More like you can't afford to 2-for-1 yourself, when you can't counter anything terribly broken with it.
If any drop of your opponent is as good as the other and they don't rely on anything in specific to make it through, there is simply no way to justify tossing away 2 cards to get rid of a single spell.
Shoal may be great in the control or combo matchup but when all your opponent does is nacatl into pridemage into smiter, you just sit there with a sad face.
Well sure, you can always keep a clique or something to counter that knight of the reliquary for free... If that even matters at that point.
Zoo is decidedly the deck's worst matchup in my experience and that's certainly a matchup where you board out Shoal. There's clearly times when it's bad, but when there's a lot of linear aggro and combo running around like right now, it's great. Shoaling cards like Bogle, Glistener Elf, Amulet, or Goryo's Vengeance can just win you the game.
They really just need to split up this thread into individual RUG and Grixis threads. This whole debate is as non-constructive as questions like,
"i have nearly have all of rug build, just picked up my goofs today, but i cant afford serum visions and deceiver exarch (thx speculators). can i replace them with sleight of hand and that new guy coming out in origins?"
Argue less over if it's better to be on RUG or Grixis in the mirror and spend the next few pages arguing about the best one blue utility spells to be playing right now and how good Roast is like normal.
Disrupting Shoal is the type of card that's just kind of tailor made for an aggressive tempo deck like RUG Delver. The card prevents you from having to taking a turn off to deploy a threat, and it just gives you the ability to cast more cards than your opponent in the early game. You're able to play a more efficient game early so the card disadvantage doesn't matter because there is no late game. It is worth noting that it comes out in post board games against any fair deck, the games get more grindy and you can't afford to have dead cards.
Some pretty big changes to what a lot of people consider to be the 'core'. 12 cantrips felt like a relic from a different deck (one with pyromancers and treasure cruise) and I chose spell snares/deprive over Disrupting Shoal as I don't find the card to be particularly good at countering the cards the seem to beat us the most, and exposes us to blowouts when our opponent has the mana advantage. I went down to six cantrips, and adding two lands, by dropping serum visions and adding faithless looting, which provides more opportunities to cast mandrills turn two with denial up and can provide incremental advantage when milled off of a thought scour. In a deck running on such few lands, it seemed I was casting cantrips and probes for the sole purpose of hitting my land drops and often times failed to do so and just drew more cantrips isntead, clogging my hand and slowing the deck down.
Savage Knuckleblade isn't a popular choice either but they've been tremendous for me, providing a threat that ignores rest in peace and your graveyard, can hastily beat lillianas, turns on ferocious, attackes through Tasigur and goyfs if I leave three mana up, and if the game goes long it can be very hard to take down while being cheap enough early to cast with permission up.
It's not the popular opinion but i've been having success moving away from the traditional 'core'.
This approach kind of defines a half measure. I'd guess you've had trouble with midrange decks and just want to cater the main for a better game one. Grixis is a better variant for this school of thought, but then again a lot of the options here don't make a lot of sense.
No Serum Visions in the Delver deck? You look to be having a lot of difficulty with X/5s but you're playing Remand over Mana Leaks and Forked Bolt over Tarfire? You mention playing Faithless Looting to help fuel Hooty but you're only playing 3? 2 buddy lands in a land light deck with lots of one mana plays?
I did notice that, though I suppose they could shuffle with Lantern if they had to. Both seem fair, but I wanted the edge against Etched Champion really.
I had noticed that Snapcaster was a little weak and Charm could help, seemed like a fluke that I faced Zoo twice regardless. I felt like Charm is the type of card that people might feel underperforms or is just okay but works better in practice, I'll try jamming four main at a casual FNM and see what I think. The only thing that makes me wary is just that two mana sometimes feels like a lot, but I imagine it's more for winning combat and riding one creature to the end.
Played RUG Delver at the PIQ at SCG Indy. Got 14th, missed out on a win and in but I still got some money (: Both my losses were to Zoo, the matchup seems kind of tough but I may just need to get more reps in against it. Beat Jund, Amulet, Infect, Grixis Twin, and Burn twice. Here's my list. It's the standard shells with 2 Snap, 2 Tarfire, and a Simic Charm in the flex slots.
The only cards that are somewhat different are Scooze and Vandalblast in the sideboard. Scooze is a card that while worse against Midrange, it's great against Snapcaster and CoCo Abzan while staying about the same versus burn (though it's nice to diversify having Scooze at 2 and Huntmaster at 4). Maybe just personal preference, the card plays a similar role, but I like having the more flexible sideboard option. I wanted Vandalblast over Grudge mainly just because I felt with Tarfire, Delver has no problem going the distance against Affinity, but we tend to lose to boardstates that Grudge doesn't help with. Also that Lantern deck has seen an uptick and it's nice to just have a trump card. Vandalblast's flexibility seems much better compared to Shatterstorm, at least in this deck.
This deck is nuts, play it people.
List tags are malformed.
Been playing this deck the past couple weeks and it's been a ton of fun. I think I'll be playing it at an IQ coming up, seems great against a metagame of 3 color fair decks, Tron, and Amulet. Today I went 3-1 and 3-1 in Modern events, lost to Etched Champos mainly. My main I'm going with is the core with 2 Snap, 2 Tar Fire, and a Simic Charm. For the side, I'm playing 2 Scooze instead of 2 Huntmaster to help against CoCo and K Command, and I'll be playing 2 Feed the Clan instead of a 2nd Grudge or 2nd Charm, one might be a Clasm instead. Scooze is a lot more friendly on the curve too, which I like.
My last match of the night I played against Bogles and I was kind of defeated since I know Delver is a dog to Bogles typically. I get destroyed game 1 and during sideboard I feel a lot better knowing I have the 2 Revelries, 3 Moons, and Flashfreeze. Midway through I come to the realization that Disrupting Shoal is the absolute nuts here. I proceed to Shoal a Bogle turn 1 in both matches then ride a Delver or Hooty to victory thanks to Stubborn Denial and Blood Moons. This is definitely the matchup that shows just how insane Shoal can be. The card is useful against decks that are faster than you to help you regain tempo and just as solid against slower, fair decks that try to remove your threats before you can protect them with counters later.
Thanks to Jordan for piloting this deck to a great finish at Worcester. I was on the fence about picking up the remaining pieces a month ago ago, but that finish showed me the deck was real. I took the list on blind faith and the deck construction makes plenty of sense now
I'm curious to hear what cards you all play in your sideboard for the Jund matchup? For either RUG or Grixis.
Junk has been on a big decline lately, that matchup could be solved from UR with Jace, AOT, Sower, or Thundermaw. Jund seems a little more difficult to trump though. I know the Grixis Twin player at the invitational over the weekend had Sower in his board, but I do not see why that card is supposed to be good in this matchup. It's good against Junk because it's Path or bust, but Sower dies to all of Jund's removal except Decay. I was thinking Ashiok and Flashfreeze could be pretty powerful, but I really am curious to know what other options there are?
I'm curious if many of you all have considered Harvest Pyre?
I personally can't play it when I'm on 2 Grim Lavamancer, but it can be a solid option when you want a way to deal with X/5s in your main. Typically, if you really want to hedge against Siege Rhinos, Tasigurs, and big Goyfs you play one Dismember main. The problem is that you then usually want an additional creature kill spell in the board and 2 Dismembers is bad against Affinity and Zoo. I found that instead of playing Flame Slash, that Harvest Pyre can be a nice compromise. It's not too much of a nonbo with your Snaps with just a one of in the 75. I've seen Blue Moon and Scapeshift pick up the card recently and wanted to hear what you all thought.
Has there been much thought to trying out Thundermaw Hellkite in the sideboard of the more beatdown, tempo oriented lists like the one I'm presently playing? I was blown out yesterday by it against UR Faeries and it seems stupid to have not considered the card that is designed to beat Lingering Souls for a sideboard option. Batterskull and Keranos tend to be the fair/late game cards to keep in the sideboard, but I hadn't really considered this as an option. It seems fair in the mirror while possibly a better option than something like the 2nd Batterskull in my list for against GBx; I am convinced Keranos is bad for the same reasons that Bitterblossom is, it's just is too slow and doesn't impact the board the turn you play it.
My typical board plan for Junk midrange is
-4 Twin
-2 Exarch
-1 to 2 Izzet Charm
-0 to 3 Remand
+2 Blood Moon
+1 Vendilion Clique
+2 Batterskull
+1 Dismember
+1 Relic
+0 to 1 EE
I really hate that UR Twin's best option for a way to reliably kill Goyfs and random big stuff like Restoration Angel or Master of Etherium is Dismember. I like Flame Slash a lot, but would drop it in a heartbeat for a card that read:
What do you guys think about replacing batterskull with
Either Sword of light and shadow or Sword of body and mind,
or even Sword of fire and ice although (depending on which creatures you're running) some of them are already out of lighting bolts range and or the +2/+2 should take them out of lighting bolt range, so I dnt think protection from red is all that important. I say run a sword in the main and a different one in the side, then switch for the better match up.
The big appeal to Batterskull is the fact that Swords and Shackles are both like 5 drops but die to Abrupt Decay. When Batterskull hits the table, it immediately threatens to stabilize the game for you. SoLaS does help catch up with it's own life gain, but really I have to guess that Keranos is just a better version of SoFaI. The fact that you have to have a creature on board, not have it die in response to equip, not have the Sword get Abrupt Decay'd, and be able to pass by blockers makes the Swords just too inconsistent for a 6 creature deck.
(✿☯‿☯✿) friendly protest for a UR man land (✿☯‿☯✿)
I feel it's worth noting that an increase in play of Bloom Titan could possibly result in a ban of some sort. If you read the article on Seething Song's banning, it was banned because Storm was a top tier deck that won before turn 4 an unknown percentage of the time. The Bloom Titan list that made the finals of GP Omaha has multiple avenues to win on turn two and even has the possibility of winning on turn one. While the deck is not top tier presently, should it become one over the next few months a ban would be required according to their "rules".
As an aside, here's why I do not foresee a Treaure Cruise banning this month:
Jund was a deck that was clearly dominant post RTR. BBE was banned instead of the more obvious culprit DRS, a new card at the time. I believe this should show that Wizards and R&D like to give a little bit of time for new, powerful cards to run their course before banning it.
Delver, over the past few weeks, has been less dominant than Birthing Pod. While Delver is still 10 - 15% of the metagame, it is not the most prominent deck in the metagame. Most of it's results seem to be online where it's an inexpensive deck, all of the major top 8s should show Pod as the boogieman, or at the very least at parity with UR Delver.
Treasure Cruise is played as a 4 of in just one deck. Jeskai Ascendency runs it only as a one of and it seems like 2-3 is the right number in Rux Burn (Storm has not seen play outside of World's). DRS was a 4 of in Pod, Jund, Junk, Burn, and 4 Color Gifts.
With that said, I do think there is merit for Treasure Cruise to see a ban eventually, but I do not think we'll be seeing it this ban update.
Worst matchups: Burn and other agressive decks. Counterspells+ decays can be tricky as well.
About Izzit charm vs looting, while I like the idea of looting, izzit charm doubles as a removal spell and tripples as a counterspell, im down to 3 and really wish i could find room for a 4th (which is sitting in the board for now)
Ive found that I really like some young pyromancers in the main deck. They aborb instant removal and are legitimate game winners outside of ascendancy.
My super secret tech is Lingering Souls. I play 3 main deck as well, with only a watery grave and a godless shrine to cast its flashback (which is more than enough with 9 fetches-all of which can grab them). I have the 4th one in the board. I love how much time it saves vs midrange, as well as how well it matches up against 1 for 1 removal and counterspells. The tokens have flying as well, which makes combo turns all the more potent. It also makes your thought scours ever so slightly more benificial, and is yet another card that is easy to discard to ascendancy mid combo. This doesnt even touch on the benefits of having a way to activate ascendancy out of the grave yard is, or how awesome it is to get an extra +1/+1 and loot off of a single card.
As for my sideboard plan: Ive had the most success with transeforming into Jeskai midrange postboard (with a reduced combo). I have access to 2x brimaz, 2x elspeth Knigh errant, the last young pyromancer, last lingering souls, last izzit charm, 2x seeker of the way, 1 faerie conclave, and 3 timely reinforcements. Out of those cards, I bring in the best 7-11 to combat the deck that I am facing, trading out whatever the weakest 'packages' are in that match.
A lot of the time I just end up siding out fatestitchers and gitaxian probes for a land and whatever, it turns out that having a deck full of removal, cantirps, and standalone threats is great deck concept.
Is it worth it to splash black when Timely Reinforcements may just be equally as good since the life gain helps a lot against Burn and Delver?
I'm going to put Silence in SB for my online version since I dont have the Gifts package yet, but my paper build is 100% so I dont think silence is needed. I'm still weary of Gifts in general, but need to test it more. As for the person that said Burn is hard, I totally agree. The weakness of our deck is its health total and mana base. I think 3 Timely Reinforcements is good, ditching a counter spell in the SB. Destructive Revelry and Smash to Smitherinese is something we need to be weary of on top of them just swinging in with 2 or 3 instant speed burn spells for like 6-7 damage on the turn you need to go off.
As for any other deck that has no interaction, it should be easy tbh
Wind Zendikon i feel should only be used if there is a lot of graveyard hate going on. I feel that really only things like Rest In Piece is troublesome. Relic can be a problem probably also but we can get fatestitcher in at instant speed to it doenst really matter unless we milled it via thought scour
FOr Splinter Twin, theres no point. We usually want to Unearth Fatestitcher the same turn we go off, which we can do for 3 mana(for JA)+1(for Unearth)-1 untap = 3 total, where Twin is 4 mana(double red) and really no point since if we go off, we win anyways. We rather have cheap spells so that in response to something like abrupt decay we can do stuff
You cannot Unearth as an instant, only at sorcery speed.
I wouldn't say Splinter Twin belongs in the main, it dilutes the main gameplan too much as you said, but I'm not convinced it's just worse than Gifts. Twin allows the deck to just win on the spot, but it does require two cards while Gifts requires just one.
This approach kind of defines a half measure. I'd guess you've had trouble with midrange decks and just want to cater the main for a better game one. Grixis is a better variant for this school of thought, but then again a lot of the options here don't make a lot of sense.
No Serum Visions in the Delver deck? You look to be having a lot of difficulty with X/5s but you're playing Remand over Mana Leaks and Forked Bolt over Tarfire? You mention playing Faithless Looting to help fuel Hooty but you're only playing 3? 2 buddy lands in a land light deck with lots of one mana plays?
I had noticed that Snapcaster was a little weak and Charm could help, seemed like a fluke that I faced Zoo twice regardless. I felt like Charm is the type of card that people might feel underperforms or is just okay but works better in practice, I'll try jamming four main at a casual FNM and see what I think. The only thing that makes me wary is just that two mana sometimes feels like a lot, but I imagine it's more for winning combat and riding one creature to the end.
4 Delver
4 Hooty
4 Goof
2 Snapcaster
[b]Spells[/b]
4 Serum Visions
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Thought Scour
4 Disrupting Shoal
3 Stubborn Denial
3 Mana Leak
4 Bolt
2 Tarfire
1 Simic Charm
4 Misty
4 Tarn
1 Foothills
2 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
3 Island
1 Forest
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Destructive Revelry
2 Vandalblast
1 Dismember
1 Flashfreeze
1 Simic Charm
1 Feed the Clan
1 Pyroclasm
3 Blood Moon
The only cards that are somewhat different are Scooze and Vandalblast in the sideboard. Scooze is a card that while worse against Midrange, it's great against Snapcaster and CoCo Abzan while staying about the same versus burn (though it's nice to diversify having Scooze at 2 and Huntmaster at 4). Maybe just personal preference, the card plays a similar role, but I like having the more flexible sideboard option. I wanted Vandalblast over Grudge mainly just because I felt with Tarfire, Delver has no problem going the distance against Affinity, but we tend to lose to boardstates that Grudge doesn't help with. Also that Lantern deck has seen an uptick and it's nice to just have a trump card. Vandalblast's flexibility seems much better compared to Shatterstorm, at least in this deck.
This deck is nuts, play it people.
List tags are malformed.
My last match of the night I played against Bogles and I was kind of defeated since I know Delver is a dog to Bogles typically. I get destroyed game 1 and during sideboard I feel a lot better knowing I have the 2 Revelries, 3 Moons, and Flashfreeze. Midway through I come to the realization that Disrupting Shoal is the absolute nuts here. I proceed to Shoal a Bogle turn 1 in both matches then ride a Delver or Hooty to victory thanks to Stubborn Denial and Blood Moons. This is definitely the matchup that shows just how insane Shoal can be. The card is useful against decks that are faster than you to help you regain tempo and just as solid against slower, fair decks that try to remove your threats before you can protect them with counters later.
Thanks to Jordan for piloting this deck to a great finish at Worcester. I was on the fence about picking up the remaining pieces a month ago ago, but that finish showed me the deck was real. I took the list on blind faith and the deck construction makes plenty of sense now
Junk has been on a big decline lately, that matchup could be solved from UR with Jace, AOT, Sower, or Thundermaw. Jund seems a little more difficult to trump though. I know the Grixis Twin player at the invitational over the weekend had Sower in his board, but I do not see why that card is supposed to be good in this matchup. It's good against Junk because it's Path or bust, but Sower dies to all of Jund's removal except Decay. I was thinking Ashiok and Flashfreeze could be pretty powerful, but I really am curious to know what other options there are?
I personally can't play it when I'm on 2 Grim Lavamancer, but it can be a solid option when you want a way to deal with X/5s in your main. Typically, if you really want to hedge against Siege Rhinos, Tasigurs, and big Goyfs you play one Dismember main. The problem is that you then usually want an additional creature kill spell in the board and 2 Dismembers is bad against Affinity and Zoo. I found that instead of playing Flame Slash, that Harvest Pyre can be a nice compromise. It's not too much of a nonbo with your Snaps with just a one of in the 75. I've seen Blue Moon and Scapeshift pick up the card recently and wanted to hear what you all thought.
My typical board plan for Junk midrange is
-4 Twin
-2 Exarch
-1 to 2 Izzet Charm
-0 to 3 Remand
+2 Blood Moon
+1 Vendilion Clique
+2 Batterskull
+1 Dismember
+1 Relic
+0 to 1 EE
2 Deceiver Exarch
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Pestermite
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
Instants
2 Cryptic Command
1 Electrolyze
2 Izzet Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Remand
2 Spell Snare
1 Flame Slash
4 Serum Visions
Enchantment
1 Blood Moon
4 Splinter Twin
Land
5 Island
1 Mountain
3 Steam Vents
3 Sulfur Falls
1 Stomping Ground
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Batterskull
2 Blood Moon
1 Dismember
1 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Negate
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spellskite
1 Vendilion Clique
1R
Instant
Deal 5 damage to target creature.
The big appeal to Batterskull is the fact that Swords and Shackles are both like 5 drops but die to Abrupt Decay. When Batterskull hits the table, it immediately threatens to stabilize the game for you. SoLaS does help catch up with it's own life gain, but really I have to guess that Keranos is just a better version of SoFaI. The fact that you have to have a creature on board, not have it die in response to equip, not have the Sword get Abrupt Decay'd, and be able to pass by blockers makes the Swords just too inconsistent for a 6 creature deck.
(✿☯‿☯✿) friendly protest for a UR man land (✿☯‿☯✿)
As an aside, here's why I do not foresee a Treaure Cruise banning this month:
Jund was a deck that was clearly dominant post RTR. BBE was banned instead of the more obvious culprit DRS, a new card at the time. I believe this should show that Wizards and R&D like to give a little bit of time for new, powerful cards to run their course before banning it.
With that said, I do think there is merit for Treasure Cruise to see a ban eventually, but I do not think we'll be seeing it this ban update.Delver, over the past few weeks, has been less dominant than Birthing Pod. While Delver is still 10 - 15% of the metagame, it is not the most prominent deck in the metagame. Most of it's results seem to be online where it's an inexpensive deck, all of the major top 8s should show Pod as the boogieman, or at the very least at parity with UR Delver.
Treasure Cruise is played as a 4 of in just one deck. Jeskai Ascendency runs it only as a one of and it seems like 2-3 is the right number in Rux Burn (Storm has not seen play outside of World's). DRS was a 4 of in Pod, Jund, Junk, Burn, and 4 Color Gifts.
Is it worth it to splash black when Timely Reinforcements may just be equally as good since the life gain helps a lot against Burn and Delver?
You cannot Unearth as an instant, only at sorcery speed.
I wouldn't say Splinter Twin belongs in the main, it dilutes the main gameplan too much as you said, but I'm not convinced it's just worse than Gifts. Twin allows the deck to just win on the spot, but it does require two cards while Gifts requires just one.