MTG Salvation

I've thought about playing the UR one in place of my second Steam Vents, but then also about playing UG in place of Breeding Pool, which I almost never fetch. Not sure yet.

Quote from user-18030543 »

Do we want to play the new horizon land? UG or UR one

Not one chance, if you ask me. We already take lots of damage from our lands, and fastlands are definitely a mainstay.

I don't think we need or necessarily want canopy lands.

Quite like the list, but have few questions:
It’s been said that 14 creatures is the sweet spot for RUG delver. Do you agree with this? If you had to remove one copy of a creature, which would it be, or do you feel like the numbers are too tight to change anything?
Did you have any issues between Hexdrinker and Deprive, given that Deprive can set you back lands and Hexdrinker wants lands out?
How set in stone is the counter suite? Could Spell Snare have any merit? Would you play any more or less Force of Negations in the side or main?
Finally, why slight of hand over Serum Visions?
Sorry for the slew of questions, I’m just excited over this archetype, I made this account just to reply to this post.

Quote from Xreamy »

Quite like the list, but have few questions:
It’s been said that 14 creatures is the sweet spot for RUG delver. Do you agree with this? If you had to remove one copy of a creature, which would it be, or do you feel like the numbers are too tight to change anything?
Did you have any issues between Hexdrinker and Deprive, given that Deprive can set you back lands and Hexdrinker wants lands out?
How set in stone is the counter suite? Could Spell Snare have any merit? Would you play any more or less Force of Negations in the side or main?
Finally, why slight of hand over Serum Visions?
Sorry for the slew of questions, I’m just excited over this archetype, I made this account just to reply to this post.

I'll take it as referred to my list.

I, myself, asserted that 14 creatures are the way to go for Temur. That said, there are several things to consider. First and foremost, the cantrips. I was used to play either more cantrips or more efficient ones. Digging further in our deck also means being able to see more cards, hence more threats. If we're back to eight (while half of them being Thought Scour, which isn't really card selection), we have to rediscuss our set of creatures. I do think fifteen is perfectly fine. Expecially considering the resurgence in Lightning Bolt strategies in the metagame, and Tron's & Dredge's ability to run Blast Zone for free.

Deprive, with this configuration (fastlands + cheap creatures) is, by far, the best counterspell we can play in its spot. I mean, it's basically Counterspell. Hexdrinker in the early game is just a 2/1 for G, and we don't have to invest mana on it before the fourth/fifth turn. Deprive also helps with our mana development in several situations. It happened way more than once to save one of my creatures in combact thanks to it, bounce a fastland or a basic and then replaying it in main phase 2, while I wouldn't have made land drop otherwise.

Spell Snare is my favourite counterspell in Grow strategies, but it's too situational in the current metagame (albeit being extra good when it's good, when it's bad is a dead card). I'm set on four Stubborn Denial and three Deprive maindeck. These are to stay. The fifth counter maindeck could either be a Spell Pierce, remaining a Force of Negation or being an Opt/Faithless Looting. Force of Negation is meh. I do think it's necessary to run either these or some numbers of Alpine Moon / Damping Sphere to deal with Combo/BigMana. Most of the time is 1UU Spell Pierce. When it's good, though, it lets you win the game, by countering that turn one Chalice of the Void, Expedition Map etc, while being still valuable against things such as planeswalkers (both Karn, Jace TMS, little and big Teferi...). It also helps against Dredge with turn 0 counterspell on haymacker.

Sleight of Hand is more powerful than Serum Visions cause it adds the card to your hand IMMEDIATELY. Serum Visions on turn one is better than Sleigth of Hand, but the latter is way less narrow when you're topdecking. And cantrips, tendentially, aren't meant to be cast on turn one (unless we're keeping a onelander). Other than that, it has another huge plus: it doesn't trigger Narset, Parter of Veils, which seems to be insanely popular at the moment.


You're welcome.



EDIT: I forgot to add that I'm testing a Dismember maindeck. I liked it, so far, but I'm still unsure if it's better to run it in spite of the third Vapor Snag (what I'm doing at the moment) or instead of the the third Tarfire.



EDIT 2: I was also thinking about Unsubstantiate as a replacement for the maindeck Force of Negation, in case we decide that eight *actual* counterspells are too many for the starting sixty.

EDIT 3: I'm also willing to squeeze a Temur Battle Rage for testing purposes.Tarmogoyf here does pretty much a Death's Shadow impression (it's easily 6/7 or 7/8 most of the time).

Thank you for the great response! All you choices are well reasoned and eloquently expressed. I think I might run two Spell Snare just because my local meta has a lot of decks that are heavy in two drops.
Does Hooting Mandrills ever feel awkward? Does it feel bad in multiples? Does it ever interfere with Tarmogoyf ?

Sometimes we do have a little bit of conflict between them. But, if you're playing against Combo, you probably want to deploy one and then keep your mana open anyway, while against interactive matchups you both are going to end up using so many cards that the graveyard will be full any time.

So for my build I’m going to test
4x hexdrinker
4x delver
4x tarmogoyf
2x ?????

I don’t want to run snap because I’d like a proactive card and I really want to see how the deck feels without thoughtscour so no monkey. Any ideas?

Young pyromancer

Quote from Tubbybatman »

So for my build I’m going to test
4x hexdrinker
4x delver
4x tarmogoyf
2x ?????

I don’t want to run snap because I’d like a proactive card and I really want to see how the deck feels without thoughtscour so no monkey. Any ideas?

Play the mandrills even without the scours. That's still the best option! I'm currently testing this split which is working great:

3 delver (yeah, I know... but it just for testing purposes)
3 hexdrinker
4 goyf
2 mandrills

I decided that the ONLY reason to stay in green is being able to castStubborn Denial consistently, with a full set of them. So, unless you're running 4 Tarmogoyf and 4 Hooting Mandrills, you're probably doing it wrong.





Eight Stubborn Denial enablers + Hexdrinker which becomes one when pumped.

Just had a few matches in which I tested hexdrinker. I liked it in control match ups.
More tests are needed, but it may be worth.

Quote from Mikefon »

Just had a few matches in which I tested hexdrinker. I liked it in control match ups.
More tests are needed, but it may be worth.

Yeah, Control and BGx is where I found them to be at their best. They are a pretty solid draw against anything we have to race, which is a very good point in adding consistency to the deck, but they also shine in grindfests.

PS: it's always funny to notice how lots of Delver players are actually from Italy

guys

https://www.mtgsalvation.com/articles/49777-the-end-of-an-era

Yup, it's one week old. Sad but true.

Quote from BloodyRabbit_01 »

Quote from Mikefon »

Just had a few matches in which I tested hexdrinker. I liked it in control match ups.
More tests are needed, but it may be worth.

Yeah, Control and BGx is where I found them to be at their best. They are a pretty solid draw against anything we have to race, which is a very good point in adding consistency to the deck, but they also shine in grindfests.

That's why I'm so high on Hexdrinker. It's a turn 1 threat against the combo matchups we're supposed to beat, and a great topdeck against the decks we tend to struggle against. And no reliance on the yard.

Quote from Grindor11 »

guys

https://www.mtgsalvation.com/articles/49777-the-end-of-an-era

I don't know anything about running group pages on Facebook but I'll make a Monkey Grow page unless somebody with more experience wants to jump on that grenade.

I love this thread so much because even though Monkey Grow isn’t even on MTGGoldfish’s metagame list anymore, this is still the most active thread in this Modern forum. I hope we find a way to continue this discourse!!

Quote from CatParty »

I love this thread so much because even though Monkey Grow isn’t even on MTGGoldfish’s metagame list anymore, this is still the most active thread in this Modern forum. I hope we find a way to continue this discourse!!

Some of us (for sure Blaze, Grindor and myself, sorry if I missed someone else) are already on a delver discord server (the one on which we have been invited by Grindor 11 some time ago). If we move "en masse" there we may be able to create a sub channel only for temur. In any case I'll keep posting here until I'm able.
And I'll wait also for "the new home" the mods have said are building. Maybe we can just continue there.
(Just please don't move to facebook. I know it's a very selfish request, but I don't have it and don't want to sign up there.)

Quote from Mikefon »

Quote from CatParty »

I love this thread so much because even though Monkey Grow isn’t even on MTGGoldfish’s metagame list anymore, this is still the most active thread in this Modern forum. I hope we find a way to continue this discourse!!

Some of us (for sure Blaze, Grindor and myself, sorry if I missed someone else) are already on a delver discord server (the one on which we have been invited by Grindor 11 some time ago). If we move "en masse" there we may be able to create a sub channel only for temur. In any case I'll keep posting here until I'm able.
And I'll wait also for "the new home" the mods have said are building. Maybe we can just continue there.
(Just please don't move to facebook. I know it's a very selfish request, but I don't have it and don't want to sign up there.)

Would you be willing to share the server link, or is it a more private server?