1X Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
10x fetch
8x fetchables
Sideboard
4X death's shadow
2x Engineered explosives
2x Anger of the Gods
2x Spellskite
1x Vendillion Clique
1x Kolaghan's command
1x Rakdos Charm
1x Jace, architect of thought
1x Slaughter Games
Some positive thoughts:
-I really like the gameplan which is essentialy to play unfair magic: A turn 2 4/5 or 5/5 with disruption up.
-I'm personally a big fan of lilly, suprised so few people play her. Turn 2 fatty with a turn 3 lilly gives so much board presence it's almost always over.
-I have yet to lose a game against twin. They just start crying when tasigur comes out. We have all the awnsers
some negative:
-What i don't like is the lack of evasiveness of the fatty's. This is why i still am an big advocate of hooting mandrills in RUG. Lingering souls is such a pain. I could play forked bolt, but it's just as half of an awnser as stubborn denial or inquisition would be. I'm not sold yet.
-the deck doesn't like value creatures. The reason why i haven't won a tournament with this yet, is cause collected company is such a hard fight and CC is about half the meta here for some reason (pod was also very big).
some thoughts on specific cards:
-The deck is like a brick wall that has a few openings, but those openings let through things like wurmcoil engine for example. Clique is there to remove those few cards that have been spotted by probe or iok.
-I think death's shadow will increase in importance once grave hate becomes a thing again. And i think in time, it will.
-Rakdos charm gets a spot for it's artifact removal ability, but also for some goyf shrinkage and mirror match.
-Jace, architect of thought is a card i play against martyr proc. This deck has a very good plan b against me which is just to fly over with 1/1's and beat me slowly to death while hiding behind lifegain and path to win the race.
-anger of the gods is against collected company decks, but also works fine against alot of other small creature decks.
some questions:
-should i play blood moon? Maybe i should, I just always feel people that can play magic are so prepared for that card.
-should i play delver of snapcaster? Playing delver feels weird since there are so many other things to do turn one...It feels it doesn't contribute to the unfair magic plan.. but; playing delver makes them keep relatively poor removal post-board and it is evasive!
Read this post. As it is you're playing a strictly worse Grixis Delver. Or, you're playing Grixis Delver, but without its best card. It's like playing Abzan without Siege Rhino.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
to be honest, i am not playing delver. I think its weird that the delve and delver lists are both in this thread. The cards may overlap, but the gameplan is vastly different. My main goal is to get a turn 2 big creature backed with counter or discard effect. If I want to play a turn one delver, I want to hold up a counter turn 2 and swing for the win. I dont see how these rime.
Ps; i do see it for rug though, but grixis delve an grixis delver have almost nothing in common beside the coincidence of the name of an ability looking like the name of a creature that names the deck. The delve list derives from Chapain, where does he say he had anything with delver or its strategy?
Esper Delve is a worse version of Grixis Delve, which is a worse version of Grixis Delver. Grixis Delve is just Grixis Delver without its best threat. Delver of Secrets is the card that best executes Grixis Delve's gameplan, so not running him is just wrong. More analogies: it's like running a Naya Zoo deck with a bunch of big creatures (Smiter, Knight) and mana dorks and no Wild Nacatl. Sure, your ideal game goes dork, three-drop, but Nacatl is still the best single card at executing your primary plan, which is beating up opponents with early, efficient creatures.
You say your gameplan is "completely different," but it's actually exactly the same - land an early threat and disrupt your opponent until that threat kills him. Delver epitomizes this strategy. Your failure to acknowledge that the decks have the same goals betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the archetype.
If we had a Grixis Delve thread, it would be dead in a couple months as each of its posters realized they weren't playing the deck's best card and migrated over to the Grixis Delver thread. But let's keep this conversation productive. Can you think up any reasons to not play Delver in this deck? Surely you can since you're not playing him, so do you mind sharing?
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
That's about what I've been playing as well. Kommand is crazy flexible, but I don't want more than 1 unless I think the matchup will be a grindfest.
Unrelated question: my meta has a few burn, a Merfolk, some Bloom Titans, a Mardu Tokens (which is sometimes Bogles depending on what my friend wants to play that day), a Zooish deck, a Twin and a couple Jeskai that are sometimes other stuff.
Keeping this in mind, I'm fairly certain that switching tot he all in Delve version is better. Pyromancer just hasn't been cutting it for me, and landing delve guys early and keeping up mana seems like the best shot for me.
@nerdsfearme to @ashtonkutcher 's point. The goal of this deck and archetype spanning different formats is simple, protect the Queen and tempo them out. Delver in the heavier Delve builds is still by far the best worst card. An opening hand of Delver, Delver, Serum Visions, Island, Fetch, Remand, Bolt can often be game over, the card has some % of free wins in the same respect as blood moon. The fact that we're playing 4/5s and 5/5s as one and two drops respectably is more of the same. Delver is good and he is good across a lot of matches in the dark but having the ability to side him out and make a fair amount of your opponents draws dead is the beauty of delve and one of the best things about this deck.
As for Kommand vs. Electrolyze, personally I moved away from Electrolyze and a lesser extent Izzet Charm because we're pushing so much in the 'yard that being able to raise dead and discard or deal two is worth more to me than a random card drawn from the deck or the occasional 3-1 blow outs against dorks.
Hey guys i could use some assistance on my twin matchup. I know we are supposed to be favored yet i am having trouble in that matchup in particular. So my question is: how would you sideboard this matchup with this deck i used in the quote? also should i replace siege with say Jace, Architect of thought or some other card advantage engine? Any assistance for this match would be really helpful since i know how to beat twin, but i can't figure out the sideboard trade ins for the match.
Anyone wanna lend a helping hand? Also if possible what cards do we want to see in our opening hand if possible against twin? I feel comfortable vs combo in general but as we all know twin is not any normal combo deck.
@kutcher; My ideal line of play is a turn 2 big creature with a one mana negate up. My deck has no counterpackage to support delver. Sure, I could play delver, but by deciding that I would end up with a whole different list. Which would be Grixis delver, which you claim without doubt is better then Grixis delve. I'm not convinced yet. Jusf adding delver would be..To stay in your Ananalogies: like playing Wild Nacatl without plains.
I disagree with the statement that Delver is by no doubt the best card of the deck. I'm not so sure a possible 3/2 flyer on turn 2 is better then a 5/5. Mainly since the 5/5 dodges so much removal. I think grixis delve needs some tweaking still, cause it has its issues and I don't see these issues discussed here cause it are other issues then delver has. Why? Cause it's a different approach.
For the record, you do run 4 Stubborn Denial. Following the analogy, the "Plains" here is more counterspells. In Zoo, splashing a Plains is super easy. Similarly, adding Leaks to the deck is super easy. You just cut Liliana and a pair of Snaps. I think there's a lot more tempo to be gained from Delver + Mana Leak than there is from Snapcaster + Liliana, which follow more of a control approach. Are you a Control deck or a Tempo deck? Grixis Delve is stuck in the middle, and is worse for it. The colors have enough quality threats (Delver, Tasigur, Angler) to play a streamlined Tempo strategy, and I'm fairly confident diluting that strategy for some midrange cards is incorrect when you have the option not to.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
If you cut Lili and MD discard you would have room for both delver and remand. I play a heavy delve list and refuse to play MD discard because it goes against what this deck is trying to do, drop a threat and protect it cheaply.
The discard does protect your threat, and it has the bonus of fueling the fatty you're putting into play. Playing an angler with mana leak backup for example actually costs 2 more mana than one if you lead with inquisition instead. Not saying that the counters are bad, it's just that I don't think you are giving the discard enough credit when like you said, your whole gameplan is trying to play your threat and protect it. Discard in the normal delver isn't good, but in the delve build I think it is fits the game plan.
I'm positive the Delve build also oozes tempo. From the start, a month or so ago, Durdward's Grixis Delve list seemed appealing to me because it felt "different" and there was smtg to it. But playing the deck, I quickly figured that Liliana was the weak link in she made us switch to control (and heavier black commitment) where all you really could do is hold up countermagic and ride the thing home. Snappy and Denial quickly became BFFs, Baubles were dropped because inconsistency, and just lately Im finding out that @Ashton_Kutcher is right: Delver is a VERY valuable asset.
- Wins games on its own. Evasive flies over clogged boards. Super reliable with half the deck inst./sorc.
- Because of this, Delver is a must-answer card. If they don't answer it, they'll lose. IMPORTANT friggin' NOTE: I dont think we NEED a T2 Fattie to win. E: Don't get me wrong, with Denial (or IoK to an extent) its super good to do so when you can. But in fact, oftentimes landing a T3 Fattie with the right spell combination back-up rather than tapping out blindly ASAP, will be the correct line of play. Given: we *are* explosive enough. Now we need *Consistent* too. Come again: in my experience, the spell combination we're holding up (and our abilty to cast it along the Fattie) is far more important than the time of deployment being turn two or three. So the turn one we may sometimes spend casting a Delver of Secrets is not much detrimental to our Delve Fattie gameplan, I believe. Casting a Delver is a question we ask: "do you have the bolt or decay?" If they do, and spend their turn and mana on dealing with Delver, then you can just go on with your fully-functionnal Fattie plan. But if they don't, they can just lose.
- You can do the bait-n-switch and still benefit from most forms of removal immunity g2 and 3 if you so wish.
- Running a one mana, depend-on-nothing (GY independant) threat improved your Blood moon plan a great deal. Also, going a bit blue-er (w/ mana leak, for instance), fits with running more basic islands, also improving our moon game. And painlessness of the mana-base for against burn. Just an edge im noticing.
TD;LR Delve and Delvers are bothtempo decks. I believe Spooly's hybrid of going full fatty with a Delver of Secrets splash, is a winner. Am on board.
For the record, I think Delver is the worst creature in my build - I've said this since the beginning. It turns on their Decays, Bolts, Searing Blazes, etc, and is very inconsistent about flipping. It forces you into playing a certain way which is detrimental in Abzan, Jund, and Wilt-leaf Abzan matchups. I still think it's worth playing and have gotten a lot of free wins from T1 Delver + countermagic*, but other times he's been awful.
*You haven't lived until you play T1 Delver on the play, they play a land and pass, then Delver flips and you get to Denial their bolt. This shouldn't happen, but no one plays around force spike in modern.
I also don't think that we know whether Grixis Delve(r) is better than Grixis Delve or whether Grixis Delve is in turn better than Esper Delve. If Abzan is everywhere, for example, both delve builds will be far superior because of that matchup. Esper, in particular, crushes it (according to Chapin). I'm not sure anyone has even been testing & playing Esper, so it's hard to point at the lack of results and say anything meaningful. And the Grixis Delve lists are still very different from the Delve(r) lists - they're basically Junding with more resilient threats and a bit of countermagic whereas the Delve(r) lists are going all in on tempo. They're not easily comparable because of this. Without more extensive testing / results it's hard to say what is better.
Edit: What I guess I'm trying to say is, while I tentatively agree that Grixis Delve(r) is the way to go, there's no way to be very certain in that conclusion, and still lots of exploration around these archetypes left to do. This modern format is young - it hasn't really adapted to delve, Collected Company, or Atarka's Command yet. Collected Company Abzan is very good, and that Elves list is also scary in it's own way. I half think little zoo will take over the format now that it has Atarka's Command, becoming the premiere aggro deck in place of burn and affinity, and we're all still debating the best way to abuse delve. And we're not even going that deep - Golgari Grave Troll is a card you can play in this format. We don't really know what the best decks are - it will probably take 2+ GPs/PTs to really figure that out. All we really have is some vague impressions based on experience with older modern formats, a modicum of experience with this format, mtgo, and a few low stakes paper tournaments. Trying to confidently assert anything about the new decks is hubris. We're far better off in exploration mode, trying a bunch of things out to see what works, than we are focusing on one shell to expense of everything else. If I had the time I'd be testing Esper, Grixis, Temur, and Sultai delve and Delve(r) variants on top of what I'm already playing.
I'm probably playing in a small modern tournament tonight, going to try a 12 cantrip, 4 IoK, 1 Electrolyze list with 2 Olivia in the SB. We'll see how it goes.
I agree. So I feel I need to add this disclaimer to my previous post:
**Disclamer - This is discussion and arguments but no hard evidence showdown.**
So let's keep exploring, I'm all for that too. And looking forward to GPs and stuff.
Note: I still see @Ashton_Kutcher [personal knowledge of the guy as a Delver player since basically forever] and @Spooly's [numerous MTGO showings] play experience as a very good reference point for said discussion.
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MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
@Spooly, that Delver's the worst creature in the Delver deck is something players (high grade especially) have been saying for years. I agree that when you're playing the deck, it can definitely feel that way, as well - topdecking a 1/1 for U is underwhelming when you really want a Tasigur to start excavating your graveyard. But the fact is that Delver's unbelievable, and probably the best creature ever printed (in contention with Tarmogoyf for best beater, and a clear winner of the for-his-color category).
As it is, in every format he's legal, he's the greatest threat in the Tempo deck by a mile. Canadian Thresh, perhaps the most powerful deck in Legacy, was already a contender pre-Innistrad, but after Delver of Secrets was released, it became the undeniable boogeyman of the format. Vintage RUG Delver often ran a full set of Delver before dipping into Tarmogoyf or Young Pyromancer until very recently (the Green splash is mostly for Ancient Grudge now and versions focus more heavily on Pyromancer, sometimes shaving the Delver count as low as 2, because abusing Dig Through Time is too good not to do in a format with that many power cards). And in Modern, UWR Delver (under the name "Boremandos") and RUG Delver (see its 2012 GP win in De Rosa's hands) until Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman, which proved oppressive enough to eat a ban, were printed at the same time and all but eliminated the deck. (Obviously, it's back now.)
The archetype just wouldn't perform without Delver, which is one of the reasons we haven't been seeing a lot of positive reports from Grixis Delve players in this thread and Radouf's win percentage jumped dramatically with the inclusion of Delvers, even against a Lightning Bolt/Decay deck.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
@Spooly, that Delver's the worst creature in the Delver deck is something players (high grade especially) have been saying for years. I agree that when you're playing the deck, it can definitely feel that way, as well - topdecking a 1/1 for U is underwhelming when you really want a Tasigur to start excavating your graveyard. But the fact is that Delver's unbelievable, and probably the best creature ever printed (in contention with Tarmogoyf for best beater, and a clear winner of the for-his-color category).
Let's just say that I disagree with you about the best creatures of all time. Or even in blue. I also don't think Delver is/was the worst creature in UR & RUG Delver pre-cruise, during cruise, and Grixis Pyro-Delver now. Specifically in the Delve build where Denial needs to be turned on and you're so close to blanking lots of removal spells like Decay and Bolt would I make that contention and even think about cutting Delver. Sometimes playing the deck it feels like it's pulling me towards a grindier build. Sometimes not. Like I said, I'm barely on one side of the fence.
The archetype just wouldn't perform without Delver, which is one of the reasons we haven't been seeing a lot of positive reports from Grixis Delve players in this thread and Radouf's win percentage jumped dramatically with the inclusion of Delvers, even against a Lightning Bolt/Decay deck.
I don't think Grixis Delve (or Esper Delve) is the same archetype as Grixis Delve(r). Grixis/Esper Delve is Jund in different colors. Grixis Delve(r) is, well, Delver. The question is, do you want to grind or do you want to play a threat and protect it? Very different decks trying to do very different things that only happen to play some of the same cards, which is why I don't think settling which deck is better can be done without much more data. And that considering the metagame is also important.
You say that Radouf's win % jumped dramatically just by adding Delver, but I don't think you could possible have enough data to know that. Supposed you've played 1000 matches without delver with a win percentage of 0.55, and 100 matches with delver with a win percentage of 0.6. The 95% confidence interval for the difference in win percentages is (-0.05, 0.15). Not even enough to confidently say that adding delver improved the matchup - 0 is still within that interval. You may argue that the matchup feels very different and you're partially basing your conclusions on that. Let me tell you how many configurations of a 60 card deck there are. 8.32 * 10^31. That's an 8 followed by 31 zeroes, approximately. You might argue that some of these configurations are the same, and they are. The bottom 30 cards often don't matter. There are multiple copies of some cards, etc. So let's just look at opening 7s while realizing that 1) more than your opener matters, making this an underestimate of the number of possibilities and 2) because of multiple copies of cards, making this an overestimate of the number of possibilities. Hopefully these roughly cancel out. In any case, there are 386,206,920 different possible opening 7s in a 60 card deck (where the order in which those 7 cards are arranged doesn't matter). 386 million. And there are, what, 500 games with Grixis Delve(r) played between us? Now square the number of possibilities to take into account the opening 7 in the opponent's deck. Now we're at 1.49 * 10^17. It's simply impossible to know whether Radouf's win percentage jumped that much given the amount of information you could have collected over the last couple of days.
How did your modern night go, Spooly? (I'm especially curious about the Olivia's)
I've been playing with the 4 inquisitions, 3 denial, 2 deprive, 2 electrolyze, and 12 cantrips (no probe) the past couple of days and it has felt better
I'm still unsure whether the electrolyzes are correct or not. They have seemed okay, but I haven't drawn both at the same time or drawn then when I'm stuck on two lands yet. I could see them being an inconvenience then.
I'm on the same boat with Delver of Secrets. It's the best 1 drop we have, but past the first few turns its power level drops dramatically. Delver of Secrets is also the card with the highest variance in this deck. Sometimes you play it, it doesn't die, and you flip it on the first blind flip and go to town. Other times it's a Wandering One for 4-5 turns straight and has zero impact on the game other than a chump blocker, which is its designated role in late games. For the longest time I've tried to replace Delver of Secrets with another 1 drop for consistency, but Delver is still the best 1 drop that we have available on turn 1, that is until someone else can prove the either Goblin Guide and/or Monastery Swiftspear is a better card in this deck.
2-2. The IOKs weren't great - turns out it really hurts the tron matchup and is kind of awkward against Collected Company too. Electrolyze was fine, but again not great. I tried Olivias vs Collected Company and they were fine, but it's risky tapping out for her - they could just combo you next turn.
A friend from my area picked up the deck recently and started trying some things, so we got to talking. He's trying the standard 12 pack of creatures for the delve list with only 12 cantrips (probes instead of baubles), plus a couple of snapcasters and then more countermagic in the free slots (no IoKs, add spell snares). I'm a little worried that this sort of list doesn't have enough delve + snapcaster fuel, but I've been more and more impressed with countermagic every time I play the deck and Snapcasters might be the only way to reasonably improve the Abzan matchup, so it's appealing if it works. The probes instead of baubles I was initially skeptical of but considering he's playing Snapcasters, it's probably necessary to at least have some probes in that slot.
Let's just say that I disagree with you about the best creatures of all time. Or even in blue. I also don't think Delver is/was the worst creature in UR & RUG Delver pre-cruise, during cruise, and Grixis Pyro-Delver now. Specifically in the Delve build where Denial needs to be turned on and you're so close to blanking lots of removal spells like Decay and Bolt would I make that contention and even think about cutting Delver. Sometimes playing the deck it feels like it's pulling me towards a grindier build. Sometimes not. Like I said, I'm barely on one side of the fence.
I don't think Grixis Delve (or Esper Delve) is the same archetype as Grixis Delve(r). Grixis/Esper Delve is Jund in different colors. Grixis Delve(r) is, well, Delver. The question is, do you want to grind or do you want to play a threat and protect it? Very different decks trying to do very different things that only happen to play some of the same cards, which is why I don't think settling which deck is better can be done without much more data. And that considering the metagame is also important.
I just wanted to throw my two cents into the conversation. My opinion is that, while I personally prefer the traditional Delver version with Snapcasters and Pyros, there is clearly strength in the all-in Delve version as well. That said, the decks are not that different from each other. The Delver version looks to go wider via Snappy and Pyro (value + small body), while still having a great mid-late game via the Delve creatures. It's not as committed to protecting a single durable threat, but it generally also has a wider variety of spells and lines to pick in any given matchup. The Delve deck is much more committed to casting that turn 2 5/5, and gets some value by blanking certain removal spells, but it is still vulnerable to a timely removal spell and stuff like Supreme Verdict that can't be stopped. Both decks are looking to cantrip early, cast a threat, and then disrupt the opponent until the game is over. The spells are a little different, notably the Stubborn Denials and Baubles and perhaps discard spells, but beyond that we are essentially playing the same suite of noncreature spells. Whether you run Delver or not is another issue entirely, but it does appear to me that even the Delve deck does a little better with access to Delvers, probably because the free wins are just there, and the fact that 8 threats is a little light, especially when they rely so heavily on the graveyard and 4 of them are legendary. In any case, I'm hardly the expert on either version, but to me it seems like they are pretty closely related and should be able/allowed to coexist on this thread for now at least.
Second, I think it's hard to argue that Delver isn't one of the best creatures ever printed, certainly in blue, and certainly in context. The best creature of all time is not a topic I would even care to engage in discussing on MTGS, but Delver is certainly among the top 10. In blue, he's arguably in the top 3, and at 1-mana in blue I don't think there's even a comparison. Comsidering he singlehandedly created an entire range of archetypes called "Delver" in every format from Vintage to Standard, I think it's fair to say he's pretty darn powerful. Snapcaster and Clique come to mind as the other best creatures in the color blue, but after that it falls off pretty quick. Whether he flips for you often is another issue, but we all know full well that flipping a Delver on turn 2 and riding it to victory is often pretty darn disgusting, and I've felt bad for my opponents on more than one occasion simply because he's so good when he's good.
Whatever "best" means is pretty subjective, but the point is that I think it's hard to completely justify not running Delver in any aggressive blue deck featuring ~30 spells. Certainly there are reasons not to play him, and Chapin's original Esper Delve deck was a little closer to a Midrangey deck that didn't need the quickness of Delver. But here in Grixis colors, I still think it makes a lot of sense to play the most controversial one-drop, even if he is sometimes also the most inconsistent one-drop as well. And after all, this is a Delver thread.
Also @Spooly, I wouldn't exactly call the Delve lists a variation of Jund or Junk. Sure, there are similarities, but without even getting into the lack of cantrips and counters in Jund, there are also major differences in threat density and the ability to kill everything in play. The BG/x shell is still very much based on the Thoughtsieze/Iok/Goyf/Lily/Decay core. Esper and Grixis Delver only share maybe 40% of that core, assuming you count Tasigur/Angler as Goyf. The Delve deck is still essentially UR Aggro, and is enough different from the BG/x decks that I'd hesitate to group them together in any meaningful way.
Also, can we just call the decks "Delver" and "Delve"? That's confusing enough as it is, but adding the the Delve(r) to the mix doesn't really help things. It's just awkward to read everytime I see it. I think we can all be vigilante enough to spot the "R" and know which version a particular poster is talking about. Just a nitpick though.
Aside from all that, carry on. I will be testing Grixis Delver next week after a couple week haitus from MTG. I never really got to fully test out Luis Alfonso's Delverless Grixis Pyro list, but my initial impression was that it was a bit threat-light, and I missed my Delvers. And this list somehow still manages to fit every single card I want to play into a 75, besides maybe Cryptic:
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
This one is for specifically delver strategies though, sorry man. You're going to get a lot of, "why no delver?"
What does everyone think the proper electrolyze to kolaghan's command ratio is? I've been using 3 electrolyze and 1 kolaghan's command in my build.
WUBRGHumansWUBRG
EDH:
WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG
UGEdric, Spymaster of TrestUG
You say your gameplan is "completely different," but it's actually exactly the same - land an early threat and disrupt your opponent until that threat kills him. Delver epitomizes this strategy. Your failure to acknowledge that the decks have the same goals betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the archetype.
If we had a Grixis Delve thread, it would be dead in a couple months as each of its posters realized they weren't playing the deck's best card and migrated over to the Grixis Delver thread. But let's keep this conversation productive. Can you think up any reasons to not play Delver in this deck? Surely you can since you're not playing him, so do you mind sharing?
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
That's about what I've been playing as well. Kommand is crazy flexible, but I don't want more than 1 unless I think the matchup will be a grindfest.
Unrelated question: my meta has a few burn, a Merfolk, some Bloom Titans, a Mardu Tokens (which is sometimes Bogles depending on what my friend wants to play that day), a Zooish deck, a Twin and a couple Jeskai that are sometimes other stuff.
Keeping this in mind, I'm fairly certain that switching tot he all in Delve version is better. Pyromancer just hasn't been cutting it for me, and landing delve guys early and keeping up mana seems like the best shot for me.
But I'm open to everyone's thoughts. Yay, nay?
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
As for Kommand vs. Electrolyze, personally I moved away from Electrolyze and a lesser extent Izzet Charm because we're pushing so much in the 'yard that being able to raise dead and discard or deal two is worth more to me than a random card drawn from the deck or the occasional 3-1 blow outs against dorks.
Anyone wanna lend a helping hand? Also if possible what cards do we want to see in our opening hand if possible against twin? I feel comfortable vs combo in general but as we all know twin is not any normal combo deck.
On my tombstone, please write "Now his body fuels the Treasure Cruise"
Or you could Kommand him back...
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Modern:
BURGrixis DelverRUB
URUR DelverRU
URBlue MoonRU
RIPURUR TwinRURIP
Legacy:
URBGrixis DelverBRU
RUBGrixis PyromancerRUB
Commander:
URMelek, Izzet ParagonRU
URBJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeRUB
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
- Wins games on its own. Evasive flies over clogged boards. Super reliable with half the deck inst./sorc.
- Because of this, Delver is a must-answer card. If they don't answer it, they'll lose. IMPORTANT friggin' NOTE: I dont think we NEED a T2 Fattie to win. E: Don't get me wrong, with Denial (or IoK to an extent) its super good to do so when you can. But in fact, oftentimes landing a T3 Fattie with the right spell combination back-up rather than tapping out blindly ASAP, will be the correct line of play. Given: we *are* explosive enough. Now we need *Consistent* too. Come again: in my experience, the spell combination we're holding up (and our abilty to cast it along the Fattie) is far more important than the time of deployment being turn two or three. So the turn one we may sometimes spend casting a Delver of Secrets is not much detrimental to our Delve Fattie gameplan, I believe. Casting a Delver is a question we ask: "do you have the bolt or decay?" If they do, and spend their turn and mana on dealing with Delver, then you can just go on with your fully-functionnal Fattie plan. But if they don't, they can just lose.
- You can do the bait-n-switch and still benefit from most forms of removal immunity g2 and 3 if you so wish.
- Running a one mana, depend-on-nothing (GY independant) threat improved your Blood moon plan a great deal. Also, going a bit blue-er (w/ mana leak, for instance), fits with running more basic islands, also improving our moon game. And painlessness of the mana-base for against burn. Just an edge im noticing.
TD;LR Delve and Delvers are bothtempo decks. I believe Spooly's hybrid of going full fatty with a Delver of Secrets splash, is a winner. Am on board.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
*You haven't lived until you play T1 Delver on the play, they play a land and pass, then Delver flips and you get to Denial their bolt. This shouldn't happen, but no one plays around force spike in modern.
I also don't think that we know whether Grixis Delve(r) is better than Grixis Delve or whether Grixis Delve is in turn better than Esper Delve. If Abzan is everywhere, for example, both delve builds will be far superior because of that matchup. Esper, in particular, crushes it (according to Chapin). I'm not sure anyone has even been testing & playing Esper, so it's hard to point at the lack of results and say anything meaningful. And the Grixis Delve lists are still very different from the Delve(r) lists - they're basically Junding with more resilient threats and a bit of countermagic whereas the Delve(r) lists are going all in on tempo. They're not easily comparable because of this. Without more extensive testing / results it's hard to say what is better.
Edit: What I guess I'm trying to say is, while I tentatively agree that Grixis Delve(r) is the way to go, there's no way to be very certain in that conclusion, and still lots of exploration around these archetypes left to do. This modern format is young - it hasn't really adapted to delve, Collected Company, or Atarka's Command yet. Collected Company Abzan is very good, and that Elves list is also scary in it's own way. I half think little zoo will take over the format now that it has Atarka's Command, becoming the premiere aggro deck in place of burn and affinity, and we're all still debating the best way to abuse delve. And we're not even going that deep - Golgari Grave Troll is a card you can play in this format. We don't really know what the best decks are - it will probably take 2+ GPs/PTs to really figure that out. All we really have is some vague impressions based on experience with older modern formats, a modicum of experience with this format, mtgo, and a few low stakes paper tournaments. Trying to confidently assert anything about the new decks is hubris. We're far better off in exploration mode, trying a bunch of things out to see what works, than we are focusing on one shell to expense of everything else. If I had the time I'd be testing Esper, Grixis, Temur, and Sultai delve and Delve(r) variants on top of what I'm already playing.
I'm probably playing in a small modern tournament tonight, going to try a 12 cantrip, 4 IoK, 1 Electrolyze list with 2 Olivia in the SB. We'll see how it goes.
**Disclamer - This is discussion and arguments but no hard evidence showdown.**
So let's keep exploring, I'm all for that too. And looking forward to GPs and stuff.
Note: I still see @Ashton_Kutcher [personal knowledge of the guy as a Delver player since basically forever] and @Spooly's [numerous MTGO showings] play experience as a very good reference point for said discussion.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
As it is, in every format he's legal, he's the greatest threat in the Tempo deck by a mile. Canadian Thresh, perhaps the most powerful deck in Legacy, was already a contender pre-Innistrad, but after Delver of Secrets was released, it became the undeniable boogeyman of the format. Vintage RUG Delver often ran a full set of Delver before dipping into Tarmogoyf or Young Pyromancer until very recently (the Green splash is mostly for Ancient Grudge now and versions focus more heavily on Pyromancer, sometimes shaving the Delver count as low as 2, because abusing Dig Through Time is too good not to do in a format with that many power cards). And in Modern, UWR Delver (under the name "Boremandos") and RUG Delver (see its 2012 GP win in De Rosa's hands) until Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman, which proved oppressive enough to eat a ban, were printed at the same time and all but eliminated the deck. (Obviously, it's back now.)
The archetype just wouldn't perform without Delver, which is one of the reasons we haven't been seeing a lot of positive reports from Grixis Delve players in this thread and Radouf's win percentage jumped dramatically with the inclusion of Delvers, even against a Lightning Bolt/Decay deck.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Let's just say that I disagree with you about the best creatures of all time. Or even in blue. I also don't think Delver is/was the worst creature in UR & RUG Delver pre-cruise, during cruise, and Grixis Pyro-Delver now. Specifically in the Delve build where Denial needs to be turned on and you're so close to blanking lots of removal spells like Decay and Bolt would I make that contention and even think about cutting Delver. Sometimes playing the deck it feels like it's pulling me towards a grindier build. Sometimes not. Like I said, I'm barely on one side of the fence.
I don't think Grixis Delve (or Esper Delve) is the same archetype as Grixis Delve(r). Grixis/Esper Delve is Jund in different colors. Grixis Delve(r) is, well, Delver. The question is, do you want to grind or do you want to play a threat and protect it? Very different decks trying to do very different things that only happen to play some of the same cards, which is why I don't think settling which deck is better can be done without much more data. And that considering the metagame is also important.
You say that Radouf's win % jumped dramatically just by adding Delver, but I don't think you could possible have enough data to know that. Supposed you've played 1000 matches without delver with a win percentage of 0.55, and 100 matches with delver with a win percentage of 0.6. The 95% confidence interval for the difference in win percentages is (-0.05, 0.15). Not even enough to confidently say that adding delver improved the matchup - 0 is still within that interval. You may argue that the matchup feels very different and you're partially basing your conclusions on that. Let me tell you how many configurations of a 60 card deck there are. 8.32 * 10^31. That's an 8 followed by 31 zeroes, approximately. You might argue that some of these configurations are the same, and they are. The bottom 30 cards often don't matter. There are multiple copies of some cards, etc. So let's just look at opening 7s while realizing that 1) more than your opener matters, making this an underestimate of the number of possibilities and 2) because of multiple copies of cards, making this an overestimate of the number of possibilities. Hopefully these roughly cancel out. In any case, there are 386,206,920 different possible opening 7s in a 60 card deck (where the order in which those 7 cards are arranged doesn't matter). 386 million. And there are, what, 500 games with Grixis Delve(r) played between us? Now square the number of possibilities to take into account the opening 7 in the opponent's deck. Now we're at 1.49 * 10^17. It's simply impossible to know whether Radouf's win percentage jumped that much given the amount of information you could have collected over the last couple of days.
I've been playing with the 4 inquisitions, 3 denial, 2 deprive, 2 electrolyze, and 12 cantrips (no probe) the past couple of days and it has felt better
I'm still unsure whether the electrolyzes are correct or not. They have seemed okay, but I haven't drawn both at the same time or drawn then when I'm stuck on two lands yet. I could see them being an inconvenience then.
A friend from my area picked up the deck recently and started trying some things, so we got to talking. He's trying the standard 12 pack of creatures for the delve list with only 12 cantrips (probes instead of baubles), plus a couple of snapcasters and then more countermagic in the free slots (no IoKs, add spell snares). I'm a little worried that this sort of list doesn't have enough delve + snapcaster fuel, but I've been more and more impressed with countermagic every time I play the deck and Snapcasters might be the only way to reasonably improve the Abzan matchup, so it's appealing if it works. The probes instead of baubles I was initially skeptical of but considering he's playing Snapcasters, it's probably necessary to at least have some probes in that slot.
I just wanted to throw my two cents into the conversation. My opinion is that, while I personally prefer the traditional Delver version with Snapcasters and Pyros, there is clearly strength in the all-in Delve version as well. That said, the decks are not that different from each other. The Delver version looks to go wider via Snappy and Pyro (value + small body), while still having a great mid-late game via the Delve creatures. It's not as committed to protecting a single durable threat, but it generally also has a wider variety of spells and lines to pick in any given matchup. The Delve deck is much more committed to casting that turn 2 5/5, and gets some value by blanking certain removal spells, but it is still vulnerable to a timely removal spell and stuff like Supreme Verdict that can't be stopped. Both decks are looking to cantrip early, cast a threat, and then disrupt the opponent until the game is over. The spells are a little different, notably the Stubborn Denials and Baubles and perhaps discard spells, but beyond that we are essentially playing the same suite of noncreature spells. Whether you run Delver or not is another issue entirely, but it does appear to me that even the Delve deck does a little better with access to Delvers, probably because the free wins are just there, and the fact that 8 threats is a little light, especially when they rely so heavily on the graveyard and 4 of them are legendary. In any case, I'm hardly the expert on either version, but to me it seems like they are pretty closely related and should be able/allowed to coexist on this thread for now at least.
Second, I think it's hard to argue that Delver isn't one of the best creatures ever printed, certainly in blue, and certainly in context. The best creature of all time is not a topic I would even care to engage in discussing on MTGS, but Delver is certainly among the top 10. In blue, he's arguably in the top 3, and at 1-mana in blue I don't think there's even a comparison. Comsidering he singlehandedly created an entire range of archetypes called "Delver" in every format from Vintage to Standard, I think it's fair to say he's pretty darn powerful. Snapcaster and Clique come to mind as the other best creatures in the color blue, but after that it falls off pretty quick. Whether he flips for you often is another issue, but we all know full well that flipping a Delver on turn 2 and riding it to victory is often pretty darn disgusting, and I've felt bad for my opponents on more than one occasion simply because he's so good when he's good.
Whatever "best" means is pretty subjective, but the point is that I think it's hard to completely justify not running Delver in any aggressive blue deck featuring ~30 spells. Certainly there are reasons not to play him, and Chapin's original Esper Delve deck was a little closer to a Midrangey deck that didn't need the quickness of Delver. But here in Grixis colors, I still think it makes a lot of sense to play the most controversial one-drop, even if he is sometimes also the most inconsistent one-drop as well. And after all, this is a Delver thread.
Also @Spooly, I wouldn't exactly call the Delve lists a variation of Jund or Junk. Sure, there are similarities, but without even getting into the lack of cantrips and counters in Jund, there are also major differences in threat density and the ability to kill everything in play. The BG/x shell is still very much based on the Thoughtsieze/Iok/Goyf/Lily/Decay core. Esper and Grixis Delver only share maybe 40% of that core, assuming you count Tasigur/Angler as Goyf. The Delve deck is still essentially UR Aggro, and is enough different from the BG/x decks that I'd hesitate to group them together in any meaningful way.
Also, can we just call the decks "Delver" and "Delve"? That's confusing enough as it is, but adding the the Delve(r) to the mix doesn't really help things. It's just awkward to read everytime I see it. I think we can all be vigilante enough to spot the "R" and know which version a particular poster is talking about. Just a nitpick though.
Aside from all that, carry on. I will be testing Grixis Delver next week after a couple week haitus from MTG. I never really got to fully test out Luis Alfonso's Delverless Grixis Pyro list, but my initial impression was that it was a bit threat-light, and I missed my Delvers. And this list somehow still manages to fit every single card I want to play into a 75, besides maybe Cryptic:
1 Gurmag Angler
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Blood Crypt
1 Darkslick Shores
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Izzet Charm
1 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Mana Leak
2 Murderous Cut
2 Remand
2 Spell Snare
1 Terminate
4 Thought Scour
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
2 Blood Moon
1 Dismember
1 Dispel
1 Flashfreeze
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Magma Spray
2 Negate
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Keranos, God of Storms
2 Vandalblast
RGB Jund BGR
WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY
RUGB Delver GURB
EDH
UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU
RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR
BBB Skithiryx Control BB