Hey everyone, ive been off and on with vintage for the past year, ive been keeping up with the meta and have been watching restrictions and what not, but havnt been able to play much, but i now have the time to get back into it, and i wanted to get back into it with a grixis thieves deck. ive been testing it a bit but havnt gotten in as much as i would like so im not sure about matchups and what not. im mostly asking for tips with the deck and any tips for the deck itself, below will be the deck and my general sideboard strategy, if there are any question about card choices please ask me, and also if you would suggest a card i put in the deck, please suggest what i should take out.

1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus

1 Blightsteel Colossus
2 Notion Thief

4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
2 Flusterstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Mana Drain
1 Dig Through Time
2 Sudden Shock
1 Brainstorm

1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
2 Creeping Tar Pit

2 Dack Fayden
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Ponder
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Treasure Cruise
3 Preordain
1 Yawgmoth's Will

sideboard
4 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Ingot Chewer
3 Sulfur Elemental
2 Flusterstorm
1 Mountain
2 By Force

Mentor-out-1 timevault 1 voltaic key 1 wheel of fortune 1 timetwister
in-3 sulfur elemental 1 flusterstorm
Oath-Out-2 Sudden Shock 2 Notion Thief
In-4 Grafdiggers cage
Storm-out-2 Sudden Shock 1Timwtwister 1 Wheel of fortune
In-2 flusterstorm 2 by force
Dredge-out-1 wheel of fortune 2 Mana Drain 2 Sudden Shock
In-4 Grafdiggers cage 1 flusterstorm
Shops-out-3 Mental Misstep 2 Flusterstorm 1 Gush
In-1 Mountain 3 Ingot Chewer 2 By Force

Edit: there is supposed to be three volcanic islands, not just two

Check the Thieves thread over here

Things I've messed up with this deck:

• Don't forget that Notion Thief has flash
• Don't put out a Blightsteel if you're going to pass and let them cast a Dack

Though they are a good metagame choice I'd nonetheless cut the two maindeck Sudden shocks for two Pyroblasts. Shocks are mainly good against Mentor (shops sometimes too) but Pyro has way more targets.

2 Tar Pits strikes me as kinda odd as well. Maybe I'm missing something (since I so often am), but having tinkered around with this deck as well as played against it, this deck can be very fast. Come into play tapped lands that hit for 3 seem kinda out of place, since your main ways to win are Blightsteel and Vault/Key. I can only assume that the Pits are there to help finish after we have all the turns? If so. You can probably just kill them off a Thief, Jace, Dack-decking or something.

I would suggest looking at singletons of Top, Outcome, Stripmine... etc.

@Topical_Island i wanted to try tar pit as a way to help against slower decks, its something im trying out so im not sure if ill keep them in, if not they will be a strip mine and a geier reach sanitarium

@kistrand i will try the pyroblasts but what ive noticed is that on cockatrice there is a lot of the parodoxical outcome mentor decks so its something new im trying out, but if they dont work out the way i want they will definitely be pyroblasts

I have been testing Abrade instead of sudden shock in my UR Standstill. They have outperformed sudden shock especially against mentor. Menedian in his podcast also suggested that they are main board material and I absolutely agree. Cheers.

@NBA84 the main thing i worry about with abrade is that they can cat two spells to make it fizzle, but ill try it out, it will help with shops as well