I never understood how players can knock a list they clearly don't understand after it puts up significant results! Resolved creatures haven't proven problematic for me. I'll invite all of you to check out my tournament report in the RUG Delver thread.
On the deck's merits, here's how I see it.
Grixis Delve: a strictly worse Grixis Delver. I've explained my position here.
"Big Delve" Grixis Delver: A strictly worse RUG Delver. Sure, you get an extra point of toughness on your Mandrills. But a 1G 5/6 is much better than a 6B 5/5 with Delve, especially since it makes your other Delve guy so much more reliable; I cut all Thought Scours against almost every deck for relevant answers, whereas Grixis has to keep them to even function. Grixis even needs to run horrible cards like Mishra's Bauble to fill the graveyard, meaning less space for valuable SB cards (I often bring in 8-11 cards) and the elimination of strong options like Disrupting Shoal (not enough Blue). Add in RUG's favorable Burn matchup and the fact that since Mandrills tramples, you don't have to play 3-mana Midrange chaff like Electrolyze, and I don't see why anyone would ever play Grixis Delver for something other than a budget reason.
Pyromancer Grixis Delver (the standard version): This deck has its merits. It's basically UR Delver with Tasigur. The debate here is whether you want Tasigur or Tarmogoyf as your splashable fatty, and while I'm inclined to favor the latter, I understand the draw to banana man.
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.
I don't think you're fairly representing the pros/cons of Grixs Delve(r) vs. RUG Delver. I'm not arguing that one is better than the other, but I disagree with some of the points you made.
1) Bauble isn't necessary at all. Probe can easily be run in it's place - you still run 12 cantrips to fuel the yard. The only reason I'm on Bauble is life loss. Being able to SB out cantrips is a good point, though with 17 land in your deck I'm not sure how you can get away with siding out 4 cantrips in so many matchups, especially when you're bringing in Huntmaster in many of the same matchups.
2) More of your threats are immune to Abrupt Decay and Slaughter Pact in Grixis.
3) Burn is actually somewhat favorable with the Death's Shadow plan, and the Death's Shadow + Anger plan is very strong in a lot of matchups -e.g. vs. CoCo - but RUG doesn't have access to that.
4) You don't have to play 3 mana stuff (and shouldn't, outside of a few SB cards). Abzan is bad, but as long as you don't try to beat them you can invest a lot in beating the rest of the field.
5) Terminate is very good. I'm not arguing that RUG has trouble with resolved creatures necessarily - I haven't played a game with your build - but you have to admit that Grixis is better at dealing with resolved dudes.
6) If you play Probe, the number of non-blue spells isn't even much higher - 3 or so becase of Terminate - so you can easily play Shoal if you wanted. I've been hesitant to try it for a variety of reasons, but your finish will probably get me to try it out at some point (too busy to play at the moment).
To show that I'm not just cheerleading for the deck I've been playing, advantages for RUG (as I see it):
1) More consistent fatties. 1) No legend rule and 2) Goyf easier to cast than Angler means the fatties come down early a bit more often. And they come in multiples far more often. Still weak to GY hate.
2) Huntmaster. This card solves a lot of problems in a lot of matchups.
3) Less dependence on cantrips to fill the yard which, in turn, helps you SB. I think you probably SB out Scour too aggressively though - taking out Probe against the aggro decks seems way better, but usual disclaimer, I haven't played your build. You also know that I think you're running too few lands.
Honestly point 1) in favor of RUG is the strongest reason I'd want to try it.
Another big thing I'd give is that Mandrills has trample. That can be legitimately powerful when you're up against a deck like Abzan. Grixis Delver tends to get chumped a lot.
I know Temur Delver is a force to be reckoned with, so congrats on the win @ashtonkutcher, but the biggest draw to playing grixis delver over temur isn't price, rather i prefer having kill spells that kill any creature that has power greater than 3, even if there isn't a presence on the board. Tarmogoyf is also somewhat being outclassed by gurmag and tasigur nowadays but he's still the best in a vacuum. Plus Hooting Mandrills would be the biggest draw to green imo since it has trample to wreck lingering souls. But to each their own.
4 questions, 1: does grixis delver run 18 or 19 land better? 2. is kologhans command a must in the 75? 3. can we get away without dispel? 4 do we need graveyard hate aka rakdos charm I seem to lose alot to tin fins and dredge
I don't think you're fairly representing the pros/cons of Grixs Delve(r) vs. RUG Delver. I'm not arguing that one is better than the other, but I disagree with some of the points you made.
1) Bauble isn't necessary at all. Probe can easily be run in it's place - you still run 12 cantrips to fuel the yard. The only reason I'm on Bauble is life loss. Being able to SB out cantrips is a good point, though with 17 land in your deck I'm not sure how you can get away with siding out 4 cantrips in so many matchups, especially when you're bringing in Huntmaster in many of the same matchups.
Disagree. Since you care so much about life loss in Grixis (RUG doesn't), you do have to run Bauble. Or you can run Probe and make the Burn matchup REALLY horrible. I haven't really played with the deck; this opinion is just based on what I've heard from Grixis Delver players.
3) Burn is actually somewhat favorable with the Death's Shadow plan, and the Death's Shadow + Anger plan is very strong in a lot of matchups -e.g. vs. CoCo - but RUG doesn't have access to that.
We don't want it, either, but congrats on solving that issue with the deck! IMO one of the main reasons to go RUG over Grixis was that the Burn matchup is good and not bad, so with that taken care of, Grixis starts to look a lot more reasonable.
4) You don't have to play 3 mana stuff (and shouldn't, outside of a few SB cards). Abzan is bad, but as long as you don't try to beat them you can invest a lot in beating the rest of the field.
Not sure I agree here. Electrolyze is your best out to Lingering Souls, a card that represents a real problem for Grixis Delver if I'm not mistaken. I consider Trample on Mandrills stronger than Tasigur's ability and even than his 4/5 body.
5) Terminate is very good. I'm not arguing that RUG has trouble with resolved creatures necessarily - I haven't played a game with your build - but you have to admit that Grixis is better at dealing with resolved dudes.
That it is! I'm embarrassed now that I left so much of this stuff out of my own pros and cons list. That being said, I don't really care about resolved dudes since I'll just win through them. And if you're winning, "having Terminate" doesn't really matter. Check out my tournament report in the RUG thread for some of examples of me not caring about resolved fatties. I'd actually argue that this point beautifully summarizes the Tempo credo. Who cares about having objectively better cards or answers if you win anyway?
6) If you play Probe, the number of non-blue spells isn't even much higher - 3 or so becase of Terminate - so you can easily play Shoal if you wanted. I've been hesitant to try it for a variety of reasons, but your finish will probably get me to try it out at some point (too busy to play at the moment).
Between Bauble, Command, and Terminate, Grixis has a fair amount less Blue cards than RUG. If it were just G-Probe you might have a case, but it's not. See my tournament report in the RUG thread for more on this.
3) Less dependence on cantrips to fill the yard which, in turn, helps you SB. I think you probably SB out Scour too aggressively though - taking out Probe against the aggro decks seems way better, but usual disclaimer, I haven't played your build. You also know that I think you're running too few lands.
Yep, I'm aware of these objections, and I don't buy them. I believe my results speak for themselves. The factual data I've presented strongly suggests that aggressively boarding out Thought Scour and running only 17 lands works. Some players genuinely dislike running "too few" lands (like my Grixis Delver opponent in round 5) and I strongly discourage those players from playing RUG Delver.
As you know I really respect the work you've done in this thread and look forward to continuing the debate with you!
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.
I'll try to reply to this later with some useful give and take. Outside of our persistent disagreement about lands/cantrips I think we're pretty close to each other.
Is anyone trying forked bolt in their lists? I was running electrolyzes but they can be extremely clunky (especially early when you'd like to/be able to 2/1), and it's doubly hard to reuse them with snap. I think with the rise of coco decks and with it being extremely good v. souls it could definitely be a good fit. It also pushes our tempo which I feel like some lists are getting away from (some of these lists are just midrange lists without extra lands).
I think the discussion you guys are having here is amazing for the Delver tempo decks. Being able to "see" into both your minds on the decks merrits is really helpful Thanks for the work you guys are putting in.
@Spooly: I see you mentioned that the burn match up becomes good with the Shadow plan. Does that plan mean we should no longer have Claw in our SB and instead run 2-3 Shadows? And does this mean we should Also add some angers to Board out Delver/Pyromancer to opt for the Shadow/Anger package in certain matchups?
Is anyone trying forked bolt in their lists? I was running electrolyzes but they can be extremely clunky (especially early when you'd like to/be able to 2/1), and it's doubly hard to reuse them with snap. I think with the rise of coco decks and with it being extremely good v. souls it could definitely be a good fit. It also pushes our tempo which I feel like some lists are getting away from (some of these lists are just midrange lists without extra lands).
Yes I'm currently running a 1/1 split between forked bolt and electrolyze. So far I like it. CoCo is very popular in my local meta and being able to forked bolt a dork turn 1 feels good. I also like it against affinity, the mirror and a cheaper way to deal with (lingering souls) tokens. It's also better against burn because it's cheaper and can kill all their creatures.
I really am not sure how I feel about my mainboard countermagic. I kind of feel like I want Spell Snare or Spell Pierce and not all 3 different 2 cmc counters but I have a love/hate relationship with all of them. Izzet charm was thrown in for testing but it's not been too useful so I'll probably cut it just unsure what to replace it with. In the side I never figured out what I want instead of Dispel and Izzet Staticaster so they've mainly been taking up slots. Staticaster hasn't done a thing in my meta with souls tokens being mostly absent. I'm not really sure what to change about this deck at this point but i've generally enjoyed it outside of the times I've either had massive variance screw or misplayed horribly.
I think the discussion you guys are having here is amazing for the Delver tempo decks. Being able to "see" into both your minds on the decks merrits is really helpful Thanks for the work you guys are putting in.
@Spooly: I see you mentioned that the burn match up becomes good with the Shadow plan. Does that plan mean we should no longer have Claw in our SB and instead run 2-3 Shadows? And does this mean we should Also add some angers to Board out Delver/Pyromancer to opt for the Shadow/Anger package in certain matchups?
In the delve build (0 Pyromancers, 8ish delve creatures), there should be 4 Death's Shadow, 0 Dragon's Claw, and IMO 2-3 Angers. In the Pyro build, I'd bet that Death's Shadow is worth it over Claw (and worth it as a 4 of) but the Angers seem sketchy. (Full disclosure: I only play the delve build so my advice isn't fantastic for pyro builds).
As for forked bolt, just looking at the math of it, for 4 mana you are completely blanking a lingering souls or helping to turn off elves or coco abzan dorks or glistener elves - where it would take 8 total mana with electrolyze. All of these decks can present a huge problem if left unchecked in the early game and most of the stock lists have been running no forked bolts. Forked bolt also makes for an incredible turn 3 play with YP (if they're tapped) which immediately turns the board in your favor. I've got a 2/0 fork/lyze split and I'll continue to test it.
I'm on the YP build and Death's Shadow is ABSOLUTELY the way to go for the burn matchup - I always feel like claw came a turn or two too late to make a difference. With Shadow you can adequately pressure while using your resources to counter/burn faster. As far as I can see it though, the angers ARE sketchy. If you've got any sort of board presence and don't have a fatty on the table, anger will generally ruin it for you. My creature split is 4 Delver/2 Angler/3 Snap/2 Tasigur/3 YP, it's just not enough delvers to make it worth it.
I've been on Forked bolt for weeks, soon dropping Electrolyze because it was impossible to flashback (started on 4 snappies, remember? Went down to 0, then up to 1, and will be on 2 this FNM). The velocity you lose from Lyze, I think Bolt makes up for it in sheer speed (t1 one mana play, t3 snappy being a real option). In heavy Delve, I think it definitely fits better than Electrolyze, because we just need to clear the field from chumpers for a couple of fish bites to goto the dome and the game is usually ours.
Burn: Am on SB 3x Death's shadow, ZERO Dragon's claw, 2x Dispel, 1x Flashfreeze and the fourth Stubborn Denial and it works Well agInst Burn. In conjunction with MB 3x IoK, 3x Stubborn Denial, 3x Leaks and a couple of fatties, Im confident postboard game is in our favor.
Anger of the gods: yes.
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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.
Hey, how's our match-up against Jund? Haven't faced it yet, and I hear its the next big thing.
Before they were SBing Leyline of the Void is was about even. Maybe even good. It's probably bad now though, but I haven't played a match.
BTW @Ashton - I plan on giving you a response with some thought in it sometime in the next day or so, instead of just quickly spewing off some half-nonsense. I haven't played a game of magic in nearly 2 weeks I've been so busy :(.
Another card I'd like to get some feedback on: Countersquall. I haven't seen it mentioned at all, I've seen it in no list, but it just seems like a better manaleak way more often than not (other than potentially very early in the game). It's a much better topdeck and with the insane amount of creature hate we pack I'm not sure that I care about the no creature clause. Thoughts?
Another card I'd like to get some feedback on: Countersquall. I haven't seen it mentioned at all, I've seen it in no list, but it just seems like a better manaleak way more often than not (other than potentially very early in the game). It's a much better topdeck and with the insane amount of creature hate we pack I'm not sure that I care about the no creature clause. Thoughts?
Leak hits creatures wich is huge. You really don't want to to let them resolve a rhino, finks or voice among other horrors.
You can compare Countersqual with negate. But BU is rather heavy to keep open. This means you needs to have BBU in play if you want to use it to protect your fatty. This is to big of a strain on your mana for those 2 points of lifeless.
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Thanks to SpiderBoy4 @ High-Light Studio's for the awesome banner
“I once had an entire race killed just to listen to the rattling of their dried bones as I waded through them.” —Volrath
On the deck's merits, here's how I see it.
Grixis Delve: a strictly worse Grixis Delver. I've explained my position here.
"Big Delve" Grixis Delver: A strictly worse RUG Delver. Sure, you get an extra point of toughness on your Mandrills. But a 1G 5/6 is much better than a 6B 5/5 with Delve, especially since it makes your other Delve guy so much more reliable; I cut all Thought Scours against almost every deck for relevant answers, whereas Grixis has to keep them to even function. Grixis even needs to run horrible cards like Mishra's Bauble to fill the graveyard, meaning less space for valuable SB cards (I often bring in 8-11 cards) and the elimination of strong options like Disrupting Shoal (not enough Blue). Add in RUG's favorable Burn matchup and the fact that since Mandrills tramples, you don't have to play 3-mana Midrange chaff like Electrolyze, and I don't see why anyone would ever play Grixis Delver for something other than a budget reason.
Pyromancer Grixis Delver (the standard version): This deck has its merits. It's basically UR Delver with Tasigur. The debate here is whether you want Tasigur or Tarmogoyf as your splashable fatty, and while I'm inclined to favor the latter, I understand the draw to banana man.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
1) Bauble isn't necessary at all. Probe can easily be run in it's place - you still run 12 cantrips to fuel the yard. The only reason I'm on Bauble is life loss. Being able to SB out cantrips is a good point, though with 17 land in your deck I'm not sure how you can get away with siding out 4 cantrips in so many matchups, especially when you're bringing in Huntmaster in many of the same matchups.
2) More of your threats are immune to Abrupt Decay and Slaughter Pact in Grixis.
3) Burn is actually somewhat favorable with the Death's Shadow plan, and the Death's Shadow + Anger plan is very strong in a lot of matchups -e.g. vs. CoCo - but RUG doesn't have access to that.
4) You don't have to play 3 mana stuff (and shouldn't, outside of a few SB cards). Abzan is bad, but as long as you don't try to beat them you can invest a lot in beating the rest of the field.
5) Terminate is very good. I'm not arguing that RUG has trouble with resolved creatures necessarily - I haven't played a game with your build - but you have to admit that Grixis is better at dealing with resolved dudes.
6) If you play Probe, the number of non-blue spells isn't even much higher - 3 or so becase of Terminate - so you can easily play Shoal if you wanted. I've been hesitant to try it for a variety of reasons, but your finish will probably get me to try it out at some point (too busy to play at the moment).
To show that I'm not just cheerleading for the deck I've been playing, advantages for RUG (as I see it):
1) More consistent fatties. 1) No legend rule and 2) Goyf easier to cast than Angler means the fatties come down early a bit more often. And they come in multiples far more often. Still weak to GY hate.
2) Huntmaster. This card solves a lot of problems in a lot of matchups.
3) Less dependence on cantrips to fill the yard which, in turn, helps you SB. I think you probably SB out Scour too aggressively though - taking out Probe against the aggro decks seems way better, but usual disclaimer, I haven't played your build. You also know that I think you're running too few lands.
Honestly point 1) in favor of RUG is the strongest reason I'd want to try it.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
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
decks playing:
none
As you know I really respect the work you've done in this thread and look forward to continuing the debate with you!
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
I think the discussion you guys are having here is amazing for the Delver tempo decks. Being able to "see" into both your minds on the decks merrits is really helpful Thanks for the work you guys are putting in.
@Spooly: I see you mentioned that the burn match up becomes good with the Shadow plan. Does that plan mean we should no longer have Claw in our SB and instead run 2-3 Shadows? And does this mean we should Also add some angers to Board out Delver/Pyromancer to opt for the Shadow/Anger package in certain matchups?
Yes I'm currently running a 1/1 split between forked bolt and electrolyze. So far I like it. CoCo is very popular in my local meta and being able to forked bolt a dork turn 1 feels good. I also like it against affinity, the mirror and a cheaper way to deal with (lingering souls) tokens. It's also better against burn because it's cheaper and can kill all their creatures.
I'd like to hear your experiences on forked bolt!
DECKS:
UB Faeries [Midrange/Tempo]
RWUGB Affinity[Aggro]
FAERIES TOO STRONK!!!1111
- Fae Prophecy, 201
56782 Darkslick Shores
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Watery Grave
Creature (15)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Gurmag Angler
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
Instant (19)
2 Spell Snare
4 Thought Scour
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Mana Leak
1 Remand
2 Deprive
2 Terminate
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Electrolyze
1 Murderous Cut
2 Blood Moon
2 Thoughtseize
1 Dispel
1 Negate
1 Flashfreeze
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Forked Bolt
1 Vandalblast
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Spellskite
1 Rending Volley
2 Dragon's Claw
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Gurmag Angler
3 Tasigur the Golden Fang
4 Serum Visions
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Thoughtscours
3 Stubborn Denial
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Remand
2 Mana Leak
2 Deprive
2 Terminate
1 Izzet Charm
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Spellskite
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Dispel
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Flashfreeze
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Blood Moon
I really am not sure how I feel about my mainboard countermagic. I kind of feel like I want Spell Snare or Spell Pierce and not all 3 different 2 cmc counters but I have a love/hate relationship with all of them. Izzet charm was thrown in for testing but it's not been too useful so I'll probably cut it just unsure what to replace it with. In the side I never figured out what I want instead of Dispel and Izzet Staticaster so they've mainly been taking up slots. Staticaster hasn't done a thing in my meta with souls tokens being mostly absent. I'm not really sure what to change about this deck at this point but i've generally enjoyed it outside of the times I've either had massive variance screw or misplayed horribly.
In the delve build (0 Pyromancers, 8ish delve creatures), there should be 4 Death's Shadow, 0 Dragon's Claw, and IMO 2-3 Angers. In the Pyro build, I'd bet that Death's Shadow is worth it over Claw (and worth it as a 4 of) but the Angers seem sketchy. (Full disclosure: I only play the delve build so my advice isn't fantastic for pyro builds).
I'm on the YP build and Death's Shadow is ABSOLUTELY the way to go for the burn matchup - I always feel like claw came a turn or two too late to make a difference. With Shadow you can adequately pressure while using your resources to counter/burn faster. As far as I can see it though, the angers ARE sketchy. If you've got any sort of board presence and don't have a fatty on the table, anger will generally ruin it for you. My creature split is 4 Delver/2 Angler/3 Snap/2 Tasigur/3 YP, it's just not enough delvers to make it worth it.
Burn: Am on SB 3x Death's shadow, ZERO Dragon's claw, 2x Dispel, 1x Flashfreeze and the fourth Stubborn Denial and it works Well agInst Burn. In conjunction with MB 3x IoK, 3x Stubborn Denial, 3x Leaks and a couple of fatties, Im confident postboard game is in our favor.
Anger of the gods: yes.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Before they were SBing Leyline of the Void is was about even. Maybe even good. It's probably bad now though, but I haven't played a match.
BTW @Ashton - I plan on giving you a response with some thought in it sometime in the next day or so, instead of just quickly spewing off some half-nonsense. I haven't played a game of magic in nearly 2 weeks I've been so busy :(.
Leak hits creatures wich is huge. You really don't want to to let them resolve a rhino, finks or voice among other horrors.
You can compare Countersqual with negate. But BU is rather heavy to keep open. This means you needs to have BBU in play if you want to use it to protect your fatty. This is to big of a strain on your mana for those 2 points of lifeless.
“I once had an entire race killed just to listen to the rattling of their dried bones as I waded through them.”
—Volrath
3 remand
2 spell pierce
1 dispel
2 spell snare
can also help vs other matchups where counter is good but is this reasonable vs burn? haven't been able to test against the deck yet
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