Also to add to the av vs pt debate: I run two av and they've been great. I don't always have them turn one but for the matchups where av is good you can realistically top deck it and be alive to see it resolve. Although I did have an absolutely savage opener against my UW control opponent of two AV. Neither of which he was able to counter. That felt like we weren't even playing the same game at that point.
Yeah young pyro is still great without probe. We spam spells like nobody's business so one fewer spell to spam is really not a big deal. He still rolls over control and midrange decks if he sticks around for a turn or two.
Yeah young pyro is still great without probe. We spam spells like nobody's business so one fewer spell to spam is really not a big deal. He still rolls over control and midrange decks if he sticks around for a turn or two.
After being on the receiving end of Fatal Push 3 rounds in a row, I can see why people want to cut Pyros. If I don't play my janky Jeskai Aggro build, I'll give a Pyro-less Delver build a try again.
Also, I feel so vindicated about my love of blood moon lol
Another thing to note is that these low to the ground lists also ran 2 tasigur and 2 gurmaug. Gurmaug is a faster clock and can be run easier in the 1 drop heavy builds so it does make sense
Hi guys, this is my first post ever in MTG Salvation
Im a fairly new grixis delver player, i have played just 6 shop tournaments with it, with three 3-1 and three 2-2. My local store tournaments go from 15 people to 35 if you go on friday. This is my current list:
As you can see, the mana base and the sideboard are both budget friendly, i need more fetchlands and i want to replace rakdos charm, tormod's crypt and 1 remand with surgical extraction, probably adding duress too.
Now let me talk about some flex slots in the mainboard:
- I don't run the fourth delve fatty (angler) because i don't have that many fetchlands to fill my graveyard better and when i have a tasigur in hand, drawing another delve creature feels super bad, nearly a dead uncasteable card.
- I like vendilion clique as a one of mb, when its good its really good and when its not that good its still an ok card. My meta is so control focused as well.
- I like the pyros just because its probably one of the best ways to deal with tron, ad nauseam and that kind of decks. Against the rest of the field, i consider pyro a turn 3 creature, leaving one mana for protection or at least a thought scour or bolt/push to take value from it.
- The izzet charm feels super good as a one of. Its so versatile. The loop effect is great, yesterday i was playing against jeskai control. It turned a hand from mana leak, polluted delta and izzet charm into snapcaster kolaghan's hand eot.
Talking about the pairings:
I've lost against: 2 times gb tron, 2 times scapeshift, 1 time ad nauseam, 1 time affinity, 1 time jeskai prowress, 1 time eldrazi and taxes.
-The affinity and jeskai prowress loses were due to stuck on lands or not finding a colour. This is probably because my mana base is sub obtimal, anyways when i hadn't troubles with lands i won the game, both matchups feel so winnable.
-The lost against ad nauseam was because missplays and poor knowledge of the pairing.
-The eldrazi and taxes lost was due to perfect draws from my oponent (He played so good too). Game 1 i got stuck on lands against thalia, when i recover from the situation he just drops another one, i kill it and then he draws another one xD. Vial on turn one and flickerwisp on blade splicer finished me. Game 2 vial turn one again, and turn three he drops the only reality smasher he got in the sb. My opponent was really good playing the decks as well. Blade splicer, thalia and the eldrazi seem so good in the pairing.
-Scapeshift totally destroyed me. I just won one game against him because i went delver into pyromancer and he got stuck on lands. My list lacks of heavy counters too, and molten rain its just not enought without surgical extraction.
-Same story goes for tron. I've not tested molten rain yet against them because i was running crumble to dust instead before, which felt pretty bad, because it was just too late to cast it, between being four mana and world breaker/ulamog destroying your lands. I've just won a game against it with, again, t1 delver t2 pyro, t3 tasigur.
Anyways, i just love the deck. Its hard to pilote (i like this) and if you do so i think you can win against everything(need some luck against bad mu of course).
My meta is very control-midrange heavy(jund, junk, grixis, jeskai, uw...), with some aggro especially affinity or burn(which i have faced 5 times and have won every single time), tron, creature heavy decks like company or taxes and sometimes combo like ad nauseam. Poor presence of dredge, infect or bant eldrazi.
Any advice is welcome, thank you very much and sorry for my english if i had some mistakes
I understand why pyro feels bad and people want to cut him. I was really dissatisfied with him for a long time and even cut him at one point, but I can definitely say cutting pyro is a mistake. He feels bad when you play badly. Someone was saying they like him for early pressure and that's not at all what he is meant for most of the time. Sure you can run him out turn two if you know your opponent can't do anything, but he is 3-4 drop against most decks. I hold onto him as long as possible. Let your opponent burn their removal on delvers and tasigurs. Your other threats are just low costed fatties for the most part. They do a good job of beating down but are pretty easily clumped, terminated or otherwise dealt with and they leave you with no value once they're gone. Unlike them, Young Pyromancer is a card that absolutely will win you the game if he hangs out for a turn or two. To that end I also really recommend the maindeck dispel. It helps with pyro and everything else our deck is trying to do.
Think of it a bit like grixis twin for those who used to play it. You would bait out removal and answers with your cliques and tasigurs then land the combo to finish them. Young pyromancer isn't win on the spot good but he isn't far off.
I play in a very aggro format and decided to jam two Forked bolts into the mainboard. I removed my mainboard Electrolyze and Collective Brutality to make room. Card felt great in my meta. Having access to a tool that can two for one as early as turn 2 felt great and having extra burn damage never hurt. In an open field I probably wouldn't main them but because of the heavy creature aggro decks at my LGS meta they will stay until further notice.
I play in a very aggro format and decided to jam two Forked bolts into the mainboard. I removed my mainboard Electrolyze and Collective Brutality to make room. Card felt great in my meta. Having access to a tool that can two for one as early as turn 2 felt great and having extra burn damage never hurt. In an open field I probably wouldn't main them but because of the heavy creature aggro decks at my LGS meta they will stay until further notice.
I've just ordered two Blood Moons. I wanna try them out alongside a singleton Fulminator Mage in the SB and see how they go.
Hope they're mine before Monday night
I have been played moons in the sideboard for so long time! They are great against BGx, UWx, Ad nauseam, Vakalut decks, Eldrazi decks, they slow down Tron as well (even if they are not so effective to let you win the game instantaneously like they did with Jund for example). Most of all, we can play it T3 with just 1 island and 1 swamp, the double blue mana is often not necessary cause you will lock the game and not need to make snapcaster->counter
Yeah that's my goal indeed. Moon shuts down many strategies and it's often better in the matchups in which I'd side Fulminator in. I just hope they won't get milled by Scour.
Guys, what do you think it's better for the sideboard? Lighthouse or Cavern of Souls?
I've been on and off Blood moon for some of those reasons, but also it restricts our tempo too.
I'm more for card draw personally than our creatures being needed in a control heavy environment. We need answers in hand more than we need creatures? Each creature they counter just takes a counter off something more important for us to resolve? Just my thoughts. Never played cavern in this, but do in my Mardu Martyr Proc dec, because in that deck landing the creatures is key. My Blood moons are in my Martyr proc deck too, along with 4 ghost quarter main. With the flagstones and bunch of plains, I only need red to get out Nahiri or Lightning Helix. Or SB cards such as hide//seek or wear//tear.
I've just ordered two Blood Moons. I wanna try them out alongside a singleton Fulminator Mage in the SB and see how they go.
Hope they're mine before Monday night
I have been played moons in the sideboard for so long time! They are great against BGx, UWx, Ad nauseam, Vakalut decks, Eldrazi decks, they slow down Tron as well (even if they are not so effective to let you win the game instantaneously like they did with Jund for example). Most of all, we can play it T3 with just 1 island and 1 swamp, the double blue mana is often not necessary cause you will lock the game and not need to make snapcaster->counter
Yeah that's my goal indeed. Moon shuts down many strategies and it's often better in the matchups in which I'd side Fulminator in. I just hope they won't get milled by Scour.
Guys, what do you think it's better for the sideboard? Lighthouse or Cavern of Souls?
I've been on and off Blood moon for some of those reasons, but also it restricts our tempo too.
I'm more for card draw personally than our creatures being needed in a control heavy environment. We need answers in hand more than we need creatures? Each creature they counter just takes a counter off something more important for us to resolve? Just my thoughts. Never played cavern in this, but do in my Mardu Martyr Proc dec, because in that deck landing the creatures is key. My Blood moons are in my Martyr proc deck too, along with 4 ghost quarter main. With the flagstones and bunch of plains, I only need red to get out Nahiri or Lightning Helix. Or SB cards such as hide//seek or wear//tear.
Snapcaster Mage is probably our most important spell to resolve, and it's particularly hard to deal with spell snare + better counters coming from a pure control build.
Why do people favor fulminators over molten rains in this deck?
FMage can also attack and bait removals against Control, and forces Scapeshift to interact with it before playing the combo, but I also am starting to prefer Molten Rain, since we have more Snapcaster than Kommands. The thing is that Snapcaster is also better used with countermagic in many of those matchups, like Tron.
@falchion72, I'm thinking about them because in the mirror, or against Control in general, a landed Tasigur/Snap/FMage/YP/Clique is a threat, and they're forced to Terminate, Push, Path (ramping us) or killing him generally, and since Bolt is usually partially or totally sided out for Control, protecting our creatures becomes easier specially when we have Snare, Leak, Dispel, Squall and Negate.
"Regarding my Tron matchup with this specific build, I was very pleased with Fulminator Mage. Many players have asked me about Molten Rain in its place, but the ability to beat down and get in more than two points of damage came up more than once in my sideboard games. The ability to cast Fulminator Mage and leave up a counter on five mana is also a lot better than Snapcasting a Molten Rain, as you end up countering a lot of tutors for lands in the matchup. As such, I prefer using Kolaghan’s Command to recur Fulminators over using Snapcaster Mage to recur Molten Rains." - Ryan Overturf
Now I really don't know if Mage is better than Rain. Even Kevin Jone's likes Mage over Rain...
Isn't magma spray just a pure upgrade to pillar of flame since instant speed is better than sorcery? Just trying to help a fellow delver player out. This is a response to Sonnenrad. I'm new to forums.
Ive recently switched from control to delver, i like the molten rain more because snaps and powers up t1 delver more. However hivemind is seldom wrong so i was wondering about fmage as well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Isn't magma spray just a pure upgrade to pillar of flame since instant speed is better than sorcery? Just trying to help a fellow delver player out. This is a response to Sonnenrad. I'm new to forums.
Not in the maindeck, since in the matchups where Magma Spray would be dead at least Pillar of Flame can go to the face.
Isn't magma spray just a pure upgrade to pillar of flame since instant speed is better than sorcery? Just trying to help a fellow delver player out. This is a response to Sonnenrad. I'm new to forums.
You're all good, and honestly it's a fair point. As Kyburn points out, I prefer Pillar of Flame because it can still do 2 damage to an opponent whereas Magma Spray can be dead sometimes. I'll be the first to say it's a meta pick and maybe not something that I'd like in a huge tournament.
After being on the receiving end of Fatal Push 3 rounds in a row, I can see why people want to cut Pyros. If I don't play my janky Jeskai Aggro build, I'll give a Pyro-less Delver build a try again.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Also, I feel so vindicated about my love of blood moon lol
Another thing to note is that these low to the ground lists also ran 2 tasigur and 2 gurmaug. Gurmaug is a faster clock and can be run easier in the 1 drop heavy builds so it does make sense
Im a fairly new grixis delver player, i have played just 6 shop tournaments with it, with three 3-1 and three 2-2. My local store tournaments go from 15 people to 35 if you go on friday. This is my current list:
5 island
1 mountain
1 swamp
4 polluted delta
1 bloodstained mire
1 sulfur falls
2 drowned catacomb
2 steam vents
1 watery grave
1 blood crypt
Creatures
4 delver of secrets
4 snapcaster mage
2 young pyromancer
1 vendilion clique
3 tasigur, the golden fang
4 serum visions
1 collective brutality
Instant
4 thought scour
4 lightning bolt
2 kolaghan's command
2 fatal push
3 terminate
1 electrolyze
1 izzet charm
2 spell snare
3 mana leak
2 dispel
2 izzet staticaster
1 collective brutality
3 molten rain
1 anger of the gods
1 pia and kiran nalaar
1 jace, architect of thought
1 rakdos charm
1 tormod's crypt
2 remand
As you can see, the mana base and the sideboard are both budget friendly, i need more fetchlands and i want to replace rakdos charm, tormod's crypt and 1 remand with surgical extraction, probably adding duress too.
Now let me talk about some flex slots in the mainboard:
- I don't run the fourth delve fatty (angler) because i don't have that many fetchlands to fill my graveyard better and when i have a tasigur in hand, drawing another delve creature feels super bad, nearly a dead uncasteable card.
- I like vendilion clique as a one of mb, when its good its really good and when its not that good its still an ok card. My meta is so control focused as well.
- I like the pyros just because its probably one of the best ways to deal with tron, ad nauseam and that kind of decks. Against the rest of the field, i consider pyro a turn 3 creature, leaving one mana for protection or at least a thought scour or bolt/push to take value from it.
- The izzet charm feels super good as a one of. Its so versatile. The loop effect is great, yesterday i was playing against jeskai control. It turned a hand from mana leak, polluted delta and izzet charm into snapcaster kolaghan's hand eot.
Talking about the pairings:
I've lost against: 2 times gb tron, 2 times scapeshift, 1 time ad nauseam, 1 time affinity, 1 time jeskai prowress, 1 time eldrazi and taxes.
-The affinity and jeskai prowress loses were due to stuck on lands or not finding a colour. This is probably because my mana base is sub obtimal, anyways when i hadn't troubles with lands i won the game, both matchups feel so winnable.
-The lost against ad nauseam was because missplays and poor knowledge of the pairing.
-The eldrazi and taxes lost was due to perfect draws from my oponent (He played so good too). Game 1 i got stuck on lands against thalia, when i recover from the situation he just drops another one, i kill it and then he draws another one xD. Vial on turn one and flickerwisp on blade splicer finished me. Game 2 vial turn one again, and turn three he drops the only reality smasher he got in the sb. My opponent was really good playing the decks as well. Blade splicer, thalia and the eldrazi seem so good in the pairing.
-Scapeshift totally destroyed me. I just won one game against him because i went delver into pyromancer and he got stuck on lands. My list lacks of heavy counters too, and molten rain its just not enought without surgical extraction.
-Same story goes for tron. I've not tested molten rain yet against them because i was running crumble to dust instead before, which felt pretty bad, because it was just too late to cast it, between being four mana and world breaker/ulamog destroying your lands. I've just won a game against it with, again, t1 delver t2 pyro, t3 tasigur.
Anyways, i just love the deck. Its hard to pilote (i like this) and if you do so i think you can win against everything(need some luck against bad mu of course).
My meta is very control-midrange heavy(jund, junk, grixis, jeskai, uw...), with some aggro especially affinity or burn(which i have faced 5 times and have won every single time), tron, creature heavy decks like company or taxes and sometimes combo like ad nauseam. Poor presence of dredge, infect or bant eldrazi.
Any advice is welcome, thank you very much and sorry for my english if i had some mistakes
Think of it a bit like grixis twin for those who used to play it. You would bait out removal and answers with your cliques and tasigurs then land the combo to finish them. Young pyromancer isn't win on the spot good but he isn't far off.
Nice, I have been testing Caleb Durward's Grixis Delver list recently which also includes 2 Forked Bolts in the maindeck. In my meta there has been a resurgence of Abzan CoCo so I now use 2 Pillar of Flame maindeck.
I've been on and off Blood moon for some of those reasons, but also it restricts our tempo too.
I'm more for card draw personally than our creatures being needed in a control heavy environment. We need answers in hand more than we need creatures? Each creature they counter just takes a counter off something more important for us to resolve? Just my thoughts. Never played cavern in this, but do in my Mardu Martyr Proc dec, because in that deck landing the creatures is key. My Blood moons are in my Martyr proc deck too, along with 4 ghost quarter main. With the flagstones and bunch of plains, I only need red to get out Nahiri or Lightning Helix. Or SB cards such as hide//seek or wear//tear.
Modern
URB Grixis Delver
GWB Abzan Company
RWB Mardu Burn
WB Martyr Proc
Snapcaster Mage is probably our most important spell to resolve, and it's particularly hard to deal with spell snare + better counters coming from a pure control build.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
"Regarding my Tron matchup with this specific build, I was very pleased with Fulminator Mage. Many players have asked me about Molten Rain in its place, but the ability to beat down and get in more than two points of damage came up more than once in my sideboard games. The ability to cast Fulminator Mage and leave up a counter on five mana is also a lot better than Snapcasting a Molten Rain, as you end up countering a lot of tutors for lands in the matchup. As such, I prefer using Kolaghan’s Command to recur Fulminators over using Snapcaster Mage to recur Molten Rains." - Ryan Overturf
Now I really don't know if Mage is better than Rain. Even Kevin Jone's likes Mage over Rain...
Not in the maindeck, since in the matchups where Magma Spray would be dead at least Pillar of Flame can go to the face.
You're all good, and honestly it's a fair point. As Kyburn points out, I prefer Pillar of Flame because it can still do 2 damage to an opponent whereas Magma Spray can be dead sometimes. I'll be the first to say it's a meta pick and maybe not something that I'd like in a huge tournament.
Welcome to the forums by the way!
@lmborj I too prefer Molten Rain to Fulminator Mage but overall like Blood Moon the most.