Played in a pretty stacked 61 player pptq yesterday in New York. I'll give you guys a sort-of report. Basically just some highlights, I can't remember some of the finer details of my games. It was a very long day, someone in my car ended up taking the whole thing down with Hooglands Temur deck. I'll conclude with some of my overall thoughts on the deck as well as some ideas for going forward.
Round one was not really fair. I was paired against a casual who was on an aura's deck that eschewed the cheap bogles cards for Geist of st traft. Game 1 was fairly easy, I flip 2 delvers and he dies in short order. Game 2 was weird. I felt like I was actually going to lose. He gets a Geist and a Kor spirit dancer. I have a delver refusing to flip (this happened a lot yesterday) and a skite. He apparently overvalued the fact that skite could steal his auras and undervalued that Geist could keep smashing for 4 at his leisure because he cast supreme verdict onto that board state which put me right back in the game. I play a tasigur next turn. He plays another Geist and it didn't matter.
1-0
Round 2 I'm paired against a local player who I knew was on twin and decent at it. Game 1 I punish his greedy keep. Game 2 he punishes mine. Game 3 he just strait up outplays me, and punishes me for a boneheaded mistake (I scry an important Snapcaster to the top of my deck, then absent-mindedly activate tasigur on his end step. You can be sure he doesn't give me the snapcaster or the bolt). He gets there on pester-beats while keeping my tasigur tapped.
1-1
Round 3 I was up against twin again. He takes game 1 by drawing his 4th bolt while I have him dead on board. Games 2 and 3 I just tempo him out, getting turn 1 delvers (but they don't flip for several turns) and just managing his threats. Game 3 came close but I sandbagged a Snapcaster in hand. I needed to make sure my attacks were lethal so he was forced into playing tappers, exhausting his ability to counter the bolt.
2-1
Round 4 I played some very intense games against junk. The 3rd game went to time. He was hellbent and I was seeing 2 cards per turn from Monastery Siege. I have a tasigur, a pyromancer, and an un flipped delver on my board (notice a pattern yet?). On turn 2 of extra turns he plays a seige rhino that would haven killed me if I didn't have deprive in hand. Deprive and monastery seige play very nicely together because you get a land to pitch to siege if you see 2 cards you like off of it. Well my siege draws me murderous cut and snapcaster (snaps was on top so delver doesn't flip again). Turn 4 of extra turns he draws and plays tarmogoyf. I murderous cut the one he already has on board and snapcaster terminate the one he played, now my delver just needs to flip and I have lethal on turn 5 of extra turns. We are the last match being played in the room at this point and there is a sizeable crowd around us at this point. On upkeep I toss the top card of my library onto the table for my delver delver trigger. It's a scalding tarn. The Last. Non-Spell. In. My. Deck. There was an audible reaction from the audience. I draw the next card for Siege and its a thought scour. I attack him down to 2. I thought scour myself hoping to hit bolt or electrolyze and just hit air. It would have been extra hilarious if those were the 2 cards milled from scour.
2-1-1
So now I have to win these next 2 rounds and hope my breakers are good enough to make top 8. I am once again paired against twin. I'm pretty sure it was 45% of the meta there. Game 1 have 3, THREE delvers on board by turn 4 and none of them have flipped. I hate this ******* card. The surviving one eventually flips and wins me the game. Game2 my opponent expertly played around rakdos charm after resolving a twin, attacking me down to 2 with 15 exarchs when we were both at 17 life and I had a pyro with 1 token on board. I die next turn. Game 3 I am ahead most of the game with a peezy and five tokens on board. I negate a batterskull and he follows it up next turn with jace AoT that I can't answer. I'm very ahead on life though and once I draw a tasigur or some burn it won't matter so I'm not too worried when he begins ticking it up. That is until I draw lands for six strait turns followed by countermagic... He ultimates jace, gets my thundermaw, wins the counter war and kills me in 2 swings. Unbelievable.
2-2-1
I'm definitely dead for top 8 but it's possible with exactly the right people losing their games that I top 16. I play against infect, win 2 very easy games and don't get there.
Overall record:3-2-1
So you'll notice I didn't flip delver very much and some of you are very aware that I'm a big advocate for 19 land in the deck. I think this was just plain variance not working in my favor. I very rarely mulliganed and never had to go below 6. That could be variance working for me. So 19 lands equals less mulligans but less flips. 18, more mully's, but more flips. I prefer 19 still because we are very capable of not drawing delver at all and winning, or just attacking with fugitive wizards and still getting there. We are much less capable of winning when we are behind cards from our opponent.
That said, whenever I build a "delver deck" I'm always looking for a ways to avoid actually playing delver because I hate its coin flip nature. I have ideas for delver-less versions of this deck that I may elaborate on later when I have more time.
I loved monastery siege and I think it should be considered a sideboard staple for us. I did not play against burn so I ouldnt further test its effectiveness there but against junk it was an absolute house. It should be in our board even just for that matchup. I think we should also solidify our countermagic slots. I'm thinking we should move to deprive heavy builds as it is basically just Counterspell and its "drawback" never felt real. This way we don't have to run cryptic as I believe even with 19 lands it is too clunky of a spell and is only greats against junk because it's too easy for other blue decks to blow you out if you use it as a dismiss. I find the best way to use it is to cycle it eot and bounce a land org somehing, stat set you up for a big following turn. That sounds nice, but I'm not sure we need it, especially if we start locking in 4 deprive.
I loved monastery siege and I think it should be considered a sideboard staple for us. I did not play against burn so I ouldnt further test its effectiveness there but against junk it was an absolute house. It should be in our board even just for that matchup. I think we should also solidify our countermagic slots. I'm thinking we should move to deprive heavy builds as it is basically just Counterspell and its "drawback" never felt real. This way we don't have to run cryptic as I believe even with 19 lands it is too clunky of a spell and is only greats against junk because it's too easy for other blue decks to blow you out if you use it as a dismiss. I find the best way to use it is to cycle it eot and bounce a land org somehing, stat set you up for a big following turn. That sounds nice, but I'm not sure we need it, especially if we start locking in 4 deprive.
I agree with the deprives, glad that people are catching on to how good it is. Cryptic command as a 1 of with a 18 land mana base actually seems feasible after some test draws due to how much of our deck we can draw. but definitely a 19 land feels more comfortable
I've played a few games against burn. Most of the time they get me low enough, and while i struggle to kill them, they can usually find the last points of burn. monastery siege doesn't actually do much against them. general plan is to bring them in on the play and bring them out on the draw. on the draw it's simply too slow.
This feels pretty all rounded. any comments before i put it up? How's thundermaw hellkite? i generally don't find it really necessary to close out games since jace and siege already give you so much reach.
Is replacing the 3 Snapcaster Mage with a pair of Grim Lavamancer viable? I don't have the mages, and while I have a feeling they'll be reprinted in MM2, I'm impatient but don't want to spend the cash to get them now.
Is replacing the 3 Snapcaster Mage with a pair of Grim Lavamancer viable? I don't have the mages, and while I have a feeling they'll be reprinted in MM2, I'm impatient but don't want to spend the cash to get them now.
MMA2 will contain reprints from 8th ed. to Scars of Mirrodin block. So no Snapcaster reprint.
Is replacing the 3 Snapcaster Mage with a pair of Grim Lavamancer viable? I don't have the mages, and while I have a feeling they'll be reprinted in MM2, I'm impatient but don't want to spend the cash to get them now.
If you don't have the budget for playing 3 snapcaster mage, i do recommend using Pestermite instead, has the same power/toughness, can be flashed in, and can provide tempo for tapping down a land or creature
I'm not saying Delver of Secrets is a bad mid/late game. It can definitely close out games "if" it flips. I'm just saying that I'd rather draw a different card instead of Delver mid/late game. I love the games where I slam a Delver down turn 1 but hate it when I have to do it turn 5. Also, Deprive still has been amazing for me in my testing. I definitely prefer it over Remand and Mana Leak.
Played in a pretty stacked 61 player pptq yesterday in New York. I'll give you guys a sort-of report. Basically just some highlights, I can't remember some of the finer details of my games. It was a very long day, someone in my car ended up taking the whole thing down with Hooglands Temur deck. I'll conclude with some of my overall thoughts on the deck as well as some ideas for going forward.
@idrareb How many creatures are you running ATM? I mean, I also advocate 19 lands, but rarely have issues flipping. If you are running too many creatures/permanents that could be a reason for tough reveals. Especially after side boarding this can really happen.
Also, I am not sure of pestermite as a budget alternative. It could be good though. Heck, maybe some games your opponent would wrongly put you on twin. (You could even do a weird and possibly bad transformational sideboard) I sadly cannot supply a better option but maybe a different creature base distribution more like...
All of these have obvious drawbacks I feel and some of them drastically change the game plan, so keep that in mind.
As for the twin matchup, what do you guys think of illness in the ranks. I mentioned it in the last thread with no bites but it is really tough for them to deal with when played t1. Since it is an enchantment, they pretty much have to draw cryptic to bounce, unless they splash a third color. Then we can just move forward dealing with their board state while pressuring for the remainder of the game which isn't tough as their creature base isn't super tough to deal with. Illness also does work against bw tokens which is gaining some favor ATM. That said, I don't really have too much trouble with twin. The way to beat them is establishing an early board then disrupting them while continuing to pressure them, which is what we are made to do. Still a good idea to sideboard for them as they and a huge portion of the meta ATM.
Lastly, in everyone's reports I am noticing a big thing which is stupidly obvious. If we got, even a remotely playable draw spell, we would be so golden. The fact that we are doing well with 4cmc draw (though that is simplification of jace and siege) then I can only imagine how well we would do with a more consistent source. This is obvious as we saw how insane delver became with treasure cruise. I just wish perilous research wasn't so bad as it could be close. If only it just bounced like deprive...
Is replacing the 3 Snapcaster Mage with a pair of Grim Lavamancer viable? I don't have the mages, and while I have a feeling they'll be reprinted in MM2, I'm impatient but don't want to spend the cash to get them now.
I'm using Call to Mind as very bad very budget replacement for Snapcaster. Sorcery speed sucks but it gets the job done of giving you stuff back from your graveyard and works well with Tasigur since it doesn't exile spells and you can keep the graveyard full and more sorceries mean a higher chance to flip delver. Nothing really compares to snaps though.
The reason why twin is good is because post board they can board out their combo and play control. Illness becomes a dead card then. It's better to play cards that do something against both versions because of how versatile and unpredictable twin is.
After today's new spoiler, what does everyone think of Kolaghan's Command as a sideboard card? Returning a young pyro or tasigur could be huge against control, discard can be useful there or in grindy matches, artifact destruction can be useful vs affinity and the shock is eh, but it can still kill opposing snapcasters and other dudes. Seems like the best command we can use from the new set since Silumgar's Command somewhat sucks due to mana cost
It certainly a much more interesting card in the Affinity match up. A lot of the time, the Command is going to be a two-for-one, guaranteed (destroy artifact, shock a 2 toughness creature). To be fair, almost all the modes create card advantage, whether by killing stuff or getting stuff back, but I'm not sure it's high impact enough aside from hitting two artifacts.
I certainly could see myself playing this over Vandalblast, easy, and probably Rakdos Charm in the same slot. Not sure it's going to do more than that, though. I think Electrolyze is better for the 3cmc slot.
I certainly agree with the excitement for kolaghan's command. Seems like a great card. Br electrolyze is a good comparison, also comparable to rise // fall which someone in the old thread loved. Could be sideboard material. Possibly maindeck depending on the meta. Would be hilarious to play against affinity.
Also wanted to mention, to anyone having trouble with affinity, as previous people have posted, we have really good options in darkblast (which just wrecks them), vandalblast, forked bold and any other burn really, spell snare, smash to smithereens, shatter spree, shatterstorm... Etc. I don't think this is our worst matchup at all. In fact I am around 75% so far with my testing.
So far the only problems I have had in testing are the big three ATM in this order, Burn, junk, twin.
Also, honestly if twin sides out their combo, then we will win that game. Our creatures are better, their counterspells are better. Illness would be a dead card in that case though so I will agree with that. How often have y'all's opponent's sided out the combo? Mine love to keep it in to threaten for eot wins if I tap out. Others have mentioned slaughter games, though I don't know that I like it too much. Most twin players claim they love when their opponent casts slaughter games as it can be a timewalk for them. Even if illness in the ranks is a blank, we can't know whether or not they sided, and it gives us a little mini pillow fort to protect us so we can evaluate their other cards more easily for countering and removal. I don't have it sided, but am interested to hear how you guys play the matchup. I found the way I mentioned a little bit ago, to be the best. We do have tons of options though!
I feel that Twin is only hard because of all the mind games. Probe is an all star: instead of probing turn one, unless you really need to dig for that land, it's better to probe on turn 3 so you know whether they are threatening the combo, and play accordingly. once you can play around the combo, you pretty much win.
Junk seems about even after boarding: once you can find a way to pull ahead in card advantage, you can win. Not to mention, you have more live draws than them: they have random mana dorks, discard, etc lying in the deck. Tasigur, Jace and monastery siege are the key players in this matchup.
Burn is the only one i'm rather afraid of. Monastery siege doesn't do anything if we don't have a clock out, and they still have the reach to finish you off. Sure, it slows them down but when you are on 4-6 life it's mostly inevitable. For that i think Dragon's Claw deserves to go back into the board, because we have no other way to ensure a fair game against burn at all.
There'sone more nightmare for this deck to face: BW tokens. Anyone has any ideas? that deck drives me nuts. post board it's EE or lose, and even then they can recover so quickly, especially since zealous persecution slows us down like crazy. at least against bogles have a harder time recovering anyway.
I don't run Snapcaster either. Instead I run a set of Monastery Swiftspear. Granted it does not have the versatility that Snapcaster does, it makes all of your opening hands better as now you can play delver, swiftspear, or set up with a serum visions. It also makes your top decks more live as you can always hit them for one with a top deck swiftspear. And with the amount of delving I generally do, the graveyard can sometimes be strained anyways.
I cannot tell you how many games I've won by chaining Serum visions, probe, and thought scour to pump two swiftspears to 3/4 or 4/5 and kill out of no where.
It does make the deck a lot more aggressive, but this deck generally wants to be aggressive anyways.
I can see the argument for swiftspear. Delver strategies are all about getting extra value out of casting a spell and swiftspear helps with that. However, snapcaster is arguably the best blue card around and can punish opponents for making misplays. Bolt-snapcaster-bolt is a pretty good play. I think the question is what point in the game do you want the extra pressure? I would argue that these are two distinct flavors of the deck and either is fine as long as you know what you are doing and plan accordingly.
Echoing truth is also good against bw tokens if you are having problems with it.
As I said in the archived thread, I had lots to do sunday so my report was a bit rushed, which is why i forgot to post my list and also explains all of the typos. Here's the list, and I'll try my best to remember how I boarded for each matchup.
I chose to cut terminate over a 2nd bolt because its open to possible spell snares and I chose 1 bolt over the murderous cut just in case he had a spellskite or non-hexproof threats because I had no idea what to expect. I almost considered not boarding because honestly he just wasnt a good player and again I didnt know what to expect so really disregard this match.
Bolt is generally bad post board because pestermite usually comes out against bolt/electrolyze decks. Angler comes in because it can block and attack through a batterskull. Mana leak comes out because the game goes longer and I want to hard counter skull or jace or twin and it never counters a bolt. I took out my 4th bolt for electrolyze after I saw pestermites game 2.
Round 3 was the same plan except all of the bolts came out so I could also bring in thundermaw (he splashed white for resto and path). I also cut 2 pyromancer and kept the mana leaks because I smelled anger/pyroclasm and his curve is higher than the average twin deck so leak is less likely to be bad.
I was ok with cutting leak because I expected him to cut lilly (he didnt) and the game often goes long and comes down to topdecking so countermagic is generally bad. On second thought it may be correct to leave them in to counter chokes, thankfully he never played any. If I were to leave in leaks I think I'd cut more delvers for all of the non-spells we are bringing in. Deprive still feels good to leave in because its a hard counter (can also potentially "untap" an island through choke). Siege is incredible here.
Round 5 was twin agaain, I made a similar board plan to round 3. He was straight UR but postboard played much more controlling than my round 2 opponent so I left in the pyromancers, still cut the leaks and cut 2 delver for thundermaw and angler because he was playing grim lavamancer.
Round 6 versus infect
-3 remand
+2 spellskite
+1 dispel
Pretty standard and self explanatory I think. This matchup is generally good for us.
I really think my bad luck with delver flips was mostly due to the inherant variance of the card. Though perhaps I should have cut more of them against junk and would have avoided that draw.
I am not particularly excited by KoloCommand but suppose it warrants testing. I just dont see it ever being better than electrolyze for 3 mana. In the board it absolutely does not replace rakdos charm because it simply is not as versitile despite having more modes (the discard mode will never be an option, really). And if you want it specifically for affinity, my gut says shatterstorm is just better but since you are saving 1 mana and RB is generally easier to produce than RR it might be worth it. My lack of excitement comes from not having affinity specific hate in my board and I feel like its already a pretty decent matchup, despite some of us seeming to have trouble with it. I guess its build specific. Having maindeck darkblast definitely improves your game against them.
I understand siege can be too slow against burn but dragons claw is simply rarely ever enough. Especially to consume sideboard space and only come in against one deck. I have been swayed back towards spellskite but I still stand by my aforementioned weaknesses with it. Its worth it simply because it CAN be effective and is the more versitile card.e
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Round one was not really fair. I was paired against a casual who was on an aura's deck that eschewed the cheap bogles cards for Geist of st traft. Game 1 was fairly easy, I flip 2 delvers and he dies in short order. Game 2 was weird. I felt like I was actually going to lose. He gets a Geist and a Kor spirit dancer. I have a delver refusing to flip (this happened a lot yesterday) and a skite. He apparently overvalued the fact that skite could steal his auras and undervalued that Geist could keep smashing for 4 at his leisure because he cast supreme verdict onto that board state which put me right back in the game. I play a tasigur next turn. He plays another Geist and it didn't matter.
1-0
Round 2 I'm paired against a local player who I knew was on twin and decent at it. Game 1 I punish his greedy keep. Game 2 he punishes mine. Game 3 he just strait up outplays me, and punishes me for a boneheaded mistake (I scry an important Snapcaster to the top of my deck, then absent-mindedly activate tasigur on his end step. You can be sure he doesn't give me the snapcaster or the bolt). He gets there on pester-beats while keeping my tasigur tapped.
1-1
Round 3 I was up against twin again. He takes game 1 by drawing his 4th bolt while I have him dead on board. Games 2 and 3 I just tempo him out, getting turn 1 delvers (but they don't flip for several turns) and just managing his threats. Game 3 came close but I sandbagged a Snapcaster in hand. I needed to make sure my attacks were lethal so he was forced into playing tappers, exhausting his ability to counter the bolt.
2-1
Round 4 I played some very intense games against junk. The 3rd game went to time. He was hellbent and I was seeing 2 cards per turn from Monastery Siege. I have a tasigur, a pyromancer, and an un flipped delver on my board (notice a pattern yet?). On turn 2 of extra turns he plays a seige rhino that would haven killed me if I didn't have deprive in hand. Deprive and monastery seige play very nicely together because you get a land to pitch to siege if you see 2 cards you like off of it. Well my siege draws me murderous cut and snapcaster (snaps was on top so delver doesn't flip again). Turn 4 of extra turns he draws and plays tarmogoyf. I murderous cut the one he already has on board and snapcaster terminate the one he played, now my delver just needs to flip and I have lethal on turn 5 of extra turns. We are the last match being played in the room at this point and there is a sizeable crowd around us at this point. On upkeep I toss the top card of my library onto the table for my delver delver trigger. It's a scalding tarn. The Last. Non-Spell. In. My. Deck. There was an audible reaction from the audience. I draw the next card for Siege and its a thought scour. I attack him down to 2. I thought scour myself hoping to hit bolt or electrolyze and just hit air. It would have been extra hilarious if those were the 2 cards milled from scour.
2-1-1
So now I have to win these next 2 rounds and hope my breakers are good enough to make top 8. I am once again paired against twin. I'm pretty sure it was 45% of the meta there. Game 1 have 3, THREE delvers on board by turn 4 and none of them have flipped. I hate this ******* card. The surviving one eventually flips and wins me the game. Game2 my opponent expertly played around rakdos charm after resolving a twin, attacking me down to 2 with 15 exarchs when we were both at 17 life and I had a pyro with 1 token on board. I die next turn. Game 3 I am ahead most of the game with a peezy and five tokens on board. I negate a batterskull and he follows it up next turn with jace AoT that I can't answer. I'm very ahead on life though and once I draw a tasigur or some burn it won't matter so I'm not too worried when he begins ticking it up. That is until I draw lands for six strait turns followed by countermagic... He ultimates jace, gets my thundermaw, wins the counter war and kills me in 2 swings. Unbelievable.
2-2-1
I'm definitely dead for top 8 but it's possible with exactly the right people losing their games that I top 16. I play against infect, win 2 very easy games and don't get there.
Overall record:3-2-1
So you'll notice I didn't flip delver very much and some of you are very aware that I'm a big advocate for 19 land in the deck. I think this was just plain variance not working in my favor. I very rarely mulliganed and never had to go below 6. That could be variance working for me. So 19 lands equals less mulligans but less flips. 18, more mully's, but more flips. I prefer 19 still because we are very capable of not drawing delver at all and winning, or just attacking with fugitive wizards and still getting there. We are much less capable of winning when we are behind cards from our opponent.
That said, whenever I build a "delver deck" I'm always looking for a ways to avoid actually playing delver because I hate its coin flip nature. I have ideas for delver-less versions of this deck that I may elaborate on later when I have more time.
I loved monastery siege and I think it should be considered a sideboard staple for us. I did not play against burn so I ouldnt further test its effectiveness there but against junk it was an absolute house. It should be in our board even just for that matchup. I think we should also solidify our countermagic slots. I'm thinking we should move to deprive heavy builds as it is basically just Counterspell and its "drawback" never felt real. This way we don't have to run cryptic as I believe even with 19 lands it is too clunky of a spell and is only greats against junk because it's too easy for other blue decks to blow you out if you use it as a dismiss. I find the best way to use it is to cycle it eot and bounce a land org somehing, stat set you up for a big following turn. That sounds nice, but I'm not sure we need it, especially if we start locking in 4 deprive.
I agree with the deprives, glad that people are catching on to how good it is. Cryptic command as a 1 of with a 18 land mana base actually seems feasible after some test draws due to how much of our deck we can draw. but definitely a 19 land feels more comfortable
I've played a few games against burn. Most of the time they get me low enough, and while i struggle to kill them, they can usually find the last points of burn. monastery siege doesn't actually do much against them. general plan is to bring them in on the play and bring them out on the draw. on the draw it's simply too slow.
How's this on the sideboard:
2 Spellskite
1 Negate
2 Flashfreeze
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Rakdos Charm
1 Shatterstorm
1 Monastery Siege
1 Deathmark
1 Combust
1 Slaughter Games
This feels pretty all rounded. any comments before i put it up? How's thundermaw hellkite? i generally don't find it really necessary to close out games since jace and siege already give you so much reach.
MMA2 will contain reprints from 8th ed. to Scars of Mirrodin block. So no Snapcaster reprint.
If you don't have the budget for playing 3 snapcaster mage, i do recommend using Pestermite instead, has the same power/toughness, can be flashed in, and can provide tempo for tapping down a land or creature
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
Can we get a decklist?
Also, I am not sure of pestermite as a budget alternative. It could be good though. Heck, maybe some games your opponent would wrongly put you on twin. (You could even do a weird and possibly bad transformational sideboard) I sadly cannot supply a better option but maybe a different creature base distribution more like...
There're are also other options as well but price/power level will be issues.
All of these have obvious drawbacks I feel and some of them drastically change the game plan, so keep that in mind.
As for the twin matchup, what do you guys think of illness in the ranks. I mentioned it in the last thread with no bites but it is really tough for them to deal with when played t1. Since it is an enchantment, they pretty much have to draw cryptic to bounce, unless they splash a third color. Then we can just move forward dealing with their board state while pressuring for the remainder of the game which isn't tough as their creature base isn't super tough to deal with. Illness also does work against bw tokens which is gaining some favor ATM. That said, I don't really have too much trouble with twin. The way to beat them is establishing an early board then disrupting them while continuing to pressure them, which is what we are made to do. Still a good idea to sideboard for them as they and a huge portion of the meta ATM.
Lastly, in everyone's reports I am noticing a big thing which is stupidly obvious. If we got, even a remotely playable draw spell, we would be so golden. The fact that we are doing well with 4cmc draw (though that is simplification of jace and siege) then I can only imagine how well we would do with a more consistent source. This is obvious as we saw how insane delver became with treasure cruise. I just wish perilous research wasn't so bad as it could be close. If only it just bounced like deprive...
I'm using Call to Mind as very bad very budget replacement for Snapcaster. Sorcery speed sucks but it gets the job done of giving you stuff back from your graveyard and works well with Tasigur since it doesn't exile spells and you can keep the graveyard full and more sorceries mean a higher chance to flip delver. Nothing really compares to snaps though.
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!
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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
I certainly could see myself playing this over Vandalblast, easy, and probably Rakdos Charm in the same slot. Not sure it's going to do more than that, though. I think Electrolyze is better for the 3cmc slot.
Also wanted to mention, to anyone having trouble with affinity, as previous people have posted, we have really good options in darkblast (which just wrecks them), vandalblast, forked bold and any other burn really, spell snare, smash to smithereens, shatter spree, shatterstorm... Etc. I don't think this is our worst matchup at all. In fact I am around 75% so far with my testing.
So far the only problems I have had in testing are the big three ATM in this order, Burn, junk, twin.
Also, honestly if twin sides out their combo, then we will win that game. Our creatures are better, their counterspells are better. Illness would be a dead card in that case though so I will agree with that. How often have y'all's opponent's sided out the combo? Mine love to keep it in to threaten for eot wins if I tap out. Others have mentioned slaughter games, though I don't know that I like it too much. Most twin players claim they love when their opponent casts slaughter games as it can be a timewalk for them. Even if illness in the ranks is a blank, we can't know whether or not they sided, and it gives us a little mini pillow fort to protect us so we can evaluate their other cards more easily for countering and removal. I don't have it sided, but am interested to hear how you guys play the matchup. I found the way I mentioned a little bit ago, to be the best. We do have tons of options though!
Junk seems about even after boarding: once you can find a way to pull ahead in card advantage, you can win. Not to mention, you have more live draws than them: they have random mana dorks, discard, etc lying in the deck. Tasigur, Jace and monastery siege are the key players in this matchup.
Burn is the only one i'm rather afraid of. Monastery siege doesn't do anything if we don't have a clock out, and they still have the reach to finish you off. Sure, it slows them down but when you are on 4-6 life it's mostly inevitable. For that i think Dragon's Claw deserves to go back into the board, because we have no other way to ensure a fair game against burn at all.
There'sone more nightmare for this deck to face: BW tokens. Anyone has any ideas? that deck drives me nuts. post board it's EE or lose, and even then they can recover so quickly, especially since zealous persecution slows us down like crazy. at least against bogles have a harder time recovering anyway.
I cannot tell you how many games I've won by chaining Serum visions, probe, and thought scour to pump two swiftspears to 3/4 or 4/5 and kill out of no where.
It does make the deck a lot more aggressive, but this deck generally wants to be aggressive anyways.
As I said in the archived thread, I had lots to do sunday so my report was a bit rushed, which is why i forgot to post my list and also explains all of the typos. Here's the list, and I'll try my best to remember how I boarded for each matchup.
4 young pyromancer
3 tasigur, the golden fang
3 snapcaster mage
4 serum visions
4 gitaxian probe
4 lightning bolt
3 thought scour
3 remand
2 mana leak
2 spell snare
1 darkblast
1 electrolyze
1 murderous cut
1 terminate
1 deprive
4 polluted delta
2 steam vents
2 watery grave
1 darkslick shores
1 sulfur falls
3 island
1 mountain
1 swamp
1 thundermaw hellkite
1 gurmag angler
1 combust
1 negate
1 murderous cut
2 monastery siege
2 spellskite
2 rakdos charm
2 dispel
2 engineered explosives
Round 1 versus aura/geist brew
-1 bolt
-1 terminate
+2 spellskite
I chose to cut terminate over a 2nd bolt because its open to possible spell snares and I chose 1 bolt over the murderous cut just in case he had a spellskite or non-hexproof threats because I had no idea what to expect. I almost considered not boarding because honestly he just wasnt a good player and again I didnt know what to expect so really disregard this match.
Round 2 versus twin
-3 lightning bolt
-2 mana leak
-1 darkblast
-1 electrolyze
+2 rakdos charm
+1 combust
+1 negate
+2 dispel
+1 gurmag angler
Bolt is generally bad post board because pestermite usually comes out against bolt/electrolyze decks. Angler comes in because it can block and attack through a batterskull. Mana leak comes out because the game goes longer and I want to hard counter skull or jace or twin and it never counters a bolt. I took out my 4th bolt for electrolyze after I saw pestermites game 2.
Round 3 was the same plan except all of the bolts came out so I could also bring in thundermaw (he splashed white for resto and path). I also cut 2 pyromancer and kept the mana leaks because I smelled anger/pyroclasm and his curve is higher than the average twin deck so leak is less likely to be bad.
Round 4 versus junk
-3 remand
-2 mana leak
-1 delver
-1 probe
+2 monastery siege
+1 angler
+1 thundermaw
+2 explosives
+1 murderous cut
I was ok with cutting leak because I expected him to cut lilly (he didnt) and the game often goes long and comes down to topdecking so countermagic is generally bad. On second thought it may be correct to leave them in to counter chokes, thankfully he never played any. If I were to leave in leaks I think I'd cut more delvers for all of the non-spells we are bringing in. Deprive still feels good to leave in because its a hard counter (can also potentially "untap" an island through choke). Siege is incredible here.
Round 5 was twin agaain, I made a similar board plan to round 3. He was straight UR but postboard played much more controlling than my round 2 opponent so I left in the pyromancers, still cut the leaks and cut 2 delver for thundermaw and angler because he was playing grim lavamancer.
Round 6 versus infect
-3 remand
+2 spellskite
+1 dispel
Pretty standard and self explanatory I think. This matchup is generally good for us.
I really think my bad luck with delver flips was mostly due to the inherant variance of the card. Though perhaps I should have cut more of them against junk and would have avoided that draw.
I am not particularly excited by KoloCommand but suppose it warrants testing. I just dont see it ever being better than electrolyze for 3 mana. In the board it absolutely does not replace rakdos charm because it simply is not as versitile despite having more modes (the discard mode will never be an option, really). And if you want it specifically for affinity, my gut says shatterstorm is just better but since you are saving 1 mana and RB is generally easier to produce than RR it might be worth it. My lack of excitement comes from not having affinity specific hate in my board and I feel like its already a pretty decent matchup, despite some of us seeming to have trouble with it. I guess its build specific. Having maindeck darkblast definitely improves your game against them.
I understand siege can be too slow against burn but dragons claw is simply rarely ever enough. Especially to consume sideboard space and only come in against one deck. I have been swayed back towards spellskite but I still stand by my aforementioned weaknesses with it. Its worth it simply because it CAN be effective and is the more versitile card.e