i can see stratus dancer being good against scapeshift if it resolves, it disrupts and slows them down since they have to repeal or kill it first before they can go off and it also puts them on a clock..but i may be speaking too soon here..i just noticed its potential..
how common is scapeshift right now?
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Yeah, Scapeshift is the first thing that came to my mind but let's not forget they can remand their own spell in response to the triggered ability. But i can see it work against burn eating 2 of their spells or in any counterwar also.
Yeah, Scapeshift is the first thing that came to my mind but let's not forget they can remand their own spell in response to the triggered ability. But i can see it work against burn eating 2 of their spells or in any counterwar also.
yes, thank you for pointing that out..its interesting to note that it also has applications against rdw, it can trade with a creature and counter one of their burn spells..
i implore derFeind to reconsider this card's potential..i'm not going to say too early that it should replace a card in our main, but it sure warrants some testing..
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"I am the purifier, the light that clears all shadows."
—Seal inscription
I was running 24 lands, 3 talismans, 4 expedition maps and 2 simulacrums.
I took out 1 fabricate to make room for the 24th land.
Well all night I was having issues with getting mana flooded (someone mentioned this just a page or 2 back on why people don't run more lands). Late game I'd run out of steam and fizzle while I kept drawing into lands.
I sure did miss that second fabricate.
So I'm back down to 23 lands, and added in an additional fabricate.
I'm having a difficult time with figuring out when I should be holding back with counters...and gunning for it and casting my spells (fabricate, treasure mage, talismans) early game so that I can quickly build up a ton of mana to work with.
And this isn't something someone can just tell me. It boils down to me getting more comfortable with this deck, and learning the decks I'm playing against so I know how I should be playing against them at any given time.
It is frustrating however when my opponent gets a couple critters on the board, while I have no way to interact with them...and my deck starts to fizzle.
I'm 100% certain that a lot of the troubles I'm having are related to me being a noob and not piloting this deck optimally (I'll get there! ) but it's frustrating none the less.
It's like sometimes the deck runs like absolute clockwork...sometimes it just durdles around, trying to get ahead on mana while keeping mana open for counterspells...then eventually dropping a big bomb to finish up the game...and yet others, it just flops. Either your opponent kills you before you had any sort of chance, or you simply just don't draw into what you're needing.
...
Also...
I kept getting stomped...HARD...by a urzatron scarecrow deck haha. I sure do have a long ways to go yet.
...
Anyone got any suggestions? I'm a bit disapointed tonight in the amount of games where I'd ran out of threats.
@twitch77
I'm having a difficult time with figuring out when I should be holding back with counters...and gunning for it and casting my spells (fabricate, treasure mage, talismans) early game so that I can quickly build up a ton of mana to work with.
-i could be wrong but it seems as though you're rushing a bit in assembling tron..stabilize control first, delay them your delays(no pun intended), remands(you really need these), and repeals..
It is frustrating however when my opponent gets a couple critters on the board, while I have no way to interact with them...and my deck starts to fizzle.
-if you want more early action against fast decks like zoo or affinity, i recommend the 4th repeal in place of either a treasure mage or a fabricate.., it can give you an additional cantrip to make up for the lack of remands..in my experience, 3 tutors, in any combination of fabricate or mage is the sweet spot..you may also try maindecking some copies of dismember if you're really concerned about aggro strategies..
i have a question, 6 islands seems alarmingly low..haven't you had problems getting enough blue mana in your matches? i wouldn't go below than 7 mountains and i'm currently running 8..
i'd rather have a crucible in the board as an emergency in case they blow up my academy than have 2 of it in the main..
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"I am the purifier, the light that clears all shadows."
—Seal inscription
As mrbrightside said, Boseiju does not interact with Mindslaver. It's pretty bad in our deck as none of our instants or sorceries are capable of winning the game on their own.
Emrakul makes more sense in the sideboard. It's not needed in most matchups, and having Eye in your deck will hurt you more often than not against the faster decks in the format, which are quite popular these days. You could cut the Eye and Emrakul main to make room for an Island (you're shy at least one blue source) and a Snapcaster Mage, and cut some of the bad cards from your sideboard (Torpor Orb shuts off Sundering Titan, Treasure Mage, and Solemn Simulacrum, and it's not like we lose to Twin because of their combo) and Boseiju for another Dismember (minimum 1 more) and the Emmy+Eye (maybe in that case you run Ulamog or Kozilek over the sideboarded Steel Hellkite)
really can't understand why you play Delay. I'm not a fan of Spell Burst, I'd rather play the 4th repeal but that's up to you.
Delay=budget reasons :P...I kinda refuse to pay $60 for a set of remands right now. I'm hoping it gets reprinted in modern masters 2015 (which I plan to invest quite a bit into).
Spell Burst is amazing. Have you tried playing with the card?
When I first built this deck, I didn't include a burst either...but someone here on these forums told me I should really run it. I'm glad I do...that card locks out games for me.
I 100% agree about my lands though. Definitely need to be fixed ASAP.
Yep, the thing about Boseiju is: You WILL have to fight over the mindslaver and boseiju turns your counterspells into non-negotiable nay-sayers.
They will just bypass your counterspells and use theirs to counter the Mindslaver directly - yeah, OK, you might make their Dispels and their Spell Snares worse, but Remand/Negate/Cryptic Command/Spell Pierce/Condescend/Counterflux and to an extent Mana Leak all still work. Don't get me wrong, Boseiju is a cool card but it does not pull much weight in this deck. Not to mention the fact that it enters the battlefield tapped - and one thing that I've learned playing this deck for a while is that every inch counts, and you can't really afford to have your lands entering the battlefield tapped.
Look guys, if you don't have any Remands, play Mana Leak in their place. It's actually BETTER than Remand in some situations, and not much worse in the situations in which Remand is better.
I've won a GPT and top8ed a large PPTQ with Mana Leak in my Mono Blue Tron list, and 4-0ed countless smaller events with it. Mana Leak is perfectly solid if you don't have or don't want to play Remands.
But don't play garbage like Delay. Please don't! There are so many better options like Mana Leak and even Rune Snag or Spell Pierce.
What are the benefits of Spell Burst? Isn't the buyback cost too high at times? Is a one of near-mandatory for the deck?
Spell Burst is played by some people as late-game "win condition" of sorts, but I am of the opinion that you'd be better off just running more real finishers like Ugins, or more tutors, or more of anything else.
When you don't have mana for the buyback, it's a pretty mediocre counter in the early game, and when you *do* have mana for the buyback, you should probably just be casting stuff like Mindslavers, Sundering Titans, Ugins, and anything else that just wins you the game.
Spellburst is not a direct win condition but a very powerful lock that can stall a game until you draw your win cons. In the early game it also serves as a reasonable counterspell. This versatility is great, it's an early game card as well as a late game card.
I don't quite understand players having trouble with control match ups and running boseiju, it doesn't seem necessary. This deck seems absurdly powerful against most other blue based control decks. We generate far more mana and we can cast a game ending threat while holding counter mana up. Against UW, I'm really only afraid of a resolved geist and vclique , against UWR I'm most afraid of bolt-snap-bolt and getting burned out. Cryptic Command is the best card to play against, you just remand your own spell to blank it.
Def. going to play mana leak to test out.
The only thing that worries me with leak, is I often find myself going late game with this deck...where my opponent can easily pay the 3 to bypass the leak.
Delay hasn't been horrendous for me...often times it acts as a hard counter for me. That suspend 3 sometimes feels like all the time in the world.
But it is inconsistent. It's not always good enough.
I'm looking forward to swapping them out for leaks to try out. We'll see if leaks end up being more consistent for me.
And I'm not really getting why you wouldn't run a singleton spell burst. That card is insane late game. It's when you've got your wincon, but you need to protect it. Or it's when you're in a late game and are in top deck mode looking for your wincon. Having a counter in these situations that you can use turn after turn is insane.
In my limited testing this card has proven time and time again to be a must have in my build. It's a great card and has shut my opponents out of games far more then I had expected it to.
I wasn't sure about burst at first either. But I ended up throwing it in my list...and now after playing it in my list, I can not imagine running this deck without it. It's an absolute staple to me.
Worse case scenario you're using it as an early/midgame hard counter...which really isn't that bad of a deal when you really need it.
I don't want to pay $15 each for remands.. when I have a stack of mana leaks just lying around (I started playing M12).
You tend to control better but also win slower, I have had a bunch of "flood out" games where everyone sits around with reactive spells not doing anything. Where as remand would find me my action spells (and tron lands) faster. I have it proxied with remands online as well so I play both with and without remand, the actual paper magic cards I am running mana leaks because I have them.
I don't want to pay $15 each for remands.. when I have a stack of mana leaks just lying around (I started playing M12).
You tend to control better but also win slower, I have had a bunch of "flood out" games where everyone sits around with reactive spells not doing anything. Where as remand would find me my action spells (and tron lands) faster. I have it proxied with remands online as well so I play both with and without remand, the actual paper magic cards I am running mana leaks because I have them.
Same story here...not willing to drop 15 on remands right now.
In your experience, has your proxied/online remands been a huge improvement over mana leak?
Round 1: Paired against Grixis Delver -- I was on the draw. Had to mull due to no lands He proceeded to Thought Scour into a T2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Needless to say he beat me down really fast. Game 2 I managed to jam a T2 Chalice of the Void which slowed him way down. Got a Sundering Titan and won. Game 3 was much like G1, again no lands, had to mull to 5. Managed to keep his first Tasigur off the board with a remand after he delved. But he managed to throw down a Young Pyromancer and eventually another Tasigur and I folded.
0-1
Round 2: I was pretty bummed out at the mulligan situation... and was hoping for better. Ended up being paired against burn and I was really worried... again a no land hand and had to mull to 5 to get anything playable. He jammed a T2 eidolon and burned me out 3 turns later. Boarded in all of my counters and my 3 Chalice of the Void. Managed to land a T2 chalice on X=1. This definitely wrecked his plan as he slowed right down. He eventually got my chalice but not before I jammed a Wurmcoil Engine and stabilized my life total -- seemed a bit lucky, but I was drawing poorly... and so was my opponent. He couldn't overcome the lifegain and I pushed to G3. In G3 I managed to land chalice on 1 which slowed my opponent down. I landed a lock with another chalice on 2 and went to town with beating down.
1-1
Round 3: I hadn't come across this list in the tourney practice room but I was paired up against Mono Green Stompy. G1 he looked to jam early Dryad Militants and Rancor them up, but I managed to counter the Rancor with Cyclonic Rift on a Dryad. He continued to play threats and I stalled with Repeal and Snapcaster Mage + Cyclonic Rift. I ended up assembling tron, jamming a wurmcoil and sundering titan and that proved too much for him. G2 was very similar, only I had dismembers at the ready with a second snapcaster. I was anticipating a Choke and he did not dissapoint, luckily I had Oboro, Palace in the Clouds in hand and managed to keep the momentum. I managed to keep his threats from beating me down, assembled tron and double wurmcoil'd him to death. -- Has anyone added a Minamo to the deck? I was thinking it might be useful to have 2 non-island blue sources.....
2-1
Round 4: Ended up against Grixis Delver again... and was worried. My first opponent handily defeated me and I find facing this deck particularly tough without a super strong opening hand. G1 he managed a T2 Tasigur and bolted me out quickly.... I was pretty frustrated as I wasn't really sure how to beat this deck in a G1 situation. At any rate I brought in my chalices (on 1 they do crazy work against these guys) and my dismembers as well as any counter I could. G2 begins and he appears to be afraid of a Remand that he saw in my hand off a Gitaxian Probe. He tries to jam a Blood Moon which I let land as I see he doesn't have a swamp in play. He's tapped out, so I land a chalice on 1, which completely nullified him. We end up top decking land after land until I jam a wurmcoil and then a titan to smash his lands and take him off of black again. (Held up counters against a potential Tasigur all game). Eventually my creatures are too much and he concedes. I secretly thank Blood Moon for winning me that game! Opponents think it hurts us, but it almost always hurts them more than us I find. G3 starts up, and it goes much the same as G2. He Blood Moons again on T3 and I immediately jam a chalice on 1. We go into the long game trading counters and eventually he lands 2 Young Pyromancers and a Tasigur, the Golden Fang. I slammed 2 Wurmcoil Engines and a Sundering Titan as well as a Treasure Mage. At this point I take him off black again, and have a ton of mana up with a lot of counter power. He tries to go wide through my chalice (he got up to about 12 tokens). I end up dismembering his Young pyro's and eating a ton of tokens while gaining a large quantity of life. He concedes!
3-1.
First Daily win for me on mtgo... small accomplishment but it's my first and it feels good. Long live Mono U tron. I really do find turns 1-3 to be pretty harrowing though. Tasigurs are particularly punishing. Has anyone had much luck against Grixis Delver?
Chalice of the Void vs Bottle Gnomes, which do you think is better for the sideboard? Bottle Gnomes would be a much more narrower sideboard card compared to Chalice, but is it much more effective at helping our Burn matchup? I'm considering either 3 Chalice or 3 Bottle Gnomes.
First Daily win for me on mtgo... small accomplishment but it's my first and it feels good. Long live Mono U tron. I really do find turns 1-3 to be pretty harrowing though. Tasigurs are particularly punishing. Has anyone had much luck against Grixis Delver?
Congratulations on the win
Grixis Delver is a tough matchup, but our threats are more resilient to it than Jeskai, because of Grixis' lack of Path.
That said, I think your strategy was pretty good. Chalice on 1 hits so many of their enablers (Thought Scour, Gitaxian Probe, Serum Visions, Bolt) that 3 cards out of our SB are enough to deal with 12 or more of theirs. Note that it also hits their artifact hate: Vandalblast, which even when cast with Overload is still considered a 1-CMC spell.
I would recommend running Relic of Progenitus in your SB to hate on their graveyard, even if it's just 1 card per turn. That's 1 less card for Delve, or Snapcaster to flash back.
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how common is scapeshift right now?
—Seal inscription
yes, thank you for pointing that out..its interesting to note that it also has applications against rdw, it can trade with a creature and counter one of their burn spells..
i implore derFeind to reconsider this card's potential..i'm not going to say too early that it should replace a card in our main, but it sure warrants some testing..
—Seal inscription
I was running 24 lands, 3 talismans, 4 expedition maps and 2 simulacrums.
I took out 1 fabricate to make room for the 24th land.
Well all night I was having issues with getting mana flooded (someone mentioned this just a page or 2 back on why people don't run more lands). Late game I'd run out of steam and fizzle while I kept drawing into lands.
I sure did miss that second fabricate.
So I'm back down to 23 lands, and added in an additional fabricate.
I'm having a difficult time with figuring out when I should be holding back with counters...and gunning for it and casting my spells (fabricate, treasure mage, talismans) early game so that I can quickly build up a ton of mana to work with.
And this isn't something someone can just tell me. It boils down to me getting more comfortable with this deck, and learning the decks I'm playing against so I know how I should be playing against them at any given time.
It is frustrating however when my opponent gets a couple critters on the board, while I have no way to interact with them...and my deck starts to fizzle.
I'm 100% certain that a lot of the troubles I'm having are related to me being a noob and not piloting this deck optimally (I'll get there!
It's like sometimes the deck runs like absolute clockwork...sometimes it just durdles around, trying to get ahead on mana while keeping mana open for counterspells...then eventually dropping a big bomb to finish up the game...and yet others, it just flops. Either your opponent kills you before you had any sort of chance, or you simply just don't draw into what you're needing.
...
Also...
I kept getting stomped...HARD...by a urzatron scarecrow deck haha. I sure do have a long ways to go yet.
...
Anyone got any suggestions? I'm a bit disapointed tonight in the amount of games where I'd ran out of threats.
Here's my list atm:
2x Treasure Mage
2x Solemn Simulacrum
2x Wurmcoil Engine
1x Platinum Angel
1x Sundering Titan
----DRAW (6):
4x Thirst for Knowledge
2x Fabricate
----COUNTERS (9):
4x Delay
4x Condescend
1x Spell Burst
3x Repeal
1x Cyclonic Rift
----ARTIFACTS (3):
1x Oblivion Stone
2x Mindslaver
----MANA ACCEL/FIXING (7):
4x Expedition Map
3x Talisman of Dominance
----LAND (23):
--UrzaTron (12):
4x Urza's Tower
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Mine
2x Academy Ruins
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Oboro, Palace In The Clouds
1x Urborg, Tomb Of Yawgmoth
--Basics (6):
6x Island
I'm having a difficult time with figuring out when I should be holding back with counters...and gunning for it and casting my spells (fabricate, treasure mage, talismans) early game so that I can quickly build up a ton of mana to work with.
-i could be wrong but it seems as though you're rushing a bit in assembling tron..stabilize control first, delay them your delays(no pun intended), remands(you really need these), and repeals..
It is frustrating however when my opponent gets a couple critters on the board, while I have no way to interact with them...and my deck starts to fizzle.
-if you want more early action against fast decks like zoo or affinity, i recommend the 4th repeal in place of either a treasure mage or a fabricate.., it can give you an additional cantrip to make up for the lack of remands..in my experience, 3 tutors, in any combination of fabricate or mage is the sweet spot..you may also try maindecking some copies of dismember if you're really concerned about aggro strategies..
i have a question, 6 islands seems alarmingly low..haven't you had problems getting enough blue mana in your matches? i wouldn't go below than 7 mountains and i'm currently running 8..
i'd rather have a crucible in the board as an emergency in case they blow up my academy than have 2 of it in the main..
—Seal inscription
Former DCI L2 Judge
My old Cube podcast on ManaDeprived, with Goodking and artbcnco: http://manadeprived.com/podcasts/mtgin3d/
You can find me on Twitter as well.
Emrakul makes more sense in the sideboard. It's not needed in most matchups, and having Eye in your deck will hurt you more often than not against the faster decks in the format, which are quite popular these days. You could cut the Eye and Emrakul main to make room for an Island (you're shy at least one blue source) and a Snapcaster Mage, and cut some of the bad cards from your sideboard (Torpor Orb shuts off Sundering Titan, Treasure Mage, and Solemn Simulacrum, and it's not like we lose to Twin because of their combo) and Boseiju for another Dismember (minimum 1 more) and the Emmy+Eye (maybe in that case you run Ulamog or Kozilek over the sideboarded Steel Hellkite)
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
Delay=budget reasons :P...I kinda refuse to pay $60 for a set of remands right now. I'm hoping it gets reprinted in modern masters 2015 (which I plan to invest quite a bit into).
Spell Burst is amazing. Have you tried playing with the card?
When I first built this deck, I didn't include a burst either...but someone here on these forums told me I should really run it. I'm glad I do...that card locks out games for me.
I 100% agree about my lands though. Definitely need to be fixed ASAP.
Former DCI L2 Judge
My old Cube podcast on ManaDeprived, with Goodking and artbcnco: http://manadeprived.com/podcasts/mtgin3d/
You can find me on Twitter as well.
I've won a GPT and top8ed a large PPTQ with Mana Leak in my Mono Blue Tron list, and 4-0ed countless smaller events with it. Mana Leak is perfectly solid if you don't have or don't want to play Remands.
But don't play garbage like Delay. Please don't! There are so many better options like Mana Leak and even Rune Snag or Spell Pierce.
Spell Burst is played by some people as late-game "win condition" of sorts, but I am of the opinion that you'd be better off just running more real finishers like Ugins, or more tutors, or more of anything else.
When you don't have mana for the buyback, it's a pretty mediocre counter in the early game, and when you *do* have mana for the buyback, you should probably just be casting stuff like Mindslavers, Sundering Titans, Ugins, and anything else that just wins you the game.
I don't quite understand players having trouble with control match ups and running boseiju, it doesn't seem necessary. This deck seems absurdly powerful against most other blue based control decks. We generate far more mana and we can cast a game ending threat while holding counter mana up. Against UW, I'm really only afraid of a resolved geist and vclique , against UWR I'm most afraid of bolt-snap-bolt and getting burned out. Cryptic Command is the best card to play against, you just remand your own spell to blank it.
The only thing that worries me with leak, is I often find myself going late game with this deck...where my opponent can easily pay the 3 to bypass the leak.
Delay hasn't been horrendous for me...often times it acts as a hard counter for me. That suspend 3 sometimes feels like all the time in the world.
But it is inconsistent. It's not always good enough.
I'm looking forward to swapping them out for leaks to try out. We'll see if leaks end up being more consistent for me.
And I'm not really getting why you wouldn't run a singleton spell burst. That card is insane late game. It's when you've got your wincon, but you need to protect it. Or it's when you're in a late game and are in top deck mode looking for your wincon. Having a counter in these situations that you can use turn after turn is insane.
In my limited testing this card has proven time and time again to be a must have in my build. It's a great card and has shut my opponents out of games far more then I had expected it to.
I wasn't sure about burst at first either. But I ended up throwing it in my list...and now after playing it in my list, I can not imagine running this deck without it. It's an absolute staple to me.
Worse case scenario you're using it as an early/midgame hard counter...which really isn't that bad of a deal when you really need it.
You tend to control better but also win slower, I have had a bunch of "flood out" games where everyone sits around with reactive spells not doing anything. Where as remand would find me my action spells (and tron lands) faster. I have it proxied with remands online as well so I play both with and without remand, the actual paper magic cards I am running mana leaks because I have them.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Same story here...not willing to drop 15 on remands right now.
In your experience, has your proxied/online remands been a huge improvement over mana leak?
Figured I'd try my hand at them to get better with U Tron. At any rate the list (mostly shok's) and brief synopsis below:
1 Snow-covered island
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Academy Ruins
7 Island
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Mine
Artifacts
4 Expedition Map
3 Talisman of Dominance
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Mindslaver
1 Wurmcoil
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
1 Snapcaster Mage
3 Treasure Mage
Spells
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Repeal
4 Condescend
4 Repeal
1 Cyclonic Rift
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Spell Burst
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Aetherspouts
3 Dismember
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Chalice of the Void
Round 1: Paired against Grixis Delver -- I was on the draw. Had to mull due to no lands
0-1
Round 2: I was pretty bummed out at the mulligan situation... and was hoping for better. Ended up being paired against burn and I was really worried... again a no land hand and had to mull to 5 to get anything playable. He jammed a T2 eidolon and burned me out 3 turns later. Boarded in all of my counters and my 3 Chalice of the Void. Managed to land a T2 chalice on X=1. This definitely wrecked his plan as he slowed right down. He eventually got my chalice but not before I jammed a Wurmcoil Engine and stabilized my life total -- seemed a bit lucky, but I was drawing poorly... and so was my opponent. He couldn't overcome the lifegain and I pushed to G3. In G3 I managed to land chalice on 1 which slowed my opponent down. I landed a lock with another chalice on 2 and went to town with beating down.
1-1
Round 3: I hadn't come across this list in the tourney practice room but I was paired up against Mono Green Stompy. G1 he looked to jam early Dryad Militants and Rancor them up, but I managed to counter the Rancor with Cyclonic Rift on a Dryad. He continued to play threats and I stalled with Repeal and Snapcaster Mage + Cyclonic Rift. I ended up assembling tron, jamming a wurmcoil and sundering titan and that proved too much for him. G2 was very similar, only I had dismembers at the ready with a second snapcaster. I was anticipating a Choke and he did not dissapoint, luckily I had Oboro, Palace in the Clouds in hand and managed to keep the momentum. I managed to keep his threats from beating me down, assembled tron and double wurmcoil'd him to death. -- Has anyone added a Minamo to the deck? I was thinking it might be useful to have 2 non-island blue sources.....
2-1
Round 4: Ended up against Grixis Delver again... and was worried. My first opponent handily defeated me and I find facing this deck particularly tough without a super strong opening hand. G1 he managed a T2 Tasigur and bolted me out quickly.... I was pretty frustrated as I wasn't really sure how to beat this deck in a G1 situation. At any rate I brought in my chalices (on 1 they do crazy work against these guys) and my dismembers as well as any counter I could. G2 begins and he appears to be afraid of a Remand that he saw in my hand off a Gitaxian Probe. He tries to jam a Blood Moon which I let land as I see he doesn't have a swamp in play. He's tapped out, so I land a chalice on 1, which completely nullified him. We end up top decking land after land until I jam a wurmcoil and then a titan to smash his lands and take him off of black again. (Held up counters against a potential Tasigur all game). Eventually my creatures are too much and he concedes. I secretly thank Blood Moon for winning me that game! Opponents think it hurts us, but it almost always hurts them more than us I find. G3 starts up, and it goes much the same as G2. He Blood Moons again on T3 and I immediately jam a chalice on 1. We go into the long game trading counters and eventually he lands 2 Young Pyromancers and a Tasigur, the Golden Fang. I slammed 2 Wurmcoil Engines and a Sundering Titan as well as a Treasure Mage. At this point I take him off black again, and have a ton of mana up with a lot of counter power. He tries to go wide through my chalice (he got up to about 12 tokens). I end up dismembering his Young pyro's and eating a ton of tokens while gaining a large quantity of life. He concedes!
3-1.
First Daily win for me on mtgo... small accomplishment but it's my first and it feels good. Long live Mono U tron. I really do find turns 1-3 to be pretty harrowing though. Tasigurs are particularly punishing. Has anyone had much luck against Grixis Delver?
Congratulations on the win
Grixis Delver is a tough matchup, but our threats are more resilient to it than Jeskai, because of Grixis' lack of Path.
That said, I think your strategy was pretty good. Chalice on 1 hits so many of their enablers (Thought Scour, Gitaxian Probe, Serum Visions, Bolt) that 3 cards out of our SB are enough to deal with 12 or more of theirs. Note that it also hits their artifact hate: Vandalblast, which even when cast with Overload is still considered a 1-CMC spell.
I would recommend running Relic of Progenitus in your SB to hate on their graveyard, even if it's just 1 card per turn. That's 1 less card for Delve, or Snapcaster to flash back.