will then trigger the dragon’s ability, which exiles another three cards at random from your graveyard. Once that resolves, you pick another spell and cast it for free. The one you cast from exile then goes back to the graveyard.

Capricious Hellraiser in Magic: The Gathering (Image via Wizards of the Coast)

For this Magic: The Gathering combo to work, you need to have nine or more cards in your graveyard. If your opponent has eight or more, you can also choose both See Double triggers, so that’s worth doing as well.

This is done via Jace the Perfected Mind’s -2 (Target player mills three cards), and Invasion of Amonkhet (both players mill three cards). You can then use the Lazotep Convert to clone a Capricious Hellraiser from your graveyard if one happens to land there.

The Capricious Hellraiser can be cast for just 3 red mana if you have nine cards in the graveyard. As such, you definitely want to mill and cast spells quickly to make that happen. Once this Grixis Hellraiser card is in play, use Cast Double. If your opponent has over eight cards in their graveyard, you can make both choices for this Magic: The Gathering card.

That means you’ll want to wait until your opponent casts a spell you want to copy for your own sinister purposes. Duplicate that spell and make another dragon. That clone then triggers, exiling three cards from your grave. Hopefully, you get another See Double and make more dragons.

When you’re satisfied with the number of dragons you have in your Magic: The Gathering playfield, swing for lethal damage. It’s a ridiculous combo, but it’s so satisfying. You can use Fable of the Mirror Breaker to duplicate dragons as well, making things really get running fast.

This might not be the fastest or most powerful Magic: The Gathering deck, but Standard Grixis Hellraiser is incredible and fun to use. In physical MTG, it’s a bit on the expensive side, clocking in at nearly $400 for all the singles used in it. If you want to check out some other March of the Machine decks, this list has some other ideas to try.