MTG Salvation

Quote from gkourou »

I miss the old days of Modern, back in 2014/2015, where I started playing the format. Where a turn 4 huntmaster was a strong play.
This Modern format feels disgustingly strong. I firmly believe 5 or more cards of the banlist would be a joke now.
Wizards has to act somehow, because the upcoming PT will be a mess.

I agree with this. I really wish back the time where Jund was T1, Goyf the best threat you could be playing on turn 2 and decks like Grixis Delver considered to be actually good... Modern as it stands now looks and feels awful for me but i firmly believe that WOTC will not change their design philosophy within the next upcoming sets.
As Legacy keeps getting more and more expensive i honestly think about just moving completely over to pauper for the forseeable future.

Quote from gkourou »

Quote from idSurge »

Quote from user-100025877 »

There is no way around a Looting ban. The card is way too powerful.

People are packing a bunch of gy hate and dredge still has a 56% winrate. That is ridicolous

A ban of looting, would REQUIRE a ban on Stirrings, which would then REQUIRE a ban on Terminus.

It will not happen, when a simple unban is all that is required to start to apply pressure on these proactive decks.

Yes, Stoneforge Mystic would be a great addition to Modern.

I fear SFM won't have the impact you all are hoping for. Even a Turn 3 Batterskull won't prevent Phoenix, Dredge and Titan from doing their powerful and unfair stuff. Of course i would highly appreciate it if they finally unban SFM.

And i don't have a problem with Titan and Phoenix being around because both decks can be attacked quite well by fair decks like GDS or Golgari Rock. It's dredge once again that just stomps all those fair decks and creates this kind of *****ty metagame...

I really like that they gave us a detailed article about how they approached their decision and what they are keeping an eye on in the future. Not seeing a SFM unban is kinda rough but overall well done WOTC!

Quote from ketoglutarate »

btw, after Ravnica Allegiance spoilers (in which there hopefully be some useful spirits) i will make a call for whoever is willing to help updating the primer

Would be a pleasure helping you out again.

New Grixis Delver Primer. Under Construction!


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

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.

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:

• Ceremonious Rejection
  
• Countersquall
  
• Dispel
  
• Thoughtseize
  
• Vendilion Clique

Additional Removal and Sweepers:

• Engineered Explosives
  
• Anger of the Gods
  
• Go for the Throat
  
• Grim Lavamancer
  
• Damnation
  
• Dismember
  
• Izzet Staticaster

Grindy Cards:

• Liliana, the Last Hope
  
• Painful Truths
  
• Ancestral Vision
  
• Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
  
• Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Ramp/Big Mana hate:

• Blood Moon
  
• Fulminator Mage
  
• Molten Rain
  
• Ghost Quarter
  
• Crumble to Dust

Artifact Hate:

• Vandalblast
  
• Shattering Spree
  
• Shatterstorm
  
• By Force
  

Graveyard Hate:

• Nihil Spellbomb
  
• Surgical Extraction
  
• Ravenous Trap

Multi Purpose Cards:

• Collective Brutality
  
• Rakdos Charm
  
• Kolaghan's Command
  
• Grixis Charm
  
• Echoing Truth
  
• Rise // Fall
  
• Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
  
• Harsh Mentor

Sample Decklist


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.

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:

Quote from FoodChainGoblins »

**Umezawa's Jitte does not need to be unbanned. Hogaak and hopefully Bridge will eventually get banned. Please don't use this argument. It's funny that Ross Merriam believes that Jitte should be unbanned, but not Stoneforge Mystic. WTF?!?!?! Jitte further pushes people to play their's first to win creature matches (much of Modern) or play (non creature) Combo to avoid losing to those. I played during Jitte Standard. I know a lot has changed. I still think Jitte would be too much, close to what Punishing Fire does, except it is colorless.

played legacy for some years, and my opinion is we are in for some tough games if Jitte is unleashed into modern.
This equipment is some people won't realize it is broken until seen in action.

So if people are weary of Hogaak's ban potential as soon as two weeks from now, and refuse to buy it in paper to show it off dominating a large GP, then we're just in for yet another period of insufferable misery in Modern?

I remember when "battle of sideboards" was a ban criteria. Now 8 pieces of GY hate in your 75 is supposed to be "normal."

Why do I play this format again? /shrug

I think hoogak will be banned in order to avoid eldrazi winter on camera at an MC. Unless it completely flops this coming weekend in results.

The deck is broken. I dont need more convincing. This isnt some cute plays with shadow or Phoenix. The deck is very much busted. You stick s leyline or jailer or 100 percent lose. Reid Duke on camera last night had no issues facing fast decks with it for a turn 3 win.

Deck is getting banned, let's not do this foolishness again, we all said to give eldrazi a chance for data collection. This is easily a tier 0 deck. Ban it. Its not healthy to see 8 or 9 gy hate in people's 75.

For some context on Twin: when it was legal, Electrolyze was a playable Magic card. Lightning Bolt killed a lot of relevant things. Remand had a meaningful tempo impact. Graveyards were almost exclusively Tarmogoyf buffs. And the decks which could kill fast (Infect and Burn) got hosed by cards like Electrolyze, Bolt, Tap-Your-Attacker, and Sure-I'll-Block. Nowadays, best fast decks don't care about discard, don't care about removal, don't care about counterspells, and kill faster and more consistently than either of those used to. Sometimes they even do it through many of the targeted pieces of hate we're forced to play.

Meanwhile, a 1/2 that sometimes fetches a 4/4 is banned. Good grief.

Quote from BloodyRabbit_01 »

I like Teferi’s design, though.

Little Teferi is really bad. Fundamentally changes the game for 3 mana, is absolutely obnoxious design, and even renders creatures without ETB/Haste effects in STANDARD to be useless.

Super bad, I threw him into my Arena decks day one, and just felt gross over what it does to the format and game.

Like it or not, this is the new reality of Modern. Modern players can accept it (and play 4+ pieces of GY hate in the 75) or futilely defy it, but we cannot deny the reality of it. There's no indication that the powers that govern the game see any issue with this.

Modern can still be fun but the novelty of the format wears out fast.

In the 5 years I've played in this format, game play has never been less engaging and shallow than it is right now.

1) Find X hate card
2) Find answer to X hate card

This is the strategic depth of most of the format currently.

Anyone remember those months and years gone by where people complained that Modern is a battle of the sideboards? Those times are a pleasant memory compared to what's going on currently.

I'm not yet on the ban wagon for this one, but I do think it's really annoying that they keep printing "0cmc" things for graveyard decks. Now we have everything from 2/1s, 3/3s, and 3/2 fliers to an 8/8, back down to 2/2 token swarm that in some lists for no reason turns into a 9/7 for R as well as a 4/3 haste in a random color, now we're looking at the potential for T2 mill with grave strategy back up. But SFM is still banned? Counterspell is too good? We can only allow one flavor of control and it's UW? Give me a break.

Hogaak is probably just another passing phase, but they keep printing the same stuff that keeps getting this "WHOA, IT'S FREE, BROKEN META FOR SIX MONTHS BECAUSE NOT ENOUGH TOURNAMENT RESULTS"* and always in the same strategy (graveyard) and it's getting tiring. I admit they did actually ban KCI, but they epicly failed to recognize that hate cards like RIP and Void are getting out paced by yard strategies once they figure out the play pattern. It's still happening. We've seen Dredge vine win T2 against RIP, regular dredge pull out wins against good solid hate, Phoenix ignore it and win with other angles because "xerox" (like hard casting a Phoenix because you have low removal now). And now they think they'll just print an 8/8 that's psudo free AND give it a new win angle in mill!? How is this different?

After Hogaak is adequately hated out of the meta, I can't wait for them to print the next grave strategy that we have to lament over for the next 3-6 months despite me owning literally all of the grave hate relevant to anyone (I even went out of my way to get 4 Withered Wretch) and for no reason other than WotC "forgot it breaks things". Remember when you had to pay for things? Remember when the benefit from playing land was that you could generate more mana? Well now it's that you get two 2/1s, a couple 3/3s, and maybe an 8/8. Remember when the text on spells mattered beyond "cantrip"? Well, doesn't matter now because you get a few 3/2 flying haste! Counterspell kills diversity, but if I smack my deck full of "draw a card" I can play 3 of the exact same creature every game for 6 months.

I'll admit that control got some toys. We got some powerful things. But where is the free stuff? Azcanta is a T2 do nothing. Jace, as we've all found out, is pretty fragile. Teferi comes into play after you're dead. Veto is a card that only polices control, so it's awesome that control now pushes itself out of the meta. Archmage's Charm is pretty middling to bad. Force of Negation? Good sideboard tech against niche decks. Where is my removal that I can use every time I play a land? Why can't I cast Essence Scatter every time I cast 3 spells? Snapcaster? You know that costs actual mana, right? And then I still have to pay for the spell!

Tired of graveyards. Tired of free. Tired of being told "you're getting powerful things" only to watch it receive minimal testing at release and no one pay it a second thought.

/rant

*Not trying to shoot at ktk, btw, just how they ban things or how long it takes the meta to adjust.

I apologize. I would expect downvotes, but as a great king once said "We, we don't do that here."

I might be on the ban mania train at this point. I'm just so tired of watching things be the way they are. This isn't good Magic. And by "good Magic" I mean it actually feels like Magic. For example, Gitaxian Probe is a card I like having banned because it's not good Magic. It's borderline free for perfect information and it make you play 56 card decks. This isn't "good Magic."

In the same vein, I'm having a harder and harder time enjoying Modern. I dislike how Modern is defined by degeneracy (however you choose to interpret the word, it's how Modern has felt to me for a long time). I'm tired of there being these insane cards that enable so much absurd things. I'm tired of how UW is now my only control option for the most part. I'm tired of the gymnastics of testing new decks in an effort to enjoy this format again. When I first started playing the format the deck diversity was great and there were options, oh so many options. Now I feel like I have to be playing a deck I dislike playing in order to do well. I don't want to play Dredge, Phoenix, Humans, Tron, maybe Amulet. I don't want to feel forced into playing UW if I want to play Control. Maybe I just dislike how this is another phase in Modern's history, and I need to suck it up and just keep going. But at this point, I can even enjoy playing the format anymore. I don't feel like the format is diverse anymore. I feel like my options in order to compete keep getting smaller.

Maybe I'm not a fan of the Graveyard Check people were talking about earlier. I'm I being unfair to the format here? I just can't get behind the format and need something to reinvigorate my interest once more.

I prefer 1 mana Negate over 3 mana Negate...

The fact that it can cost 0 mana on your opponent's turn means that it does a poor job at protecting our threats and only works as a reactive card against the development of our opponent. For me that's exactly the type of card I'm not looking for.
Unless the gameplan changes to a more reactive approach, which is likely given that the format is becoming more hostile towards our deck, I don't see us rocking this card.