Grixis Delver just got a new toy. It might even be playable in BUG Delver despite Tarmogoyf/DRS.
Of course you don't want to run more than 1 since drawing 2 can be hard to fuel.
How does Murderous Cut compare to Ghastly Demise, which conveniently forgets to hit Bob, Deathrite, Griselbrand, and Baleful Strix and has a slightly hard time killing Goyf and Knight of the Reliquary, but can't stand being in the same deck as Murderous Cut?
Seems to me that cut is vastly better hitting Bob, Deathrite, Griselbrand, Tombstalker, Sire of Insanity, Wurmcoil Engine, Sundering Titan, Iona, Elesh-Norn, Tarmogoyf, Strix, Primeval Titan.
Ghastly Demise is not bad but that non-black creature is kind of a big deal and a lot of the problem creatures for this deck have high toughness (Iona, Griselbrand, Elesh-Norn). The deck is dead to Elesh Norn unless you run Terminate or draw Dismember+Bolt.
I'd rather use Ghastly Demise to kill Mom, Thalia, Delver, Noble Hierarch, and other 1-2-drop X/1's and X/2's, especially if I left all my Bolts in the deck.
Multiple Ghastly Demises also aren't as dead as multiple Murderous Cuts.
I think it needs more than just Goyf alongside it to be worth playing. With just Goyf to power it up I think it's too unreliable, and at that point Spell Pierce would just be better for the consistency. Playing around a one mana soft counter is far easier than a two mana soft counter.
But if you can more readily activate Ferocious I think it can very much find a Legacy home.
Particularly, I think this could be exactly what an old, mostly forgotten archetype needs to maybe be relevant again.
Bant has really fallen by the wayside, but Goyf + KotR used to be a common pairing back in the day, and are probably the most reliable ways to activate Ferocious in the format.
As for Murderous Cut, I like it. I think it will find a home. It's never going to be a staple removal spell in the way that Bolt and Plow are, but it has its niche. As mentioned, this is exactly the kind of spell Grixis Delver variants have wanted. I've almost always had Dismember to supplement Bolt in my Grixis list, to handle threats like Goyf that Bolt can't hit. But Dismember has its flaws, particularly missing out on threats like large KotR's, and Griselbrands (and the occasional very large Goyf). I would definitely run Ghastly Demise in the place of Dismember if it could hit key cards like Bob, DRS, Germ tokens, and the like, but not hitting black creatures is relevant enough that it really makes Ghastly Demise a liability. I think one or two copies of Murderous Cut is very much worth testing.
I don't think Adamant Negation + Batterskull is as clearly strong as Adamant Negation + Goyf/KotR. Reason being, Batterskull's power is so closely tied to Stoneforge Mystic, and Spell Pierce does a better job of protecting her.
Another thing to think of is how this will interact with other equipment and ways of pumping in general though. Stoneforge Mystic doesn't necessarily have to find Batterskull to help trigger Ferocity. A Jitte with a few counters does the job just fine. There can even be situations where you start your turn by swinging with a three power creature, trigger Exalted from Noble Heirarch, and now moving into your second main phase you have a Ferocity empowered Adamant Negation to protect whatever it is you are casting, a Jace for example, from opposing countermagic. In the blue mirror little tricks like that can be very game changing.
I do think Adamant Negation might see some play, but quizzle is right. If you have counters on a Jitte you're very close to winning already.
So far, Khans looks VERY promising for Modern and a bit less so for Legacy. For instance, I think most of the new Charms will find a home in Modern decks, but they're all too costly for Legacy. There are some niche cards for sure, like Hardened Scales, that might end up spawning something new and interesting. I don't think anything spoiled so far will have legs on it right away, though. There's no obvious "this is an eternal staple" card yet like Abrupt Decay.
It's a shame Delve is such a weak mechanic in multiples.
Otherwise I could see this being a fantastic threat, to run in the place of say, Nimble Mongoose. At four toughness and 6cmc it dodges Bolt and Abrupt Decay/Counterbalance/Engineered Explosives, and with trample it gets past TNN (not to mention it triggers Ferocious for aforementioned Adamant Negation).
Drawing more than one copy though is bound to be pretty rough though, unless you're running it alongside something like Thought Scour. Thought Scour enables the apes to be easily played turn 2, but now you're running Thought Scour... which likely makes this too cute.
Maybe there's some UGx brew that can pair the apes alongside a Stifle + Dreadnought with Vision Charm triggering Dreadnought and Delve (this exact deck already exists in a UBx shell and Tombstalker, maybe green has its advantages though). Dreadnought also triggers Adamant Negation which could be pretty good in the shell.
Hooting Mandrills may be better than Tombstalker in Team America. Getting BB is a bit of a pain, anyway, and Hooting Mandrills is oodles cheaper.
What I'm really excited for, now that it's nigh-confirmed, is Treasure Cruise. I am so slotting that into Grixis Delver (remove 13th creature and Fire // Ice). It might be playable in other U/x, non-Bob, non-Threshold, non-other Delve, non-Storm decks (heck, maybe High Tide may like it). Looks like decent sideboard material in Show and Tell and Reanimator decks.
I was already running Shared Discovery in the flex slot of Grixis Delver (testing showed that it really didn't matter what the card was, so Shared Discovery was a fun pet card that I've always wanted to cast... and casting it feels amazing). Treasure Cruise is basically just better and more reliable. Hell, even casting it as a powered up Divination is fine, but ever reaching Threshold and getting an Ancestral out of it is pure gas.
It's definitely not surprising that Delve is the mechanic getting a lot of the buzz for Legacy playables, but it's a shame that Delve has such diminishing returns. It removes almost all of the potential for these cards to be anything aside from minor roleplayers. That, and the graveyard already has a lot of competition when it comes to using it as a resource.
I never thought my badass demon would be replaced by a monkey
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Listen closely as your radio plays
a program of a slightly different strain.
Tonight my listeners, a new power will rise,
unleashed upon you all in this musical disguise.
Your cities turn to ash, for the broadcast is cursed.
The signal is peaking and can't be reversed.
If you choose my children, you can try to hide.
But I strongly suggest you run for your life."
-The Sermon 2, The Creepshow
I'm not sure that the Monkey is actually better than Tombstalker. One of the best parts of Tombstalker was the ability to fly over opposing TNN. I get the trample, but TNN is only a 3/1 for so long. Furthermore, I see it just being walled by 4/5 Tarmogoyfs all day long. It obviously should be tested, but I think Tombstalker is the better delve fatty. Treasure Cruise, on the other hand, I am casually optimistic about. A late game refill sounds great for a tempo deck.
I don't think Hooting Mandrills are better than Tombstalker, but then again they shouldn't be better than Tombstalker; they are significantly easier to cast so a drop in power is expected.
But this is Legacy, and as we all know, efficiency is worth a LOT when it comes to evaluating cards. The apes can be reliably cast on turn 2 if you build to do so (though like I said in an earlier post, this involves the likes of Thought Scour, so it might just be worse than a standard Brainstorm + Ponder, and cast it on turn 3). Costing one or two mana cheaper at all points in the game, and only one colored mana symbol cannot be understated though.
If Dig Through Time is real, I am significantly more excited about it. Seems better than Treasure Cruise.
Dig Through Time 6UU
Instant
Delve
Look at the top seven cards of your library. Put two of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
Despite the double blue, I think that instant speed is huge and selecting two cards out of seven is better than getting the top three. I can imagine this being good in combo decks. Perhaps Sneak&Show or Reanimator.
Eh, is it really fast enough for either of those decks? How many cards are you going to really have in your graveyard when you want to go off?
I like the idea of it in combo because you're usually missing one of two pieces, and EOT you can find the missing piece + disruption. I don't even think it's that slow considering cantrips, fetch lands, and discard spells that you're already running. It is particularly nice with Careful Study, which Reanimator already runs. The cost obviously is that it is one more card vulnerable to grave hate.
Good aggro creature, but I feel like legacy burn doesn't want more creatures. Goblin Guide + Eidolon are the core, and part of what makes burn so strong is making a lot of cards (removal, etc) in your opponents hands dead cards
I don't think the Scavenger compares as well to Tombstalker as Hooting Mandrills. Being in the same color means it's more directly competing with Tombstalker, and this fails to dodge Bolt like Tombstalker and Mandrills, while also trading with Delver. It's 1-2 mana cheaper than Tombstalker, costing the same as Mandrills, but I think the Mandrills are overall better for the same cmc.
I do hope they continue to use Delve throughout the block though, and hopefully give us some more aggressively costed Delve cards. Imagine if Scavenger or Mandrills costed even one less, it would be a massive increase in power and reliability.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned altar of the brood yet. There is a janky combo mill deck there. Something like eggs or cheerios could use this as a win-con... multiple altars stack, too.
How does Murderous Cut compare to Ghastly Demise, which conveniently forgets to hit Bob, Deathrite, Griselbrand, and Baleful Strix and has a slightly hard time killing Goyf and Knight of the Reliquary, but can't stand being in the same deck as Murderous Cut?
I'd rather use Ghastly Demise to kill Mom, Thalia, Delver, Noble Hierarch, and other 1-2-drop X/1's and X/2's, especially if I left all my Bolts in the deck.
Multiple Ghastly Demises also aren't as dead as multiple Murderous Cuts.
But if you can more readily activate Ferocious I think it can very much find a Legacy home.
Particularly, I think this could be exactly what an old, mostly forgotten archetype needs to maybe be relevant again.
Bant has really fallen by the wayside, but Goyf + KotR used to be a common pairing back in the day, and are probably the most reliable ways to activate Ferocious in the format.
As for Murderous Cut, I like it. I think it will find a home. It's never going to be a staple removal spell in the way that Bolt and Plow are, but it has its niche. As mentioned, this is exactly the kind of spell Grixis Delver variants have wanted. I've almost always had Dismember to supplement Bolt in my Grixis list, to handle threats like Goyf that Bolt can't hit. But Dismember has its flaws, particularly missing out on threats like large KotR's, and Griselbrands (and the occasional very large Goyf). I would definitely run Ghastly Demise in the place of Dismember if it could hit key cards like Bob, DRS, Germ tokens, and the like, but not hitting black creatures is relevant enough that it really makes Ghastly Demise a liability. I think one or two copies of Murderous Cut is very much worth testing.
Another thing to think of is how this will interact with other equipment and ways of pumping in general though. Stoneforge Mystic doesn't necessarily have to find Batterskull to help trigger Ferocity. A Jitte with a few counters does the job just fine. There can even be situations where you start your turn by swinging with a three power creature, trigger Exalted from Noble Heirarch, and now moving into your second main phase you have a Ferocity empowered Adamant Negation to protect whatever it is you are casting, a Jace for example, from opposing countermagic. In the blue mirror little tricks like that can be very game changing.
So far, Khans looks VERY promising for Modern and a bit less so for Legacy. For instance, I think most of the new Charms will find a home in Modern decks, but they're all too costly for Legacy. There are some niche cards for sure, like Hardened Scales, that might end up spawning something new and interesting. I don't think anything spoiled so far will have legs on it right away, though. There's no obvious "this is an eternal staple" card yet like Abrupt Decay.
It's a shame Delve is such a weak mechanic in multiples.
Otherwise I could see this being a fantastic threat, to run in the place of say, Nimble Mongoose. At four toughness and 6cmc it dodges Bolt and Abrupt Decay/Counterbalance/Engineered Explosives, and with trample it gets past TNN (not to mention it triggers Ferocious for aforementioned Adamant Negation).
Drawing more than one copy though is bound to be pretty rough though, unless you're running it alongside something like Thought Scour. Thought Scour enables the apes to be easily played turn 2, but now you're running Thought Scour... which likely makes this too cute.
Maybe there's some UGx brew that can pair the apes alongside a Stifle + Dreadnought with Vision Charm triggering Dreadnought and Delve (this exact deck already exists in a UBx shell and Tombstalker, maybe green has its advantages though). Dreadnought also triggers Adamant Negation which could be pretty good in the shell.
What I'm really excited for, now that it's nigh-confirmed, is Treasure Cruise. I am so slotting that into Grixis Delver (remove 13th creature and Fire // Ice). It might be playable in other U/x, non-Bob, non-Threshold, non-other Delve, non-Storm decks (heck, maybe High Tide may like it). Looks like decent sideboard material in Show and Tell and Reanimator decks.
It's definitely not surprising that Delve is the mechanic getting a lot of the buzz for Legacy playables, but it's a shame that Delve has such diminishing returns. It removes almost all of the potential for these cards to be anything aside from minor roleplayers. That, and the graveyard already has a lot of competition when it comes to using it as a resource.
a program of a slightly different strain.
Tonight my listeners, a new power will rise,
unleashed upon you all in this musical disguise.
Your cities turn to ash, for the broadcast is cursed.
The signal is peaking and can't be reversed.
If you choose my children, you can try to hide.
But I strongly suggest you run for your life."
-The Sermon 2, The Creepshow
But this is Legacy, and as we all know, efficiency is worth a LOT when it comes to evaluating cards. The apes can be reliably cast on turn 2 if you build to do so (though like I said in an earlier post, this involves the likes of Thought Scour, so it might just be worse than a standard Brainstorm + Ponder, and cast it on turn 3). Costing one or two mana cheaper at all points in the game, and only one colored mana symbol cannot be understated though.
Edit: Forget Reanimator, how about Omnitell?
Legacy Burn?
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/661941-list-of-stores-that-support-legacy
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28892-Compilation-Of-Legacy-Streams
I don't think the Scavenger compares as well to Tombstalker as Hooting Mandrills. Being in the same color means it's more directly competing with Tombstalker, and this fails to dodge Bolt like Tombstalker and Mandrills, while also trading with Delver. It's 1-2 mana cheaper than Tombstalker, costing the same as Mandrills, but I think the Mandrills are overall better for the same cmc.
I do hope they continue to use Delve throughout the block though, and hopefully give us some more aggressively costed Delve cards. Imagine if Scavenger or Mandrills costed even one less, it would be a massive increase in power and reliability.
Nah, how about turning their Emrakul's damage against them? Or making their Griselbrand dome them for 7 instead of dome you for 7 and heal them by 7?