So here's the thing. I've been away for a few years. I don't know what's good anymore. The format has changed quite a bit. I've essentially grabbed the last deck I had and added the Fatal Pushes.
I recall this archetype struggling against swarmy decks like Affinity and Fish. Would adding a red splash with Firespout in the side be beneficial?
How good is Collective Brutality? At first glance it seems you will want to play it to support Grim Flayer.
What are your thoughts on Psionic Blast?
Does a card like Ancestral Vision fit in this deck?
What's good against Eldrazi Tron? The lists I've seen floating around seem pretty resilient to LD.
I like Agony Warp but Drown in Sorrow would likely be good in the matchups so you're bringing in Warp. Disdainful stroke seems pretty sweet in those matchups.
Thanks. Maybe it'll be a Maelstrom Pulse.
The general consensus going around seems to be that RUG is better vs. Aggro while BUG is better vs. midrange - which seems right given that in BUG we have Abrupt Decay, which is better against a broad spread of problems as it is a maindeckable answer to everything from a Tarmogoyf to Cranial Plating.
Jamming in Agony Warp seems like the next component of this style of deck - while it is useful as a pseudo Bolt replacement, it also buys us one turn longer than a Bolt which helps it gain a little ground. The cost is high compared to bolt, but being able to nullify 6 damage on a critical turn or using it as a combat trick to set up a bad block to clear the opponent's board seems ever so important as we are constantly managing our life total and winning games in the single digits. It also pitches to Shoal on 2 and hits most manlands, which Decay cannot.
Anything that runs Delve creatures as a win con
Twin? (Haven't tested this yet. Hits Cryptic, Splinter Twin, Keranos)
Tron
Scapeshift
Board is set up like this right now:
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Drown in Sorrow
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Vampiric Link
1 Dispel
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Golgari Charm
2 Go for the Throat
1 Stubborn Denial
1 undecided - 2nd Dispel? 3rd Agony Warp?
I am liking Agony Warp a lot right now as my meta has a lot of Affinity, Fish, and Elf Aggro and AW is great at blanking attack steps to give our team enough turns to get through for lethal. Killing an x/3 and blanking the other 3/x is a lot better in this type of deck than going 1-for-1 with the opponent with Abrupt Decay or Simic Charm. That being said I am still running both those cards too. It also works well on offense, allowing out Mandrills to trample through just a little bit more.
This thread seems to have faded into obscurity these past few weeks. Anyhow I'm still tweaking it. I've been testing two Agony Warp main and two Disdainful Stroke side.
I played a 4 round Modern event last week and here is a tournament report.
R1 vs Burn
Game 1 he goose fetch, Stomping Ground, goblin guide and I groan. Guide nets me a land, I play my own fetch and pass. He drops another guide and comes in for 4. I end step crack for an Island, Scour myself, then drop another fetch, crack it, drop Mandrills. I slowly eke out advantage until he Atarka's Commands his guides to block my mandrills, after which I have another. The game gets close but I close with a Shoal pitching Chsrm on a Boros charm.
G2 is a blowout in my favor as I open with two fetches, scour, mandrills, vampiric link and stubborn denial. Fetch, scour and t2 mandrills with Denial backup then link up mandrills for beats was game.
G2 vs Abzan/Mardu midrange
G1 I get Thiughtseized t1 and am beaten to death by Goyf and Knight of the Reliquary as I flood out.
G2 is pretty much the same.
I walked away from this game realizing I need ways to "out-midrange" a midrange deck. I played without Snaps this tournament and missed them this round.
G3 vs Rakdos Artifacts
Strange deck that played Ravager, Ornithopter, burn, and thunderous wrath (in 3 games he managed 5 or 6 of these miracles off the top - I tilted a bit)
G1 he bolts my t1 delver, thunderous wraths my Tasigur, ditto on my Mandrills, then burns me out.
G2 I draw multiple threats and he can't keep up with 6/7 Goyfs.
G3 is a repeat of g1. I saw multiple miracles wraths this game too.
G4 vs Storm
This was a really awkward match. I realized while shuffling his sleeves were different colors - some were bright white and others were an off-white. I make a mental note of it but move on. After all, we are at the 2-2 table...
G1 is a little drawn out as I repeatedly answer his permanents but ultimately lose to an electromancer that I had no removal for and he combos out.
G2 I play t1 probe and see he kept a 1 lander with a ton of gas. He sleights and makes his second land drop on time and every land drop he needs thereafter, but he scoops after I thought scour in response to him storming out to kill a Tas and Goyf. We do a quick recount and we realize they still would have died but he wrapped turn with no cards in hand. Scoop stands and we move to g3. I flip through his bin after the game and realize that the lands all have older sleeves on them but the spells had crisp, white sleeves. I grab judge and pull him aside to let him know, but don't feel comfortable calling he opponent out as we are still at the 2-2 table...
G3 he plays tarn and passes. I probe and see no lands. He end step fetches and main phase sleights. Puts an older sleeved card in hand then plays his land (same card he drew). The same behavior continues for a bit. He starts combining off and I call the judge. We begin to thumb through the deck, and I'm pulling cars off the top asking if they are lands for the judge to verify. Turns out, not all of the older sleeved cards were lands - there were two dispels that were in older sleeves too. (Clearly sideboard cards). Judge flips through and the rest of the older sleeved cards in the deck were lands. Judge rules a game loss for the opponent and instructs him to change sleeves before next event, threatens to ban he opponent from next event if he gets caught again. Opponent pleads innocence claiming bad eyesight and asks me to help him flip through his deck and ID the suspicious sleeves. I politely (but not too politely) decline and walk away.
So that's it - part of me felt only a little bit bad about how the last round went but part of me is still fuming about getting cheated game 1. I've never had to call out a cheater before but to me this was pretty blatant. What's worse is it seemed like my round 3 opponent was pretty buddy-buddy with the cheater I played round 4, and I suspected some funny business with all the top decked miracles I saw vs him but have no proof.
Some final thoughts on the deck:
I played 18 lands (9 fetches, 4 basics, 4 shocks, 1 check land) and felt like I was drawing a lot of land. I've trimmed back down to 17.
Shoal was either incredible or a dud. No in-between.
Charms felt strained pulling double (triple?) duty between: protecting threats, bounce, and pitching to shoal. Maybe some hard removal is in order to ease the workload on the charm.
I missed Snapcaster.
I have been tinkering with numbers that allow us to run Shackles - cutting Shoal may be in order - and upping island count to support the artifact in question. Between Chsrm and Denial, we should be able to protect Shackles, and this occupies two needed gaps in the deck: it works as pseudo-removal and another (relatively cheap) win condition which also lets us "out-midrange" the midrange decks.
Nothing really revolutionary, but let me explain my thought process on a couple cards:
So far, I am really liking Mishra's Bauble - it helps flip Delver, makes Tarmogoyf fatter, and helps delve into Mandrills a turn earlier. I am not missing the lifeloss vs. Gitaxian Probe, but I am missing the peek effect. If I were to go back, I would probably run 3 Probes and add another creature (Snapcaster Mage or go down to 3 Mandrills and add 2 Tasigur).
Speaking of Mandrills, I have opted to go heavy on these because my meta is generally a lot of small swarmy aggro decks or decks that run Lingering Souls so the trample on Mandrills is very important to me - I don't really miss Tasigur.
I am not really liking Mana Leak in this meta, so I am running Remand for now. I could see some Deprives being stuck in if I need a hard counter but really hate the tempo loss.
I am also running a 3/1 split between Thought Scour and Darkblast - again a concession to my local meta where there is an abundance of Elves, Collected Company, and Affinity. In these matchups, Darkblast is essentially repeatable Thought Scour that 'tutors' into decent removal out of the bin. It also helps win Goyf/Goyf or Mandrills/Tasigur wars.
As for the sideboard, I'm not sure if I like Feed the Clan over Vampiric Link. Link is cheaper and is a repeatable source of lifegain so long as I have a threat on board. I haven't been able to test a matchup yet where Pack Rat was needed, either; I've possibly got 2-4 sideboard slots to utilize.
It looks like some folks playing Grixis colors are playing Vampiric Link. Durward wrote an article about it on CFB - it's primary application is to attach to a Delve fatty - (might help our swarmy aggro matchup) and it also shuts off Eidolon triggers for spells you cast, and turns the burn opponents spells from Bolts to Gut Shots and they still lose 2.
I've come back with similar conclusions re: Bitterblossom. Great card, but too slow. I'm pretty high in Engineered Explosives right now as the meta seems to be getting smaller and swarmier - running 3 copies in the SB and it seems to have some good applications: Affinity / Fish on 2, Elves / Zoo style aggro on 1, Lingering Souls and Empty thr Warrens tokens on 0 - otherwise it is pretty versatile (albeit clunky) removal for problematic permanents stuff.
I'm still running 3 copies of Spell Snare and it is either great (Goyf, Bob, Ravager, Snapcaster, Plating) or abysmal (any Vial and/or Cavern of Souls decks).
If we are looking for a Goyf pumper, BB seems to do the trick very well (Tribal and Enchant); it is strong on its own whereas Curiosity and Rancor require a card on board and if left unanswered will take over most games. It's also solid against Affinity and Liliana decks. I'm not too sold on the Siege and would personally rather run another BB.
With less Siege Rhinos in the meta, I think Bitterblossom is slightly more relevant. Grixis Twin and Delver have no real conceivable way to deal with it.
It's pretty bad against Burn and Fish, and is probably two or three turns too slow to be of significant help against Tron and Bloom decks.
Thoughts? I've got a deck maindecking both BB and Simic Charm running around my head right now.
A build like this is not trying to capitalize on a Turn 2 Delve fatty, but rather disrupt the opponent for long enough that a Delver/Goyf goes all the way. Tasigurs are here to mop up.
The archetype already possesses a good game against Tron variants (early threat, Stubborn Denial backup), Splinter Twin (discard, Abrupt Decay, counters), and Burn (Feed the Clan and Spellskite) - the first two of which should be cropping up all over the place because of Tron's high profile finish recently. Burn is always around and we have the tools to fight it. Delver strategies are traditionally weak against BG/x shells and swarmy aggro decks (Fish, Affinity) so most of my sideboard is dedicated to combat that.
I think a build like this takes a pretty good, balanced approach against most decks in the format. Let me know what you think - I may go up to 2 Deathmarks in the side by cutting the Darkblast. Unsure of how necessary Deglamer is, either - this can possibly become a Flashfreeze or something else that is good against Jund/Abzan.
I have played this deck for weeks now, my list can be shown a bit further up. I struggle hard versus the Tier 1 aggro (Burn, affinity and Infect) and most other aggro strategies that relies on creatures. What you think about including 4 Lightning bolt? I am thinking about swapping the 2 Creeping tar pit and 1 Tectonic edge versus something like Steam vents, stomping ground and Frontier Bivouac. I am removing 2 Thoughtseize and Ashiok, Nightmare weaver due to the lackluster this cards are versus aggro.
I have done many tests against Affinity, and I have to agree that this match up is very tough.
Even using the SB, It is not 50:50 match up if Affinity starts the game first.
If anyone has a better SB idea without changing the 15 SB cards much, please let me know.
------------------------------------------------
Regarding the match up against Burn, it is relatively easier for Sultai-Control.
SB in:
2 Feed the Clan
1 Spellskite
1 Nature's Claim
3 Disfigure
How do you plan on winning vs Affinity if you board out all your threats?
Golgari Charm is good against them, as is Darkblast if you're looking for other answers in your 75.
Sower and Clique should definitely stay in the sideboard; a 2/2 sorcery speed flying dude and a 3/1 used as a chump blocker are not what we need in this matchup. We need interaction on turns 1-3 in the form of damage mitigation, whether by board control (removal) or plan disruption (discard or counters) it doesn't matter. Then we can lean on Goyf (typically a 5/6+ in this matchup if you kill/discard one of their dudes); unchecked, Goyf alone is pretty significant pressure that they have to answer.
Depending on if you're on the play or draw, I might leave Thoughtseize or Mana Leak in - you will want an early way to deal with their Plating or Ravager.
Fair enough. I was actually picturing a mix of the two altough I didn't convey that I guess.. i.e. add 2 bobs at the expense of 1 tas and something would be great.
On the bolt/decay thing, while this is true I have been having similar issues with these removals simply because I have not saturated enough viable targets for either. This has led me to choose to either eliminate certain cards or increase the targets. Its actually one of the only reasons I miss goyfs in my build so far. On the brite side Bob forces them to have it quick or lose. I can't think of another compliment threat to goyf that does that for 2 cmc. Just a friendly idea.
I would think Bob would be effective in this deck if you played some number of Death's Shadow to make the life loss more relevant. If we choose to go in this direction though, we are losing percentage points vs. GBx decks as our 'closing' threat is vulnerable to a topdecked Abrupt Decay. There is a UB suicide deck floating around with Delvers, Death's Shadow, and Vendetta/Dismember that looks like a heck of a lot of fun to play.
Thinking about it a little more - I ran an earlier version of this deck with: 4 Goyf, 4 Bob, 2 Tasigur, 3 Death's Shadow coupled with an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or two with some number of Funeral Charm - I was even able to win a game by making my Death's Shadow a swampwalking 9/9! ...I somehow managed to top-8 a 45-player event with this but lost in the first round to a Goryo's Vengeance deck because I drew too many Death's Shadow and had no way to force myself to lose life.
Ok gotcha, this shows my limited experience with this format but good to know. Pact was always for hatebears when I used it but I can see the broader value now so thanks.
I am actually a really big fan of Pact right now; it's not the most versatile removal spell in the format, but lets you kill stuff while still leaving mana up for a counter (provided you don't only have 3 lands in play with just Deprive...lol). You don't have to really make a choice between binning a dude on their combat step vs. countering whatever they're holding back - and ideally, we've already deployed a threat so we technically will be tempo positive by dealing with their threat while keeping ours on board. It's also got great synergy with a Tasigur activation or a Snapcaster Mage re-buy.
This is true to an extent because all tempo run 4 wasteland which isn't actually counted as a land but a 0cc spell so they usually function on 15-16 lands fueled by at least 8 strong cantrip engine. I was kinda picturing something similar with visions + dimir charm etc although thats all theory. Its very roughly similar, mostly due to BUG colors and plan.
I'm thinking without access to Brainstorm to fix our draw, running 15-16 lands with so many multicolored spells is asking for trouble. Maybe if we had Ponder?
No offense taken. I haven't piloted the deck but I like the shell and decided to throw some ideas out there. Tec edge + leaks have been one of the better things for me in BUG honestly and for all the reasons you've stated. I really really wish there was a better wasteland variant. Hmm squeltch could be worth considering as well. Also any thoughts on dimir charm?
Squelch seems good, but not always relevant. The prospect of hitting the other team's fetchland activation on T2 is very tempting...
Not sure about Dimir Charm. For it's cost, you are getting a pseudo-Smother that can't target Vendilion Clique (amongst other things, but I couldn't think of any other relevant cards with CMC under 3 and power over 2) and a weaker Negate, but you *are* getting a better Thought Scour that has potential to help flip Delver. I know UB Faeries was running it in Modern for awhile but I think for what it does, the modes are a little too expensive - it's a lot like Sultai Charm in that way (you're paying 1 extra mana for a loot/Ultimate Price (aka a worse Doom Blade)/Naturalize effect.
HelloFriendo:
My creature suite is identical to yours right now +1 thragtusk/finks. I've been bringing goyfs back here and there in place of finks and a SCM or random card. Its hard to say man, in some matches goyfs come out early and just win but at least just as often they don't contribute anything. Ooze is always an MVP and so is grave titan and swagtusks. Double swags or a titan is usually game.
I tried thrun in the main and hes just outclassed too often. Bummer because theres times when he shines but its just not often enough to warrant a main slot IMO. That said I found some nice synergy with bow of nylea form the SB and thrun/finks both.
On your list I really think you should go back to jace, architect of thought. That card is house against lingering souls and generates huge card advantage if left unchecked for even 3 turns. I've owned one forever but only recently started playing with it and I'm seriously impressed. I've never really been sad to seem him. The other walker thats been really good to me so far is garruk wildspeaker. He ramps into early thragtusks/titan especially if they pathed something early and his untap ability leaves counter magic up. He does a lot to stall the board and I've also won a fair amount of games off his overrun especially with 6/5 tarpits.
I don't think spell pierce is good in a midrange shell. It would be better off as another leak if you aren't wanting to run cryptics. I also feel you need discard in this format. Our counterspell options are just too weak to carry disruption alone without hand information but together they answer a lot of threats that are harder/impossible to deal with once resolved. Hmm might rune snag be worth considering?
In general I'm almost at the point of considering just running 4 oozes and jamming them whenever I draw one. Can't say enough about that card.
Jace is incredible in the midrange/control version. Two is too many, though.
Garruk seems good to incredible if you are running some number of Bitterblossom in your 75.
I agree that counters by themselves are awful in this format - I am willing to bet a lot of us have felt the sting of clutching a Negate while staring down an opponent's Keranos on the stack.
4 Oozes seems like a lot. I don't know if there are enough creatures hitting the bin to justify running 4 (although I can see running up to 3 if Collected Company becomes a more prominent threat in the meta).
Took me a while to craft this post so I hope there's some helpful information here.
In the end, having access to targeted discard remains one of the best things we can do when playing black, so I decided to play some Inquisitions. It also fuels your graveyard for Tasigur or Angler.
Depending on how my local meta settles, I may be more willing to run Darkblast main - I believe this card is particularly strong vs Delver decks (RUG/Grixis) and Affinity, but also has some fringe benefits when matching up against Collected Company decks (hits their mana dorks). It has great synergy when trying to pump out some delve fatties and helps break up Tarmogoyf/Tasigur/Rhino or Angler/Angler stalemates. Not sure what I would cut but I would start with the singleton Golgari Charm and move towards Slaughter Pact and Dismember if I need a third.
In the end, this build is probably not optimal - it's a hybrid between RUG/Grixis Delver tempo decks and GBx attrition so it suffers from a lack of focus. It's not running the 1-mana cantrips that power Delver decks and am essentially giving up Gitaxian Probe for Inquisition of Kozilek and Thought Scour for Spell Snare. This basically gives me pretty good percentages to have an answer problematic 2-drops in my opening 7 (Tarmogoyf, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Dark Confidant, Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, Voice of Resurgence, etc.) and along with Deprive, can help prevent Liliana of the Veil from hitting the board.
Not sure if I like it as it is, but if anyone wants to collaborate with me on this project I'd be glad for the help.
Hey man I like your tempo variation of this list. I tried to make BUG delver work at the formats inception but never got very far and lost interest, however that was before so many good delve cards. Just like legacy this version will always compete with canadian thresh/RUG delver which is inherently more efficient. Unfortunately we don't have hymns, and tombstalker I'm not sure is quite the same bomb here (or is he?). Anyway the real incentive to go black is as you say discards and of course hard removal but there are a few other options I'd like to suggest.
For starters consider lowering the tasigur count by 1. In his place I would play 1-2 bobs, preferably 2 by cutting something. Bob is a guaranteed to cast at 2cc vs tasigur (or multiple tas) and really pressures your opponent to answer immediately or lose plus he feeds the yard by virtue of CA. Hes essentially perceived as the same threat level as goyf by opponents, or should be. This change would also allow you to consider switching out 1 pact for a murderous cut. 2 pacts seems like too much but I might be mistaken since I haven't used pact much outside of ANT. Either way on pact but bobs I would seriously consider. Otoh it would mean stubborn denial loses some value vs. say spell pierce so thats something to also consider. I personally think the trade offs would be worth it since PtE/bolt on delver is gonna happen pretty often even with denials in hand.
Ok heres a couple ideas that could be worth considering here maybe even more so than RUG which I take a page from their book. First I feel like 3 deprive is too many. 1, maaybe 2 but full 3 especially when combined with double pacts seems like too much tempo loss and clunky together. I want to like deprive but I always hated drawing it. Its a far cry from a poor mans daze sadly. Otoh disrupting shoal would increase your answers to problematic 2 drops similar/in conjunction to snares but without being quite so narrow and would also hard counter paths/bolts. Going off FoW math you would need around 20 blue cards to support it. If you shift a couple or even all deprives and/or another counter (snare/denial) to the side or just replace them with shoals you'd have 19 count. This leads into my next suggestion:
Either way have you considered dimir charm? Higher cost but much more versatile than scours and has great synergy with a set of shoals. It makes countering 2 drops 'for free' much more viable, increases both your removal and permission density and pretty much guarantees you'll flip delver while allowing you to dig for answers EoT. No cantrip hurts but the value in a tempo shell is higher than elsewhere and at worst it pitches to shoal. Fate seal is also a powerful way to close out a game as well when all you need is that one more turn or their digging for bolt. Anyway I think its potentially on par with discards for reasons to go black over RUG.
Lastly how has 20 lands been treating you? I know most TA shells run 20 but thats with 4 wastelands and similar curve with a couple 3 drops. I ask because I feel like theres room to include at least 1 tec edge to keep your soft permission active longer. Also on that note I've been running 3 darkslick shores as well (non tempo plan) and it really feels like I should go 4 or go down to 1 for more check lands. Just some thoughts.
Thanks for the input. There are definitely some good takeaways, but one of the good things about running true mix of Goyf and Tasigur/Angler is that most of my big guys pass the Bolt test. Cutting Tasigurs for Bob not only weakens my threat mix against Bolt, but also Abrupt Decay. I am pretty light on threats as-is, and need what I resolve to stick around and do some damage.
Going off the RUG build which I've been following as well - the pilot that won the SCG event is a frequent poster here. He runs Curiosity and a bunch of cantrips to keep the cards flowing. The way this deck is built so far, it does not have a card advantage engine at that level.
What I like about Slaughter Pact is that against Twin, it is essentially a Force of Will that does not cost you an extra card and actually 2 for 1s the opponent. With it, you can engage in a counter war with them over Splinter Twin and still win by playing Pact.
About the lands - I am casually familiar with Legacy and know a few general decks and game plans. I would assume that the deck we are approximating this list to runs Brainstorms - that card pulls so much weight in the format and does its job so well, I don't think there is a good comparison here with Serum Visions. I guess there must be a lot of similarities to Team America the way this deck is built, but those similarities are not intentional - these are the cards I've selected to attack the format.
I played Tombstalker for a while and didn't like it. The BB is hard to generate, especially when you want access to UU (Deprive) and 1G (Goyf) and BG (Decay) on Turn 2.
I don't mean to slam your ideas as there's a lot of good stuff here - I particularly like the idea of running soft permission and mana denial with Tec Edge. Mana Leak is not only easier to cast, it also synergies well with discard. With previous midrangy builds of this deck, I ran a full 4 Mana Leak with 3 Snares, 4 Thoughtseize and 3 Inquisition. This enabled really messed up starting lines of play where you could T1 discard, T2 Spell Snare, T3 Mana Leak, or T1 discard, T2 discard with Spell Snare up, T3 Serum Vision with Mana Leak up and set up the rest of your game... then drop a Goyf with a bunch of stuff in the bin and bash until the opponent top decks an answer.
Have been tinkering with this build and was looking for some feedback.
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Breeding Pool
2 Watery Grave
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Hooting Mandrills
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Serum Visions
4 Thought Scour
4 Disrupting Shoal
3 Mana Leak
3 Stubborn Denial
3 Simic Charm
3 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay
So here's the thing. I've been away for a few years. I don't know what's good anymore. The format has changed quite a bit. I've essentially grabbed the last deck I had and added the Fatal Pushes.
I recall this archetype struggling against swarmy decks like Affinity and Fish. Would adding a red splash with Firespout in the side be beneficial?
How good is Collective Brutality? At first glance it seems you will want to play it to support Grim Flayer.
What are your thoughts on Psionic Blast?
Does a card like Ancestral Vision fit in this deck?
What's good against Eldrazi Tron? The lists I've seen floating around seem pretty resilient to LD.
Thanks!
Thanks. Maybe it'll be a Maelstrom Pulse.
The general consensus going around seems to be that RUG is better vs. Aggro while BUG is better vs. midrange - which seems right given that in BUG we have Abrupt Decay, which is better against a broad spread of problems as it is a maindeckable answer to everything from a Tarmogoyf to Cranial Plating.
Jamming in Agony Warp seems like the next component of this style of deck - while it is useful as a pseudo Bolt replacement, it also buys us one turn longer than a Bolt which helps it gain a little ground. The cost is high compared to bolt, but being able to nullify 6 damage on a critical turn or using it as a combat trick to set up a bad block to clear the opponent's board seems ever so important as we are constantly managing our life total and winning games in the single digits. It also pitches to Shoal on 2 and hits most manlands, which Decay cannot.
Anything that runs Delve creatures as a win con
Twin? (Haven't tested this yet. Hits Cryptic, Splinter Twin, Keranos)
Tron
Scapeshift
Board is set up like this right now:
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Drown in Sorrow
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Vampiric Link
1 Dispel
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Golgari Charm
2 Go for the Throat
1 Stubborn Denial
1 undecided - 2nd Dispel? 3rd Agony Warp?
I am liking Agony Warp a lot right now as my meta has a lot of Affinity, Fish, and Elf Aggro and AW is great at blanking attack steps to give our team enough turns to get through for lethal. Killing an x/3 and blanking the other 3/x is a lot better in this type of deck than going 1-for-1 with the opponent with Abrupt Decay or Simic Charm. That being said I am still running both those cards too. It also works well on offense, allowing out Mandrills to trample through just a little bit more.
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tsrmogoyf
3 Hooting Mandrills
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Land
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacomb
2 Breeding Pool
1 Watery Grave
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Simic Charm
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Thought Scour
3 Stubborn Denial
3 Remand
1 Deprive
1 Darkblast
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Vampiric Link
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Go for the Throat
1 Dispel
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Hurkyls Recall
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Negate
1 Bitterblossom
17 lands was fine with no Snaps. The more you play, the more lands I would add.
R1 vs Burn
Game 1 he goose fetch, Stomping Ground, goblin guide and I groan. Guide nets me a land, I play my own fetch and pass. He drops another guide and comes in for 4. I end step crack for an Island, Scour myself, then drop another fetch, crack it, drop Mandrills. I slowly eke out advantage until he Atarka's Commands his guides to block my mandrills, after which I have another. The game gets close but I close with a Shoal pitching Chsrm on a Boros charm.
G2 is a blowout in my favor as I open with two fetches, scour, mandrills, vampiric link and stubborn denial. Fetch, scour and t2 mandrills with Denial backup then link up mandrills for beats was game.
G2 vs Abzan/Mardu midrange
G1 I get Thiughtseized t1 and am beaten to death by Goyf and Knight of the Reliquary as I flood out.
G2 is pretty much the same.
I walked away from this game realizing I need ways to "out-midrange" a midrange deck. I played without Snaps this tournament and missed them this round.
G3 vs Rakdos Artifacts
Strange deck that played Ravager, Ornithopter, burn, and thunderous wrath (in 3 games he managed 5 or 6 of these miracles off the top - I tilted a bit)
G1 he bolts my t1 delver, thunderous wraths my Tasigur, ditto on my Mandrills, then burns me out.
G2 I draw multiple threats and he can't keep up with 6/7 Goyfs.
G3 is a repeat of g1. I saw multiple miracles wraths this game too.
G4 vs Storm
This was a really awkward match. I realized while shuffling his sleeves were different colors - some were bright white and others were an off-white. I make a mental note of it but move on. After all, we are at the 2-2 table...
G1 is a little drawn out as I repeatedly answer his permanents but ultimately lose to an electromancer that I had no removal for and he combos out.
G2 I play t1 probe and see he kept a 1 lander with a ton of gas. He sleights and makes his second land drop on time and every land drop he needs thereafter, but he scoops after I thought scour in response to him storming out to kill a Tas and Goyf. We do a quick recount and we realize they still would have died but he wrapped turn with no cards in hand. Scoop stands and we move to g3. I flip through his bin after the game and realize that the lands all have older sleeves on them but the spells had crisp, white sleeves. I grab judge and pull him aside to let him know, but don't feel comfortable calling he opponent out as we are still at the 2-2 table...
G3 he plays tarn and passes. I probe and see no lands. He end step fetches and main phase sleights. Puts an older sleeved card in hand then plays his land (same card he drew). The same behavior continues for a bit. He starts combining off and I call the judge. We begin to thumb through the deck, and I'm pulling cars off the top asking if they are lands for the judge to verify. Turns out, not all of the older sleeved cards were lands - there were two dispels that were in older sleeves too. (Clearly sideboard cards). Judge flips through and the rest of the older sleeved cards in the deck were lands. Judge rules a game loss for the opponent and instructs him to change sleeves before next event, threatens to ban he opponent from next event if he gets caught again. Opponent pleads innocence claiming bad eyesight and asks me to help him flip through his deck and ID the suspicious sleeves. I politely (but not too politely) decline and walk away.
So that's it - part of me felt only a little bit bad about how the last round went but part of me is still fuming about getting cheated game 1. I've never had to call out a cheater before but to me this was pretty blatant. What's worse is it seemed like my round 3 opponent was pretty buddy-buddy with the cheater I played round 4, and I suspected some funny business with all the top decked miracles I saw vs him but have no proof.
Some final thoughts on the deck:
I played 18 lands (9 fetches, 4 basics, 4 shocks, 1 check land) and felt like I was drawing a lot of land. I've trimmed back down to 17.
Shoal was either incredible or a dud. No in-between.
Charms felt strained pulling double (triple?) duty between: protecting threats, bounce, and pitching to shoal. Maybe some hard removal is in order to ease the workload on the charm.
I missed Snapcaster.
I have been tinkering with numbers that allow us to run Shackles - cutting Shoal may be in order - and upping island count to support the artifact in question. Between Chsrm and Denial, we should be able to protect Shackles, and this occupies two needed gaps in the deck: it works as pseudo-removal and another (relatively cheap) win condition which also lets us "out-midrange" the midrange decks.
Here is the latest build I am testing:
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacomb
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
1 Overgrown Tomb
Creature (14)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Hooting Mandrills
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Serum Visions
4 Disrupting Shoal
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember
2 Simic Charm
3 Remand
3 Stubborn Denial
3 Thought Scour
1 Darkblast
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Nature's Claim
1 Dispel
1 Golgari Charm
1 Flashfreeze
2 Pack Rat
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Feed the Clan
2 Disfigure
2 Vampiric Link
Nothing really revolutionary, but let me explain my thought process on a couple cards:
So far, I am really liking Mishra's Bauble - it helps flip Delver, makes Tarmogoyf fatter, and helps delve into Mandrills a turn earlier. I am not missing the lifeloss vs. Gitaxian Probe, but I am missing the peek effect. If I were to go back, I would probably run 3 Probes and add another creature (Snapcaster Mage or go down to 3 Mandrills and add 2 Tasigur).
Speaking of Mandrills, I have opted to go heavy on these because my meta is generally a lot of small swarmy aggro decks or decks that run Lingering Souls so the trample on Mandrills is very important to me - I don't really miss Tasigur.
I am not really liking Mana Leak in this meta, so I am running Remand for now. I could see some Deprives being stuck in if I need a hard counter but really hate the tempo loss.
I am also running a 3/1 split between Thought Scour and Darkblast - again a concession to my local meta where there is an abundance of Elves, Collected Company, and Affinity. In these matchups, Darkblast is essentially repeatable Thought Scour that 'tutors' into decent removal out of the bin. It also helps win Goyf/Goyf or Mandrills/Tasigur wars.
As for the sideboard, I'm not sure if I like Feed the Clan over Vampiric Link. Link is cheaper and is a repeatable source of lifegain so long as I have a threat on board. I haven't been able to test a matchup yet where Pack Rat was needed, either; I've possibly got 2-4 sideboard slots to utilize.
As always, let me know what you think...
I'm still running 3 copies of Spell Snare and it is either great (Goyf, Bob, Ravager, Snapcaster, Plating) or abysmal (any Vial and/or Cavern of Souls decks).
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=86708
If we are looking for a Goyf pumper, BB seems to do the trick very well (Tribal and Enchant); it is strong on its own whereas Curiosity and Rancor require a card on board and if left unanswered will take over most games. It's also solid against Affinity and Liliana decks. I'm not too sold on the Siege and would personally rather run another BB.
With less Siege Rhinos in the meta, I think Bitterblossom is slightly more relevant. Grixis Twin and Delver have no real conceivable way to deal with it.
It's pretty bad against Burn and Fish, and is probably two or three turns too slow to be of significant help against Tron and Bloom decks.
Thoughts? I've got a deck maindecking both BB and Simic Charm running around my head right now.
Here is a relevant article: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30987_Delve-And-Delver.html
And here is my list:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Snapcaster Mage
Spells (28)
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Serum Visions
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember
1 Go for the Throat
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Deprive
3 Spell Snare
3 Stubborn Denial
2 Golgari Charm
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Watery Grave
2 Breeding Pool
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Spellskite
2 Feed the Clan
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Negate
1 Deglamer
1 Deathmark
1 Darkblast
A build like this is not trying to capitalize on a Turn 2 Delve fatty, but rather disrupt the opponent for long enough that a Delver/Goyf goes all the way. Tasigurs are here to mop up.
The archetype already possesses a good game against Tron variants (early threat, Stubborn Denial backup), Splinter Twin (discard, Abrupt Decay, counters), and Burn (Feed the Clan and Spellskite) - the first two of which should be cropping up all over the place because of Tron's high profile finish recently. Burn is always around and we have the tools to fight it. Delver strategies are traditionally weak against BG/x shells and swarmy aggro decks (Fish, Affinity) so most of my sideboard is dedicated to combat that.
I think a build like this takes a pretty good, balanced approach against most decks in the format. Let me know what you think - I may go up to 2 Deathmarks in the side by cutting the Darkblast. Unsure of how necessary Deglamer is, either - this can possibly become a Flashfreeze or something else that is good against Jund/Abzan.
How do you plan on winning vs Affinity if you board out all your threats?
Golgari Charm is good against them, as is Darkblast if you're looking for other answers in your 75.
Sower and Clique should definitely stay in the sideboard; a 2/2 sorcery speed flying dude and a 3/1 used as a chump blocker are not what we need in this matchup. We need interaction on turns 1-3 in the form of damage mitigation, whether by board control (removal) or plan disruption (discard or counters) it doesn't matter. Then we can lean on Goyf (typically a 5/6+ in this matchup if you kill/discard one of their dudes); unchecked, Goyf alone is pretty significant pressure that they have to answer.
Depending on if you're on the play or draw, I might leave Thoughtseize or Mana Leak in - you will want an early way to deal with their Plating or Ravager.
I would think Bob would be effective in this deck if you played some number of Death's Shadow to make the life loss more relevant. If we choose to go in this direction though, we are losing percentage points vs. GBx decks as our 'closing' threat is vulnerable to a topdecked Abrupt Decay. There is a UB suicide deck floating around with Delvers, Death's Shadow, and Vendetta/Dismember that looks like a heck of a lot of fun to play.
Thinking about it a little more - I ran an earlier version of this deck with: 4 Goyf, 4 Bob, 2 Tasigur, 3 Death's Shadow coupled with an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or two with some number of Funeral Charm - I was even able to win a game by making my Death's Shadow a swampwalking 9/9! ...I somehow managed to top-8 a 45-player event with this but lost in the first round to a Goryo's Vengeance deck because I drew too many Death's Shadow and had no way to force myself to lose life.
I am actually a really big fan of Pact right now; it's not the most versatile removal spell in the format, but lets you kill stuff while still leaving mana up for a counter (provided you don't only have 3 lands in play with just Deprive...lol). You don't have to really make a choice between binning a dude on their combat step vs. countering whatever they're holding back - and ideally, we've already deployed a threat so we technically will be tempo positive by dealing with their threat while keeping ours on board. It's also got great synergy with a Tasigur activation or a Snapcaster Mage re-buy.
I'm thinking without access to Brainstorm to fix our draw, running 15-16 lands with so many multicolored spells is asking for trouble. Maybe if we had Ponder?
Squelch seems good, but not always relevant. The prospect of hitting the other team's fetchland activation on T2 is very tempting...
Not sure about Dimir Charm. For it's cost, you are getting a pseudo-Smother that can't target Vendilion Clique (amongst other things, but I couldn't think of any other relevant cards with CMC under 3 and power over 2) and a weaker Negate, but you *are* getting a better Thought Scour that has potential to help flip Delver. I know UB Faeries was running it in Modern for awhile but I think for what it does, the modes are a little too expensive - it's a lot like Sultai Charm in that way (you're paying 1 extra mana for a loot/Ultimate Price (aka a worse Doom Blade)/Naturalize effect.
Jace is incredible in the midrange/control version. Two is too many, though.
Garruk seems good to incredible if you are running some number of Bitterblossom in your 75.
I agree that counters by themselves are awful in this format - I am willing to bet a lot of us have felt the sting of clutching a Negate while staring down an opponent's Keranos on the stack.
4 Oozes seems like a lot. I don't know if there are enough creatures hitting the bin to justify running 4 (although I can see running up to 3 if Collected Company becomes a more prominent threat in the meta).
Took me a while to craft this post so I hope there's some helpful information here.
Thanks for the input. There are definitely some good takeaways, but one of the good things about running true mix of Goyf and Tasigur/Angler is that most of my big guys pass the Bolt test. Cutting Tasigurs for Bob not only weakens my threat mix against Bolt, but also Abrupt Decay. I am pretty light on threats as-is, and need what I resolve to stick around and do some damage.
Going off the RUG build which I've been following as well - the pilot that won the SCG event is a frequent poster here. He runs Curiosity and a bunch of cantrips to keep the cards flowing. The way this deck is built so far, it does not have a card advantage engine at that level.
What I like about Slaughter Pact is that against Twin, it is essentially a Force of Will that does not cost you an extra card and actually 2 for 1s the opponent. With it, you can engage in a counter war with them over Splinter Twin and still win by playing Pact.
About the lands - I am casually familiar with Legacy and know a few general decks and game plans. I would assume that the deck we are approximating this list to runs Brainstorms - that card pulls so much weight in the format and does its job so well, I don't think there is a good comparison here with Serum Visions. I guess there must be a lot of similarities to Team America the way this deck is built, but those similarities are not intentional - these are the cards I've selected to attack the format.
I played Tombstalker for a while and didn't like it. The BB is hard to generate, especially when you want access to UU (Deprive) and 1G (Goyf) and BG (Decay) on Turn 2.
I don't mean to slam your ideas as there's a lot of good stuff here - I particularly like the idea of running soft permission and mana denial with Tec Edge. Mana Leak is not only easier to cast, it also synergies well with discard. With previous midrangy builds of this deck, I ran a full 4 Mana Leak with 3 Snares, 4 Thoughtseize and 3 Inquisition. This enabled really messed up starting lines of play where you could T1 discard, T2 Spell Snare, T3 Mana Leak, or T1 discard, T2 discard with Spell Snare up, T3 Serum Vision with Mana Leak up and set up the rest of your game... then drop a Goyf with a bunch of stuff in the bin and bash until the opponent top decks an answer.