MTG Salvation

Please do. The Breeding Pool / Grudge splash occurred to me as well, taking a page from the old UR Twin lists. But part of why I think straight UR is so attractive is the ease of the mana base. And once you've got Grudges in the side . . . why not Tarmogoyf in the main? Or Hooting Mandrills? And all of a sudden you're a RUG deck. Not that that's wrong, but just something to think about.

Ya, I second a report of this grudge experiment.

I also agree about the staying UR, but splashing one breeding pool for grudge is very low cost. Any maindeck green spells require at least 2, if not also a couple fastlands. Grudge has the advantage that you can actually cast it without green.

Personally, I think spree is still better generally, but grudge has almost no downside, so it shouldn’t be a problem at all.

Couple of questions of varying importance:

1. What's the general sideboard plan versus various popular decks? Seems like Shoal comes out quite a bit against stuff like Scapeshift, Tron, etc, but against something like Affinity where you want them still, what do you take out? Shaving threats seems rough in a threat-light list like this. Remand seems like a decent cut against aggro, especially if you're replacing them with Ceremonious Rejection or whatever.

2. What are you folks using for basics? I'm a nut for sweet basics. My cube has 35 of each basic, singleton-style, with Arena promos, all the full arts available, sweet old foils, Beta, Euro lands, etc. I fell in love with the Euro lands my last time playing Modern in 2014-2016 with Loam Pox, so I got to play gorgeous Swamps and a Forest.

Here's what I'm playing in this deck:

So I've been playing a fair bit online with the Ancient Grudge/Breeding Pool setup, and I am quite liking it.

There are maybe times where Shattering Spree will blow up more of Affinity's board, but Grudge generally takes care of the things we care about, while being resilient to discard/mill, and instant speed, which makes it that much better against the rest of the field.

There few scenarios that came up for me where having Spree wouldn't have cut it:
1. Being Thoughtseized by an Affinity player, and getting to blow up his Master of Etherium anyway.
2. Destroying Chalice at one.
3. Dealing with enough of parts of Wurmcoil Engine on it's own.
4. Breaking me out of the Lantern lock when I was otherwise stuck drawing lands.

There was one game against Affinity in which I needed a sweeper, but at that point my opponent had two Inkmoths, a Ravager, and several little dudes, so Spree wouldn't have got there either.

So far, I think the occasional extra life loss from playing an untapped Breeding Pool is worth Grudge's upsides.

As for post board against Affinity, I've been bringing in 2 Grudge, 2 Anger of the Gods, and 2 Ceremonious Rejection for 3 Vapor Snag, 2 Remand, and a Deprive.

My general approach to sideboarding:

And my basics of choice are the Arena Foil Urza's Saga lands. The art is so gorgeous, and I love them in foil.

Thanks for the sideboarding tips. And thanks for convincing me to try out a Deprive. I think there are some flex spots in the list, especially with the counter suite, and I'm just going to have a stack of cards to try out. Forked Bolt and Electroyze seem like options in certain metas, too.

What's your land base look like? I'm at 3 Tarns, 3 Deltas, 4 Canals, 3 Steam Vents, 4 Island, and 1 Mountain. I'd probably cut a Steam Vents for a Breeding Pool if I went that route, but could also see a case for cutting a Canal, an Island, or both and adding a 7th fetch.

I’m super stoked people are trying the list out. I have still been enjoying shoal, which is surprising because by now I usually ditch it in past lists. There are definitely flex slots, so keep testing!

One last thing: Spree does kill chalice, just FYI. All that being said, Grudge is one of the most powerful cards in modern for this meta, so it’s gotta be correct

Edit: I didn’t see your SB guide. This is pretty much how I have been boarding. My only note would be to shave random cards depending on the matchup. Like I’ll shave a chart a course against aggro, a swift spear against bigger creature decks on the draw, keep a snag in like you say for random matchups. Conversely, there are many matchups I’ll just bring in 1 instead of both SB cards

Like most delver lists, our library manipulation lets us see cards more often, so keep that in mind.

Yeah, there are a ton of cards to try for both main deck and sideboard depending on the meta. I do like Forked Bolt for metas with a lot of mana dorks etc, and having extra burn is nice when you need to dome your op. There could be a case for trying Logic Knot, though I prefer Leak in faster metas. I've even considered trying Dire Fleet Daredevil to get hard removal/extra burn against midrange and aggro. I've been taking note of Swiftspear's performance in general and comparing it mentally against how Daredevil would have been. I might also try it over Entrancing Melody in the board.

I'm at 8 fetches with Pool, it may be too many, but then it is nice to have the Delver scry effect with the shuffle though. The rest are 3 Steam Vents, 3 Island, 1, Mountain, 2 Spirebluff Canal, 1 Sulfur Falls. I'm still hovering between 17-18 lands total.

Ah! Of course! Nice catch on Spree/Chalice.

Yup I agree there are plenty of times where you might need to change up your sideboarding plans depending on what the opponent is running, whether you're on the draw or play etc. Another important example is leaving out Blood Moon game three if your opponent has seen it and/or is fetching around it. The above is really just a starting point; it's important to pay attention to your opponents deck and play, and adjust accordingly.

Edit: I'd say the common theme is that Vapor Snag, Disrupting Shoal, and Remand are the high variance cards, and tend to be either great or terrible depending on what your up against, so it's usually some combination of them that come out post board.

While I agree I can’t cut shoal fast enough in g2 sometimes, it’s funny that it can still win me some g1s against fair decks, just like with a timely FoW in legacy. I’ve been keeping it in a bit more on the draw against important 1 drops like vial or arbor elf/sprawl etc. And since I like NEVER cut chart a course, it’s never really a problem.

Otherwise, I totally agree. I’m not usually cutting much of anything else. Mostly shaving 1 of some 4 drop, like a snappy when I bring in cage, etc.

You can kind of add bolt to that list, cause I do cut it completely sometimes, but a couple always seem to stay in for the reach.

Edit: As for mana bases, I think 4 canal is super important. 2 vents/1 pool split. I personally would not play falls because I regularly keep 1 hand lands. 7 fetch, 3/1 island/mountain.

Edit2: Another card I’ve been wanting to test is Harvest Pyre over Melody as well. I feel like this card gets forgotten a lot because of delve in grixis being a nonbo, but we can definitely abuse it!

(LOL autocorrect changed “grixis being a nonbo” to “grifos being a bimbo”. Oh Grifos, such a bimbo)

Edit 3: I kinda forgot about it when I was writing, so don't forget you can hard cast shoal

Yeah, Shoal stays when there are important one drops, like you say. In the Aether Vial matchups it's the more expensive counters that I tend to cut. Do you ever keep Shoal on the play against Grixis Shadow btw? I feel like the tempo can be important and, hard cast, it will counter everything but the delve threats later. Speaking of hard casting it, I had a match against some Mardu list in which I hard cast Shoal to counter Stormbreath Dragon twice, which is kind of crazy for a deck with so few lands. The power of cantrips.

I practically never cut Chart either, since we need all the card drawing we can get at 18 lands.

I often find that there is something worse than Bolt to cut, and it's fairly common that the match ups are when it's dead as a removal spell are the same that you need to close the game quickly, Bolt-Snap-Bolt is still a great finisher. I have boarded it out against Through the Breach since they were running Leyline of Sanctity.

I agree my mana base needs improvement, I guess I was worried about not having an untapped mana source on turn four when I need to Snap-Leak or something.

Harvest Pyre seems worth testing. We are not yet maximising the use of our graveyard, and the deck does struggle to remove bigger creatures. EDIT: Seems like a hilarious answer to Goyf. Maybe not as good as stealing it with Melody though

I usually leave 2 shoals in against GDS for the reasons you mention. Countering an early shadow is great.

Pyre just seems nice against the small handful of creatures like delve, eldrazi etc that we can sometimes have trouble with.

I continue to be impressed. I think this general shell has some legs.

I think I'm going to try out a bunch of singletons in the board to see what I want to play more density of. Harvest Pyre is a great find, especially since it's an unused resource for us. I know I'm going to need at least one sweeper and probably two in my the local meta, but I'm not sure if Pyroclasm or Anger of the Gods is going to be better. I've even toyed with the idea of a singleton Bonfire, since we can set it up with Serum Visions, and even Miracle it on opponent's turn if we hit it with Opt. That's probably about 95% too cute, though. Not sure how much grave hate to pack locally, though I'm inclined toward at least 2 and probably 3 cards. Cages are probably good but I'm also interested in Surgical Extraction for the free Pyromancer token. Two Blood Moons for sure, and possibly also a Crumble to Dust if Tron is huge, because **** Tron. Ceremonious Rejection could be as many as 3, I think. And definitely two pieces of artifact hate, and I'll probably join you all on the Ancient Grudge plan.

Fifteen cards just isn't that many, but we're actually a little better off than many other decks because we get to see way more of ours in most games.

What have you all found the nightmare matchups to be? The board looks flexible enough to have game against most things, but I imagine traditional Jund with its infinite removal isn't great. But Chart a Course seems great against them, too. My previous Modern decks, Loam Pox and 8 Rack, were dogs to Tron, whereas this seems much better.

I personally use Anger as a sweeper since 2 vs 3 damage can be significant sometimes, and the exile is nuts vs Dredge. I run a couple of Cages too, they just shut down Dredge, and are pretty easy for us to protect. They're also pretty decent against UR storm, but that match up is laughably easy already. Haven't tried Crumble against Tron, but I'd worry that it might sometimes be too slow to make a difference given our land count. I am up to 3 Rejection, as it's just a great card to have against various flavours of Tron, Affinity, Lantern etc.

Speaking of Tron, this is one of the match ups I've been struggling with. It just seems that our clock isn't fast enough to close games before something back breaking comes down, and we have a lot of dead cards game one. Then again, sometimes we go Delver into Swiftspear and just burn them out before they do anything relevant.

I've found Humans tough too. They have Cavern and sometimes Vial, so they can produce explosive draws that can be hard to catch up to when all we have for removal is Bolt. I guess I don't have a refined plan against them yet. Anger and Melody help postboard but I'm not sure if we should be playing Moon to turn our counters back on, or Grudge for Vial, and potentially board out our Swiftspears since they won't be getting in for much. Anyone got any advice for this match?

I've actually felt ok against Jund as they don't interact with the stack, so it's all about protecting a Pyro until the tokens take over. Abrupt Decay is rough, but you can Vapor Snag Pyro to save him from it, and Chart keeps you ahead on cards. Post board, Blood Moon is a beating for them, and taking a Goyf with Entrancing Melody is a beautiful thing.

This is classic delver. Great against combo, can go toe to toe with midrange, struggles with creature matchups. And, well, Tron is just Ton, the bane of any relatively fair deck.

I actually think running more 1 ofs in the board is the right direction.

As for Humans, I run pithing needle, so I do bring in moon. Anger is great for this and I’m starting to run 1 because I think it’s necessary (cut a truth from my original list).

As for Tron, I also run disdainful stroke, which I think is amazing. Pithing needle is also a way to shut down karn/ugin.

Those are two cards I think you cut, Trinket, which help in these matchup specifically.

Burn is also a tough matchup but I think we have enough with everything to just cross fingers and pray. The only thing I may suggest is possibly life goes on or something if you really need it for your metagame. Stuff like dragon claw is not good

Edit: one last thing, I know Mike had mentioned not wanting to cut threats cause there are so few, but honestly, in big creature matchups where Your opp is very likely to easily block swiftsepar, she is mostly a blank until you go for an alpha, so shaving there I think is important. You basically want to control what they do at first, then ride a delver or peezy to victory.

Edit 2: gotta say, Melody has been only good and pretty much never bad, so I feel like 1 is definitely correct. I just played against Jund last night and they had a discard spell pretty much every turn. Drew into chart a course into 2 more chart a courses (one of which I immediately cast) and it was pretty much game over.

I do run 2 Disdainful Stroke still, I like it against Scapeshift as well as Tron, plus it counters Though the Breach, Ad Nauseum, Cryptic Command, Seige Rhino. There are plenty of matches where it's pretty good.

So against Tron, I have the option of 2 Grudge, 3 Rejection, 2 Moon, and 2 Stroke.
I haven't tried Pithing Needle - I could see cutting a Rejection for one.

Boarding Swiftspear out sometimes makes sense. It's not a great blocker and in creature heavy matches, it just isn't getting through their defences.

EDIT: I think a large part of being successful with any deck is down to correctly assessing your role (beatdown or control) in each match. This is particularly important and nuanced with Delver since it can not only function as bitg aggressor and controller, but can also switch roles mid game, so knowing when to hold back and when to go for the jugular can be as important as which cards you bring in post board.

Your edit is so true. The absolute hardest decisions are, "do I wait on a threat so I can disrupt something that I won't be able to come back from and get land drops so I can do both later on, or do I just jam and try to eke out as much damage before the bolt snap bolt."

I tend to the control side with this deck because it can turn the corner so quickly. The real question is, "If I disrupt now, will they fizzle enough to give me time to turn the corner and beat them in a couple of turns, or will it just be a temporary road block until they overwhelm me?" The more your disruption is just a temporary roadblock, the more you have to commit threats and tempo them out.

This is why creature decks are the hardest to beat; they will just keep playing creatures and overwhelm you. The only way to beat these decks g1 is to land a delver to fly over and manage the board with peezy tokens, or just race hard and early hoping to top deck the bolt snap bolt. Save removal for flying creatures in Humans, vapor snag for everything else.

Edit: I just want to point out that Shoal is so good because it allows you to do both. It’s not so much that it’s power level was ever doubted, it was always the disadvantage it put you at after. Chart essentially negates that downside.

Got to shuffle up and play my first game today, just testing with a friend who played Green Devotion. I went 1-2 in the games. Game 1 was close, but I ran out of Remands for his Genesis Waves and got Hoofed out for like 48. Game 2 I put a ton of pressure on with Swiftspears, Vapor Snags, a Serum Visions, and a Lightning Bolt. Was all over on turn 4. Game 3 I mulled to 6 and kept a hand without much pressure and eventually got run over again.

I learned some things about the deck. Planning to take it to my first Modern FNM in two years this week. We'll see how it goes.

Hey guys. Been lurking this thread for a good while and have been playing this deck for about 3 months now if not more. I've been having a lot of success at FNM, but I'd love to get some help with the sideboard. As it stands, the board does well enough, except I don't have a chance in hell against Affinity. I'm probably going to try the Grudge plan for next FNM.

list here

Any other suggestions are also, of course, welcome.

Quote from Prince87 »

Set adrift is good card in our deck,bounce big permament like planeswalker or big creature sounds good.
I.don't know if i'll play again ur delver because i'm building mono u delver with 4 psionic blast maindeck and 4 thing in the ice.
However....
Round 1 won 2-0 against ur breach
Round 2 won 2-0 vs vizier.company
Round 3 won 2-0 vs jeskai control, chart of course was mvp
Round 4 won 2-1 vs ur kiki
Round 5 and 6 i.d
Top8 easy vs mono green tron
Split top4

Could I see you mono U list?

I went 2-0-1 at my first FNM in 2 years tonight.



Round 1 was against a guy who almost always plays Soul Sisters, but he was on a RUG Assault Formation list with Ornithopter and Goldnight Castigator. Seemed like a sweet brew, really, but I drew well in game 1 and flipped 2 Delvers by turn 3 and finished him with a Vapor Snag for the last point. Game 2 I kept an iffy mull to 6 with 3 fetches, Bolt, Snag, and Chart a Course. Scryed a Swiftspear and drew another one and rode them to victory with two Bolts and a Chart a Course somewhere in there.

Round 2 I was against the slowest player I've ever even heard of. He was on a Naya Zoo list with Nacatl, Goyf, Swiftspear, and Rancor. Game 1 I lost steam after some Remands, Snags, whatever, and couldn't get a threat to stick long enough to do much. Game 2, after siding in Anger, Melody, and Blood Moons, I played the control game after a mull to 6. I Entrancing Melody'd his Nacatl, which after hitting him once, he Pathed. So that was super fun. Eventually I went all the way down to 3 but with options in my hand. Epic misplay: He attacks with a Swiftspear and two cards in hand. I had 2 Islands and a Polluted Delta available. I go to fetch so I can flash in Snapcaster to block and Opt to try to set up a way to win, only to realize all my Islands are on the field. Ended up getting Breeding Pool tapped and not flashing back anything, but I did eat his last threat. Turn the corner the next turn, when I went Pyromancer into several cantrips and a Bolt, and killed him two turns later. We were just shuffling up for a third game when time was called, so we drew. Apparently this guy is notorious around the shop for being slow. Like, I hardcast Disrupting Shoal on a Swiftspear, and he kept trying to pay 1, as if it were some Mana Leak variant. I kept reading the card to him, handed him the card, got two other players, and he just didn't grasp it for like a minute. Every play was agonizingly slow. I was very polite, let him have the prize pack rather than flipping a coin for it, but did say to the employee running the event that we really need a chess clock. I would've won this match on MTGO.

Round 3 I get paired with a guy on an odd RW burn list with Boros Reckoner. Guy's mostly a standard player, and when I laid an Island, he did the sigh thing. Seems like he was having a bad night. Fought through a bunch of Bolts and Helixes and finally managed to get a Pyromancer to stick and protect it with Disrupting Shoal. Game 2 was a quick one where I got two Pyromancers and ran him over in about five turns, although he was tilted pretty hard at the end and feeling sorry for himself and scooped a turn before I had lethal. Sick of getting his stuff countered, he said. But he was sick of the BR Hollow One deck he had just lost to, too, so he was just salty all the way around.

Takeaway: next time I'd like to get paired against the Death Shadow, Affinity, Jund, Elves, Tron, or Mardu decks I saw. I played against two brews and won pretty handily, and felt really good about beating Zoo in 3 if my opponent hadn't taken for literal ever to play his cards. But the deck seems sweet. Chart a Course feels great, even if you have to discard a card for a prowess trigger. Shoaling something when you're tapped out feels insane, and Chart helps the card disadvantage. At times I wished I had another threat, and maybe I'll cut a Snag to add in something like Nimble Obstructionist, Vendilion Clique, or maybe even Bedlam Reveler as a 16th creature. But it feels really good getting to see half the deck in the grindy games, more or less ensuring you'll hit many of your sideboard bullets.

tldr: smashed jank with sweet blue cards, and slow players suck.

Quote from TheAller »

Has anyone of you guys ever tried playing UR Delver...with no Delvers?

Well, it seems someone had the same idea, since a U/R Thing/Pyromancer deck has gone undefeated at the Pro Tour. The list is available here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptrix/r14-vieren-vs-depraz-2018-02-03