lay and is doing well on mtgo (after barely becoming a thing with the FRF release). That speaks volumes about which deck is actually good.
Actually, Jeskai Delver has 3 Grand Prix top 8s in 2012 and a top 16 in 2014 (And this was without Cruise or Dig. UR Delver versions that splashed white got multiple top 16 finishes during the Cruise era). Grixis Delver hasn't done that. At best it has had a decent portion of the meta, but it has never done amazingly well in large tournaments. Also, just because a deck isn't getting results doesn't mean that it is bad. It often just means that it isn't seeing play.
Logically speaking, if a deck had a lot of raw power behind it, why wouldn't it see play? That would leave us with the conclusion that the deck just isn't good, because if it had the potential to see results, then it would.
I used to play Small Naya Zoo, and I wouldn't necessarily say Blood Moon is better than Stony Silence. Sure, it shuts off their Tron lands, but it actually makes it easier to cast cards such as Firespout.
Yet in Grixis Delver decks, you don't care about Firespout when you have larger bodies to help close out the game.
All these enchantments aside, for Tron I'd rather use Molten Rain instead of Blood Moon or Stony Silence. It permanently answers their Tron lands so you don't have to worry about Nature's Claim, and it deals damage. I prefer Molten Rain over Blood Moon in my Zoo sideboard and I still prefer Molten Rain over Blood Moon in my Delver sideboard.
How do you guys do against Junk Midrange? I'm curious because I really don't know the matchup, haven't seen it, and haven't played Delver in a while in any format.
Junk is actually a pretty good matchup. Landing a threat early is key, but once you do that they're often on the back foot. They don't really have a ton of creatures, and you have the removal for their stuff. Adding black for unconditional kill like Terminate/Murderous Cut solves Delver's historic problem with big dorky dudes, and you have your own big dorky dudes, backed up by countermagic, to win the game. Liliana isn't really all that great in the matchup, as it's a nonbo with Delve and Young Pyromancer.
Jund, however, actually is pretty bad. Lightning Bolt and Olivia Voldaren are good cards.
lay and is doing well on mtgo (after barely becoming a thing with the FRF release). That speaks volumes about which deck is actually good.
Actually, Jeskai Delver has 3 Grand Prix top 8s in 2012 and a top 16 in 2014 (And this was without Cruise or Dig. UR Delver versions that splashed white got multiple top 16 finishes during the Cruise era). Grixis Delver hasn't done that. At best it has had a decent portion of the meta, but it has never done amazingly well in large tournaments. Also, just because a deck isn't getting results doesn't mean that it is bad. It often just means that it isn't seeing play.
Logically speaking, if a deck had a lot of raw power behind it, why wouldn't it see play? That would leave us with the conclusion that the deck just isn't good, because if it had the potential to see results, then it would.
There are many decks that are strong decks that don't see a lot of play. That doesn't mean that they are bad decks. For example, people had come up with the idea of a BUG Control deck in Modern for years before Gerard Fabiano created one. People said that it would be bad and it never got results. Now it gets results. The idea of Blood Moon/Vedalken Shackles Control decks existed in Modern before PT BNG. It got no results and was ridiculed on this forum. Just because a deck doesn't have results doesn't mean that it is bad. I can guarantee that no pro had gotten enough testing with WUR Delver to arrive at the optimal configuration and then concluded that it still isn't good enough. Almost no one is giving it any thought at all.
Stony Silence, Kor Firewalker, Timely Reinforcements, Mirran Crusader, and Wear // Tear are the biggest ones.
From a competitive aspect, these cards that are "the biggest ones" are all flawed.
Timely Reinforcements and Kor Firewalker are absolutely horrible against Mono Red and it's variations. That's right, those cards are bad. I don't even run Dragon's Claw against RDW. Dispel, Negate, and Flashfreeze are better in every way. I can guarantee 3-4 lifepoint gain with each and everyone of my spells for less than or equal mana that my opponent plays. Those cards you mention, go on an axis where the opponent has the choice to react based on you.
This might be the dumbest statement I have heard on this subforum outside of the banlist threads. Kor Firewalker and Timely Reinforcements are the 2nd and 3rd best cards against Burn (And you know what the best one is? Leyline of Sanctity, which is also white). Kor Firewalker is perfect in WUR Delver since it is a threat that can't be killed and not only gains us life off of their burn spells but off of ours too. Timely Reinforcements is a threat and 2 counterspells against them. If you believe that lifegain is worse against Burn than counterspells, I honestly think that you do not understand how Burn works.
Stony Silence is 2 mana to make their entire gameplan irrelevant. Shatterstorm and Vandalblast do more, but in Delver you are not going to always have 4 mana on turn 4 and 5 mana on turn 5. You simply do not play enough lands, even with the cantrips, to consistently make every one of your land-drops. That is how low-land decks work. Stony Silence may be worse than Shatterstorm, but it is much easier to cast on time and beats them a lot sooner.
Wear//Tear is the only card on this list that isn't easily comparable, yet I found success with 1-2 copies of Echoing Truth as a catch all.
Echoing Truth is neither as mana efficient nor a permanent answer.
Mirran Crusader is True-Name Nemesis against Junk (but with more vulnerability to Path and Lingering Souls in exchange for 1 extra damage). It literally has protection from almost every card in their deck. It is basically unblockable and only dies to Path against them. It can play defense very well too. It also is significantly better against the Little Kid decks than Angler or Tasigur. You've already said that lifegain is bad against burn, that Stony Silence is worse in R/W/x decks than Vandalblast, and now that Mirran Crusader isn't good enough against Junk. I do not see any logic in those statements at all.
How do you guys do against Junk Midrange? I'm curious because I really don't know the matchup, haven't seen it, and haven't played Delver in a while in any format.
With some sideboard cards, the matchup becomes favorable for WUR Delver. Path to Exile and Valorous Stance are great against them maindeck and out of the board I have 3 Mirran Crusaders and 2 Engineered Explosives that help a lot. We can apply a lot of pressure and are strong even in the mid-game. If necessary, we can also run cards like Stormbreath Dragon and Elspeth out of the sideboard to make our deck able to compete with Junk at every stage of the game.
Cruise showed how good delve is. Getting use out of cards that would otherwise sit there in your graveyard is amazing, you're essentially getting a free Pyretic Ritual every time you play a card if you use delve to it's fullest. With it gone, splashing for Murderous Cut and Tasigur, the Golden Fang lets you use your graveyard better than UWR. If there was another good delve spell for UWR decks I'd consider it viable, but Will of the Naga, Set Adrift, and Temporal Trespass just don't compare.
While it isn't the same, Grim Lavamancer does help with using the cards in the graveyard for WUR.
While it isn't the same, Grim Lavamancer does help with using the cards in the graveyard for WUR.
It's nowhere near the same. He's a 1/1 that dies to a stiff breeze that can also be run by any other Delver deck (in fact, I roll with one in my sideboard for certain matchups like Merfolk).
How do you guys do against Junk Midrange? I'm curious because I really don't know the matchup, haven't seen it, and haven't played Delver in a while in any format.
Junk is actually a pretty good matchup. Landing a threat early is key, but once you do that they're often on the back foot. They don't really have a ton of creatures, and you have the removal for their stuff. Adding black for unconditional kill like Terminate/Murderous Cut solves Delver's historic problem with big dorky dudes, and you have your own big dorky dudes, backed up by countermagic, to win the game. Liliana isn't really all that great in the matchup, as it's a nonbo with Delve and Young Pyromancer.
Jund, however, actually is pretty bad. Lightning Bolt and Olivia Voldaren are good cards.
I agree.
I have only played against Abzan with Delver and not the other way around so don't have experienced both sides but I was surprised that the matchup is actually reasonable.
I think that has to do with the way current Abzan lists are built.
Jund plays Lightning Bolt as a 4-of. They also a have a fastland in Blackcleave Cliffs which means they will consistently be able to kill your early stuff. They have Terminate too which also kills all of your stuff.
Abzan on the other hand has Path to Exile. The thing is most lists don't play 4 copies. They play 2-3 at most and there are list who don't even play it all.
Abzan doesn't have a fastland too and you generally you want to have White around turn 3-4 for Lingering Souls or Siege Rhino and not on turn 1 or 2.
This means that Abzan relies more heavily on Abrupt Decay doing work than Jund does. And that card is notorious for not being able to deal with stuff like Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler. Besides Path which they may even not run they have like a singleton Maelstrom Pulse or Murderous Cut to deal with them.
While it isn't the same, Grim Lavamancer does help with using the cards in the graveyard for WUR.
It's nowhere near the same. He's a 1/1 that dies to a stiff breeze that can also be run by any other Delver deck (in fact, I roll with one in my sideboard for certain matchups like Merfolk).
I agree that it is nowhere near the same. I just am saying that it is not like we will have a full graveyard just sitting there waiting to be used.
I agree that it is nowhere near the same. I just am saying that it is not like we will have a full graveyard just sitting there waiting to be used.
Fair enough.
And I agree, Galerion. I feel like this is a perfectly fine list to run in a Junk heavy meta. Jund, on the other hand, would probably make me pick up a new deck.
As far as I understand, BUG control/midrange has only seen a lot of success with Fabiano piloting the deck. That to me would indicate two things.
1. BUG Control/midrange is a deck that does not have a high power level behind it.
2. Fabiano is a skilled enough pilot to succeed in spite of the power level shortcomings of his own deck, despite the fact that he would have even MORE success with a better deck (like Junk/Twin/Burn/etc.)
Now if someone takes GFab's deck and wins a GP or something in the future, that might indicate that I'm wrong here and there's something to be had with the deck, but that's the current conclusion that I'm left with.
Blue Moon on the other hand, is basically dead. Have there been any results for this deck recently? I sure as hell haven't seen any. I'm not particularly surprised either, Abrupt Decay is rampant in this metagame, making Vedalken Shackles a very questionable card to be running. Even Blood Moon can easily get hit by AD, making it a lot less appealing than before.
I strongly disagree that a deck doesn't need results to be good. Why should I put my time away in testing something unproven that most likely will end up with no results at all. And that's bad. That's wasted time. I could spend that time getting better with an already proven deck, so why bother? Its not at all efficient. And efficiency is king in magic.
tl;dr Results are all that matter, as far as I'm concerned.
As far as I understand, BUG control/midrange has only seen a lot of success with Fabiano piloting the deck. That to me would indicate two things.
1. BUG Control/midrange is a deck that does not have a high power level behind it.
2. Fabiano is a skilled enough pilot to succeed in spite of the power level shortcomings of his own deck, despite the fact that he would have even MORE success with a better deck (like Junk/Twin/Burn/etc.)
Now if someone takes GFab's deck and wins a GP or something in the future, that might indicate that I'm wrong here and there's something to be had with the deck, but that's the current conclusion that I'm left with.
Blue Moon on the other hand, is basically dead. Have there been any results for this deck recently? I sure as hell haven't seen any. I'm not particularly surprised either, Abrupt Decay is rampant in this metagame, making Vedalken Shackles a very questionable card to be running. Even Blood Moon can easily get hit by AD, making it a lot less appealing than before.
I strongly disagree that a deck doesn't need results to be good. Why should I put my time away in testing something unproven that most likely will end up with no results at all. And that's bad. That's wasted time. I could spend that time getting better with an already proven deck, so why bother? Its not at all efficient. And efficiency is king in magic.
tl;dr Results are all that matter, as far as I'm concerned.
If everyone only played the decks that were currently doing will, the metagame would never change. If people hadn't decided to work on Grixis Delver after Fate Reforged came out instead of playing Junk or Twin, Grixis Delver wouldn't exist right now. You seem to be arguing that unless a deck has results, it isn't good. You seem to be arguing that decks cannot be underplayed and that new decks and brews are always bad. This is not true.
If everyone only played the decks that were currently doing will, the metagame would never change. If people hadn't decided to work on Grixis Delver after Fate Reforged came out instead of playing Junk or Twin, Grixis Delver wouldn't exist right now. You seem to be arguing that unless a deck has results, it isn't good. You seem to be arguing that decks cannot be underplayed and that new decks and brews are always bad. This is not true.
I'm arguing that its highly inefficient. And inefficiency is bad, very bad in magic. So in a sense, yeah.
Take Grixis Delver. At best, its a very, very fringe deck, on a very good day. It will never take down a PT. All that hard work went into making it from nothing to something very fringe. Now, wouldn't that time and effort be better spent in mastering Junk or Twin? I honestly think that would be a way more efficient use of time, than spending all this time and effort on trying to make Grixis Delver competitive. That effort could just be better spent elsewhere. Its just not efficient enough.
If everyone only played the decks that were currently doing will, the metagame would never change. If people hadn't decided to work on Grixis Delver after Fate Reforged came out instead of playing Junk or Twin, Grixis Delver wouldn't exist right now. You seem to be arguing that unless a deck has results, it isn't good. You seem to be arguing that decks cannot be underplayed and that new decks and brews are always bad. This is not true.
I'm arguing that its highly inefficient. And inefficiency is bad, very bad in magic. So in a sense, yeah.
Take Grixis Delver. At best, its a very, very fringe deck, on a very good day. It will never take down a PT. All that hard work went into making it from nothing to something very fringe. Now, wouldn't that time and effort be better spent in mastering Junk or Twin? I honestly think that would be a way more efficient use of time, than spending all this time and effort on trying to make Grixis Delver competitive. That effort could just be better spent elsewhere. Its just not efficient enough.
Then why are you even bothering to argue about whether Grixis or Jeskai is better. Go be "efficient" with your time, stop arguing about something that you don't even think matters, and get out of this thread. Seriously, arguing "Well, they are both bad, they are both very fringe, and you should be playing Junk or Twin instead if you want to be competitive" is not helping the discussion progress at all. Also, WUR Delver used to be a very good deck. Just because it isn't being played a lot right now doesn't mean that it can't be a good deck again And if we listened to you, if it was good again, how would we know? We would all be oblivious because we would all just be playing Junk or Twin.
If everyone only played the decks that were currently doing will, the metagame would never change. If people hadn't decided to work on Grixis Delver after Fate Reforged came out instead of playing Junk or Twin, Grixis Delver wouldn't exist right now. You seem to be arguing that unless a deck has results, it isn't good. You seem to be arguing that decks cannot be underplayed and that new decks and brews are always bad. This is not true.
I'm arguing that its highly inefficient. And inefficiency is bad, very bad in magic. So in a sense, yeah.
Take Grixis Delver. At best, its a very, very fringe deck, on a very good day. It will never take down a PT. All that hard work went into making it from nothing to something very fringe. Now, wouldn't that time and effort be better spent in mastering Junk or Twin? I honestly think that would be a way more efficient use of time, than spending all this time and effort on trying to make Grixis Delver competitive. That effort could just be better spent elsewhere. Its just not efficient enough.
So according to your logic UR Delver would have never become a Tier 1 deck because why waste time playing a non-Tier 1 strategy?
Mono-Black and Mono-Blue Devotion would have never been a thing in Standard and would have never become dominant decks because they were completely unknown before the Pro Tour.
Clearly all the pros worked inefficiently and wasted their time. They should have all played UW/x Control instead.
This might be the dumbest statement I have heard on this subforum outside of the banlist threads. Kor Firewalker and Timely Reinforcements are the 2nd and 3rd best cards against Burn (And you know what the best one is? Leyline of Sanctity, which is also white). Kor Firewalker is perfect in WUR Delver since it is a threat that can't be killed and not only gains us life off of their burn spells but off of ours too. Timely Reinforcements is a threat and 2 counterspells against them. If you believe that lifegain is worse against Burn than counterspells, I honestly think that you do not understand how Burn works.
It's actually not that stupid as you claim, in fact, I would argue it's stupid to think Kor Firewalker is as highly acclaimed as you think it is. A card like Spellskite even without blue is probably a better card than Kor Firewalker.
Kor Firewalker barring no obstructions in any given match will reduce the effectiveness of most one mana ratio cards by 33%. Dispel, and more notably Flashfreeze at any given time counter one spell by 100%
Kor Firewalker only gives any added benefit after the 4th spell, not including any complications it may give after combat. Yet for the hefty price of WW, I would argue that Dispel is the overall better card. And also arguably better with other synergies within the deck, being able to cast a one mana 5/5 or a Tasigur, the Golden Fang.
Playing a card like Timely Reinforcements is an obvious high risk vs high reward scenario, and if I was playing white, I would play 4 copies of this card before even considering a single copy of Kor Firewalker. Yet even that mana ratio is not an effective answer, the potential to be blown out by most red decks as well makes any white mage fret at gambling the game on turn 3 due to a simple Skullcrack or Atarka's Command.
The best method of beating any Red decks, from any archetypes perspective is to win with 1-to-1 efficient trades. Later on in the game, it doesn't matter what your bomb is, you force them to either deplete whatever resources they have to strangle and get lucky the rest of the game, or race you immediately and risk getting unrewarded.
This might be the dumbest statement I have heard on this subforum outside of the banlist threads. Kor Firewalker and Timely Reinforcements are the 2nd and 3rd best cards against Burn (And you know what the best one is? Leyline of Sanctity, which is also white). Kor Firewalker is perfect in WUR Delver since it is a threat that can't be killed and not only gains us life off of their burn spells but off of ours too. Timely Reinforcements is a threat and 2 counterspells against them. If you believe that lifegain is worse against Burn than counterspells, I honestly think that you do not understand how Burn works.
It's actually not that stupid as you claim, in fact, I would argue it's stupid to think Kor Firewalker is as highly acclaimed as you think it is. A card like Spellskite even without blue is probably a better card than Kor Firewalker.
Kor Firewalker barring no obstructions in any given match will reduce the effectiveness of most one mana ratio cards by 33%. Dispel, and more notably Flashfreeze at any given time counter one spell by 100%
Kor Firewalker only gives any added benefit after the 4th spell, not including any complications it may give after combat. Yet for the hefty price of WW, I would argue that Dispel is the overall better card. And also arguably better with other synergies within the deck, being able to cast a one mana 5/5 or a Tasigur, the Golden Fang.
Kor Firewalker stopping a single attack and gaining 1 life off of a spell makes it as valuable as Dispel and Flashfreeze. This is obviously better, especially when it is helped by you casting red cards.
Playing a card like Timely Reinforcements is an obvious high risk vs high reward scenario, and if I was playing white, I would play 4 copies of this card before even considering a single copy of Kor Firewalker. Yet even that mana ratio is not an effective answer, the potential to be blown out by most red decks as well makes any white mage fret at gambling the game on turn 3 due to a simple Skullcrack or Atarka's Command.
I don't see why you would play relatively inefficient cards because you fear being stopped by Skullcrack. Even if Skullcrack happens, you still will usually gain 3 tokens off of Timely Reinforcements that can be used as chump blockers that prevent much more damage than Dispel would have.
The best method of beating any Red decks, from any archetypes perspective is to win with 1-to-1 efficient trades. Later on in the game, it doesn't matter what your bomb is, you force them to either deplete whatever resources they have to strangle and get lucky the rest of the game, or race you immediately and risk getting unrewarded.
The best way to beat burn is to kill their creatures, gain enough life to put yourself out of burn range, and kill them before they kill you. This has always been true. Counterspells are much worse against Burn than lifegain, because lifegain is usually a better counterspell. For example, Rest for the Weary is essentially a triple counterspell. Timely Reinforcements is a double counterspell that makes 3 1/1s. Pulse of the Fields is a repeatable counterspell. This is much better than Dispel gaining 3 life. Dispel is basically a Healing Salve against Burn that doesn't stop creatures. Flashfreeze is a 2 mana Healing Salve against Burn. This is in no way better than lifegain.
This might be the dumbest statement I have heard on this subforum outside of the banlist threads. Kor Firewalker and Timely Reinforcements are the 2nd and 3rd best cards against Burn (And you know what the best one is? Leyline of Sanctity, which is also white). Kor Firewalker is perfect in WUR Delver since it is a threat that can't be killed and not only gains us life off of their burn spells but off of ours too. Timely Reinforcements is a threat and 2 counterspells against them. If you believe that lifegain is worse against Burn than counterspells, I honestly think that you do not understand how Burn works.
It's actually not that stupid as you claim, in fact, I would argue it's stupid to think Kor Firewalker is as highly acclaimed as you think it is. A card like Spellskite even without blue is probably a better card than Kor Firewalker.
Kor Firewalker barring no obstructions in any given match will reduce the effectiveness of most one mana ratio cards by 33%. Dispel, and more notably Flashfreeze at any given time counter one spell by 100%
Kor Firewalker only gives any added benefit after the 4th spell, not including any complications it may give after combat. Yet for the hefty price of WW, I would argue that Dispel is the overall better card. And also arguably better with other synergies within the deck, being able to cast a one mana 5/5 or a Tasigur, the Golden Fang.
Playing a card like Timely Reinforcements is an obvious high risk vs high reward scenario, and if I was playing white, I would play 4 copies of this card before even considering a single copy of Kor Firewalker. Yet even that mana ratio is not an effective answer, the potential to be blown out by most red decks as well makes any white mage fret at gambling the game on turn 3 due to a simple Skullcrack or Atarka's Command.
The best method of beating any Red decks, from any archetypes perspective is to win with 1-to-1 efficient trades. Later on in the game, it doesn't matter what your bomb is, you force them to either deplete whatever resources they have to strangle and get lucky the rest of the game, or race you immediately and risk getting unrewarded.
You clearly don't understand why burn is so good right now. It is capable of playing through counterspells and lifegain and has great too decks since everything is a bolt. Kor Firewalker is the biggest thorn in the side of a burn player because it slows the aggression and burn simultaneously. That is the key to beat burn. They straight lose to a resolved timely reinforcements or a ferocious feed the clan. But timely and Kor are way better because they counter multiple spells, whether it is creatures or burn at your face. And to be related to the forum, WUR does this way better than grixis can ever do, especially with maindeck Lightning helix, which is essentially counter burn.
You guys must play against poor burn players. I don't know what else to exactly dictate, you are arguing against my math with opinions, and those opinions you all found are based upon imaginary game states. Also, arguments against my arguments have been presented with.... my exact arguments. I already know you all aren't reading the exact detail of my sentences so I'll leave the conversation here.
It's not as if my basis for this knowledge are unfounded, I'm one of the few consistently placing results on MTGO with the deck right now (Grixis Delver), and there is a large level of reasoning that the white in Jeskai Delver, is not sufficient against the metagame, and especially red.
So first off, Kor Firewalker is a beast against burn. He just is. If burn is a horrible match for you, but winable post side, he's a great part of the strategy (with Leyline as well).
Secondly, as a player of Little Kid (Liege Abzan) my testing of 20 games had me chew on UR and America Delver with about a 60-65% win rate. Grixis was interesting; if it wasn't a Young Pyro list, I won through fatties about 65% of the time. Young Pyro with Tas ect. was closer to 40-45 win rate for me.
If you think Little Kid will be a deck your against, you want 4x Pyro and you want it in the Grixis shell so you can abuse Delv for all it's worth.
You guys must play against poor burn players. I don't know what else to exactly dictate, you are arguing against my math with opinions, and those opinions you all found are based upon imaginary game states. Also, arguments against my arguments have been presented with.... my exact arguments. I already know you all aren't reading the exact detail of my sentences so I'll leave the conversation here.
It's not as if my basis for this knowledge are unfounded, I'm one of the few consistently placing results on MTGO with the deck right now (Grixis Delver), and there is a large level of reasoning that the white in Jeskai Delver, is not sufficient against the metagame, and especially red.
Your idea that Grixis Delver is having better results than WUR Delver is true. Your idea that Flashfreeze is better against Burn than Kor Firewalker is false. Flashfreeze and Dispel are just worse Healing Salves against Burn. Sure, you bring them in against Burn because they were in your sideboard for other reasons anyways and they are better than some cards (Mana Leak, Remand, Deprive) against Burn. But they are not better than dedicated lifegain, and anyone who thinks that they are does not know how to play against Burn.
You guys must play against poor burn players. I don't know what else to exactly dictate, you are arguing against my math with opinions, and those opinions you all found are based upon imaginary game states. Also, arguments against my arguments have been presented with.... my exact arguments. I already know you all aren't reading the exact detail of my sentences so I'll leave the conversation here.
It's not as if my basis for this knowledge are unfounded, I'm one of the few consistently placing results on MTGO with the deck right now (Grixis Delver), and there is a large level of reasoning that the white in Jeskai Delver, is not sufficient against the metagame, and especially red.
I agree Grixis is >>> America Delver for sure; results back that up as well as theory.
But Firewalker is better than flash freeze against burn in most situations. I understand and accept that getting WW can be a fair bit harder than getting 1U.
If you have Firewalker and are at, say, 10 - 12 life by the time you get him down (you fetched a shock tapped, then fetched again, and got bolted twice or something), you'll probably have enough time for 3 or more Red cards to be played between the two players. If he gains you 3 life, that's as much as Flash Freeze is worth. Anything more than that he does is value. He blocks a Goblin Guide and they Skullcrack you so he dies, then he gained you 2 life with the block and 1 from Skullcrack. He just did as much as Flash Freeze.
If they sling 4 more red spells at you, 2 of them Skullcrack, and you play a single red card, congrats, he just gained you 3 life and is a body on the board. He'll block or trade or get in for a little damage.
These are not "imaginary board states". These are how burn operates; it wins by casting spells (mostly red) and attacking with mostly red creatures. Kor is good against these. In the worst case where he blocks a guy for 2 and dies from skull crack he's done as well as Flash Freeze, with a more challenging to pay mana cost. And in the best case, he'll gain more than 3 life (and potentially be damage) and be better than Flash Freeze.
If you have a solid argument based on how the games are played out, perhaps with real testing to demonstrate that Flash Freeze is better than Kor in several situations against the popular builds of burn, I'd be interesting in seeing it. After all, I could always be wrong and I'd love to learn if I am. That said, I feel my argument is sound in this situation.
Additional comparisons between Path vs Muderous Cut and Terminate vs Helix
Terminate vs Helix
-Terminate is arguably the best 2 mana creature removal in the format (note that I said creature removal, Abrupt Decay is probably the best 2 mana overall removal)
-Terminate doesn't allow the creature to regenerate, minor detail but it can matter
-Helix can go upstairs
-Helix gains you life which is important against other aggressive decks
Path vs Muderous Cut
-Muderous Cut doesn't give your opponent a land
-Muderous Cut can empty your graveyard to make opposing goyfs smaller
-Path can be casted easier than Murderous Cut if flashbacked with Snapcaster
-Path does not eat up the graveyard, unlike Murderous Cut, which doesn't play nice with Snapcaster
Additional comparisons between Path vs Muderous Cut and Terminate vs Helix
Terminate vs Helix
-Terminate is arguably the best 2 mana creature removal in the format (note that I said creature removal, Abrupt Decay is probably the best 2 mana overall removal)
-Terminate doesn't allow the creature to regenerate, minor detail but it can matter
-Helix can go upstairs
-Helix gains you life which is important against other aggressive decks
Path vs Muderous Cut
-Muderous Cut doesn't give your opponent a land
-Muderous Cut can empty your graveyard to make opposing goyfs smaller
-Path can be casted easier than Murderous Cut if flashbacked with Snapcaster
-Path does not eat up the graveyard, unlike Murderous Cut, which doesn't play nice with Snapcaster
Another benefit of path is that it doesn't allow "when it dies" triggers to activate like on Wurmcoil Engine. Some matchups it can matter
Logically speaking, if a deck had a lot of raw power behind it, why wouldn't it see play? That would leave us with the conclusion that the deck just isn't good, because if it had the potential to see results, then it would.
Junk is actually a pretty good matchup. Landing a threat early is key, but once you do that they're often on the back foot. They don't really have a ton of creatures, and you have the removal for their stuff. Adding black for unconditional kill like Terminate/Murderous Cut solves Delver's historic problem with big dorky dudes, and you have your own big dorky dudes, backed up by countermagic, to win the game. Liliana isn't really all that great in the matchup, as it's a nonbo with Delve and Young Pyromancer.
Jund, however, actually is pretty bad. Lightning Bolt and Olivia Voldaren are good cards.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
There are many decks that are strong decks that don't see a lot of play. That doesn't mean that they are bad decks. For example, people had come up with the idea of a BUG Control deck in Modern for years before Gerard Fabiano created one. People said that it would be bad and it never got results. Now it gets results. The idea of Blood Moon/Vedalken Shackles Control decks existed in Modern before PT BNG. It got no results and was ridiculed on this forum. Just because a deck doesn't have results doesn't mean that it is bad. I can guarantee that no pro had gotten enough testing with WUR Delver to arrive at the optimal configuration and then concluded that it still isn't good enough. Almost no one is giving it any thought at all.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
This might be the dumbest statement I have heard on this subforum outside of the banlist threads. Kor Firewalker and Timely Reinforcements are the 2nd and 3rd best cards against Burn (And you know what the best one is? Leyline of Sanctity, which is also white). Kor Firewalker is perfect in WUR Delver since it is a threat that can't be killed and not only gains us life off of their burn spells but off of ours too. Timely Reinforcements is a threat and 2 counterspells against them. If you believe that lifegain is worse against Burn than counterspells, I honestly think that you do not understand how Burn works.
Stony Silence is 2 mana to make their entire gameplan irrelevant. Shatterstorm and Vandalblast do more, but in Delver you are not going to always have 4 mana on turn 4 and 5 mana on turn 5. You simply do not play enough lands, even with the cantrips, to consistently make every one of your land-drops. That is how low-land decks work. Stony Silence may be worse than Shatterstorm, but it is much easier to cast on time and beats them a lot sooner.
Echoing Truth is neither as mana efficient nor a permanent answer.
Mirran Crusader is True-Name Nemesis against Junk (but with more vulnerability to Path and Lingering Souls in exchange for 1 extra damage). It literally has protection from almost every card in their deck. It is basically unblockable and only dies to Path against them. It can play defense very well too. It also is significantly better against the Little Kid decks than Angler or Tasigur. You've already said that lifegain is bad against burn, that Stony Silence is worse in R/W/x decks than Vandalblast, and now that Mirran Crusader isn't good enough against Junk. I do not see any logic in those statements at all.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
With some sideboard cards, the matchup becomes favorable for WUR Delver. Path to Exile and Valorous Stance are great against them maindeck and out of the board I have 3 Mirran Crusaders and 2 Engineered Explosives that help a lot. We can apply a lot of pressure and are strong even in the mid-game. If necessary, we can also run cards like Stormbreath Dragon and Elspeth out of the sideboard to make our deck able to compete with Junk at every stage of the game.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
While it isn't the same, Grim Lavamancer does help with using the cards in the graveyard for WUR.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
It's nowhere near the same. He's a 1/1 that dies to a stiff breeze that can also be run by any other Delver deck (in fact, I roll with one in my sideboard for certain matchups like Merfolk).
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
I agree.
I have only played against Abzan with Delver and not the other way around so don't have experienced both sides but I was surprised that the matchup is actually reasonable.
I think that has to do with the way current Abzan lists are built.
Jund plays Lightning Bolt as a 4-of. They also a have a fastland in Blackcleave Cliffs which means they will consistently be able to kill your early stuff. They have Terminate too which also kills all of your stuff.
Abzan on the other hand has Path to Exile. The thing is most lists don't play 4 copies. They play 2-3 at most and there are list who don't even play it all.
Abzan doesn't have a fastland too and you generally you want to have White around turn 3-4 for Lingering Souls or Siege Rhino and not on turn 1 or 2.
This means that Abzan relies more heavily on Abrupt Decay doing work than Jund does. And that card is notorious for not being able to deal with stuff like Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Gurmag Angler. Besides Path which they may even not run they have like a singleton Maelstrom Pulse or Murderous Cut to deal with them.
I agree that it is nowhere near the same. I just am saying that it is not like we will have a full graveyard just sitting there waiting to be used.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Fair enough.
And I agree, Galerion. I feel like this is a perfectly fine list to run in a Junk heavy meta. Jund, on the other hand, would probably make me pick up a new deck.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
1. BUG Control/midrange is a deck that does not have a high power level behind it.
2. Fabiano is a skilled enough pilot to succeed in spite of the power level shortcomings of his own deck, despite the fact that he would have even MORE success with a better deck (like Junk/Twin/Burn/etc.)
Now if someone takes GFab's deck and wins a GP or something in the future, that might indicate that I'm wrong here and there's something to be had with the deck, but that's the current conclusion that I'm left with.
Blue Moon on the other hand, is basically dead. Have there been any results for this deck recently? I sure as hell haven't seen any. I'm not particularly surprised either, Abrupt Decay is rampant in this metagame, making Vedalken Shackles a very questionable card to be running. Even Blood Moon can easily get hit by AD, making it a lot less appealing than before.
I strongly disagree that a deck doesn't need results to be good. Why should I put my time away in testing something unproven that most likely will end up with no results at all. And that's bad. That's wasted time. I could spend that time getting better with an already proven deck, so why bother? Its not at all efficient. And efficiency is king in magic.
tl;dr Results are all that matter, as far as I'm concerned.
If everyone only played the decks that were currently doing will, the metagame would never change. If people hadn't decided to work on Grixis Delver after Fate Reforged came out instead of playing Junk or Twin, Grixis Delver wouldn't exist right now. You seem to be arguing that unless a deck has results, it isn't good. You seem to be arguing that decks cannot be underplayed and that new decks and brews are always bad. This is not true.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I'm arguing that its highly inefficient. And inefficiency is bad, very bad in magic. So in a sense, yeah.
Take Grixis Delver. At best, its a very, very fringe deck, on a very good day. It will never take down a PT. All that hard work went into making it from nothing to something very fringe. Now, wouldn't that time and effort be better spent in mastering Junk or Twin? I honestly think that would be a way more efficient use of time, than spending all this time and effort on trying to make Grixis Delver competitive. That effort could just be better spent elsewhere. Its just not efficient enough.
Then why are you even bothering to argue about whether Grixis or Jeskai is better. Go be "efficient" with your time, stop arguing about something that you don't even think matters, and get out of this thread. Seriously, arguing "Well, they are both bad, they are both very fringe, and you should be playing Junk or Twin instead if you want to be competitive" is not helping the discussion progress at all. Also, WUR Delver used to be a very good deck. Just because it isn't being played a lot right now doesn't mean that it can't be a good deck again And if we listened to you, if it was good again, how would we know? We would all be oblivious because we would all just be playing Junk or Twin.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
So according to your logic UR Delver would have never become a Tier 1 deck because why waste time playing a non-Tier 1 strategy?
Mono-Black and Mono-Blue Devotion would have never been a thing in Standard and would have never become dominant decks because they were completely unknown before the Pro Tour.
Clearly all the pros worked inefficiently and wasted their time. They should have all played UW/x Control instead.
Yeah OK if you say so...
It's actually not that stupid as you claim, in fact, I would argue it's stupid to think Kor Firewalker is as highly acclaimed as you think it is. A card like Spellskite even without blue is probably a better card than Kor Firewalker.
Kor Firewalker barring no obstructions in any given match will reduce the effectiveness of most one mana ratio cards by 33%.
Dispel, and more notably Flashfreeze at any given time counter one spell by 100%
Kor Firewalker only gives any added benefit after the 4th spell, not including any complications it may give after combat. Yet for the hefty price of WW, I would argue that Dispel is the overall better card. And also arguably better with other synergies within the deck, being able to cast a one mana 5/5 or a Tasigur, the Golden Fang.
Playing a card like Timely Reinforcements is an obvious high risk vs high reward scenario, and if I was playing white, I would play 4 copies of this card before even considering a single copy of Kor Firewalker. Yet even that mana ratio is not an effective answer, the potential to be blown out by most red decks as well makes any white mage fret at gambling the game on turn 3 due to a simple Skullcrack or Atarka's Command.
The best method of beating any Red decks, from any archetypes perspective is to win with 1-to-1 efficient trades. Later on in the game, it doesn't matter what your bomb is, you force them to either deplete whatever resources they have to strangle and get lucky the rest of the game, or race you immediately and risk getting unrewarded.
Kor Firewalker stopping a single attack and gaining 1 life off of a spell makes it as valuable as Dispel and Flashfreeze. This is obviously better, especially when it is helped by you casting red cards.
I don't see why you would play relatively inefficient cards because you fear being stopped by Skullcrack. Even if Skullcrack happens, you still will usually gain 3 tokens off of Timely Reinforcements that can be used as chump blockers that prevent much more damage than Dispel would have.
The best way to beat burn is to kill their creatures, gain enough life to put yourself out of burn range, and kill them before they kill you. This has always been true. Counterspells are much worse against Burn than lifegain, because lifegain is usually a better counterspell. For example, Rest for the Weary is essentially a triple counterspell. Timely Reinforcements is a double counterspell that makes 3 1/1s. Pulse of the Fields is a repeatable counterspell. This is much better than Dispel gaining 3 life. Dispel is basically a Healing Salve against Burn that doesn't stop creatures. Flashfreeze is a 2 mana Healing Salve against Burn. This is in no way better than lifegain.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
You clearly don't understand why burn is so good right now. It is capable of playing through counterspells and lifegain and has great too decks since everything is a bolt. Kor Firewalker is the biggest thorn in the side of a burn player because it slows the aggression and burn simultaneously. That is the key to beat burn. They straight lose to a resolved timely reinforcements or a ferocious feed the clan. But timely and Kor are way better because they counter multiple spells, whether it is creatures or burn at your face. And to be related to the forum, WUR does this way better than grixis can ever do, especially with maindeck Lightning helix, which is essentially counter burn.
On my tombstone, please write "Now his body fuels the Treasure Cruise"
Or you could Kommand him back...
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Modern:
BURGrixis DelverRUB
URUR DelverRU
URBlue MoonRU
RIPURUR TwinRURIP
Legacy:
URBGrixis DelverBRU
RUBGrixis PyromancerRUB
Commander:
URMelek, Izzet ParagonRU
URBJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeRUB
It's not as if my basis for this knowledge are unfounded, I'm one of the few consistently placing results on MTGO with the deck right now (Grixis Delver), and there is a large level of reasoning that the white in Jeskai Delver, is not sufficient against the metagame, and especially red.
Secondly, as a player of Little Kid (Liege Abzan) my testing of 20 games had me chew on UR and America Delver with about a 60-65% win rate. Grixis was interesting; if it wasn't a Young Pyro list, I won through fatties about 65% of the time. Young Pyro with Tas ect. was closer to 40-45 win rate for me.
If you think Little Kid will be a deck your against, you want 4x Pyro and you want it in the Grixis shell so you can abuse Delv for all it's worth.
Modern - GB Elves, UW Ojutai Control
Legacy - BWG Junk Stoneblade
Gay and Proud
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain
Your idea that Grixis Delver is having better results than WUR Delver is true. Your idea that Flashfreeze is better against Burn than Kor Firewalker is false. Flashfreeze and Dispel are just worse Healing Salves against Burn. Sure, you bring them in against Burn because they were in your sideboard for other reasons anyways and they are better than some cards (Mana Leak, Remand, Deprive) against Burn. But they are not better than dedicated lifegain, and anyone who thinks that they are does not know how to play against Burn.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I agree Grixis is >>> America Delver for sure; results back that up as well as theory.
But Firewalker is better than flash freeze against burn in most situations. I understand and accept that getting WW can be a fair bit harder than getting 1U.
If you have Firewalker and are at, say, 10 - 12 life by the time you get him down (you fetched a shock tapped, then fetched again, and got bolted twice or something), you'll probably have enough time for 3 or more Red cards to be played between the two players. If he gains you 3 life, that's as much as Flash Freeze is worth. Anything more than that he does is value. He blocks a Goblin Guide and they Skullcrack you so he dies, then he gained you 2 life with the block and 1 from Skullcrack. He just did as much as Flash Freeze.
If they sling 4 more red spells at you, 2 of them Skullcrack, and you play a single red card, congrats, he just gained you 3 life and is a body on the board. He'll block or trade or get in for a little damage.
These are not "imaginary board states". These are how burn operates; it wins by casting spells (mostly red) and attacking with mostly red creatures. Kor is good against these. In the worst case where he blocks a guy for 2 and dies from skull crack he's done as well as Flash Freeze, with a more challenging to pay mana cost. And in the best case, he'll gain more than 3 life (and potentially be damage) and be better than Flash Freeze.
If you have a solid argument based on how the games are played out, perhaps with real testing to demonstrate that Flash Freeze is better than Kor in several situations against the popular builds of burn, I'd be interesting in seeing it. After all, I could always be wrong and I'd love to learn if I am. That said, I feel my argument is sound in this situation.
Modern - GB Elves, UW Ojutai Control
Legacy - BWG Junk Stoneblade
Gay and Proud
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain
Terminate vs Helix
-Terminate is arguably the best 2 mana creature removal in the format (note that I said creature removal, Abrupt Decay is probably the best 2 mana overall removal)
-Terminate doesn't allow the creature to regenerate, minor detail but it can matter
-Helix can go upstairs
-Helix gains you life which is important against other aggressive decks
Path vs Muderous Cut
-Muderous Cut doesn't give your opponent a land
-Muderous Cut can empty your graveyard to make opposing goyfs smaller
-Path can be casted easier than Murderous Cut if flashbacked with Snapcaster
-Path does not eat up the graveyard, unlike Murderous Cut, which doesn't play nice with Snapcaster
Another benefit of path is that it doesn't allow "when it dies" triggers to activate like on Wurmcoil Engine. Some matchups it can matter
On my tombstone, please write "Now his body fuels the Treasure Cruise"
Or you could Kommand him back...
Check out my Youtube Page for online Magic Content!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcq-a5rTSNclFCS2o4_lVFw
Modern:
BURGrixis DelverRUB
URUR DelverRU
URBlue MoonRU
RIPURUR TwinRURIP
Legacy:
URBGrixis DelverBRU
RUBGrixis PyromancerRUB
Commander:
URMelek, Izzet ParagonRU
URBJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeRUB