MTG Salvation

Quote from sirdanile »

If you're playing heavy on the abbot wouldn't it be a good idea to reduce the number of counters in favor of discard spells?

so spell pierce and snare would become duress or thoughtseize.

That seems like it could be pretty good. I'll try running two copies of a discard card and see how it feels. The tempo loss from discard effects kind of sucks, but in moderation it should be serviceable.

Quote from Redvader »

Quote from Spooly »

Hey guys, I'm experimenting with Delver lists again after playing Grixis Contol for awhile and then just not playing for awhile. I have a couple of ideas, but the snag I keep running into is how to beat Grixis Control. What do you guys think about the matchup? Is it close? What do you think the key cards are?

Hey Spooly, welcome back! I personally feel the matchup is about 55/45 in our favor vs control since we have cheaper threats and can get the ball rolling faster than control. Key spells in the matchup for us is Kommand, spell pierce, snapcaster, and deprive. The winner in this matchup is normally the better player, but we have more access to our entire deck quicker than control does so i feel we are a little more favored. Also Young Pyromancer is a house in the matchup if you can protect it the first few turns because normally i see opponents bring in spot removal rather than anger of the gods or damnation against us since we have cheap counter magic to battle those.

I've suspected Young Pyromancer was key in the matchup - and there's my problem. I was trying a sort of hybrid between the delve(r) lists I was playing earlier in the season and the standard delver lists - 6 delve fatties, 2 stubborn denial, 0 young pyro. General note: the heavy delve versions are pretty poor against Grixis Control because they're positioned just underneath the control deck and can't compete with their card advantage.

I'm playing in a pptq this weekend and am probably playing a similar list to yours and TheAller's, though I'll have 2 Bitterblossom in the SB most likely. That card has been impressing me in the fair matchups / vs. intense graveyard hate.

I bring in 2 dispel and 1 kommand and take out 1 forked bolt and 2 spell snare. Snare comes out since it only hits snapcaster where dispel hits everything else. Kommand for grinding instead of forked bolt since it only hits snap and clique.

Snare also hits Terminate, and a few of their counters - Remand, Negate, Countersquall, and Leak if they leave it in. That's 8+ targets, and given the importance of Snapcaster Mage it seems worth it. I obviously haven't played the matchup as much as you and am working mostly on theory here so I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I don't understand it.

Dispel hits all those targets as well. Snare only hits 1 thing that dispel doesn't, and thats snapcaster. Also dispel hits cryptic, electrolyze, kommand, etc. So overall its a better spell to have in the matchup

Hello, I'm new to this forum and the deck. I was wondering what are grixis delver's matchups like with the most popular decks such as splintertwin, abzan, jund, grixis control, tron, amulet bloom, affinity and elves. Also, does having a sideboard that turns us into a closer to grixis control list make any of our matchups better?

Quote from Redvader »

Dispel hits all those targets as well. Snare only hits 1 thing that dispel doesn't, and thats snapcaster. Also dispel hits cryptic, electrolyze, kommand, etc. So overall its a better spell to have in the matchup

Yeah, Dispel is great against them. But why not both?

My pptq didn't go as well as TheAller's - started off 2-0 beating Ad Nauseum and Jund, then lost two straight probable win and ins (5 rounder) to Living End and 4 Color Loam. The lost to loam was laughable - mull to 5 game 2, then mull to 6 keep 1 land Delver game 3, Delver doesn't flip and I don't draw lands for several turns. The 1 of Sulfur Falls kept forcing either awkward keeps or otherwise unnecessary mulligans (1 land Sulfur Falls hands on the draw). Young Pyromancer was an all star though. I just wished I hit land drops more consistently. Bitterblossom was an interesting SB card - I brought it in for random removal against Ad Nauseum just to have another threat, and that ended up being very important. I also brought it in against Jund, but he had Illness of the Ranks. But he also mulled to 5 so it didn't matter. Brought it in against Living End, against for random worthless cards and to add more threats, and against Loam it came in as well. Brought it in all 4 matches and outside of the surprise Illness, was happy with it every time.

SCG Premium just dropped some content with grixis Delver, anyone with premium want to give a quick rundown as to what happened? http://www.starcitygames.com/article/31250_BBD-VS-Brad-Grixis-Delver-VS-Naya-Company.html#comments

So why Grixis Delver over Grixis Control? Brad Nelson and BBD seem convinced that Grixis Delver is better because it is more able to kill you. They like Twin and Delver over control, actually.

could you give a quick rundown as to what happened in the video? or what they said at the end? My favorite pros are for certain BBD and Bard Narson so I want their opinion on the deck. Also do you know what the list for delver was?
EDIT: Thanks @SirPatman for the quick rundown. Do you know of any place we can watch it without premium or we just have to wait until next month for it on SCG's youtube channel?

I've seen some talk about Mulldrifter in the sideboard, and it looks like it's the best option for a midrangy, value card. Threads can get Abrupt Decay'd, Ashiok can just fall short from variance or a difficult to answer board from your opponent, Jace AoT is secretly a bad card and no one really knows why we keep playing it, and Keranos costs five which can be tough and incentivize you top lands on Serum Visions you may not need.

Mulldrifter allows you to develop some card advantage earlier in mid stage of the game when you're digging for an answer and don't quite have five lands yet, then later you have the option to K Command it back and cast it for full value. Seems a little cute, but the options are slim for a card that isn't too expensive for the mana base. I'd be interested to hear if any of you all have tried it out.

I took a Delver list out for a spin a few nights ago at the LGS. It was my first time with the list, and with Modern in general, though it does feel oddly familiar to play after watching so many videos. We had about 40 people there for the event, and I was rockin' this number:


I've been mostly building the deck via trades, so some pieces are missing. The land base is obviously light on fetches, although it did cause someone to Ghost Quarter my Watery Grave, thinking I had milled my only Swamp. The sideboard is lacking some powerful pieces, like Blood Moon and Spellskite, but it performed fairly well.

Round 1 I faced Jeskai Midrange/Countrol. Geist of Saint Traft is a beating, and I lost fairly quickly to one the first game. I brought in Rough//Tumble to combat it, and that plan worked well game 2. Game 3 ended up with a Geist and a Tasigur racing each other, but I sculpted my hand into 3 Bolts, a Kommand, and a Dispel to stop his Lightning Helix and managed to burn him out.

Round 2 was against UR Delver. It was a pretty classic example of why I prefer Grixis to Izzet: Both games I eventually landed a Tasigur through Snags and Remands and then beat him to death with a 4/5 he had no answer to. Also activating Tasigur 3 turns in a row feels rather dirty.

Round 3 I matched up against BW tokens, and was destroyed in 2 games. I made a large mistake game 1, when I Kommanded back a Pyromancer, but missed the Snapcaster in my grave that could have Flashbacked a Forked Bolt to stabilize. I definitely felt like the underdog in these games, and feel like a Staticaster in the board would help a lot.

Round 4 paired me with an Abzan Melira/Anafenza Podless deck. Game 1 I had to mull to 5, but I had 2 Delvers and a Mana Leak to stop an early Finks, and the Delvers quickly flipped and beat him to death. Game 2 was a grandfest that was ended by him reaching infinite life. Game 3 saw him mulling to 5, and a quick Probe revealed he had kept Seer, Seer, Wall, Finks, Anafenza, and then drew into 2 lands! However, I landed a turn 2 Angler and had the disruption to stop him, ending the game a few attacks later.

I have to say, this deck is the most fun I've had playing Magic. As a Standard player, I was blown away at times by the complexity of play that Modern brings, and Delver's interactive style and ability to switch between aggressive and controlling play made it a real blast. I can't wait to give it another spin (and finish out that land base and sideboard)!

I will try Mulldrifter and see if he is worth a slot. Kommand ir great in that matchup, but additional cards are needed.the problem i see is that the power level of our cards is lower than in Grixis control, so maybe the draw 2 may not be enough to justify its inclusion in a shell like ours.

I highly doubt mulldrifter is worth anything to us, Hardcasting mulldrifter always feels bad, he dilutes the instant/sorcery count of our deck making delver less likely to flip, even if you draw 2 with him it costs as much as a Kommand.



Compare to Kommand which can retrieve snapcasters from our graveyard, burn out creatures and destroy artifacts, or even lock an opponent out of their main step with an instant speed discard should they be topdecking.



If I wanted a sorcery speed 2 for 1 i'd consider blightning over this card.

Mulldrifter is interesting, but we don't want Divination in our deck against GBx decks. We don't mind trading 1 for 1 as much, but we need to lock them down before they can do the same to us. So thats why i am trying out Deathmark again for that matchup. Here is my new list that I plan on using when i get some time to play.

Pretty much same as the previous list, just without rakdos charm in favor of deathmark. I love the list as is right now, but some additional hate towards GBx decks is needed. Thinking about removing 1 probe in the main, moving kommand in its place to make it a 2 of main, and re-adding rakdos charm to the side, but i don't think i need the charm right now with the way my deck is situated against twin, grishoalbrand, and affinity. If dredge vine becomes a thing at my shop or online, then i will do that in a heartbeat, but for now i like the setup.

I personally prefer dismember over go for the throat for flexibility. It avoids Spell snare, grows death's shadow, and can be casted for 1 mana IF necessary. It kills everything that matters in the format right now since just about nothing has more than 5 toughness that we care about. Also it can be used against affinity as well, so thats another plus right there. Go for the throat has the benefit of getting around spellskite and kills things with 6+ toughness, but we already have murderous cut and terminate to take care of anything like that.

Why isn't Inquisition of Kozilek being run in the current meta? I've been thinking of dropping the fourth Probe and fitting in two Inquisitions main. Any reasoning as to not?

I've just gotten back into Magic after a while, and I traded into Grixis Delver. Here's the list I've been playing, I'd like feedback on the deck, feel free to point out anything you feel I need to change, but I'd like a lot more feedback on the sideboard. I haven't really taken this to any competitive events, just tested against friends, so I have really no idea what my sideboard needs to look like.

I see a lot of lists running a single murderous cut in the main, how has that been working out for everyone?
I don't like it but I can't find anything wrong with it, I suppose it does dodge spell snare unlike terminate and doesn't cost life like dismember would, but it does eat up our graveyard some and we already use our grave a lot with snapcasters and angler/tasigur.

Murderous Cut can also kill Master of Waves, and basically nothing else in the deck does.

Quote from Ponger »

Why isn't Inquisition of Kozilek being run in the current meta? I've been thinking of dropping the fourth Probe and fitting in two Inquisitions main. Any reasoning as to not?

Main reason not to run Inquisition is that it is tempo negative. You really only want discard effects against combo and control decks, where we are already preferred against them. Trading 1 for 1 against harder decks like jund, junk, affinity, etc. is not what we need to do to win against them. If you plan on dropping a probe, use the slot for something that can be tempo positive or a 2 for 1 like forked bolt or kolaghan's command.

Quote from sirdanile »

I see a lot of lists running a single murderous cut in the main, how has that been working out for everyone?
I don't like it but I can't find anything wrong with it, I suppose it does dodge spell snare unlike terminate and doesn't cost life like dismember would, but it does eat up our graveyard some and we already use our grave a lot with snapcasters and angler/tasigur.

If you are running enough spells to enter the graveyard, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to cast both cut and tasigur/angler. You have to manage your graveyard a little more thoughtfully though, thinking ahead a few turns in how you want to make sure your hand plays out. But it has the capacity to be casted without a single red source, making the manabase less strained and can be casted for 1 if necessary.

I take it your sideboard is mainly just what you have instead of what you are currently using at the moment. If you want to see a few test sideboards, mine is on a little before your post, and there should be other builds here as well within the last few pages. I also give a detailed list of what cards i recommend on page 76, since most of the cards you have here are on the list. If you have questions about specific cards, go ahead and post here on the card and thoughts on it