[Modern] Testing with Vampire Nighthawk in a bolt-reduced meta; a Grixis story

First off, let's discuss deathtouch. I saw a guy using Pharika's Chosen the other day at an FNM against Eldrazi. It was cheap, effective, and and caused a surprising amount "what should I do" type of reaction from the player. Obviously reality smasher still hurt and the strategy folded to gut shot and chalice of the void. But the point made lingered on me.

Lightning bolt unarguably warps modern. Basically anything with three toughness or under falls to the "dies to bolt" clause basically written in the foundations of modern. But let's look at the current meta.

1. Eldrazi 25%

2. Affinity 11.3%

3. Burn 6.3%

4. Infect 4.5%

5. Jund 4.1%

6. Abzan Company 3.7%

7. Merfolk 3.3%

8. RG Tron 2.7%

9. Grishoalbrand 2.3%

10. Abzan 1.8%

Obviously aggro heavy. Yes, Jund and burn uses lightning bolt. That being said, the decks that account for bolt-users account for nearly 10% of the meta, while the other 90% is nearly completely boltless. To me this creates options. Options that were unavailable before such a meta-warp happened (and will most likely be closed once the meta shifts back to normal). But still; options.

I decided to take one of the most fundamental of magic that fell to the "dies to bolt" argument and see how he fared in a grixis deck. If I saw any type of control deck or midrange deck that ran bolt (excluding eldrazi if you count that midrange), I would side him out (which happened to not occur too much).

He played very surprisingly well. I played a series of ten matches with him and he actually got PtE'd more than bolted. Also as long as colorless eldrazi didn't end up drawing their God-hand and he stuck on the board, he made a lasting impact and dealt with reality smashers well.

The lifelink effect on him is extremely relevant as well when you are using your life as a resource and is exceptionally hard for Grixis to find a good source of lifegain.

He did even better against decks that used "lingering souls," a card that typically wrecks Grixis due to only using spot-removal and not a large amount of flyers.

He did phenomenally well against the infect match up, where I could block (especially inkmoth nexus) with very little second thoughts of if they would pump or not. This, alongside spot removal, made infect extremely easy.

Overall, I'm extremely impressed with the little guy and think at this point, he deserves a spot in modern Grixis control.

tl;dr: "dies to bolt" is becoming increasingly less relevant

Edit: Tapped Out Decklist