All right, I am thinking of switching over to the Young Pyromancer version. Would it be better to have 1 or 2 Sword of Light and Shadow in the 75, and should they be in the sideboard or mainboard, or both?
God damn I really gotta get my hands on some engineered explosives. Spellskite wouldn't hurt either.
9 people. 3 rounds
Match1 vs affinity (0-2)
My oppoment is on the play and starts out with a mox opal inkmoth springleaf amd 2 memnites. My keen observation skills and experience with the modern format lead me to believe he is on affinity. My hand is pretty solid for this matchup with an electrolyze, snap/bolt and 3 lands. My remand looks yucky but whatever. I punt game 1 after he deploys 2 cranial platings and passes. I overvalue his steel overseer and electrolyzed it on my main phase so he couldnt get an activation. I ****ed up my math and his double platings were still enough to infect me out. I felt really bad because this guys previous plays lead me to believe he wasnt the most skilled affinity pilot. I dont tilt easily but I would have had the game if I just let him get away with 1 round of +1/+1 counters. Anyway game 2 my opponent mulls to 6 and I mull into a 4 land hand with a vapor snag and spell snare. I did not want to mull to 5. Would any of you had kept this hand on the play vs affinity? Im curious. Well I proceeded to draw land and no actual cards and die on turn 5. Unreal.
Round 2 I get the bye so goodbye store credit.
Round 3 vs ad nauseum (2-1)
I love this deck and have only played against it once before. I flip a delver turn 2 and just beat the snot out of him with it. Game 2 my delver won't flip and he combos me out. I forgot how lightning storm was worded. I thought it was an activated ability that said "discard x lands" not discard a land." So I brought in squelch. Whoops. Game 3 squelch goes back to the board. My delver flips turn 2 and is joined by a pyromancer. I beat him up until he angels graces himself to keep my alpha strike from being lethal. At one life I bolt him on his upkeep.
Uneventful tournament that I could have done much better in if I didnt make that boneheaded play vs affinity. I still love this deck. I do feel the game can be heavily decided by opening hands though, moreso than with most other decks.
I spent some leftover store cred on pity Journey packs in russian. Got me a russian master of the feast and temple of epiphany along with 2 russian bird tokens and a russian zombie token. So all was not lost.
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not sure i would have kept that hand vs affinity. you didn't have any removal per se, even though you did have the snare for a ravager, a plating, or a steel overseer. they have plenty of openers that you would be hard pressed to beat with that hand. i am usually looking for bolts and removal above all else against them since their creatures are like paper and get killed by anything. mulligans with this deck are sketchy but even a 1 lander with bolt and snag +2 other non land cards would have been preferable i think.
can i ask you how you sideboarded here? are you a huge fan of electrolyze? i think its a good card but it oftentimes seems way too slow and costly for what it does, especially vs affinity. affinity can kill you before you ever have the mana to use it and its basically moot if they have a steel overseer activation. plus you aren't necessarily hitting every land drop against them even on the play. i think burst lightning is just better overall in more matchups even though it doesn't cantrip. mana efficient cards > everything else in this deck methinks.
All right, I am thinking of switching over to the Young Pyromancer version. Would it be better to have 1 or 2 Sword of Light and Shadow in the 75, and should they be in the sideboard or mainboard, or both?
i am poor and have no swords to speak of, but it depends on your list. if you can squeeze them into the maindeck i don't see why you shouldn't give 2 a try at first and go from there. i think SoLaS is the best one for the job though since it can recur our threats, seems especially good for retrieving a grim lavamancer to dish out the last few shocks to the face.
Yeah I regret keeping the hand. I don't think I would have kept it against a more skilled opponent and I wouldnt keep it again against the same one now. Whenever i keep a hand like that its with the logic of "deck has 18 lands I'll never see one again!" And we know where that gets us... I boarded out remand for 2 vandalblast and the third electrolyze. I agree it can be slow but affinitys turn 4 and especially their turn 3 kills are a little overhyped. They have crazy expolisive draws but then they also just have a bunch of free dorks on board. Electrolyze is usually very effective against them. Especially if you've already bolted or snagged something before. Affinity is only really crushing you if theyve plated a flyer or champion. And the flier will just die to anything you can hit it with. I probably would have won the first game if I timed my electrolyze better. I really don't know why I mainphased it, in retrospect.
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I love the deck, I just find its lack of consistency to be frustrating. The following are issues I've identified:
1. Applying early pressure. If Delver isn't deployed in the first few turns or doesn't flip, the game is severely out of favour for us.
2. The deck runs so few lands that running out Young Pyro on turn 3 with 1 mana counter backup is difficult to do consistently because the deck often gets stuck at 2 lands.
3. Serum Visions is awkward because it's almost never the right play turn 1, turn 2 you want to have Remand/Leak mana up, which means that it doesn't help Delver flip until turn 3/4 at least.
4. All the cantrips really dilute the information in our openers, leading to difficult mulling decisions.
1. i think this is pretty matchup dependent. if we are against a slow deck like U tron that lacks lots of removal, then yes, we want to drop a threat as early as possible to close out the game. but against other fast decks, like affinity, we have the countermagic and removal to play the control role if we want to until we feel safe in deploying a threat. against a true control deck i would never drop a delver or any threat until i had mana to protect it because you can practically guarantee they will have removal/counters for it. the game is only out of our favor if our timing in deploying our threats is poor. i would not say there is a finite magic window of time that we have to win a game. sometimes our games end fast, but sometimes games get drawn out and we win incrementally.
2. same as 1, you don't need to deploy a threat super early every single game. this deck has countermagic and removal for a reason. you play young pyromancer when you know he isn't going to get killed and you have the mana to protect him and start making elementals to clock out your opponent.
3. serum visions is one of the best cards in the deck. i would never drop below 4 mainboard ever. if you keep a hand with no threats and a serum visions, it finds what you need. if you keep a hand with a threat but no counters, serum visions finds what you need. if you play a delver turn 1 and it doesn't flip on your next upkeep, serum visions will almost guarantee that it does on the following turn.
4. i will not deny that this deck leads to some difficult mulligans, but its a high risk high reward type of deck at the end of the day. i'm assuming you are talking about gitaxian probe here and i've already discussed serum visions above. probe is the worst cantrip we play and it is mostly used less as a source of card draw and more of a source of figuring out what the opponent is doing game 1. i almost always side out all my probes for game 2. furthermore, i will rarely ever do the 'omg t2 pyro pay 2 life to probe you' play because then you essentially traded 2 cards for a 1/1 elemental and you have no way to protect young pyro from death. the best use for probe in your opening hand is to cast it for life before doing anything else. you see your opponents cards, then you get to decide whether you want to drop a delver or visions or draw go or whatever.
Thank you for taking the time. They are all fair points. I should however have been more specific. Against aggro we can play draw-go until they run out of steam but any deck with a better end game than us (which is most decks) forces us into a bad position if we don't apply early pressure. Manlands, Geist, Goyf, Wurmcoil, and anything with 4+ toughness give us fits if we don't don't answer them right away, which is usually the difficulty.
I feel like Delver is a gamble. If it doesn't flip, we fall so far behind. Can we afford to have our plan A fail us? Bolt Snap Bolt is also a good strategy but I feel like the deck is so opener dependent. If we play draw-go too long we run out of gas ourselves because we don't have much CA aside from Snap. For this reason I consider Remand to be a 4-of; we need as many of our spells to replace themselves as possible so that we draw into threats and more answers.
Is 12 creatures (Delver, Snap, Pyro) too few threats? Would 2x Clique be an improvement? I don't have fetches so Lavamancer won't work (tested it). Is there anything we can do to make the deck more resilient and consistent?
of course! i'm happy to be contributing in any way i can to this deck and this thread.
to your first point, this is definitely a meta deck. the way your list should be configured should reflect the type of matchups you anticipate. i don't think that a catch-all list with mainboard and sideboard trying to cover all the bases is anywhere near optimal, but sometimes its all you can do if you are going into a blind meta. i am expecting big creatures from jund so i am playing big creature killers and tec edges to kill their manlands.
delver is definitely a gamble, but as i said before this deck is high risk high reward. i played a deck similar to this with no delvers before. it played out a like a control deck with snapcasters and young pyro being the only real win conditions. the problem is that the deck didn't really do anything proactive in the early game. the thing about delver is that even when it is unflipped people want to kill it because they are afraid of it. there aren't many fliers in modern and it can seal a game away quickly if it is left unchecked. at its worst it is a one mana removal magnet, and at this point i am completely okay with that.
we do have other cards to fall back on to win us games and young pyro is one of them. another is grim lavamancer. even if you are only playing 2, they do the same thing as delver and they combine with bolt to kill huge creatures. they can also straight up kill people if left unanswered.
Thank you for taking the time. They are all fair points. I should however have been more specific. Against aggro we can play draw-go until they run out of steam but any deck with a better end game than us (which is most decks) forces us into a bad position if we don't apply early pressure. Manlands, Geist, Goyf, Wurmcoil, and anything with 4+ toughness give us fits if we don't don't answer them right away, which is usually the difficulty.
I feel like Delver is a gamble. If it doesn't flip, we fall so far behind. Can we afford to have our plan A fail us? Bolt Snap Bolt is also a good strategy but I feel like the deck is so opener dependent. If we play draw-go too long we run out of gas ourselves because we don't have much CA aside from Snap. For this reason I consider Remand to be a 4-of; we need as many of our spells to replace themselves as possible so that we draw into threats and more answers.
Is 12 creatures (Delver, Snap, Pyro) too few threats? Would 2x Clique be an improvement? I don't have fetches so Lavamancer won't work (tested it). Is there anything we can do to make the deck more resilient and consistent?
Agreed on a lot of points. However I do believe the deck is good.
I've said a few times here: the deck is indeed more dependent than most on a solid opening grip. I lose almost every game that I feel I'm keeping a loose hand but I'm also afraid to mull too aggressively because we're so land light. It's like Gix has said, it's a high risk-high reward deck. The games you win you feel like you outright crushed them, or you played one of your tightest games of magic ever.
I think 12 threats are too few but you have to keep delver (who is indeed a gamble, but a good one) in mind. I don't run fetches either and even if I did I don't think I agree with the maindeck lavamancers. I currently run 1 clique in addition to the core of 12. I'll be running a 2nd once I acquire one.
While I do believe the deck is very dependent on its opener I also believe that it greatly rewards tight play. On the same note it's very unforgiving of your misplays. I feel like one of my (few) strengths at this game is being to identify what I could have done differently to win instead of blaming everything on variance. I feel like I have improved as a player since picking this deck up and playing it as often as possible.
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Well gentlemen, and ladies, after much deliberation, I have decided to pass on my UR Delver deck to one of my friends. I really like the Spellstutter Sprite version, and what I liked most about it is that you can play almost everything at instant speed. However, I have just given up on building it (I have everything except Vendilion Clique and Scalding Tarn). I am passing on my deck to one of my friends, who is going to build the Young Pyromancer version, and I myself will just stick with Zoo, since I already have a Zoo deck built. I will probably still check around this thread every now and then just to say hi and such. I wish you all best of luck.
Well gentlemen, and ladies, after much deliberation, I have decided to pass on my UR Delver deck to one of my friends. I really like the Spellstutter Sprite version, and what I liked most about it is that you can play almost everything at instant speed. However, I have just given up on building it (I have everything except Vendilion Clique and Scalding Tarn). I am passing on my deck to one of my friends, who is going to build the Young Pyromancer version, and I myself will just stick with Zoo, since I already have a Zoo deck built. I will probably still check around this thread every now and then just to say hi and such. I wish you all best of luck.
Are the fetchlands really necessary? (though I can see how not having V. Clique would be a problem in the Faeries version)
Are the fetchlands really necessary? (though I can see how not having V. Clique would be a problem in the Faeries version)
Honestly, I just got tired of managing two decks. Also, one of my friends wants to get into Modern, and he really likes the Young Pyromancer version of UR Delver. So it just works out, to give him the deck to do his own thing, and I'll just focus on Zoo.
Are the fetchlands really necessary? (though I can see how not having V. Clique would be a problem in the Faeries version)
Honestly, I just got tired of managing two decks. Also, one of my friends wants to get into Modern, and he really likes the Young Pyromancer version of UR Delver. So it just works out, to give him the deck to do his own thing, and I'll just focus on Zoo.
Okay, but it will be harder for you to get that completed. Goyfs cost a lot of money.
Agreed on a lot of points. However I do believe the deck is good.
I've said a few times here: the deck is indeed more dependent than most on a solid opening grip. I lose almost every game that I feel I'm keeping a loose hand but I'm also afraid to mull too aggressively because we're so land light. It's like Gix has said, it's a high risk-high reward deck. The games you win you feel like you outright crushed them, or you played one of your tightest games of magic ever.
I think 12 threats are too few but you have to keep delver (who is indeed a gamble, but a good one) in mind. I don't run fetches either and even if I did I don't think I agree with the maindeck lavamancers. I currently run 1 clique in addition to the core of 12. I'll be running a 2nd once I acquire one.
While I do believe the deck is very dependent on its opener I also believe that it greatly rewards tight play. On the same note it's very unforgiving of your misplays. I feel like one of my (few) strengths at this game is being to identify what I could have done differently to win instead of blaming everything on variance. I feel like I have improved as a player since picking this deck up and playing it as often as possible.
I've been experimenting some with the variety of opening hands I keep just to try and get a better feeling for the deck. The deck does feel exceptionally dependent on the starting hand but I've always felt awkward about mulling to 5 when I have a hand with 2 lands and a variety of juice that doesn't damage my opponent. Perhaps I've felt I've been burned too many times by going to 5. I've been wondering if in this situation it's better to temporarily alter the play strategy instead of continuing to mull for something like Delver->Pyro. I feel like your opening hand (and the developing board state) really tests your ability to determine who is the beatdown multiple times a game. I've gone from beats to control to beats to control in less than 2 turns with this deck (at least, that was my assessment). Making the wrong call, or the right call half a turn late, can cause you to lose. Obviously other decks have this test too but I just feel it's more pronounced with this deck.
I guess I should talk about the cards some, too.
How are you guys using Grim? At the moment I have stuffed 2 Spellhearts in the deck with a pair of Grims in the board because of the exceptionally poor synergy of Snap/Grim. I've been trying to find matches of other people playing this deck in Dailies and sometimes I'll see a T1/2 Grim with nothing in the yard. Are you playing this guy as a 1/1 beater with lategame upside? How aggressively do you eat your yard? I've been putting him in as extra creature control mainly.
I have a huge crush on Vapor Snag. Just love seeing this card.
I've been running 20 lands in my version, I really hate not having 4 mana at a relevant point to Snap-2CMC spell. I've recently started using a singleton Halimar Depths as this 20th land, for just a little extra gas.
They are VERY necesary, fetching after delver trigered hab if you don't like the card is too much value, also they provide food for lavamancer.
I would say they are only necessary if you are maindecking the lavamancer. The delver interaction is a fringe benefit. That said I dont think lavamancer in the main is the correct build unless you expect a lot of aggro in your meta. I greatly prefer cliques. Clique is an expensive card as well but its a much more exciting purchase than a land, you only need 2 and its much less likely to be reprinted in the near future. So for anyone who isn't running fetches (I dont) I highly advise you to save money for cliques.
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Agreed on a lot of points. However I do believe the deck is good.
I've said a few times here: the deck is indeed more dependent than most on a solid opening grip. I lose almost every game that I feel I'm keeping a loose hand but I'm also afraid to mull too aggressively because we're so land light. It's like Gix has said, it's a high risk-high reward deck. The games you win you feel like you outright crushed them, or you played one of your tightest games of magic ever.
I think 12 threats are too few but you have to keep delver (who is indeed a gamble, but a good one) in mind. I don't run fetches either and even if I did I don't think I agree with the maindeck lavamancers. I currently run 1 clique in addition to the core of 12. I'll be running a 2nd once I acquire one.
While I do believe the deck is very dependent on its opener I also believe that it greatly rewards tight play. On the same note it's very unforgiving of your misplays. I feel like one of my (few) strengths at this game is being to identify what I could have done differently to win instead of blaming everything on variance. I feel like I have improved as a player since picking this deck up and playing it as often as possible.
I've been experimenting some with the variety of opening hands I keep just to try and get a better feeling for the deck. The deck does feel exceptionally dependent on the starting hand but I've always felt awkward about mulling to 5 when I have a hand with 2 lands and a variety of juice that doesn't damage my opponent. Perhaps I've felt I've been burned too many times by going to 5. I've been wondering if in this situation it's better to temporarily alter the play strategy instead of continuing to mull for something like Delver->Pyro. I feel like your opening hand (and the developing board state) really tests your ability to determine who is the beatdown multiple times a game. I've gone from beats to control to beats to control in less than 2 turns with this deck (at least, that was my assessment). Making the wrong call, or the right call half a turn late, can cause you to lose. Obviously other decks have this test too but I just feel it's more pronounced with this deck.
I guess I should talk about the cards some, too.
How are you guys using Grim? At the moment I have stuffed 2 Spellhearts in the deck with a pair of Grims in the board because of the exceptionally poor synergy of Snap/Grim. I've been trying to find matches of other people playing this deck in Dailies and sometimes I'll see a T1/2 Grim with nothing in the yard. Are you playing this guy as a 1/1 beater with lategame upside? How aggressively do you eat your yard? I've been putting him in as extra creature control mainly.
I have a huge crush on Vapor Snag. Just love seeing this card.
I've been running 20 lands in my version, I really hate not having 4 mana at a relevant point to Snap-2CMC spell. I've recently started using a singleton Halimar Depths as this 20th land, for just a little extra gas.
I dont think I have trouble assigning roles with this deck, piloting it to any success is pretty reliant on that skill and I have done better with this deck than any other deck (as far as consistently putting up decent/good results from week to week.my argument concerning the opening hand is this: if you donthave a creature in your opening grip then basically you need all of your spells to say "draw a card" somewhere in the text otherwise you run a great risk of never drawing a creature. This deck doesn't play the control role well for long against anything other than fast aggro. All of our answers save for bolt lose relevance in the late game. Our entire counter suite becomes bad as the game progresses so if you dont have early pressure against a deck with better card advantage mechanisms or just higher card quality than we do (we play a lot of "bad" cards) you just lose.
I prefer to run 18 land just because it keeps the gas flowing and delver flipping. That said it does make mulligans TOUGH.
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2x Lavamancer main has become the mainstream on MTGO as it's good against all 3 of the major archetypes, Twin, Pod, and Affinity, in addition to Jund. It's also more lenient towards the 18 land build than running Clique.
Fetches are better in this deck than other Modern decks because they serve purposes other than mana fixing. They are not required per se, but highly recommended. It's like the difference between running Arbor Elf and Noble Hierarch.
How are you guys using Grim? At the moment I have stuffed 2 Spellhearts in the deck with a pair of Grims in the board because of the exceptionally poor synergy of Snap/Grim. I've been trying to find matches of other people playing this deck in Dailies and sometimes I'll see a T1/2 Grim with nothing in the yard. Are you playing this guy as a 1/1 beater with lategame upside? How aggressively do you eat your yard? I've been putting him in as extra creature control mainly.
i am still playing 2 grims maindeck while not running any fetches yet and i am not ashamed to say that in the least. i don't mind playing him as a 1/1 for 1 early on for beats. he has a similar effect to delver being a magnet for removal. if someone kills my grim lavamancer when i have nothing in my graveyard, i am totally cool with that because its one less spell they have to use against a better threat later on. the synergy with snapcaster is indeed poor, but i don't find that they fight over cards to eat very often if at all. most of the time i get 1-2 shocks out of a grim lavamancer once i have stuff in my graveyard and by that point he has already paid for himself. how aggressively i eat my yard depends on the deck. grim shines vs aggro decks like affinity, but he is also really nice against control if the game goes long and you manage to stick him, you just keep shocking them on their end step and just get so much reach its ridiculous.
2x Lavamancer main has become the mainstream on MTGO as it's good against all 3 of the major archetypes, Twin, Pod, and Affinity, in addition to Jund. It's also more lenient towards the 18 land build than running Clique.
this. even against jund which has big creatures, grim still puts in work. they want to kill him because he kills all their creatures and combines like voltron with lightning bolt and other burn to kill fatties like goyf and courser without you feeling as though you've expended too many resources.
I'd much rather have clique vs twin. Lavamancer is probably better vs pod (there aren't many pod players here)and much better vs affinity. I guess it comes down to what you want your deck to be doing. Its rarely a problem to play clique and she provides more value in most matchups. The deck has room for both. I prefer clique in the main over grim.
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Even Twin lists are running Grim Lavamancer, it's just better in the meta right now. Grim Lavamancer is definitely better than Vendilion Clique again Twin here because there is no time that you can tap out for Vendilion Clique without Deceiver Exarch coming into play, which is an automatic 2 for 1 without Grim Lavamancer.
Here's Patrick Dickmann's list from the Bazaar of Moxen last week:
What meta though? Mine? Yours? Europes? Is twin playing grim for an edge in the mirror or to shore up its affinity matchup? Im not saying grim is a bad card or that it doesnt have a place in the deck. If you dont play fetchlands and need more threat density you should probably be maindecking clique over lavamancer is my point. I've pkayed grim in my main and found that he competed with snapcaster too much. Gix, I would imagine that there is less tension in your fetchless list between snaps and grim because you run far less countermagic than I do.
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What meta though? Mine? Yours? Europes? Is twin playing grim for an edge in the mirror or to shore up its affinity matchup? Im not saying grim is a bad card or that it doesnt have a place in the deck. If you dont play fetchlands and need more threat density you should probably be maindecking clique over lavamancer is my point. I've pkayed grim in my main and found that he competed with snapcaster too much. Gix, I would imagine that there is less tension in your fetchless list between snaps and grim because you run far less countermagic than I do.
That's odd, I rarely ever run into the tension between Grim and Snap. If there's a card in your yard that you want to re-use with Snap, save it for later. Grim doesn't need to be activated every turn. It's there to help you against X/1 or X/2 creatures, combine with your other burn against larger creatures, and to help keep up your threat density against control and attack from a different angle. When it's out there are some situations where you have to use him but there are certainly some where it's correct to just swing with the 1/1 instead or just don't touch him for a turn.
You can bet that whatever deck Patrick Dickmann plays it'll be net decked and will see play at GP Minneapolis.
You might want to try a 1/1 split. I think Clique is still a really good card, just not the 1 mana must answered or x for 1 that Grim Lavamancer is. Most Grim Lavamancer die the turn they come into play, so for the most part they don't really compete with Snapcaster for the graveyard. I would also up Gitaxian Probe to 4x based on LSV's article and if you're planning to go the Grim Lavamancer route. I'm a fan of his list (outside of the Sword of Fire and Ice, which should be on the board).
I tried mainboarding grim lavamancer without fetches (I also only run 2 remands) and found it lacking. I don't mind exiling cantrips or the extra multiples of counter/burn cards in the yard, but limiting options with snapcaster is not good. I still keep 2 copies of lavamancer in the side for affinity, ninjabear, soul sisters, and other aggro matchups. I'm trying to get my hands on some cliques, but I'm cheap. Hoping I can win enough this month to get one with store credit.
And Probe is the best card you can see on a delver flip.
3 shivan reef
2 sulfur falls
7 island
2 mountain
4 delver of secrets
4 young pyromancer
4 snapcaster mage
1 vendilion clique
3 vapor snag
2 electrolyze
3 gitaxian probe
4 serum visions
3 mana leak
3 remand
3 spell pierce
4 spell snare
2 vandalblast
2 dismember
2 blood moon
2 vedalken shackles
2 negate
1 dispel
1 electrolyze
God damn I really gotta get my hands on some engineered explosives. Spellskite wouldn't hurt either.
9 people. 3 rounds
Match1 vs affinity (0-2)
My oppoment is on the play and starts out with a mox opal inkmoth springleaf amd 2 memnites. My keen observation skills and experience with the modern format lead me to believe he is on affinity. My hand is pretty solid for this matchup with an electrolyze, snap/bolt and 3 lands. My remand looks yucky but whatever. I punt game 1 after he deploys 2 cranial platings and passes. I overvalue his steel overseer and electrolyzed it on my main phase so he couldnt get an activation. I ****ed up my math and his double platings were still enough to infect me out. I felt really bad because this guys previous plays lead me to believe he wasnt the most skilled affinity pilot. I dont tilt easily but I would have had the game if I just let him get away with 1 round of +1/+1 counters. Anyway game 2 my opponent mulls to 6 and I mull into a 4 land hand with a vapor snag and spell snare. I did not want to mull to 5. Would any of you had kept this hand on the play vs affinity? Im curious. Well I proceeded to draw land and no actual cards and die on turn 5. Unreal.
Round 2 I get the bye so goodbye store credit.
Round 3 vs ad nauseum (2-1)
I love this deck and have only played against it once before. I flip a delver turn 2 and just beat the snot out of him with it. Game 2 my delver won't flip and he combos me out. I forgot how lightning storm was worded. I thought it was an activated ability that said "discard x lands" not discard a land." So I brought in squelch. Whoops. Game 3 squelch goes back to the board. My delver flips turn 2 and is joined by a pyromancer. I beat him up until he angels graces himself to keep my alpha strike from being lethal. At one life I bolt him on his upkeep.
Uneventful tournament that I could have done much better in if I didnt make that boneheaded play vs affinity. I still love this deck. I do feel the game can be heavily decided by opening hands though, moreso than with most other decks.
I spent some leftover store cred on pity Journey packs in russian. Got me a russian master of the feast and temple of epiphany along with 2 russian bird tokens and a russian zombie token. So all was not lost.
can i ask you how you sideboarded here? are you a huge fan of electrolyze? i think its a good card but it oftentimes seems way too slow and costly for what it does, especially vs affinity. affinity can kill you before you ever have the mana to use it and its basically moot if they have a steel overseer activation. plus you aren't necessarily hitting every land drop against them even on the play. i think burst lightning is just better overall in more matchups even though it doesn't cantrip. mana efficient cards > everything else in this deck methinks.
i am poor and have no swords to speak of, but it depends on your list. if you can squeeze them into the maindeck i don't see why you shouldn't give 2 a try at first and go from there. i think SoLaS is the best one for the job though since it can recur our threats, seems especially good for retrieving a grim lavamancer to dish out the last few shocks to the face.
1. Applying early pressure. If Delver isn't deployed in the first few turns or doesn't flip, the game is severely out of favour for us.
2. The deck runs so few lands that running out Young Pyro on turn 3 with 1 mana counter backup is difficult to do consistently because the deck often gets stuck at 2 lands.
3. Serum Visions is awkward because it's almost never the right play turn 1, turn 2 you want to have Remand/Leak mana up, which means that it doesn't help Delver flip until turn 3/4 at least.
4. All the cantrips really dilute the information in our openers, leading to difficult mulling decisions.
Thoughts?
1. i think this is pretty matchup dependent. if we are against a slow deck like U tron that lacks lots of removal, then yes, we want to drop a threat as early as possible to close out the game. but against other fast decks, like affinity, we have the countermagic and removal to play the control role if we want to until we feel safe in deploying a threat. against a true control deck i would never drop a delver or any threat until i had mana to protect it because you can practically guarantee they will have removal/counters for it. the game is only out of our favor if our timing in deploying our threats is poor. i would not say there is a finite magic window of time that we have to win a game. sometimes our games end fast, but sometimes games get drawn out and we win incrementally.
2. same as 1, you don't need to deploy a threat super early every single game. this deck has countermagic and removal for a reason. you play young pyromancer when you know he isn't going to get killed and you have the mana to protect him and start making elementals to clock out your opponent.
3. serum visions is one of the best cards in the deck. i would never drop below 4 mainboard ever. if you keep a hand with no threats and a serum visions, it finds what you need. if you keep a hand with a threat but no counters, serum visions finds what you need. if you play a delver turn 1 and it doesn't flip on your next upkeep, serum visions will almost guarantee that it does on the following turn.
4. i will not deny that this deck leads to some difficult mulligans, but its a high risk high reward type of deck at the end of the day. i'm assuming you are talking about gitaxian probe here and i've already discussed serum visions above. probe is the worst cantrip we play and it is mostly used less as a source of card draw and more of a source of figuring out what the opponent is doing game 1. i almost always side out all my probes for game 2. furthermore, i will rarely ever do the 'omg t2 pyro pay 2 life to probe you' play because then you essentially traded 2 cards for a 1/1 elemental and you have no way to protect young pyro from death. the best use for probe in your opening hand is to cast it for life before doing anything else. you see your opponents cards, then you get to decide whether you want to drop a delver or visions or draw go or whatever.
I feel like Delver is a gamble. If it doesn't flip, we fall so far behind. Can we afford to have our plan A fail us? Bolt Snap Bolt is also a good strategy but I feel like the deck is so opener dependent. If we play draw-go too long we run out of gas ourselves because we don't have much CA aside from Snap. For this reason I consider Remand to be a 4-of; we need as many of our spells to replace themselves as possible so that we draw into threats and more answers.
Is 12 creatures (Delver, Snap, Pyro) too few threats? Would 2x Clique be an improvement? I don't have fetches so Lavamancer won't work (tested it). Is there anything we can do to make the deck more resilient and consistent?
to your first point, this is definitely a meta deck. the way your list should be configured should reflect the type of matchups you anticipate. i don't think that a catch-all list with mainboard and sideboard trying to cover all the bases is anywhere near optimal, but sometimes its all you can do if you are going into a blind meta. i am expecting big creatures from jund so i am playing big creature killers and tec edges to kill their manlands.
delver is definitely a gamble, but as i said before this deck is high risk high reward. i played a deck similar to this with no delvers before. it played out a like a control deck with snapcasters and young pyro being the only real win conditions. the problem is that the deck didn't really do anything proactive in the early game. the thing about delver is that even when it is unflipped people want to kill it because they are afraid of it. there aren't many fliers in modern and it can seal a game away quickly if it is left unchecked. at its worst it is a one mana removal magnet, and at this point i am completely okay with that.
we do have other cards to fall back on to win us games and young pyro is one of them. another is grim lavamancer. even if you are only playing 2, they do the same thing as delver and they combine with bolt to kill huge creatures. they can also straight up kill people if left unanswered.
Agreed on a lot of points. However I do believe the deck is good.
I've said a few times here: the deck is indeed more dependent than most on a solid opening grip. I lose almost every game that I feel I'm keeping a loose hand but I'm also afraid to mull too aggressively because we're so land light. It's like Gix has said, it's a high risk-high reward deck. The games you win you feel like you outright crushed them, or you played one of your tightest games of magic ever.
I think 12 threats are too few but you have to keep delver (who is indeed a gamble, but a good one) in mind. I don't run fetches either and even if I did I don't think I agree with the maindeck lavamancers. I currently run 1 clique in addition to the core of 12. I'll be running a 2nd once I acquire one.
While I do believe the deck is very dependent on its opener I also believe that it greatly rewards tight play. On the same note it's very unforgiving of your misplays. I feel like one of my (few) strengths at this game is being to identify what I could have done differently to win instead of blaming everything on variance. I feel like I have improved as a player since picking this deck up and playing it as often as possible.
Are the fetchlands really necessary? (though I can see how not having V. Clique would be a problem in the Faeries version)
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Honestly, I just got tired of managing two decks. Also, one of my friends wants to get into Modern, and he really likes the Young Pyromancer version of UR Delver. So it just works out, to give him the deck to do his own thing, and I'll just focus on Zoo.
Okay, but it will be harder for you to get that completed. Goyfs cost a lot of money.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I've been experimenting some with the variety of opening hands I keep just to try and get a better feeling for the deck. The deck does feel exceptionally dependent on the starting hand but I've always felt awkward about mulling to 5 when I have a hand with 2 lands and a variety of juice that doesn't damage my opponent. Perhaps I've felt I've been burned too many times by going to 5. I've been wondering if in this situation it's better to temporarily alter the play strategy instead of continuing to mull for something like Delver->Pyro. I feel like your opening hand (and the developing board state) really tests your ability to determine who is the beatdown multiple times a game. I've gone from beats to control to beats to control in less than 2 turns with this deck (at least, that was my assessment). Making the wrong call, or the right call half a turn late, can cause you to lose. Obviously other decks have this test too but I just feel it's more pronounced with this deck.
I guess I should talk about the cards some, too.
How are you guys using Grim? At the moment I have stuffed 2 Spellhearts in the deck with a pair of Grims in the board because of the exceptionally poor synergy of Snap/Grim. I've been trying to find matches of other people playing this deck in Dailies and sometimes I'll see a T1/2 Grim with nothing in the yard. Are you playing this guy as a 1/1 beater with lategame upside? How aggressively do you eat your yard? I've been putting him in as extra creature control mainly.
I have a huge crush on Vapor Snag. Just love seeing this card.
I've been running 20 lands in my version, I really hate not having 4 mana at a relevant point to Snap-2CMC spell. I've recently started using a singleton Halimar Depths as this 20th land, for just a little extra gas.
I would say they are only necessary if you are maindecking the lavamancer. The delver interaction is a fringe benefit. That said I dont think lavamancer in the main is the correct build unless you expect a lot of aggro in your meta. I greatly prefer cliques. Clique is an expensive card as well but its a much more exciting purchase than a land, you only need 2 and its much less likely to be reprinted in the near future. So for anyone who isn't running fetches (I dont) I highly advise you to save money for cliques.
I dont think I have trouble assigning roles with this deck, piloting it to any success is pretty reliant on that skill and I have done better with this deck than any other deck (as far as consistently putting up decent/good results from week to week.my argument concerning the opening hand is this: if you donthave a creature in your opening grip then basically you need all of your spells to say "draw a card" somewhere in the text otherwise you run a great risk of never drawing a creature. This deck doesn't play the control role well for long against anything other than fast aggro. All of our answers save for bolt lose relevance in the late game. Our entire counter suite becomes bad as the game progresses so if you dont have early pressure against a deck with better card advantage mechanisms or just higher card quality than we do (we play a lot of "bad" cards) you just lose.
I prefer to run 18 land just because it keeps the gas flowing and delver flipping. That said it does make mulligans TOUGH.
Fetches are better in this deck than other Modern decks because they serve purposes other than mana fixing. They are not required per se, but highly recommended. It's like the difference between running Arbor Elf and Noble Hierarch.
i am still playing 2 grims maindeck while not running any fetches yet and i am not ashamed to say that in the least. i don't mind playing him as a 1/1 for 1 early on for beats. he has a similar effect to delver being a magnet for removal. if someone kills my grim lavamancer when i have nothing in my graveyard, i am totally cool with that because its one less spell they have to use against a better threat later on. the synergy with snapcaster is indeed poor, but i don't find that they fight over cards to eat very often if at all. most of the time i get 1-2 shocks out of a grim lavamancer once i have stuff in my graveyard and by that point he has already paid for himself. how aggressively i eat my yard depends on the deck. grim shines vs aggro decks like affinity, but he is also really nice against control if the game goes long and you manage to stick him, you just keep shocking them on their end step and just get so much reach its ridiculous.
this. even against jund which has big creatures, grim still puts in work. they want to kill him because he kills all their creatures and combines like voltron with lightning bolt and other burn to kill fatties like goyf and courser without you feeling as though you've expended too many resources.
Here's Patrick Dickmann's list from the Bazaar of Moxen last week:
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
2 Sulfur Falls
4 Island
1 Mountain
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Desolate Lighthouse
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Grim Lavamancer
3 Pestermite
3 Deceiver Exarch
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Splinter Twin
2 Spreading Seas
4 Serum Visions
2 Peek
4 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
1 Flame Slash
1 Electrolyze
2 Batterskull
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Blood Moon
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Spellskite
1 Spreading Seas
1 Negate
1 Threads of Disloyalty
That's odd, I rarely ever run into the tension between Grim and Snap. If there's a card in your yard that you want to re-use with Snap, save it for later. Grim doesn't need to be activated every turn. It's there to help you against X/1 or X/2 creatures, combine with your other burn against larger creatures, and to help keep up your threat density against control and attack from a different angle. When it's out there are some situations where you have to use him but there are certainly some where it's correct to just swing with the 1/1 instead or just don't touch him for a turn.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
You might want to try a 1/1 split. I think Clique is still a really good card, just not the 1 mana must answered or x for 1 that Grim Lavamancer is. Most Grim Lavamancer die the turn they come into play, so for the most part they don't really compete with Snapcaster for the graveyard. I would also up Gitaxian Probe to 4x based on LSV's article and if you're planning to go the Grim Lavamancer route. I'm a fan of his list (outside of the Sword of Fire and Ice, which should be on the board).
And Probe is the best card you can see on a delver flip.