Does anyone play 20 lands? I was a fan of grixis ds but dropping your life total just isnt as good in such a fastmeta with so many decks that go wide. It got me thinking about delver since i already had all the cards lying around. Anyway back to my question. 19 lands hurts and i seem to be having mana trouble more than anything. I have been practicing on xmage and seem to be losing to my mana more than anything. Im running the azcanta version btw
I've always played with 19 lands and it was fine IMHO, I think that Thije is correct it depends on the number of cantrips. Personally I run 9 cantrips.
It also depends on the number of cantrips. I like running 19 lands in most lists.
What I was wondering.
Are these Dominaria cards something we want in GS Delver?
- Wizard's retort
- Wizard's lightning
- Cast Down
- Damping Sphere
And can we consider Mishra's Bauble, to fuel delve? Or is it impacting Delver of Secrets too much in a negative way (of course it can be helpful also).
Well I don't think that those cards are useful for us: wizard's spells really need a dedicated creature base in order to play them always with the reduced cost; Cast Down is just a worse version of Terminate and the Sphere might be tempting against tron or storm but I think it could reveal itself as a double-edged blade.
Also the Bauble may be good but I fear that would reduce the Delver's flip dramatically, and I rather flip a Delver than look at the top card of our opponent and then draw a card.
Hi guys, unfortunately I still can't afford the snapcasters and so I was thinking about adding 1x Grim Lavamancer switching the swiftspear count as 2, this is the resulting list:
Has anyone tried the Lavamancer in MB? Cause I think it's probably a SB card but the swiftspear are not so fantastic in this deck.
Also, what is the general consensus on playing discard or not? 2 Inquisition MB are just not enough or I have to just cut them for other counterspells?
Hi everyone, I have a UR Delver deck but I want to improve it and go tricolor. As I could see Grixis is my favourite version so I decided to invest in this deck. Here's my "starter" and relatively budget list:
I'd really like to know your suggestions and advices about what cards I should play, and what cards I should plan to buy first in order to slowly improve this deck. Thank you!
My doubts are on whether playing or not the Mutagenic Growth since I already have a lot of "lowering life" cards like the shocks, fetches and painlands (on the other hand a very well timed mutagenic have won me many and many games), and on playing a Cryptic Serpent instead of the 18th land.
Any help is really appreciated
Hi UR delvers! I'm interested in potentially building this deck. How well does this deck match up against the current top decks of the format? What are the strong and weak match ups?
Hi Sharkbait223, generally Delver decks are pretty balanced (since you can easily switch from full aggro mode to a more control one, sometimes even during the match) and can compete quite well with any deck in this meta; but from my experience it struggles against unfair decks like EldraTron (I think it is currently the toughest MU) or Tron. However it has some answers post-side to improve those MU like Blood Moon, Ceremonious Rejection, Disdainful Stroke and so on.
Has anyone considered playing a wizard version of the deck, thanks to Wizard's Lightning and Wizard's Retort? You could add Grim Lavamancer, Spellstutter Sprite, and Vendilion Clique to the many wizards that are already in the deck. There isn't a huge upside to running the wizards tribal, but there isn't much of a downside either.
The user Endurr has come up with a Wizard list, you can find it in message #2348. IMO it can be a good and funny deck, but surely it needs some testing and maybe some rifinings.
Instead of Bedlam Reveler you could consider Cryptic Serpent maybe, it has a solid body and it is push/bolt-proof. However I like your deck, mine is similar
I think it's a decent card in a wizard oriented build, but in general I prefer the swiftspear because it also has haste but it can become much more stronger than the lavarunner.
Think about this: T1 land Delver; T2 land Swiftspear + noncreature spell, Swiftspear already is a 2/3 and you had not to play at least 2 instants or sorceries as the Ghitu Lavarunner requires.
could maybe use some work and fine tuning but this seems like it will be really strong
Some other good wizards are soul-scar mage: could be good against collected company decks and other value-based creature decks. Nimble Obstructionist: it's pretty good against a bunch of random stuff like storm. Jace, Vryn's prodigy: a good card for grindy mu's and for against bridge decks Baral, Chief of Compliance: could be good in a more value oriented build without the spellstutter sprites
Thoughts?
It seems really good to me, just one thing to remember is that when the delver flips it becomes a Human INSECT so he's not a wizard anymore. Keep that in mind.
They're neat but I think that you should run them in a list with delver, stormchaser and snapcasters in order to always be able to use them. However I'll definetely try them as soon as I can, another Bolt and Counterspell can really improve our deck even more.
It's a really strange list (Serpo, Tusker and Hunter MB and Sundering Growth SB without any producing token creature card, why?) but I'm glad that Stompy can make good results even with a not optimal list
Hi coff33bit! Thank you for your report and congrats on your results. Your deck is a little too burn-ish for me but as I can see it performed well at GP. It would be very useful if you could post your stats and adjustments with this deck
Another thought, If we're running 4 drops in the sideboard, should we be running 22 lands? And has anyone experimented with a leaner version with less 3 drops and 20 lands? I'm just running 21 by default but I'm trying to figure out when I can/should be running 20 or 22.
I think that 20/21 is the right number of lands in order to successfully play a land and a threat every turn. If you're running 2 or 3 four drops probably 22 lands are required. I have a list in which I run 20 lands (19 forests and 1 TTV) and there are 6 three drops and a single CoCo and seems fine for me. I've tested a lot with 21/22 lands but I was often flooding so I decided to reduce the land count to 20 and now it performs well.
Sorry to hear that, but from your report it seems that you were pretty unlucky, which unfortunately can happen in a card game. However please keep writing reports and keep us updated on which changes you made and how affected your games, those information are very useful for us (or at least for me ).
I really thought about it but never tested, it seems a viable way to face heavy control decks. But it is very situational cause it will work only against counterspells. For example if your opponent has a push or a path they won't cast it until their turn, but in that case your protection spells will cost 3 more to protect your creature and that's really bad.
I've always played with 19 lands and it was fine IMHO, I think that Thije is correct it depends on the number of cantrips. Personally I run 9 cantrips.
Well I don't think that those cards are useful for us: wizard's spells really need a dedicated creature base in order to play them always with the reduced cost; Cast Down is just a worse version of Terminate and the Sphere might be tempting against tron or storm but I think it could reveal itself as a double-edged blade.
Also the Bauble may be good but I fear that would reduce the Delver's flip dramatically, and I rather flip a Delver than look at the top card of our opponent and then draw a card.
1x Watery Grave
1x Blood Crypt
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Flooded Strand
2x Island
2x Mountain
2x Polluted Delta
3x Spirebluff Canal
2x Steam Vents
2x Swamp
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Dispel
1x Electrolyze
3x Fatal Push
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Mana Leak
4x Serum Visions
2x Spell Pierce
2x Terminate
4x Thought Scour
1x Grim Lavamancer
2x Gurmag Angler
4x Delver of Secrets
2x Monastery Swiftspear
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3x Young Pyromancer
Has anyone tried the Lavamancer in MB? Cause I think it's probably a SB card but the swiftspear are not so fantastic in this deck.
Also, what is the general consensus on playing discard or not? 2 Inquisition MB are just not enough or I have to just cut them for other counterspells?
Thanks to all of those who will answer me!
//Lands
1 Blood Crypt
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
2 Mountain
2 Polluted Delta
2 Spirebluff Canal
2 Steam Vents
2 Swamp
1 Watery Grave
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Fatal Push
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Mana Leak
3 Opt
2 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
2 Terminate
3 Thought Scour
3 Lava Spike
4 Serum Visions
//Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Monastery Swiftspear
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Young Pyromancer
I'd really like to know your suggestions and advices about what cards I should play, and what cards I should plan to buy first in order to slowly improve this deck. Thank you!
P.S. I apologize for my bad english
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Delver of Secrets
3x Stormchaser Mage
3x Young Pyromancer
//Spells
2x Chart a Course
3x Lava Spike
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Logic Knot
2x Mana Leak
2x Mutagenic Growth
4x Opt
2x Remand
4x Serum Visions
2x Spell Pierce
2x Vapor Snag
4x Spirebluff Canal
3x Steam Vents
2x Flooded Strand
2x Island
2x Wooded Foothills
1x Mountain
4x Shivan Reef
//Side
2x By Force
2x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Disdainful Stroke
1x Dispel
2x Echoing Truth
2x Flame Slash
1x Izzet Staticaster
2x Sea's Claim
1x Tormod's Crypt
My doubts are on whether playing or not the Mutagenic Growth since I already have a lot of "lowering life" cards like the shocks, fetches and painlands (on the other hand a very well timed mutagenic have won me many and many games), and on playing a Cryptic Serpent instead of the 18th land.
Any help is really appreciated
Hi Sharkbait223, generally Delver decks are pretty balanced (since you can easily switch from full aggro mode to a more control one, sometimes even during the match) and can compete quite well with any deck in this meta; but from my experience it struggles against unfair decks like EldraTron (I think it is currently the toughest MU) or Tron. However it has some answers post-side to improve those MU like Blood Moon, Ceremonious Rejection, Disdainful Stroke and so on.
The user Endurr has come up with a Wizard list, you can find it in message #2348. IMO it can be a good and funny deck, but surely it needs some testing and maybe some rifinings.
Think about this: T1 land Delver; T2 land Swiftspear + noncreature spell, Swiftspear already is a 2/3 and you had not to play at least 2 instants or sorceries as the Ghitu Lavarunner requires.
It seems really good to me, just one thing to remember is that when the delver flips it becomes a Human INSECT so he's not a wizard anymore. Keep that in mind.
They're neat but I think that you should run them in a list with delver, stormchaser and snapcasters in order to always be able to use them. However I'll definetely try them as soon as I can, another Bolt and Counterspell can really improve our deck even more.
It's a really strange list (Serpo, Tusker and Hunter MB and Sundering Growth SB without any producing token creature card, why?) but I'm glad that Stompy can make good results even with a not optimal list
I think that 20/21 is the right number of lands in order to successfully play a land and a threat every turn. If you're running 2 or 3 four drops probably 22 lands are required. I have a list in which I run 20 lands (19 forests and 1 TTV) and there are 6 three drops and a single CoCo and seems fine for me. I've tested a lot with 21/22 lands but I was often flooding so I decided to reduce the land count to 20 and now it performs well.