Overview and History
Grixis Delver is a aggro-control deck that utilizes the namesake card Delver of Secrets as a 1 mana 3/2 flyer in conjuction with early disruption via counter magic, discard and removal. By applying early pressure combined with our disruptive spells we try to hold our opponent off balance long enough to take over the game before they can recover and deploy their more effective cards.
Delver decks are often refered to as "Tempo Decks" and while this statement holds true for most Legacy Delver strategies, it's not entirely correct for their Modern equivalents because we lack most of those archetype defining cards, like for example Daze and Stifle. Modern Delver decks can play the Tempo role too, but are often designed to have greater staying power in longer, grindier games. But what exactly is Tempo? Tempo decks are interactive aggro-control hybrids with a proactive gamplan, which often means nothing else than sticking a threat and then counter & kill whatever your opponent tries to put on the battlefield. Grixis Delver is a more midrangy delver strategy as opposed to Temur Delver (or Monkey Grow as it is called) which is basically as close as you can get to "real" Tempo with Modern Delver.
Core Cards
These are the cards that define Grixis Delver. Running less than 4 of them is completely inaceptable as it drastically weakens the deck.
4x Delver of Secrets The decks namesake card and probably the best blue beater ever printed besides True Name Nemesis. Delver is the card that let this deck has some kind of "free wins" against slower strategies and opponents who stumble to remove him. He can start beating down for three as soon as turn 2 and completely run away with the game on its own while we are disrupting our opponent.
4x Snapcaster Mage Snapcaster Mage has earned its spot as the best blue card available in modern and he is without a doubt the most important card in the whole deck. Grixis Delver is filled with cheap interaction and Snapcaster mage just makes you run 4 more copies of each of your best spells. Beside the obvious Bolt-Snap-Bolt interaction, he gives you card advantage in grindy games anlongside Kolaghans Command and makes your removal density a nightmare for creature heavy decks.
4x Lightning Bolt Lightning Bolt has been the premier removal spell in modern since the formats creation. He does everything Delver strategies want, beeing cheap and thus able to trade up on mana, killing creatures and burning out our opponent. While Bolt has slightly fallen out of favour as a removal spell due to the rise of Death's Shadow Strategies lately, he is still one of the core cards of this deck.
4x Serum Visions Serum Visions is (odly) the best cantrip blue mages have access to in modern and is the clue that holds the whole deck together. Digging for answers, setting up your draws and Delvers, Serum Visions does it all for a single mana.
4x Thought Scour Similar to Serum Visions, Thought Scour is what makes this deck work. At first it may seem like a narrow and weak card but someone couldn't be more wrong. Grixis Delver makes heavy use of it's Graveyard so getting more cards in the yard when you have a Snapcaster Mage in hand is equal to drawing those cards while also acting as pseudo Dark Ritual for your delve creatures. On top of that, Thought Scour cantrips, is an instant and can be used to mill your opponent too. This can be very useful against decks that rely on certain cards (Ramp/Combo) which can then be exiled with Surgical Extraction to destroy their gameplan.
Tweakable Cards Creatures:
Grixis has a good number of strong creatures to support it's aggro gameplan. Most lists run between 13 and 14 creatures and while they will most likely always contain 3-4 delve fatties, the creature suite should represent your main game plan depending on how reactive or proactive you want to be.
2-3 Tasigur, the golden Fang Tasigur is our most important beater after Delver and he becomes the clear #1 against grindy mindrange strategies. His main selling point is that you can easily play him on turn 2 with Thought Scour + a fetchland and if you have used another fetchland/spell on th first turn you even have mana left for interaction. Besides beeing a one mana 4/5 Goyf most of the time he can net you some cards in longer games due to his activated ability. The only thing not to like? He's legendary so most lists play only 3 or even 2 copies because he sucks in multiples.
0-2 Gurmag Angler Our second delve fattie. This card is just a dump beater for B most of the time but has a bit more power and isn't legendary so getting multiples stuck in hand is okay as long as you can fill your graveyard frequently to cast them. Most lists run either a 3/1 or 2/2 split of Tasigur/Angler. Due to the recent printing of Fatal Push, both cards have become a bit better because they dodge the new and heavily played black removal spell
0-2 Young Pyromancer A legacy staple card for Grixis Delver, Young Pyromancer is a lot weaker in modern and the loss of Gitaxian Probe even further hurt the little red 2-drop. Even if Young Pyromancer has seen better days, he is still a card that can get completely out of hand if not dealt with immediately. He shines against non interactive decks and against midrange strategies but suffers against fast decks where you don't have the time to deploy a 2/1 before casting your interactive spells. Pyromancer supports a more proactive gampeplan, as his army of 1/1 tokens gets worse the longer the game goes.
0-1 Vendilion Clique Similar to Young Pyromancer, Vendilion Clique has seen better days in the past. Modern is choke full of removal and every spell played is able to kill a resolved Clique. Often relegated to a sideboard card, in metas full of Combo and Tron Clique as an disruptive beater remains a very solid choice. It should be noted that more reactive lists with a higher amount of countermagic will most likely always choose Clique over Young Pyromancer because she supports that kind of "draw go" playstyle better as a flashy threat.
Removal:
Delver decks are armed to the teeth with all kind of spot removal. This ensures our few offensive creatures can get in for some damage quite easily on an empty board and claim a fast victory before our opponents recover. It also frees up our Lightning Bolts to crack in for the last few points of damage. Besides the obvious 4x Bolts, you should at least run 4 other pieces of hard removal, the more creature haevy decks you expect to face, the more removal you should pack. Around 6 pieces can be viewed as the "to go route" if you are not preparing for specific metagames.
2-3 Fatal Push The new all star removal. It hit's nearly almost every common played creature for just B when revolted and nearly all relevant creatures in it's basic mode. Bare some Eldrazi nonsense, Delve creatures (watch out in the mirror!) and cards like Primeval Titan or Thragtusk, this card will serve you very well and some lists are running additional copies in the board to go up to the full playset after boarding.
Besides Bolt-Snap-Bolt, Push-Snap-Push is one of the most feared plays this deck can make.
2-3 Terminate Where a Push often isn't enough, Terminate ensures your target is not going to survive. This unconditional removal is relevant in the mirror and when facing a high amount of bigger creatures your other removal can't deal with. Also ensures your high removal density even if it's cmc2 casting cost can feel clunky against faster decks.
0-1 Murderous Cut Before the printing of Fatal Push, this card was played alongside Terminate as a way to deal with creatures for just one mana. Still used to some degree but often cut from recent lists to not be so graveyard dependend.
0-2 Electrolyze Your choice against go wide/small creatures strategies. Also useful in grindy MU's where drawing one additional card can make the difference between winning or loosing. Has lost some ground due to the incorporation of Fatal Push but still not a bad choice in the right meta or as a flexible 1-off.
Counter:
One of Delvers hallmarks are it's counterspells. Sadly, modern counterspells are quite lackluster when compared to their legacy counterparts and often very situational. Most lists opt for 4-5 counterspells in the maindeck, although more controling builds can run as many as 8+ pieces of countermagic.
2-3 Mana Leak Your to go counter spell. Gets every card in the early game and hits most relevant spells even if the game goes longer. Delver has the ability to close out games before Mana Leaks drawback will really matter and as long as wizzards refuses to print better cmc2 counters, this card will stay our universal answer.
2-3 Spell Snare This was once one of the decks best cards as it counters a variety of powerful modern cards such as Tarmogoyf, Terminate, Dark Confidant, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Voice of Resurgence, Arcbound Ravager and most commonly used counterspells for just U. The usefulness of this card will almost always vary between awesome and meeh, depending on the current decks you expect to face. Since the printing of Fatal Push, many of this cards former targets can als get answered by the new removal spell which further decreases the need for spell snare.
0-2 Remand Beeing once one of modern premier "Tempo cards", Remand has always shined more Twin than Delver lists. If you expect a slower meta, Remand can buy you enough time by timewalking your opponent to clai victory but it's more or less useless against decks with lots of cheap spells as they can just replay it on the same turn. More controlish build sometimes feature some copies of remand as it still represents one of the better counterspells in modern.
Multiple Use:
1-2 Kolaghan's Command
The card advantage engine of this deck alongside Snapcaster Mage. Kolaghan's command is a highly flexible card and almost every of it's modes can be put to great use in Grixis Delver. Most likely it will be used to shock a creature/your opponent or let them discard if they have only 1-2 cards left in hand and buy back a creature. Having milled your Gurmag Angler/Tasigur with Thought Scour? Just get them back while roasting that pesky Dark Confidant on your opponents side. The best play you can make is to get back a Snapcaster Mage with the recursion mode only to replay him and flashback Kolaghan's Command for even more value. The so called "Snapcaster-KCommand-Chain" makes you able to even outgrind Midrange decks in the long run.
0-2 Collective Brutality
Another highly flexible card, Collective Brutality especially shines against aggro decks where you can make them discard a burn spell, get rid of their Goblin Guide and maybe even drain some life while discarding clunky/useless cards or excess lands. It can be used against combo decks too if you are in dire need of interaction with their spells.
Most lists are running 2 copies somwhere in their 75 and it sorely depends on your meta if you maindeck them or let them be your flexible anti aggro/combo sideboard cards.
Lands:
Nothing works without a solid landbase. Grixis Delvers manabse has been optimized over time and excluding some minor tweaks, such as running 2 Watery Grave/1 Steam Vents or the other way round, is pretty much set in stone. You need at least 8 fetchlands to ensure not getting mana screwed and getting your delve creatures into play asap although some lists go up to 9. The rest of the manabase is pretty streamlined, most lists feature 4 basic lands, 4 shocklands and 2-3 fastlands which makes for a total number of 19-20 lands.
Sideboard Card Choices
Grixis has access to a great pool of good sideboard cards for a wide variety of MU's. You will almost always want a good mix of additional Disruption, Graveyard/Big Mana hate and some universal answers in the form of Engineered Explosives. The following list contains potential choices for a well build sideboard.
How to play Grixis Delver
So now that you have figured out your exact 75 you think you are ready to go and beat the hell out of your opponents right? Well, playing a reactive blue based strategy in modern has proven to be not as easy as it may look. Grixis Delver is a solid deck choice, especially if you know your meta and tailor your sideboard in the right direction but it requires a high number of games and knowledge to truly master this archetype.
It's important to know your deck but it's even more important to know what your opponent is going to do. While this may sound obvious, it's requires time to know which spells to counter, when to keep up mana for reactive plays, how to play around certain cards and when starting to race. This deck relies on synergy and making mistakes WILL punish you in the long run.
The first and maybe most important point is to know who's the beatdown? Check out the articles sector for an excellent read on that topic. Basically this means you have to adapt your playstyle depending on the deck you face. For example, if you play against aggressive decks that are faster, you become a reactive control deck. This means trying to answer their creatures and counter their spells in the first turns until they have exhausted their resources and then switch gears and start playing your threats. Pressuring aggro decks is a underestimated way to screw their gameplan. Burn can't handle a resolved Tasigur preboard without spending at least two of their creatures or burn spells to deal with him and when burn can't deal enough damage to you in the first few turns, it's going to loose in the long run.
Against Combo or Ramp decks on the other hand you become the aggressor and should try to deploy a fast threat or two to pressure their life total while keeping up your reactive cards for their game ending spells. Just durdling around wont get you far because at some point they will just draw more threats that you are able to answer. The fewer draw steps you give them, the more likely you are able to keep them of balance with your cheap interactive spells and kill them before they can recover.
Tips and tricks:
Delver of Secrets has a unique Upkeep Trigger which you can always respond to. This means after looking at the top card you can crack a fetch to shuffle your library before going to the draw step. If you have any kind of instant speed library manipulation available, such as Thought Scour, you can also cast those cards in response to mill unwanted cards away.
Always fetch before playing Serum Visions - sounds obvious.
Many of your hands will be one-landers. Keeping those hands depends on a few parameters. Are you on the draw or play? Do you have mulliganed? Do you have any kind of cantrips available? Are you able to interact with your opponent even if you miss your second land drop for a while? Generaly speaking, most one land hands are keepable as long as you have a cantrip or two, especially if you have already took a mulligan and are on the draw.
Welcome to the new primer!
I will continously update the primer over the next couple of days/weeks, adding decklists, card breakdowns, MU's etc. Help is always appreciated, especially for sideboard guides, banner creation or MU's analysis.
The last topic at the old primer has been the newly spoiled card censor.
Guess i will be trying out Censor as a 1-off in my list. Hope it doesn't work out as bad as it looks although my hopes are pretty low on that card. Why couldn't they just make it a miscalculation?
I replaced my 2 mana leaks with 2 Censor. It's really not as bad as I thought it would be, but yes, them not printing Miscalculation was, well, a miscalculation. It's every bit as good as Mana Leak from turns 2-4 vs most decks as they attempt to curve out, and I've had some cool turns where you can cycle it after flipping it on a Delver, as well as being able to blow out someone by Snapcastering a previously cycled Censor.
Against what type of decks have you tested it? I can see it being nice against decks that always try to play on curve as you mentioned but i would kinda feel "naked" without mana leak. Has the cycling been relevant in terms of getting out our delve creatures earlier?
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Modern // Legacy // Pauper WUBRG
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."
Against what type of decks have you tested it? I can see it being nice against decks that always try to play on curve as you mentioned but i would kinda feel "naked" without mana leak. Has the cycling been relevant in terms of getting out our delve creatures earlier?
Like I said, it's been decent, it's certainly not a powerhouse card by any stretch of the imagination. It can definitely be relevant in powering out delve creatures earlier, and also helps dig you through your deck faster if it ends up being bad in the midgame.
So far most of the testing has been against Dredge (somewhat decent here since you can cycle to find graveyard hate or counter their T2 Cathartic if on the play) and vs new decks like As Foretold and then once vs Titanshift where I boarded it out, but at least the cycling was decent!
It's every bit as good as Mana Leak from turns 2-4 vs most decks as they attempt to curve out.
That's insane, in a world of path, push, bolt, condem no deck needs to tap out to in the early turns to kill a delver, the card is good for control decks that have issues with runing leak, but not for delver that tries to pressure the op while leak is still strong (early/midgame).
No deck -needs- to tap out for removal, true, and I've run into a few times where Mana Leak would have been better. There have also been scenarios in which Censor is better. I still think Mana Leak is probably the better card over time, but Censor has definitely been good in the early portions of the game. I take it that you've never played Force Spike.
I don't see Censor as a playable card: Force Spiking for 2 mana is simply not good enough. The Ferocious upside of Stubborn Denial and its 1 CMC are what make it playable: Censor lacks boths.
Before I say anything, I will mention that my deck is highly tuned to my local meta, and should be taken with a grain of salt.
This is my current list.
Grixis Delver Modern
My manabase is pretty usual, I don't think there is a need to talk about that.
The only odd thing in my creature package is that I have stuck to playing two young pz's. I've found them wonderful in many situations, as long as you don't run it straight into a push or tarfire.
My spell package has most of the usual suspects, besides the one murderous cut, which I have liked against bant Eldrazi and deaths shadow.
Any opinions or questions on my sideboard choices would be appreciated, I'm not 100% sure there.
I'm curious to this group's thoughts on Cryptic Serpent. Seems like a better include than the angler at least. Possible even Tasigur, though you lose the ability with CS. Any thoughts.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I have Knightfall and abzan CoCo built and my roommate has burn, merfolk, and soul sisters. I can run each of these against my delver list and post some thoughts.
I will probably only bother with the burn, merfolk, and soul sisters tests because those are his decks. Handing him my deck to use against my delver list isn't going to give a good indication of the match up. We've already played these matches a ton but I'd be interested to actually track wins/losses and keep some notes.
I'm curious to this group's thoughts on Cryptic Serpent. Seems like a better include than the angler at least. Possible even Tasigur, though you lose the ability with CS. Any thoughts.
I would run Bedlam Reveler before I ran this 6/5 beatstick. Same casting conditions in a different color. By the time I can cast Bedlam for RR or Serpent for UU, I am likely hellbent or low on gas. Bedlam lets me draw 3, which at least makes up for the fact it can't come down early.
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BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
I'm a novice to this deck so I was just kinda spitballing. I mean while dropping either Tas or Angler, you lose all those cards in your yard. A good portion of which are viable SCM targets. With CS and as Marcwizard pointed out, bedlam reveler, those sorceries and instants stay available. Of course angler and Tas make use of cracked fetches which CS does not. Thanks for the info.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I'm a novice to this deck so I was just kinda spitballing. I mean while dropping either Tas or Angler, you lose all those cards in your yard. A good portion of which are viable SCM targets. With CS and as Marcwizard pointed out, bedlam reveler, those sorceries and instants stay available. Of course angler and Tas make use of cracked fetches which CS does not. Thanks for the info.
This is mainly an aggressive deck. You want to stick a threat as soon as possible, and start to race the opponent while restraining his plays thanks to cheap counters and interactions. It's extremely crucial being able to deploy a turn1 Delver or a turn2 Delve Fatty to accomplish in this strategy. You don't really care about the cards in your grave (Snap always have a target, and less cards in the grave also mean a better selection on Tasigur's ability).
I'm going to argue that this deck is NOT mainly an aggressive deck. Grixis Delver in Modern is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of recognizing your role in a matchup. For example, you will lose to a control deck quite often if you try to rush your Tasigur out turn 2 into unprotected removal, but sometimes the turn 2 Tasigur is the only way to beat a Scapeshift or Tron player because you need to race them. Especially in this iteration of Delver (now that Probe is gone), you need to be able to recognize when you can sit back. You will always have at least some late game because we are a Snapcaster Mage deck at heart, and we can grind very well.
I'm not saying you're wrong at all, because there are some matchups you absolutely want to be going turn 1 or turn 2 threat in order to have a chance. But there's also a good amount of matchups where you need to be the control and pace yourself, and so the aggressive strategy is not optimal
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Modern UR Storm URB Grixis Delver W Death and Taxes
Basically anything with Scalding Tarn
I think this is going a little far in the other direction. Sure, nearly every deck has a slightly different roll depending on your opponent but I think this deck is THE epitome of that concept in modern. It's about as aggro as traditional jund lists, and really all around plays similar to that deck in most matchups.
I'm going to argue that this deck is NOT mainly an aggressive deck. Grixis Delver in Modern is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of recognizing your role in a matchup. For example, you will lose to a control deck quite often if you try to rush your Tasigur out turn 2 into unprotected removal, but sometimes the turn 2 Tasigur is the only way to beat a Scapeshift or Tron player because you need to race them. Especially in this iteration of Delver (now that Probe is gone), you need to be able to recognize when you can sit back. You will always have at least some late game because we are a Snapcaster Mage deck at heart, and we can grind very well.
I'm not saying you're wrong at all, because there are some matchups you absolutely want to be going turn 1 or turn 2 threat in order to have a chance. But there's also a good amount of matchups where you need to be the control and pace yourself, and so the aggressive strategy is not optimal
This is overdoing it.
The deck has a tempo/midrange strategy, that can be prolonged in a more controlling one when needed. Fine, pretty much all the non-combo, non-control decks do that. It doesn't change that Grixis Delver, against most opponents, HAS to take the proactive role. Look at the tiers: Tron, Eldrazi Tron, Bant Eldrazi, Ad Nauseam, UR Storm, Valakut, Chord/Company, Infect, Affinity, etc... against all of those, it's very important to stick a threat while controlling the board/play the permission game. There are other against whom you have to shift gears. Fine. But you can't deny that it is primarly built to "go under" these strategies.
That means, if you want to shift gears, you need to be able to play both kind of games. The tempo one and the midrangey one. If you drop Tasigurs for Cryptic Serpent, then, you're basically giving up on one of the two.
I'm not promoting using Cryptic Serpent, I don't think it's where we want to be either. I was more making a comment about the archetype in general.
I think it's pretty hard to argue that you're trying to "go under" Affinity or Infect, as that is literally the definition of what those decks are doing to us (and they do it much better). All the other matchups you listed you are totally correct in saying you need to be proactive in, as those strategies have more inevitability late game than we do, either through combo or just greater power level. It's the matchups you didn't mention where the controlling/protecting roles become more apparent: Jund, Abzan, Death's Shadow variants, Jeskai control, UW control, Merfolk, etc. If you try to "go under" any of these strategies, you'll not have as much success.
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Modern UR Storm URB Grixis Delver W Death and Taxes
Basically anything with Scalding Tarn
Jund IS an aggressive deck. And I always said "aggressive", not "being aggro". It's about how much plays you usually make in the early game, and how you can "go under" against "bigger" strategies.
If this is your definition of aggressive then that is literally every single playable deck in the format. No deck wants to sit there for the first 3 turns doing nothing, even missing just a turn 1 play puts you way behind in modern. Also, if you can't "go under" bigger strategies then you can't really beat them. Just by the nature of having two decks with different play speeds and sizes you are going to have one deck that has to try to go under the other one or just lose to bigger threats. If you can't beat the decks bigger than you, and you don't want to do anything in the first few turns then why the hell would you be playing the deck?
Those parameters are insufficient for comparing decks in the format because every deck meets them. Therefore it is a farce to try to use these parameters as a justification for any deck in any context in modern.
Jund and Junk are proactive, but not necessarily aggressive, which I see as a fairly big distinction.
I see Grixis delver and Jund as the two most straightforward midrange decks of the format; with Jund on the proactive side and Delver on the reactive side.
I have been running Liliana, The Last Hope as a 2-3 of in my 75 for resilience against removal. It can activate delve, remove, and helps against the control match ups because they don't expect it. When you land it, they have a hard time removing it.
I'm a novice to this deck so I was just kinda spitballing. I mean while dropping either Tas or Angler, you lose all those cards in your yard. A good portion of which are viable SCM targets. With CS and as Marcwizard pointed out, bedlam reveler, those sorceries and instants stay available. Of course angler and Tas make use of cracked fetches which CS does not. Thanks for the info.
I agree, Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler can eat up some cards in our graveyard that can be useful but that is one of the reasons why we are a "delver" deck. Don't get me wrong, Cryptic Serpent can be very useful in wanting to keep all the cards we want in our graveyard for potential use later on. Delving cards quickly to get our main threats on the field is quite useful in the end instead of waiting for Cryptic Serpent to be cast for UU. Both do have their up sides and down sides. Needless the say, it is a bit early to say what Cryptic Serpent can do this deck.
Grixis Delver
Overview and History
Grixis Delver is a aggro-control deck that utilizes the namesake card Delver of Secrets as a 1 mana 3/2 flyer in conjuction with early disruption via counter magic, discard and removal. By applying early pressure combined with our disruptive spells we try to hold our opponent off balance long enough to take over the game before they can recover and deploy their more effective cards.
Delver decks are often refered to as "Tempo Decks" and while this statement holds true for most Legacy Delver strategies, it's not entirely correct for their Modern equivalents because we lack most of those archetype defining cards, like for example Daze and Stifle. Modern Delver decks can play the Tempo role too, but are often designed to have greater staying power in longer, grindier games. But what exactly is Tempo? Tempo decks are interactive aggro-control hybrids with a proactive gamplan, which often means nothing else than sticking a threat and then counter & kill whatever your opponent tries to put on the battlefield. Grixis Delver is a more midrangy delver strategy as opposed to Temur Delver (or Monkey Grow as it is called) which is basically as close as you can get to "real" Tempo with Modern Delver.
Core Cards
These are the cards that define Grixis Delver. Running less than 4 of them is completely inaceptable as it drastically weakens the deck.
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Serum Visions
4x Thought Scour
Tweakable Cards
Creatures:
Grixis has a good number of strong creatures to support it's aggro gameplan. Most lists run between 13 and 14 creatures and while they will most likely always contain 3-4 delve fatties, the creature suite should represent your main game plan depending on how reactive or proactive you want to be.
2-3 Tasigur, the golden Fang
0-2 Gurmag Angler
0-2 Young Pyromancer
0-1 Vendilion Clique
Removal:
Delver decks are armed to the teeth with all kind of spot removal. This ensures our few offensive creatures can get in for some damage quite easily on an empty board and claim a fast victory before our opponents recover. It also frees up our Lightning Bolts to crack in for the last few points of damage. Besides the obvious 4x Bolts, you should at least run 4 other pieces of hard removal, the more creature haevy decks you expect to face, the more removal you should pack. Around 6 pieces can be viewed as the "to go route" if you are not preparing for specific metagames.
2-3 Fatal Push
Besides Bolt-Snap-Bolt, Push-Snap-Push is one of the most feared plays this deck can make.
2-3 Terminate
0-1 Murderous Cut
0-2 Electrolyze
Counter:
One of Delvers hallmarks are it's counterspells. Sadly, modern counterspells are quite lackluster when compared to their legacy counterparts and often very situational. Most lists opt for 4-5 counterspells in the maindeck, although more controling builds can run as many as 8+ pieces of countermagic.
2-3 Mana Leak
2-3 Spell Snare
0-2 Remand
Multiple Use:
1-2 Kolaghan's Command
The card advantage engine of this deck alongside Snapcaster Mage. Kolaghan's command is a highly flexible card and almost every of it's modes can be put to great use in Grixis Delver. Most likely it will be used to shock a creature/your opponent or let them discard if they have only 1-2 cards left in hand and buy back a creature. Having milled your Gurmag Angler/Tasigur with Thought Scour? Just get them back while roasting that pesky Dark Confidant on your opponents side. The best play you can make is to get back a Snapcaster Mage with the recursion mode only to replay him and flashback Kolaghan's Command for even more value. The so called "Snapcaster-KCommand-Chain" makes you able to even outgrind Midrange decks in the long run.
0-2 Collective Brutality
Another highly flexible card, Collective Brutality especially shines against aggro decks where you can make them discard a burn spell, get rid of their Goblin Guide and maybe even drain some life while discarding clunky/useless cards or excess lands. It can be used against combo decks too if you are in dire need of interaction with their spells.
Most lists are running 2 copies somwhere in their 75 and it sorely depends on your meta if you maindeck them or let them be your flexible anti aggro/combo sideboard cards.
Lands:
Nothing works without a solid landbase. Grixis Delvers manabse has been optimized over time and excluding some minor tweaks, such as running 2 Watery Grave/1 Steam Vents or the other way round, is pretty much set in stone. You need at least 8 fetchlands to ensure not getting mana screwed and getting your delve creatures into play asap although some lists go up to 9. The rest of the manabase is pretty streamlined, most lists feature 4 basic lands, 4 shocklands and 2-3 fastlands which makes for a total number of 19-20 lands.
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Polluted Delta
0-1x Bloodstained Mire
1-2x Steam Vents
1-2x Watery Grave
1x Blood Crypt
1-2x Spirebluff Canal
1x Darkslick Shores
1x Mountain
1x Swamp
1-2x Island
0-1x Creeping Tar Pit
Sideboard Card Choices
Grixis has access to a great pool of good sideboard cards for a wide variety of MU's. You will almost always want a good mix of additional Disruption, Graveyard/Big Mana hate and some universal answers in the form of Engineered Explosives. The following list contains potential choices for a well build sideboard.
Additional Disruption:
Additional Removal and Sweepers:
Grindy Cards:
Ramp/Big Mana hate:
Artifact Hate:
Graveyard Hate:
Multi Purpose Cards:
Sample Decklist
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Blood Crypt
2 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Mountain
2 Spirebluff Canal
1 Darkslick Shores
Creatures: 14
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Gurmag Angler
2 Young Pyromancer
4x Serum Visions
4x Thought Scour
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Fatal Push
2x Terminate
1x Murderous Cut
1x Electrolyze
1x Collective Brutality
2x Spell Snare
3x Mana Leak
2x Kolaghan's Command
1x Collective Brutality
1x Izzet Staticaster
2x Engineered Explosives
3x Fulminator Mage
1x Vendilion Clique
2x Countersquall
2x Thoughteize
1x Painful Truths
2x Surgical Extraction
How to play Grixis Delver
So now that you have figured out your exact 75 you think you are ready to go and beat the hell out of your opponents right? Well, playing a reactive blue based strategy in modern has proven to be not as easy as it may look. Grixis Delver is a solid deck choice, especially if you know your meta and tailor your sideboard in the right direction but it requires a high number of games and knowledge to truly master this archetype.
It's important to know your deck but it's even more important to know what your opponent is going to do. While this may sound obvious, it's requires time to know which spells to counter, when to keep up mana for reactive plays, how to play around certain cards and when starting to race. This deck relies on synergy and making mistakes WILL punish you in the long run.
The first and maybe most important point is to know who's the beatdown? Check out the articles sector for an excellent read on that topic. Basically this means you have to adapt your playstyle depending on the deck you face. For example, if you play against aggressive decks that are faster, you become a reactive control deck. This means trying to answer their creatures and counter their spells in the first turns until they have exhausted their resources and then switch gears and start playing your threats. Pressuring aggro decks is a underestimated way to screw their gameplan. Burn can't handle a resolved Tasigur preboard without spending at least two of their creatures or burn spells to deal with him and when burn can't deal enough damage to you in the first few turns, it's going to loose in the long run.
Against Combo or Ramp decks on the other hand you become the aggressor and should try to deploy a fast threat or two to pressure their life total while keeping up your reactive cards for their game ending spells. Just durdling around wont get you far because at some point they will just draw more threats that you are able to answer. The fewer draw steps you give them, the more likely you are able to keep them of balance with your cheap interactive spells and kill them before they can recover.
Tips and tricks:
Matchups and Sideboarding
Budget Card Choices
Useful Stuff and Articles
Previous Thread
Modern archetype overview - or what is Tempo?
Who's the Beatdown?
Constructed Accumulated Knowledge - Grixis Delver by Kevin Jones: Part 1:
Constructed Accumulated Knowledge - Grixis Delver by Kevin Jones: Part 2:
Constructed Accumulated Knowledge - Grixis Delver by Kevin Jones: Part 3:
Modern // Legacy // Pauper
WUBRG
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."
Modern // Legacy // Pauper
WUBRG
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."
I will continously update the primer over the next couple of days/weeks, adding decklists, card breakdowns, MU's etc. Help is always appreciated, especially for sideboard guides, banner creation or MU's analysis.
The last topic at the old primer has been the newly spoiled card censor.
Against what type of decks have you tested it? I can see it being nice against decks that always try to play on curve as you mentioned but i would kinda feel "naked" without mana leak. Has the cycling been relevant in terms of getting out our delve creatures earlier?
Modern // Legacy // Pauper
WUBRG
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."
Like I said, it's been decent, it's certainly not a powerhouse card by any stretch of the imagination. It can definitely be relevant in powering out delve creatures earlier, and also helps dig you through your deck faster if it ends up being bad in the midgame.
So far most of the testing has been against Dredge (somewhat decent here since you can cycle to find graveyard hate or counter their T2 Cathartic if on the play) and vs new decks like As Foretold and then once vs Titanshift where I boarded it out, but at least the cycling was decent!
No deck -needs- to tap out for removal, true, and I've run into a few times where Mana Leak would have been better. There have also been scenarios in which Censor is better. I still think Mana Leak is probably the better card over time, but Censor has definitely been good in the early portions of the game. I take it that you've never played Force Spike.
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W
Remand doesn't trade, you definitely get to draw. It'll "cycle" as long as your opponent casts a spell, any spell.
The issue is perhaps that Remand can't put the offending spell into the GY, but we have the rest of the deck for that.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
This is my current list.
Grixis Delver Modern
Lands: (19)
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Polluted Delta
2x Steam Vents
1x Watery Grave
1x Blood Crypt
2x Spirebluff Canal
1x Darkslick Shores
2x Island
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
Creatures: (14)
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Snapcaster Mage
3x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1x Gurmag Angler
2x Young Pyromancer
Spells: (27)
4x Serum Visions
4x Thought Scour
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Fatal Push
2x Terminate
1x Collective Brutality
2x Kolaghan's Command
1x Murderous Cut
3x Mana Leak
3x Spell Snare
Sideboard: (15)
2x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Countersquall
1x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1x Molten Rain
2x Ghost Quarter
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Painful Truths
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Collective Brutality
1x Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
My manabase is pretty usual, I don't think there is a need to talk about that.
The only odd thing in my creature package is that I have stuck to playing two young pz's. I've found them wonderful in many situations, as long as you don't run it straight into a push or tarfire.
My spell package has most of the usual suspects, besides the one murderous cut, which I have liked against bant Eldrazi and deaths shadow.
Any opinions or questions on my sideboard choices would be appreciated, I'm not 100% sure there.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I agree, Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler are better than Cryptic Serpent because win can get them down as early as turn 1 while Cryptic Serpent cannot be placed down that early. Don't get me wrong, Cryptic Serpent is bigger than Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler but it is a little bit harder to put down early. It might be a late game winner if one would like to add it in the deck.
I will probably only bother with the burn, merfolk, and soul sisters tests because those are his decks. Handing him my deck to use against my delver list isn't going to give a good indication of the match up. We've already played these matches a ton but I'd be interested to actually track wins/losses and keep some notes.
I would run Bedlam Reveler before I ran this 6/5 beatstick. Same casting conditions in a different color. By the time I can cast Bedlam for RR or Serpent for UU, I am likely hellbent or low on gas. Bedlam lets me draw 3, which at least makes up for the fact it can't come down early.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I'm going to argue that this deck is NOT mainly an aggressive deck. Grixis Delver in Modern is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of recognizing your role in a matchup. For example, you will lose to a control deck quite often if you try to rush your Tasigur out turn 2 into unprotected removal, but sometimes the turn 2 Tasigur is the only way to beat a Scapeshift or Tron player because you need to race them. Especially in this iteration of Delver (now that Probe is gone), you need to be able to recognize when you can sit back. You will always have at least some late game because we are a Snapcaster Mage deck at heart, and we can grind very well.
I'm not saying you're wrong at all, because there are some matchups you absolutely want to be going turn 1 or turn 2 threat in order to have a chance. But there's also a good amount of matchups where you need to be the control and pace yourself, and so the aggressive strategy is not optimal
UR Storm
URB Grixis Delver
W Death and Taxes
Basically anything with Scalding Tarn
I'm not promoting using Cryptic Serpent, I don't think it's where we want to be either. I was more making a comment about the archetype in general.
I think it's pretty hard to argue that you're trying to "go under" Affinity or Infect, as that is literally the definition of what those decks are doing to us (and they do it much better). All the other matchups you listed you are totally correct in saying you need to be proactive in, as those strategies have more inevitability late game than we do, either through combo or just greater power level. It's the matchups you didn't mention where the controlling/protecting roles become more apparent: Jund, Abzan, Death's Shadow variants, Jeskai control, UW control, Merfolk, etc. If you try to "go under" any of these strategies, you'll not have as much success.
UR Storm
URB Grixis Delver
W Death and Taxes
Basically anything with Scalding Tarn
If this is your definition of aggressive then that is literally every single playable deck in the format. No deck wants to sit there for the first 3 turns doing nothing, even missing just a turn 1 play puts you way behind in modern. Also, if you can't "go under" bigger strategies then you can't really beat them. Just by the nature of having two decks with different play speeds and sizes you are going to have one deck that has to try to go under the other one or just lose to bigger threats. If you can't beat the decks bigger than you, and you don't want to do anything in the first few turns then why the hell would you be playing the deck?
Those parameters are insufficient for comparing decks in the format because every deck meets them. Therefore it is a farce to try to use these parameters as a justification for any deck in any context in modern.
Jund and Junk are proactive, but not necessarily aggressive, which I see as a fairly big distinction.
I see Grixis delver and Jund as the two most straightforward midrange decks of the format; with Jund on the proactive side and Delver on the reactive side.
I agree, Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler can eat up some cards in our graveyard that can be useful but that is one of the reasons why we are a "delver" deck. Don't get me wrong, Cryptic Serpent can be very useful in wanting to keep all the cards we want in our graveyard for potential use later on. Delving cards quickly to get our main threats on the field is quite useful in the end instead of waiting for Cryptic Serpent to be cast for UU. Both do have their up sides and down sides. Needless the say, it is a bit early to say what Cryptic Serpent can do this deck.