What situations has Young Pyro ever helped anybody in? I never need his chump blockers, and they're rarely useful on offense unless the board's clear, in which case I'm already heavily favored to win. Yeah, it's cool when you 'storm off' and make a ton of tokens, but I feel like most players are biased in favor of the few times he does something rather than the huge majority of the time when he doesn't. Playing him on Turn 2 is always a mistake because he has no ETB trigger and can't block- when your opponent spends T2 on Blighted Agent, or Goyf, or Arcbound Ravager, or Finks, or Scrying for a Tron land, or Thought-Knot, and you drop a land and play the twink, your opponent is breathing a sigh of relief, because the earliest you're swinging with those tokens is T4.
The only viable way to play Pyro is to sandbag him until T5 or so when you're getting low on cards and have already taken control of the game, in which case he's probably making 2 or 3 power worth of tokens. In that situation, I'd rather just have Tasigur or Angler as a finisher, which makes Peezy winmore- you could be filling his slots with interaction that helps you get to the late game. I strongly feel that swapping the Pyro for 4 Mana Leaks and replacing the ridiculous GitProbe with 4 Spell Snare will improve your winrate against pretty much everything. It also opens you up to bringing in Anger of the Gods out of the board, which lets you do fun stuff against Affinity/Merfolk/Dredge like playing Delver and Tasigur to bluff that you don't have a sweeper, then slamming Anger once they commit their whole hand, letting Delver die for the greater good.
The only matchups I don't feel good about are Bant Eldrazi and Tron, because Bant's creatures don't line up well with your countermagic on the best of days, and they have Cavern. Tron is self-evident, playing them is miserable now that they've started using World Breaker and Ulamog- now they have Collective Brutality too, which is exactly what your Delver doesn't want to see. (You have to leave them in in this matchup because you need the pressure). I think trying to fix Tron with sideboard slots might be counterproductive, and like Jund, we might just have to throw the matchup and pray to the linear aggro gods to hate them out of the format.
Right now I'm thinking +1 push, +1 electro if abzan/souls start showing up again, otherwise this is going to be either push #2, snare #2, or sleight of hand #1, +1 clique (which is good against almost everything, though never really great), -3 probe.
As to when YP is good, he excelled against midrange strategies (blanking lili for example) and was servicable vs aggro (stalling their attacks for even 2/3 turns should win you the game unless your hand is flat-out terrible). Due to the lack of opposing blockers he could take over vs control too but that was extremely rare as they usually had removal. Last, YP blanked 1/3 of infect's threats (elf). However, his impact will be much lessened without any more probes
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Bauble doesn't flip delver, and peek just isn't that great of a card. I'm much more comfortable adding more interaction than trying to find a replacement can trip. And with 8 can trip and going up to 20 lands I'm very comfortable with the land spell ratio
Great that you have mentioned Tarmogoyf. I haven't considered that initially. Well I'm still considering Peek or probably Inquisition of Kozilek/Thoughtseize instead.
I've been thinking on Telling Time for a while as a possible card to slot in, but it never outclassed the other options. Now with Probe banned, I'm reconsidering this again for making Delver flips in the midgame a lot more assured (as well as bottoming excess lands).
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Hallo to the Grixis Delver community. Recently I managed to acquire 4 Snapcasters to finish my Grixis Delver list and now try to find out the insides of the deck. I want to know your opinions regarding a specific opening line of play so here it goes ... I keep a one lander with Serum and Delver, which one I play first? The Delver to have a chance to flip it or the Serum Vision to improve the probabilities of hitting my second land ?
Congrats for this great thread.
Definitely serum visions first if its a one lander. You don't want to miss land drops in modern. Additionally, I would assume this one lander has other 1 cmc spells such as bolt or scour. If you can hit the second land by turn 2 via scry or draw from visions, it would let you drop the delver turn 2 and keep 1 mana up for interaction, mitigating the risk on your one land keep.
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For those who says Probe wasn't important, just a few tips to consider:
First of all, this ban weakens Infect and kills Suicide Zoo, two of our best matchups.
Next. Having been playing Delver in different variations for almost 3 years, I would without a doubt state that Probe was the most synergistic card in this deck. It glued everything together and let the deck keep going. Look:
1) It flipped Delver. Now, you replace it with lands and get nothing.
2) It made immediate token from YP. Now, you can't get any value from this creature on turn 2. It means loss of needed tempo, disability to withstand Liliana and so on.
3) It helped to cast delve creatures. Now, installation of early Tasigur requires Thought Scour at minimum and it's almost impossible to cast Angler before turn 3.
4) You can no longer use Snap to get value on turn 2, which was very useful in such matchups as Tron and Valakut.
5) You can no longer turn Serum Visions into Preordain (that sounds silly, but it worked - draw, scry 2 and draw again)
6) Now, you can't support Brutality and Kommand discard modes. Just cast them by guess.
7) Without information, you also won't know what's currently better - to be aggressive or leave up counter. Aggro-Control essence of the deck is nerfed.
8) Finally, it helped to find lands, threats and answers quicker. There is no more playable cantrip to use.
I won't talk about nonsense of this ban here, but deck definitely becomes clunkier and less consistent, at least with the current build. If you analyse upcoming metagame, there will be nothing to rejoice too. I personally have no more interest to participate in this format - format, where U/R spell is banned 3rd year in a row. Format, where watching opponent's hand in exchange for 2 life on turn 2 is illegal, but putting 4/4 beater while still watching the hand AND exiling any card on the same turn 2 is okay.
Almost all of those are cornercase scenarios that no one tried to force (I won't miss Snap into probe turn 2 and everytime I did it it was a mediocre play I was never happy with) or things that are essentially the same argument as "Bolt is good because it deals 3 damage and can kill a creature" Looking at your opponent's hand for K command or brutality is a negligible advantage, drawing after a Serum Visions was not a game changing play, drawing lands seems like a bad excuse since we cut the land for the probe and now added it back, I was rarely ever forced to play probe to feed a turn 2 Tasigur. This just seems hyperbolic with a bunch of made up pros to probe half of which never happpen during a regular tournament or are just praising the parts of probe that you could replace with peek.
I'm not saying that the deck didn't need them, but lets stop pretending like the world is falling apart because we don't have "look at your hand draw a card for U" anymore.
Bauble doesn't flip delver, and peek just isn't that great of a card. I'm much more comfortable adding more interaction than trying to find a replacement can trip. And with 8 can trip and going up to 20 lands I'm very comfortable with the land spell ratio
It's more complicated than "bauble doesn't flip delver". In short, Bauble is better than a normal non-spell but worse than a spell at flipping delver because you can choose how to stack your delver and bauble triggers. (See my sig for the math.) But without getting a significant benefit from Bauble, it definitely isn't worth it.
I'd just try the daddy's recommended changes: replace the 2 probes with a fatal push and a land. And maybe replace a terminate with another push.
On Probe: I agree with LightningBolt550 that Probe's upsides are being way overblown in the posts above. I was actually considering taking it out already. I noticed I often had hands with a clump of Serum Visions, Thought Scour and Probe, which leads me to believe that 10/11 cantrips is too much.
How often did you guys play it for 2 life? I noticed that I barely did, the deck loses enough life to itself as is.
I most valued the information Probe gives. I don't want to run Inquisition of Thoughtseize in it's place because they don't really fit the deck's style, and I already want U and R on T1. I think I'll try Fatal Push in Probe's place, for starters.
Almost all of those are cornercase scenarios that no one tried to force (I won't miss Snap into probe turn 2 and everytime I did it it was a mediocre play I was never happy with) or things that are essentially the same argument as "Bolt is good because it deals 3 damage and can kill a creature" Looking at your opponent's hand for K command or brutality is a negligible advantage, drawing after a Serum Visions was not a game changing play, drawing lands seems like a bad excuse since we cut the land for the probe and now added it back, I was rarely ever forced to play probe to feed a turn 2 Tasigur. This just seems hyperbolic with a bunch of made up pros to probe half of which never happpen during a regular tournament or are just praising the parts of probe that you could replace with peek.
I'm not saying that the deck didn't need them, but lets stop pretending like the world is falling apart because we don't have "look at your hand draw a card for U" anymore.
Man, it's competitive deck and competitive forum. "Cornercase scenarios" matter a lot. And claiming that they never happen just shows how unexperienced with the deck you are. Because they happen every time you have Probe and sth mentioned above to interact. Otherwise, you just cycle it with U, yes. By your logic, fetchlands can be abandoned as well. They force to pay 1 life, go to the grave and interact with only 7-8 cards in the deck. Can easily be removed lol.
BTW, nobody says the world is falling. I just wanted to add up that by this ban our deck lost tons of lines to play and got nothing in return, except for worse metagame. Unfortunately, Push doesn't seem to be panacea too. And Wizards once again showed their attitude to the format. Instead of methodical unbanning and printing hate pieces in newer sets, they just prefer to cut controversial cards, simultaneously killing couple of decks and dealing collateral damage to others. No one playable card is safe, even if there are stronger and more degenerate options out there. Of course, it's just my opinion.
totally agree with you in all points (especially the last one about the UR spell bannings etc) even if I do not think that the loss of a card that most lists played in 2 copies will make the deck too much worse! For sure it is a big loss, but if it was a staple of the decks we would have played in 4 copies!
This does not change the fact that WOTC has really no idea how to handle with modern. A format where gitaxian probe is banned, but it is possible to play non-sense decks like Tron or Eldrazi creature.
Yeah, I think it was result of very aggressive metagame and desire to test new cards like Brutality in this slot. Most decks still ran 3 copies though.
I disagree, the posts above are mostly underrated corner-case cenarios, but they are really relevant to the discussion. The card was amazing, for elemental tokens, information, etc. BTW, I think probe and rise/fall make a huge difference about some more midrange decks, as it was told jund is a bad matchup and for me it's one of the best (easily a 60/40 match). Still, we gotta move on.
Fatal push seems very good, the fact that it is a 1 mana spell is very relevant, as this deck should be fast and also snap+fatal is 3 mana instead of 4 mana from snap+terminate. We hardly don't get 3 mana in the early game, but we can be deprived of our 4th mana until the midgame. It won't completely replace terminate but it can be a complement.
Still, I'm not really sure about replacing probe for it. There are cases where a removal spell isn't good or good enough. The deck usually runs something around 10 removal spells(bolt,kolaghan,terminate,electrolyze,forked)/14 creatures/4-6counters/12cantrips/etc.
Changing it to 13 removal spells/14 creatures/4-6counters/8cantrips/1xtraland may have a big influence in the way our deck plays. Not saying it's bad or good, but it surely won't be the same (for those who played 3-4probes).
No they don't. Otherwise they wouldn't be cornercase scenarios. You want us to acknowledge them fine, I agree that they need to be known, but they don't define how you play the deck or how the deck interacts with most matchups. And they marginally change your win/loss rate, so to me it seems hyperbolic that you want to argue that losing marginal % points vs tron because we lost a snap probe on turn 2 is a gamechanger for the deck.
Fetches and probes have nothing in common don't be disingenuous just for the sake of arguing.
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2 Terminates/ 2 Fatal Push / 1 Dismember
The only viable way to play Pyro is to sandbag him until T5 or so when you're getting low on cards and have already taken control of the game, in which case he's probably making 2 or 3 power worth of tokens. In that situation, I'd rather just have Tasigur or Angler as a finisher, which makes Peezy winmore- you could be filling his slots with interaction that helps you get to the late game. I strongly feel that swapping the Pyro for 4 Mana Leaks and replacing the ridiculous GitProbe with 4 Spell Snare will improve your winrate against pretty much everything. It also opens you up to bringing in Anger of the Gods out of the board, which lets you do fun stuff against Affinity/Merfolk/Dredge like playing Delver and Tasigur to bluff that you don't have a sweeper, then slamming Anger once they commit their whole hand, letting Delver die for the greater good.
The only matchups I don't feel good about are Bant Eldrazi and Tron, because Bant's creatures don't line up well with your countermagic on the best of days, and they have Cavern. Tron is self-evident, playing them is miserable now that they've started using World Breaker and Ulamog- now they have Collective Brutality too, which is exactly what your Delver doesn't want to see. (You have to leave them in in this matchup because you need the pressure). I think trying to fix Tron with sideboard slots might be counterproductive, and like Jund, we might just have to throw the matchup and pray to the linear aggro gods to hate them out of the format.
As to when YP is good, he excelled against midrange strategies (blanking lili for example) and was servicable vs aggro (stalling their attacks for even 2/3 turns should win you the game unless your hand is flat-out terrible). Due to the lack of opposing blockers he could take over vs control too but that was extremely rare as they usually had removal. Last, YP blanked 1/3 of infect's threats (elf). However, his impact will be much lessened without any more probes
Primers
4C Walkers
Pages back is the data on how much it improves the liklihood of the flip. Maybe it is time.
I'm considering this too. Though I may lean towards replacing probe with Peek instead.
And now your Tasigur can't block a Goyf...
Bauble is definitely not worth it unless you completely change the deck and play 7-8 Delve creatures. (That data pages back is from me)
U Tron
GW Bogles
RG Loam
UR Blue Breach
RBU Grixis Goryo
BRU Grixis Delver
GBR Jund
GBW Junk
Active Legacy Decks
BR Reanimator
Meh
-Delver
Thanks
-Tarmogoyf
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Definitely serum visions first if its a one lander. You don't want to miss land drops in modern. Additionally, I would assume this one lander has other 1 cmc spells such as bolt or scour. If you can hit the second land by turn 2 via scry or draw from visions, it would let you drop the delver turn 2 and keep 1 mana up for interaction, mitigating the risk on your one land keep.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
First of all, this ban weakens Infect and kills Suicide Zoo, two of our best matchups.
Next. Having been playing Delver in different variations for almost 3 years, I would without a doubt state that Probe was the most synergistic card in this deck. It glued everything together and let the deck keep going. Look:
1) It flipped Delver. Now, you replace it with lands and get nothing.
2) It made immediate token from YP. Now, you can't get any value from this creature on turn 2. It means loss of needed tempo, disability to withstand Liliana and so on.
3) It helped to cast delve creatures. Now, installation of early Tasigur requires Thought Scour at minimum and it's almost impossible to cast Angler before turn 3.
4) You can no longer use Snap to get value on turn 2, which was very useful in such matchups as Tron and Valakut.
5) You can no longer turn Serum Visions into Preordain (that sounds silly, but it worked - draw, scry 2 and draw again)
6) Now, you can't support Brutality and Kommand discard modes. Just cast them by guess.
7) Without information, you also won't know what's currently better - to be aggressive or leave up counter. Aggro-Control essence of the deck is nerfed.
8) Finally, it helped to find lands, threats and answers quicker. There is no more playable cantrip to use.
I won't talk about nonsense of this ban here, but deck definitely becomes clunkier and less consistent, at least with the current build. If you analyse upcoming metagame, there will be nothing to rejoice too. I personally have no more interest to participate in this format - format, where U/R spell is banned 3rd year in a row. Format, where watching opponent's hand in exchange for 2 life on turn 2 is illegal, but putting 4/4 beater while still watching the hand AND exiling any card on the same turn 2 is okay.
I'm not saying that the deck didn't need them, but lets stop pretending like the world is falling apart because we don't have "look at your hand draw a card for U" anymore.
URBURB
It's more complicated than "bauble doesn't flip delver". In short, Bauble is better than a normal non-spell but worse than a spell at flipping delver because you can choose how to stack your delver and bauble triggers. (See my sig for the math.) But without getting a significant benefit from Bauble, it definitely isn't worth it.
I'd just try the daddy's recommended changes: replace the 2 probes with a fatal push and a land. And maybe replace a terminate with another push.
How often did you guys play it for 2 life? I noticed that I barely did, the deck loses enough life to itself as is.
I most valued the information Probe gives. I don't want to run Inquisition of Thoughtseize in it's place because they don't really fit the deck's style, and I already want U and R on T1. I think I'll try Fatal Push in Probe's place, for starters.
Man, it's competitive deck and competitive forum. "Cornercase scenarios" matter a lot. And claiming that they never happen just shows how unexperienced with the deck you are. Because they happen every time you have Probe and sth mentioned above to interact. Otherwise, you just cycle it with U, yes. By your logic, fetchlands can be abandoned as well. They force to pay 1 life, go to the grave and interact with only 7-8 cards in the deck. Can easily be removed lol.
BTW, nobody says the world is falling. I just wanted to add up that by this ban our deck lost tons of lines to play and got nothing in return, except for worse metagame. Unfortunately, Push doesn't seem to be panacea too. And Wizards once again showed their attitude to the format. Instead of methodical unbanning and printing hate pieces in newer sets, they just prefer to cut controversial cards, simultaneously killing couple of decks and dealing collateral damage to others. No one playable card is safe, even if there are stronger and more degenerate options out there. Of course, it's just my opinion.
Yeah, I think it was result of very aggressive metagame and desire to test new cards like Brutality in this slot. Most decks still ran 3 copies though.
Fatal push seems very good, the fact that it is a 1 mana spell is very relevant, as this deck should be fast and also snap+fatal is 3 mana instead of 4 mana from snap+terminate. We hardly don't get 3 mana in the early game, but we can be deprived of our 4th mana until the midgame. It won't completely replace terminate but it can be a complement.
Still, I'm not really sure about replacing probe for it. There are cases where a removal spell isn't good or good enough. The deck usually runs something around 10 removal spells(bolt,kolaghan,terminate,electrolyze,forked)/14 creatures/4-6counters/12cantrips/etc.
Changing it to 13 removal spells/14 creatures/4-6counters/8cantrips/1xtraland may have a big influence in the way our deck plays. Not saying it's bad or good, but it surely won't be the same (for those who played 3-4probes).
Fetches and probes have nothing in common don't be disingenuous just for the sake of arguing.
URBURB