Why not run Molten Rain over Fulminator Mage? Are you attacking with it or always immediately saccing? I prefer Molten Rains because it flips Delvers, usually does 2 damage, and can be cast with Snapcaster Mage.
I could definitely see an argument for Molten Rain over Fulminator. There are a couple of Nahiri players at my shop however, and I like Fulminator there for the Collonades while also having the ability to post up and attack with them until I need to pop it off. In that match up I side out the delvers. If I had more Tron to worry about I'd make the switch for sure though.
i like the fulminator because its a body and it can be returned with kologhan command, and as notoriousATX said, alot of matches we have to take out the delvers.
I run 2 blood moons in my sb. They are super relevant and even make Eldrazi bad (removing colorless). Sure, they delay tron and stuff, but remember that we are faster than them. I wouldn't run anything else.
I've wanted to try a couple moons out myself. What does your mana base look like, 10 fetches enough?
Also, how are we going to be looking on the fastlands situation? I was thinking 2 Spirebluff, 1 Darkslick
So... Should we still be runninh the 4x AV in the board? (On a list without pyros or probes)
...it's pretty subjective. If a Meta is rather slow then they can be pretty good out of the board. In my experience they feel too slow for Delver. One thing this deck prides itself on is interacting in the early turns of every game, and while refilling your hand after all that is great, sometimes the AV would get stuck in my hand because I needed to cast Serum Visions to find my next land drop first, or I knew I needed to hold up a spell snare or bolt. With our tighter mana base, even though it's suspend for U, sometimes I just had too many priorities and didn't have a turn to take off for it. Sometimes even Serum Visions can feel clunky in the earliest turns. That being said, it's still a very powerful effect in a deck like this so I wouldn't fault anyway for jamming it.
I'm currently running 3 Moons out of the board with 10 fetches, and its been excellent. Good against Tron, Jund, any Abzan variety, and even Jeskai Nahiri. Early moon is good, but even getting down a moon lategame and then being able to protect it is really strong--this is especially relevant against Nahiri, as it shuts down their manlands, so as long as you can prevent a Nahiri from hitting play you can pretty much lock them.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern UR Storm URB Grixis Delver W Death and Taxes
Basically anything with Scalding Tarn
I run 8-9 fetches (usually, I have access to more in other decks) and Moon is fine. I have occasionally shut off my access to black when I played one, but I felt that the situation warranted the early moon drop. And I echo the sentiment versus a variety of decks.
One thing I have noticed about Delver and Grixis variants is that the card draw effect from AV is great, but not always the best play the deck can make. I am on the fence regarding it. I might put a couple back in the board.
Moon certainly seems like an interesting piece to test out. I'll have to add that to the sideboard and see how it does. I'll need to add another Island or two, though.
Not worth it. This deck doesn't spam enough spells in short periods of time to make it flip that readily (especially in Probe-less versions of the deck), and having it sit there when you need something to apply steady pressure feels really, really bad. It also has horrible synergy with Delver and the Delve threats.
How do you guys feel about TiTi in Grixis Delver? On the one hand, it feels like a very strong beater, good in defense and a board wipe, getting etxra value from bouncing snappys seems also great, but i fear bouncing delve fatties and flipped delvers, so i don't know if its wearth it....thinking about one in the main instead of my 4th Mana leak oder 4th Spell Snare and one in the side? Thoughts?
If you want to play another one-off threat, Pyromancer and Vendilion Clique are both leagues better for this deck than thing in the ice.
Game 2: game 2 went something like EE - Anger - snap - anger - damnation - snap - damnation, killing basically every creature in his deck then closing it out with a tasigur. The damnation was topdecked the turn i was facing lethal and was my only out
Game 3: went much more easily, a single damnation locked it up.
Round 2: esper control 1-2
Game 1: turn 2 tasigur backed up by a few counters wrapped it up quickly
Game 2: got him down to 2,taking a line that put me "all in" but left pretty much any top deck closing the game. The rest of this game involved me drawing every mana producing land in the deck in succession, the worst of it being i drew a thought scour that milled a bolt and kommand then drew me a land. meanwhile he draws a million cards from sphinx's revs anx esper charms, game ended awhile later
Game 3: i once again drew an extreme number of lands and no Threats. This one was not even close
Round 3: RG breach, 0-2
Not much to say here, games 1 and two were such a slaughter and my sideboard had actual nothing for the matchup. Anyone have suggestions about this matchup? Not even tron felt so unwinnable
Round 4: grixis control, 2-0
Game 1: i immediately settled in for the long game, but unfortunately on turn 3 i was staring at 3 AV's on suspend and realized i needed to race those or the game would be unwinnable. I played very tightly, only exchanging resources when absolutely necessary, and closed the game out right after the second AV came off suspend by baiting his snare on a yound pyro then terminating his only blocker for lethal
Sideboard:
+2 leyline of the void
+2 dispel
+1 countersquall
+1 painful truths
+1 thoughtseize
-1 young pyro
-1 delver
-1 electrolyze
-3 probe
-1 mana leak
Game 2:
Not much happened early this game, and hilariously both of our first real plays were t4 leylines. Played out much the same as the first game, was very careful about what resources i was willing to commit. Played threats when he was tapped low, forcing him to use cryptics in "bounce the delver" mode. This game made me really appreciate the delver build over the traditional grixis build, being so resource efficient and low to the ground and not running clunky cards like cryptic really made him feel like a dog. 3x dispel postboard ruined him
Overall, happy with how it did. Went 2-2, would have been 3-1 with even slightly better topdecks vs esper
Could someone give me a general sb plan of what's in and what's out for the major archetypes with the pyro/probe build?
Not sure what kevin does, but probes are typically the first thing i cut from the list in most matchups. Probe is great for accelersting your game 1,and also for figuring out what your playing against. Games slow down after board, and the information becomes less valuable
I try to cut mana leaks on the draw in fast matchups
Finally trimming your fragile threats like delver and pyro and delver vs bgx/urx for your grindy cards
So, I've been testing the new manabase pretty heavily, and I thought I'd share with everyone my results, in case anybody cared or wanted to use it as a baseline.
Essentially, I tried cutting the basic mountain, and I found I didn't care for it. One of the best things about the new manabase is it gets to be as painless as Grixis has ever had--I really wanted to steer into that by having a basic land of each type fetchable in case we don't get the fastland (which, honestly, can happen). Plus, a Ghost Quarter on my only red source with no basic mountain to search for turned a very easy win into a game loss for me. I'm trying not to let that bias me, but it can potentially happen.
Regardless, I decided to take Johnny's advice and go down to eight fetches. I haven't felt a difference between eight and nine in terms of hitting my colors when I need them, and I play Probes so I still tend to fill my yard easily enough for the Delve threats. There was one game where I was missing one card in my yard for a turn 2 Angler, but I didn't have any fastlands in play, so it wouldn't have been my ninth fetch, anyways. While the Mountain is the basic I tend to fetch the least, it does happen and it's not even that rare. Overall, I've been pretty happy with it. This is what I'm working with now.
Thanks for sharing your results! Though I'm convinced that 4 spirebluff is way too much. Don't forget it comes into play tapped as your 4th land... Getting that 4th land for snap+terminate, snap+manaleak, or playing 2 spells in a turn/playing cantrip/creature + holding up a counterspell etc can be very important. This deck likes to maximize its use of mana, and getting a land come into play tapped can mean you lose the game. (If we generally don't care about the 5th land drop, I feel the 4th one is very relevant)
Canal is the best land we can get for turn 1. But I'm not sure I want multiples in the same game. T1 Canal + T2 Swamp means we can cast all our spells and we take 1 damage to fetch the swamp. Multiple canals can be awkward: you want to play them before T4, but you also want black mana! And you also want fetchlands to enable Tasigur or murderous cut if you're playing that. To play T2 tasigur, you generally need to play a fetch as your 1st or second land.
I agree that cutting the basic mountain is a mistake. It's the worst land in the deck, but sometimes you have scalding tarn and you want to play bolt on turn 1 against burn/zoo/whatever. I'm not sure about cutting the 2nd steam vents, but maybe it's ok as you play more UR lands (but they are not fetchable. Playing 1 means once you fetch it, your following fetches lose a lot of power. You can also accidentally mill it with a thought scour).
I'm playing the following manabase next week:
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Spirebluff Canal
2 Steam vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
(also I'm playing probe+pyro. This fastland makes paying that much life less painfull. Also going back to painful truth in the side maybe?)
I'll cut the 3rd bluff for a bloodstained mire if it's too awkward having multiples. Also, maybe I want the 2nd watery grave over the island, a bluff or a steam vents? Basic Island is awkward in this deck but enables blood moon in the side. I think the card is not good, but I think it's the best and most flexible land hate we can play at the moment (I've not been a fan of fulminators except against Jund/control, where I don't even bring in moon).
So 10 fetches, 2 grave, 2 vents, 1 crypt, 1 darkslick, 2 island, 1 swamp, 1 mountain. I'm going to try swapping out basic island and steam vents for 2 spirebluff. Steam vents is almost always the land we want first, so fetching that turn 1 makes the most sense. If instead I draw the spirebluff I'm happy. I'm a little worried to go down to so few fetchables - 7 from 9.
I can see corner cases where I may want to fetch a second island to save damage, but I can also see cases where not having to fetch turn 1 saves life. I'm not sure which has the better numbers.
Edit: maybe it makes more sense to go down on one fetch? I don't think I'd go to 8 fetches though.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Also, how are we going to be looking on the fastlands situation? I was thinking 2 Spirebluff, 1 Darkslick
...it's pretty subjective. If a Meta is rather slow then they can be pretty good out of the board. In my experience they feel too slow for Delver. One thing this deck prides itself on is interacting in the early turns of every game, and while refilling your hand after all that is great, sometimes the AV would get stuck in my hand because I needed to cast Serum Visions to find my next land drop first, or I knew I needed to hold up a spell snare or bolt. With our tighter mana base, even though it's suspend for U, sometimes I just had too many priorities and didn't have a turn to take off for it. Sometimes even Serum Visions can feel clunky in the earliest turns. That being said, it's still a very powerful effect in a deck like this so I wouldn't fault anyway for jamming it.
UR Storm
URB Grixis Delver
W Death and Taxes
Basically anything with Scalding Tarn
One thing I have noticed about Delver and Grixis variants is that the card draw effect from AV is great, but not always the best play the deck can make. I am on the fence regarding it. I might put a couple back in the board.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
If you want to play another one-off threat, Pyromancer and Vendilion Clique are both leagues better for this deck than thing in the ice.
Round 1: bogles 2-1
Game 1: i scooped on turn 3ish due to something ridiculous like a 9 power bogle
Sideboard:
-3 terminate
-1 electrolyze
-3 probe
+1 anger
+1 damnation
+2 engineered explosives
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 spellskite
+1 countersquall
Game 2: game 2 went something like EE - Anger - snap - anger - damnation - snap - damnation, killing basically every creature in his deck then closing it out with a tasigur. The damnation was topdecked the turn i was facing lethal and was my only out
Game 3: went much more easily, a single damnation locked it up.
Round 2: esper control 1-2
Game 1: turn 2 tasigur backed up by a few counters wrapped it up quickly
Sideboard:
+2 dispel
+1 thoughtseize
+1 painful truths
Cant remember what i cut
Game 2: got him down to 2,taking a line that put me "all in" but left pretty much any top deck closing the game. The rest of this game involved me drawing every mana producing land in the deck in succession, the worst of it being i drew a thought scour that milled a bolt and kommand then drew me a land. meanwhile he draws a million cards from sphinx's revs anx esper charms, game ended awhile later
Game 3: i once again drew an extreme number of lands and no Threats. This one was not even close
Round 3: RG breach, 0-2
Not much to say here, games 1 and two were such a slaughter and my sideboard had actual nothing for the matchup. Anyone have suggestions about this matchup? Not even tron felt so unwinnable
Round 4: grixis control, 2-0
Game 1: i immediately settled in for the long game, but unfortunately on turn 3 i was staring at 3 AV's on suspend and realized i needed to race those or the game would be unwinnable. I played very tightly, only exchanging resources when absolutely necessary, and closed the game out right after the second AV came off suspend by baiting his snare on a yound pyro then terminating his only blocker for lethal
Sideboard:
+2 leyline of the void
+2 dispel
+1 countersquall
+1 painful truths
+1 thoughtseize
-1 young pyro
-1 delver
-1 electrolyze
-3 probe
-1 mana leak
Game 2:
Not much happened early this game, and hilariously both of our first real plays were t4 leylines. Played out much the same as the first game, was very careful about what resources i was willing to commit. Played threats when he was tapped low, forcing him to use cryptics in "bounce the delver" mode. This game made me really appreciate the delver build over the traditional grixis build, being so resource efficient and low to the ground and not running clunky cards like cryptic really made him feel like a dog. 3x dispel postboard ruined him
Overall, happy with how it did. Went 2-2, would have been 3-1 with even slightly better topdecks vs esper
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Could someone give me a general sb plan of what's in and what's out for the major archetypes with the pyro/probe build?
Not sure what kevin does, but probes are typically the first thing i cut from the list in most matchups. Probe is great for accelersting your game 1,and also for figuring out what your playing against. Games slow down after board, and the information becomes less valuable
I try to cut mana leaks on the draw in fast matchups
Finally trimming your fragile threats like delver and pyro and delver vs bgx/urx for your grindy cards
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Essentially, I tried cutting the basic mountain, and I found I didn't care for it. One of the best things about the new manabase is it gets to be as painless as Grixis has ever had--I really wanted to steer into that by having a basic land of each type fetchable in case we don't get the fastland (which, honestly, can happen). Plus, a Ghost Quarter on my only red source with no basic mountain to search for turned a very easy win into a game loss for me. I'm trying not to let that bias me, but it can potentially happen.
Regardless, I decided to take Johnny's advice and go down to eight fetches. I haven't felt a difference between eight and nine in terms of hitting my colors when I need them, and I play Probes so I still tend to fill my yard easily enough for the Delve threats. There was one game where I was missing one card in my yard for a turn 2 Angler, but I didn't have any fastlands in play, so it wouldn't have been my ninth fetch, anyways. While the Mountain is the basic I tend to fetch the least, it does happen and it's not even that rare. Overall, I've been pretty happy with it. This is what I'm working with now.
Mardu Burn
Monogreen Stompy
Legacy
Burn
Pauper
Dimir Flicker
Monowhite Tokens
Canal is the best land we can get for turn 1. But I'm not sure I want multiples in the same game. T1 Canal + T2 Swamp means we can cast all our spells and we take 1 damage to fetch the swamp. Multiple canals can be awkward: you want to play them before T4, but you also want black mana! And you also want fetchlands to enable Tasigur or murderous cut if you're playing that. To play T2 tasigur, you generally need to play a fetch as your 1st or second land.
I agree that cutting the basic mountain is a mistake. It's the worst land in the deck, but sometimes you have scalding tarn and you want to play bolt on turn 1 against burn/zoo/whatever. I'm not sure about cutting the 2nd steam vents, but maybe it's ok as you play more UR lands (but they are not fetchable. Playing 1 means once you fetch it, your following fetches lose a lot of power. You can also accidentally mill it with a thought scour).
I'm playing the following manabase next week:
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Spirebluff Canal
2 Steam vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
(also I'm playing probe+pyro. This fastland makes paying that much life less painfull. Also going back to painful truth in the side maybe?)
I'll cut the 3rd bluff for a bloodstained mire if it's too awkward having multiples. Also, maybe I want the 2nd watery grave over the island, a bluff or a steam vents? Basic Island is awkward in this deck but enables blood moon in the side. I think the card is not good, but I think it's the best and most flexible land hate we can play at the moment (I've not been a fan of fulminators except against Jund/control, where I don't even bring in moon).
Currently Playing:
Modern Grixis Shadow, Storm
Legacy: Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show
Duel Commander: Kess High Tide
Vintage Big blue(MTGO)
So 10 fetches, 2 grave, 2 vents, 1 crypt, 1 darkslick, 2 island, 1 swamp, 1 mountain. I'm going to try swapping out basic island and steam vents for 2 spirebluff. Steam vents is almost always the land we want first, so fetching that turn 1 makes the most sense. If instead I draw the spirebluff I'm happy. I'm a little worried to go down to so few fetchables - 7 from 9.
I can see corner cases where I may want to fetch a second island to save damage, but I can also see cases where not having to fetch turn 1 saves life. I'm not sure which has the better numbers.
Edit: maybe it makes more sense to go down on one fetch? I don't think I'd go to 8 fetches though.