Its fine to dedicated slots to combat x/1s, no shame in that, but you can do better. If you are thinking of playing Sulfur Elemental, just play Izzet Staticaster instead. It is good against Souls but mops up Noble Hierarchs and Thalias, and craps on Affinity.
My favorite card against Souls is still Liliana the Last Hope, and she is a beast in other matchups as well. Lingering Souls has always been the bane of all types of fair decks, but you don't have to play bad cards to fight it.
Agreed with this, you don't have to play super niche cards since we already have versatile answers. It's not an easy matchup but I don't advise diluting your sideboard just for specifically lingering souls. Sounds like you had good sideboard cards you just didn't find them which is unfortunate but it happens.
Also corey burkhart posted up a poll for his next cfb video and storm beat grixis shadow by 2% which is frustrating. Would have been really interesting to see him play the deck, he talks through his lines very well so it would have been fun to watch.
Do u guys side in Disdainful Stroke, last Hope against Bant Eldrazi? Is Anger of the Gods any good?
Gonna be honest I don't remember the last time I've even played against that deck, seems to have been entirely replaced by e tron at least where I am. That said stroke might be good but if I remember correctly that deck runs more cavern of souls so you risk it becoming a dead card pretty quick as the only targets they have are creatures.
I really like anger and sweepers in general in that matchup but I think lili might be too low impact, depends how many cards you're cutting. The key is to do your best to keep the board clear since they have a very real tendency to flood out and have horrible top decks that don't do much on their own unlike e tron. I think I'd be more comfortable going into the late game against that deck for that reason, our creatures are almost always bigger and there's no troublesome planeswalkers or sweepers to worry about.
Just to clarify on the lotv discussion; I was just explaining why it wouldn't synergise as well but by no means should you not run either card for that reason. If lili is good in your meta absolutely run her, even if it gets uncomfortable sometimes with instant speed interaction or counters she can win games on her own so it can be worth it. I personally don't like her in the main but with the matchups I regularly face she just doesn't do much for me.
Also I disagree with cutting any number of thought scours personally. The only time they're bad is when you already have an active tasigur out since it makes his activations weaker (either they give you the scour back or you use it and put something worse in the yard anyway). Yes our graveyard gets filled naturally but the difference between a turn 2 delve threat and turn 3, 4 or later is significant especially when we need to be very aggressive. I'm not saying it's 100% incorrect to run less than the full playset but I think even 3 just reduces the consistency of those threats too much for my liking. Could very well be wrong though, maybe having a different cantrip is going to be good enough but I won't be testing it myself so let us know how it goes.
As for my deck I've decided I'm actually going to try a 4/2 split favouring opt instead of visions. I like that visions digs one card deeper but sometimes the scry can be awkward with fetches and opt seems better when keeping one land openers which is actually fairly often for me. The instant speed is just the icing on the cake. I don't know what exact numbers are correct there maybe even a 3/3 split would be best. I don't think I'd go with the ari lax build that I've seen people mention recently with 17 lands and the full playset of all 3 cantrips just because I feel that leaves us way too vulnerable to the slightest bit of land destruction. Even a single ghost quarter or spreading seas means you're almost entirely off of red. Maybe I'm being too cautious but I really don't think we should be cutting our actual lands over fetches.
Why doesn't opt work with MD LotV? I don't see much of a difference between Opt and Serum Visions here.
Part of the strength of opt is playing at instant speed on your opponents turn whereas with lili you and your opponent are both going to be hellbent most of the time. You'll be forced to cast it mainphase before upticking her which basically makes it a sorcery anyway.
As others have said I think I'm definitely going to be playing this but replacing sleight instead. Most likely 4/2 split favouring visions at first and then play with the numbers depending on which is more consistent.
Hi guys. How do you deal with Tezzeret/Sword combo decks? Bridge is a pain, academy ruins make kolaghans/counters near useless and grafdiggers cage neuters flashbacks. Any tips for that matchup/sideboard suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
Same as with any combo deck try to max out on all relevant disruption and do your best to get a quick clock going. The faster the game is the better your chances of winning. Grave hate here is very important as well, surgical is by far better than spellbomb for this matchup however. Also regular sweepers are not very good here but temur battle rage is amazing if you run it either in the main or the side, if you don't have battle rage and they've assembled the combo you honestly might as well scoop since they'll have infinite chump blockers.
Yeah I'm conflicted on the article as well. On the one hand he's an amazing player and I actually like quite a few of his suggestions. I'm going to test out trimming one snapcaster mage since it can sometimes be a bit awkward when you're snapcaster flooded with not enough good targets or you just delved a fatty. Amazing card don't get me wrong but maybe 3 is still sufficient we'll see.
On the other hand I completely disagree (as others have pointed out) with cutting denials. The card has been amazing for me and honestly without it and trying to go more "jundish" I would probably just run jund instead and have the increased amount of discard and threat density.
Also tested out lili in the main before. Not for a huge amount of games, granted, but as others pointed out she doesn't help with the matchups we struggle with at all. She's amazing in the mirror but that's more rare these days and most of the creatures you need to edict are sideboard cards from most decks anyway.
I'm gonna be testing out one battle rage in the main instead to see if it deserves a slot again. It gets through chump blockers and helps against decks where we need to be very aggressive such as valakut or to a lesser extent tron. Both those decks can have very annoying chump blockers too in the form of sakura tribe elder and matter reshaper so I think it's worth a shot. I'll post my results when I have enough games to be sure.
Basically he's strongly advocating for young pyromancers in the board among a few other things. I haven't been on the deck for super long but I've ran games with and without pyro in the board and I'm a big fan. I don't think there's room in the main for them but access to them in the side gives us a very nice out to grave hate, pro black creatures, good in the mirror and grindy matchups in general.
Also of note (which helps the pyro plan post board) the list has -1 fetch and -1 wraith for 2 sleight of hands in the main.
With av the absolute lowest I would go is 3. If you go less than that the chances of having it early where it matters most is very low and it's a terrible top deck mid to late game unless it's a super grindy matchup. If you're going down to 2 I would just play another card draw spell honestly. Same with denial, not very good since it's a) a one of and b) even if you draw your one of its very difficult to have it be anything more than a force spike. The extra mana for a constant effect in negate or countersquall seems better.
These arguments make absolutely no sense. Just as having more copies of any card makes it more likely for you to have it in your opener, it will also make it more likely that you draw into one later in the game. There is no way to cheat this equation. Why is playing 2 AVs so disagreeable, while no one even questions it that the stock Grixis lists play 2 Pushes and 2 Snares - etc. Playing 1, 2 or 3 copies of AV is perfectly sensible since it is high variance card - very bad in some MUs, very good in others. I absolutely detest having 2 AVs in my opener, which is why I trimmed down to 2 copies from the previous 3.
Again, why would a spell being 1-off make it intrinsicly any worse than some other card? These claims make no logical sense. This deck is capable of letting us see a huge portion of our cards once we enter the mid and late game, which is why having many different kinds of spells with minor differences gives you better selection in comparison to playing only 4-offs. Obviously there is no guarantee you will get to turn Denial on very fast, but the spell can easily trade up on mana even as a force spike, especially against decks like Burn and UR storm.
If it wasn't obvious from the alternations I made to deck, I was desperate to make the deck less clunky with these additions. The difference between 2 and 1 mana and the difference between the 2nd AV and an action spell is monumental in Modern. So far I have liked these cards. Every card has its bad MU and they will almost all get sided out sometimes. There are no sacred cows.
I actually went 4-0 today in our Modern Wednesday, on top of the couple of 4-1 comp. league finishes in MODO:
Yes you're more likely to draw them later in the game that's part of the drawback of the card, that was never my argument. I said you want it early game and want as many copies as possible or none at all because it is ONLY great in the early game and at no other time barring very specific matchups. Look at is this way:
Turn 1 av: amazing card that does a lot for the deck
Turn 6 av: terrible card and might not even come off suspend by the time the game is over one way or another.
The effectiveness of specific cards can change drastically over the course of the game. The same principle applies to discard like thoughtseize and inquisition. Those cards are amazing in the first few turns and absolutely horrendous top decks late game. Do discard heavy decks run 2 discard spells and just cross their fingers to hope it pays off? No, the vast majority (gds, jund, abzan, 8 rack whatever) run anywhere from 5 to 8+ copies of these effects knowing full well that they'll be useless late game. The sheer power level offsets this and it's considered worth running the risk. I play a lot of deaths shadow right now and even with 6 copies of that effect and multiple ways to filter through my deck I don't always see those cards on time. The other cards you mentioned, snare and push are much different in their application in that you can immediately benefit from the card when you draw it. The power level of these cards is the same on turn 1 that they are on turn 6. If your argument was to cut av entirely I'd be on board with that, I can see other cards being far more useful. But shaving them too low is like having a single leyline of the void in your sideboard for graveyard hate: you're going to absolutely hate that it's in your deck if it's not exactly in your opening hand.
The one of's are not consistent that's the problem. In the deck you posted the vast majority of the time denial is only going to be force spike. Is force spike (for noncreatures only) really higher in power level than the other options? I'd argue not, which is why mana tithe doesn't see play in uw control or jeskai control to have "many different spells with minor differences." Including a wide variety of cards sounds great in theory but the problem is they're all situational and you run the risk of having a hand full of dead cards. This is a huge problem for a reactive control deck as you can't rely on board presence to hold you over since you typically won't have any. Having a bunch of cards that depend on specific situations to arise that may not be common (turning on stubborn denial) is going to make the deck more clunky, not less.
There many not be any sacred cows you're right but some cards are always going to be useful and some cards are going to wildly spike based on the matchup: this is what the sideboard is for, to include those silver bullet cards. For example how many times has anyone here sided out snapcaster mage in a matchup? Even when he's not great he's still good and the same can't be said for situational cards.
Whats your split of sweepers between Damantion/ Anger/ Engineered explosives
It depends on what u expect to play againts.EE is more an all around card (kills blood moon).Right now i think the best split is 2 damnation,2 anger,1 EE
I tried playing Titan Shift for a while but I'm back on Grixis again. I'm trying to borrow a page out of Grixis DS playbook with these spicy 1-offs.
why play denial with only 4 enablers?Ds uses denial cause its so easy to get it 'online'.More over you think 2 Av is really worth it?
Absolutely agree with both points. Explosives is a meta dependant card; as mentioned it's the most efficient answer we have to a resolved blood moon and also great against lantern as well as being a (usually inefficient) sweeper against go wide decks. Downside is accidentally milling it with a scour as you have no way to get it back unless you get a lucky tasigur activation.
With av the absolute lowest I would go is 3. If you go less than that the chances of having it early where it matters most is very low and it's a terrible top deck mid to late game unless it's a super grindy matchup. If you're going down to 2 I would just play another card draw spell honestly. Same with denial, not very good since it's a) a one of and b) even if you draw your one of its very difficult to have it be anything more than a force spike. The extra mana for a constant effect in negate or countersquall seems better.
As for sdownie, I absolutely love new lili but not really in this deck. As you pointed out with a counterspells heavy deck it can be awkward to find the time to tap out for her. If souls is giving you a hard time, the instant speed staticaster is much stronger since it wipes all of them not just 1 and doesn't require you to go "shields down." The minus ability also isn't super strong in this deck since it's very creature light and you already have 3 kommands for recursion anyway. The ult is great against grindy matchups but I think for that purpose alone it's not worth including over other options.
For some reason it wasn't letting me post my reply. It was more detailed but I don't wanna rewrite the whole thing so here's the short(er) version:
Be aggressive game 1 but not overly so. It's ok to spend a few turns stripping their hand to maximize the chance your threat sticks.
Post board I like subbing out angler for 2 pyro. Tasigur is much better than angler in this matchup anyway. Pyro is an additional threat that doesn't rely on the graveyard and can force out supreme verdicts on it's own.
Also board in every version of liliana you have. Tough matchup for sure but not unwinnable
If I were a burn player I won't put my relevelry in for sure.
PD: I know it should not be in this post but if anyone is interested in working in working in a UB control thread I would like to help
Straight ub control is something I would be interested in as well.
Also darkvoid I think the spell snares would be a meta call entirely. I've had them be amazing (good vs burn, affinity, classic jund, snapcaster decks, etc) but I've also had them sitting dead in my hand doing absolutely nothing. If you don't have a lot of scary 2 drops in your meta I could definitely see swapping them out for extra fatal push, dismember or something along those lines.
Greetings!
Now that the hype for this deck has been going down, i've finally decided to give it a try as i already own all pieces from Grixis Delver and old Suicide Zoo.
I've taken a pretty stock list for my first few test games and so far i like it.
Pyromancer is a pet card of mine and i really like him against Midrange/Control decks so far (against Jeskai/UR he feels worse because of Electrolyze) and represents and additional threat that does not rely on our life total and GY.
I've seen some lists running Deprive over Inquisition of Kozilek, has anyone tried both versions and can provide some input about Deprive in this deck?
Haven't tried it personally put I can see deprive working much better with pyro and playing a little bit closer to your standard Delver lists. Your pyros are in the side so it's not as big of a deal but generally if you're running pyro I think the lists with 2 sleights are going to be better since the extra cantrips are more valuable.
There was a list posted not too long ago with deprive, sleight and pyro in the main over street wraith (along with bolts which again synergise with pyro) so I'd look at starting there if you really wanna make the most of it.
Honestly I think burn just might be one of those matchups we're not going to win without getting super lucky or altering the whole deck (including the fairly greedy mana base). Burn did just win a gp so it's definitely worth looking into though, I'm not sure what the answer is, as you mentioned brutality is good but not enough. I wish we had something like uwx's geist of saint traft that is an even faster clock than tasigur without needing delve and has good protection in hexproof. That combined with bolts and a tar put hit or 2 would be an extremely fast clock. Maybe tasigur in the side for when we need a faster clock but that doesn't sound correct to me
I like the idea of keranos (u still see purge in sb) and the interaction with kcommand but i think that the mu he is good ,we are alread favored.Correct me if i am wrong about this.
Tasigur is vunerable to less removal than tarpit and can get him back with kcomm.Plus u can give you cards.
About the 3 mana counters.Every time i play vs tron or valakut i find my self in need for more hard counters.I tried counterflux in many games and didnt let me down unlike knot.I consider Knot bad right now especially in grixis control cause of relic or progenitus.The card is being played a lot right now and i just look at knot doing nothing.
The main advantage of keranos isn't him improving our bad matchups but rather giving us an extremely resilient win condition that is very hard to hate out. Yes purge hits him but it also hits tasigur in addition to path, dismember, terminate, etc
I'd actually argue tasigur and tar pit are roughly equal in terms of how vulnerable they are to specific removal. Tar pit is vulnerable to burn spells and land destruction. Tasigur is vulnerable to sweepers especially uncounterable ones like supreme verdict, sorcery speed removal in general, and liliana minus. He also can't get through a gummed up boardstate where tar pit can always threaten to punch through for lethal. I'm not saying tasigur is a bad card, far from it I think he's amazing. I just think that because the threat density is so low in this deck, and people are more prepared than ever for big creatures thanks to shadow and e tron, that relying on him as basically your primary win condition isn't wise. Other control decks usually rely on noncreature spells as their win conditions for those reasons and in the case of jeskai they run burn spells with snapcaster and colonnade beats. I don't know what the best answer is but I really don't think it's in delve creatures for this list personally.
Valakut and tron are hard matchups for this deck that's true but I don't think the answer is more counterspells. Between cast triggers, e tron running cavern making counterspells dead and valakut just dropping mountains on you it's not an enviable position for control. Counters can be useful for buying a short amount of time but we already have a sideboard plan of using fulminator mage to slow them down enough to apply pressure. I prefer that gameplan with our regular counter suite instead of cutting one or the other in favour of more counters.
Very long post sorry but also just for logic knot: yes post side the graveyard hate makes it awful but the same can be said for snapcaster mage, k command and especially tasigur. I would love to have a better alternative to logic knot but I don't like the current options aside from countersquall which I would still run in either version of this list. Countersquall and negate are great but not hitting creatures can become very relevant. Mana leak gets dead far too early for my liking and deprive is such a huge tempo loss in the early game especially with shocklands causing unnecessary damage. The 3 mana counters would be great if they cost one less but again they're in this weird spot where it's either too late to matter (a lot of very dangerous turn 2 or turn 3 plays on the draw that need to be dealt with) but not quite impactful enough to justify slots that cryptic command fills. I just don't see myself cutting the 2 mana counters or the cryptics for them and the only thing that leaves left to cut is removal which makes us too reliant on interacting with the stack versus the board.
Love your points of view and how you write. You are right about batterskull, that's why I told that keranos was just better.
Cruel control is a deck that I have played a lot in fnms just for fun but ultimatum is not playable in modern.
These days I can't work testing my grixis because I will be busy, but keep reading and posting
I try my best aha but yes, definitely not a huge fan of batterskull. Side note that's also why I'm in favour of a stoneforge mystic unban, white could use the card and it's manageable while still being a solid early threat. I don't really play any decks it would go into but it would be interesting for the format.
And yeah cruel control is definitely just a fun card (same with bolas) but it's not a competitive option at all. Costs way too much and doesn't end the game on the spot which is what you want your cmc 7+ spells to do.
Will do, thanks. Once I tone down the tournaments (if I don't get too attached to shadow by then) I'll be tinkering with a control list and post here with whatever I come up with. Ideally other people figure out an awesome list so I don't have to do much work
Agreed with this, you don't have to play super niche cards since we already have versatile answers. It's not an easy matchup but I don't advise diluting your sideboard just for specifically lingering souls. Sounds like you had good sideboard cards you just didn't find them which is unfortunate but it happens.
Also corey burkhart posted up a poll for his next cfb video and storm beat grixis shadow by 2% which is frustrating. Would have been really interesting to see him play the deck, he talks through his lines very well so it would have been fun to watch.
Gonna be honest I don't remember the last time I've even played against that deck, seems to have been entirely replaced by e tron at least where I am. That said stroke might be good but if I remember correctly that deck runs more cavern of souls so you risk it becoming a dead card pretty quick as the only targets they have are creatures.
I really like anger and sweepers in general in that matchup but I think lili might be too low impact, depends how many cards you're cutting. The key is to do your best to keep the board clear since they have a very real tendency to flood out and have horrible top decks that don't do much on their own unlike e tron. I think I'd be more comfortable going into the late game against that deck for that reason, our creatures are almost always bigger and there's no troublesome planeswalkers or sweepers to worry about.
Also I disagree with cutting any number of thought scours personally. The only time they're bad is when you already have an active tasigur out since it makes his activations weaker (either they give you the scour back or you use it and put something worse in the yard anyway). Yes our graveyard gets filled naturally but the difference between a turn 2 delve threat and turn 3, 4 or later is significant especially when we need to be very aggressive. I'm not saying it's 100% incorrect to run less than the full playset but I think even 3 just reduces the consistency of those threats too much for my liking. Could very well be wrong though, maybe having a different cantrip is going to be good enough but I won't be testing it myself so let us know how it goes.
As for my deck I've decided I'm actually going to try a 4/2 split favouring opt instead of visions. I like that visions digs one card deeper but sometimes the scry can be awkward with fetches and opt seems better when keeping one land openers which is actually fairly often for me. The instant speed is just the icing on the cake. I don't know what exact numbers are correct there maybe even a 3/3 split would be best. I don't think I'd go with the ari lax build that I've seen people mention recently with 17 lands and the full playset of all 3 cantrips just because I feel that leaves us way too vulnerable to the slightest bit of land destruction. Even a single ghost quarter or spreading seas means you're almost entirely off of red. Maybe I'm being too cautious but I really don't think we should be cutting our actual lands over fetches.
Part of the strength of opt is playing at instant speed on your opponents turn whereas with lili you and your opponent are both going to be hellbent most of the time. You'll be forced to cast it mainphase before upticking her which basically makes it a sorcery anyway.
As others have said I think I'm definitely going to be playing this but replacing sleight instead. Most likely 4/2 split favouring visions at first and then play with the numbers depending on which is more consistent.
Same as with any combo deck try to max out on all relevant disruption and do your best to get a quick clock going. The faster the game is the better your chances of winning. Grave hate here is very important as well, surgical is by far better than spellbomb for this matchup however. Also regular sweepers are not very good here but temur battle rage is amazing if you run it either in the main or the side, if you don't have battle rage and they've assembled the combo you honestly might as well scoop since they'll have infinite chump blockers.
On the other hand I completely disagree (as others have pointed out) with cutting denials. The card has been amazing for me and honestly without it and trying to go more "jundish" I would probably just run jund instead and have the increased amount of discard and threat density.
Also tested out lili in the main before. Not for a huge amount of games, granted, but as others pointed out she doesn't help with the matchups we struggle with at all. She's amazing in the mirror but that's more rare these days and most of the creatures you need to edict are sideboard cards from most decks anyway.
I'm gonna be testing out one battle rage in the main instead to see if it deserves a slot again. It gets through chump blockers and helps against decks where we need to be very aggressive such as valakut or to a lesser extent tron. Both those decks can have very annoying chump blockers too in the form of sakura tribe elder and matter reshaper so I think it's worth a shot. I'll post my results when I have enough games to be sure.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/35674_The-Death-Of-Traditional-Deaths-Shadow.html
Basically he's strongly advocating for young pyromancers in the board among a few other things. I haven't been on the deck for super long but I've ran games with and without pyro in the board and I'm a big fan. I don't think there's room in the main for them but access to them in the side gives us a very nice out to grave hate, pro black creatures, good in the mirror and grindy matchups in general.
Also of note (which helps the pyro plan post board) the list has -1 fetch and -1 wraith for 2 sleight of hands in the main.
Yes you're more likely to draw them later in the game that's part of the drawback of the card, that was never my argument. I said you want it early game and want as many copies as possible or none at all because it is ONLY great in the early game and at no other time barring very specific matchups. Look at is this way:
Turn 1 av: amazing card that does a lot for the deck
Turn 6 av: terrible card and might not even come off suspend by the time the game is over one way or another.
The effectiveness of specific cards can change drastically over the course of the game. The same principle applies to discard like thoughtseize and inquisition. Those cards are amazing in the first few turns and absolutely horrendous top decks late game. Do discard heavy decks run 2 discard spells and just cross their fingers to hope it pays off? No, the vast majority (gds, jund, abzan, 8 rack whatever) run anywhere from 5 to 8+ copies of these effects knowing full well that they'll be useless late game. The sheer power level offsets this and it's considered worth running the risk. I play a lot of deaths shadow right now and even with 6 copies of that effect and multiple ways to filter through my deck I don't always see those cards on time. The other cards you mentioned, snare and push are much different in their application in that you can immediately benefit from the card when you draw it. The power level of these cards is the same on turn 1 that they are on turn 6. If your argument was to cut av entirely I'd be on board with that, I can see other cards being far more useful. But shaving them too low is like having a single leyline of the void in your sideboard for graveyard hate: you're going to absolutely hate that it's in your deck if it's not exactly in your opening hand.
The one of's are not consistent that's the problem. In the deck you posted the vast majority of the time denial is only going to be force spike. Is force spike (for noncreatures only) really higher in power level than the other options? I'd argue not, which is why mana tithe doesn't see play in uw control or jeskai control to have "many different spells with minor differences." Including a wide variety of cards sounds great in theory but the problem is they're all situational and you run the risk of having a hand full of dead cards. This is a huge problem for a reactive control deck as you can't rely on board presence to hold you over since you typically won't have any. Having a bunch of cards that depend on specific situations to arise that may not be common (turning on stubborn denial) is going to make the deck more clunky, not less.
There many not be any sacred cows you're right but some cards are always going to be useful and some cards are going to wildly spike based on the matchup: this is what the sideboard is for, to include those silver bullet cards. For example how many times has anyone here sided out snapcaster mage in a matchup? Even when he's not great he's still good and the same can't be said for situational cards.
That being said congratulations on your finishes.
Absolutely agree with both points. Explosives is a meta dependant card; as mentioned it's the most efficient answer we have to a resolved blood moon and also great against lantern as well as being a (usually inefficient) sweeper against go wide decks. Downside is accidentally milling it with a scour as you have no way to get it back unless you get a lucky tasigur activation.
With av the absolute lowest I would go is 3. If you go less than that the chances of having it early where it matters most is very low and it's a terrible top deck mid to late game unless it's a super grindy matchup. If you're going down to 2 I would just play another card draw spell honestly. Same with denial, not very good since it's a) a one of and b) even if you draw your one of its very difficult to have it be anything more than a force spike. The extra mana for a constant effect in negate or countersquall seems better.
As for sdownie, I absolutely love new lili but not really in this deck. As you pointed out with a counterspells heavy deck it can be awkward to find the time to tap out for her. If souls is giving you a hard time, the instant speed staticaster is much stronger since it wipes all of them not just 1 and doesn't require you to go "shields down." The minus ability also isn't super strong in this deck since it's very creature light and you already have 3 kommands for recursion anyway. The ult is great against grindy matchups but I think for that purpose alone it's not worth including over other options.
Be aggressive game 1 but not overly so. It's ok to spend a few turns stripping their hand to maximize the chance your threat sticks.
Post board I like subbing out angler for 2 pyro. Tasigur is much better than angler in this matchup anyway. Pyro is an additional threat that doesn't rely on the graveyard and can force out supreme verdicts on it's own.
Also board in every version of liliana you have. Tough matchup for sure but not unwinnable
Straight ub control is something I would be interested in as well.
Also darkvoid I think the spell snares would be a meta call entirely. I've had them be amazing (good vs burn, affinity, classic jund, snapcaster decks, etc) but I've also had them sitting dead in my hand doing absolutely nothing. If you don't have a lot of scary 2 drops in your meta I could definitely see swapping them out for extra fatal push, dismember or something along those lines.
Haven't tried it personally put I can see deprive working much better with pyro and playing a little bit closer to your standard Delver lists. Your pyros are in the side so it's not as big of a deal but generally if you're running pyro I think the lists with 2 sleights are going to be better since the extra cantrips are more valuable.
There was a list posted not too long ago with deprive, sleight and pyro in the main over street wraith (along with bolts which again synergise with pyro) so I'd look at starting there if you really wanna make the most of it.
The main advantage of keranos isn't him improving our bad matchups but rather giving us an extremely resilient win condition that is very hard to hate out. Yes purge hits him but it also hits tasigur in addition to path, dismember, terminate, etc
I'd actually argue tasigur and tar pit are roughly equal in terms of how vulnerable they are to specific removal. Tar pit is vulnerable to burn spells and land destruction. Tasigur is vulnerable to sweepers especially uncounterable ones like supreme verdict, sorcery speed removal in general, and liliana minus. He also can't get through a gummed up boardstate where tar pit can always threaten to punch through for lethal. I'm not saying tasigur is a bad card, far from it I think he's amazing. I just think that because the threat density is so low in this deck, and people are more prepared than ever for big creatures thanks to shadow and e tron, that relying on him as basically your primary win condition isn't wise. Other control decks usually rely on noncreature spells as their win conditions for those reasons and in the case of jeskai they run burn spells with snapcaster and colonnade beats. I don't know what the best answer is but I really don't think it's in delve creatures for this list personally.
Valakut and tron are hard matchups for this deck that's true but I don't think the answer is more counterspells. Between cast triggers, e tron running cavern making counterspells dead and valakut just dropping mountains on you it's not an enviable position for control. Counters can be useful for buying a short amount of time but we already have a sideboard plan of using fulminator mage to slow them down enough to apply pressure. I prefer that gameplan with our regular counter suite instead of cutting one or the other in favour of more counters.
Very long post sorry but also just for logic knot: yes post side the graveyard hate makes it awful but the same can be said for snapcaster mage, k command and especially tasigur. I would love to have a better alternative to logic knot but I don't like the current options aside from countersquall which I would still run in either version of this list. Countersquall and negate are great but not hitting creatures can become very relevant. Mana leak gets dead far too early for my liking and deprive is such a huge tempo loss in the early game especially with shocklands causing unnecessary damage. The 3 mana counters would be great if they cost one less but again they're in this weird spot where it's either too late to matter (a lot of very dangerous turn 2 or turn 3 plays on the draw that need to be dealt with) but not quite impactful enough to justify slots that cryptic command fills. I just don't see myself cutting the 2 mana counters or the cryptics for them and the only thing that leaves left to cut is removal which makes us too reliant on interacting with the stack versus the board.
I try my best aha but yes, definitely not a huge fan of batterskull. Side note that's also why I'm in favour of a stoneforge mystic unban, white could use the card and it's manageable while still being a solid early threat. I don't really play any decks it would go into but it would be interesting for the format.
And yeah cruel control is definitely just a fun card (same with bolas) but it's not a competitive option at all. Costs way too much and doesn't end the game on the spot which is what you want your cmc 7+ spells to do.
Will do, thanks. Once I tone down the tournaments (if I don't get too attached to shadow by then) I'll be tinkering with a control list and post here with whatever I come up with. Ideally other people figure out an awesome list so I don't have to do much work