What are your thoughts on the Control matchup? In my experience, Affinity, Merfolk and Ux Control are the three worst matchups (Check my results over 120 tracked matches); and Control is the only archetype where I am not sure how to win.
If we wanted to beat Merfolk or Affinity more consistently, the hate cards are pretty self explanatory: we would run more artifact removal, more wraths (I'm not playing Kozilek's Return, which sounds like a huge upgrade to Anger of the Gods in the Affinity matchup), etc. But what is the answer to a pile of removals and better late game bombs? Trying to go under is the only guess I have come up with, but a ~20% win rate means its probably not the right answer.
I'm very lucky or you are playing your Merfolk matchup very wrong. I never drop a game against Merfolk playing Grixis Shadow. You don't have to kill all their creatures, land a early Tasigur/Gurmag, kill the lords with Islandwalk and control the game until you land other creatures and then go to the agressive route. Play around not getting mana screwed by Spreading Seas, use your discard spells to remove their card advantage(Silvergil and Spreading Seas) and you will be fine.
Hello, I'm currently buying into Grixis Shadow from scratch. I noticed in the latest 5-0 league with Grixis Shadow, they have 3 Spreading Seas in the sideboard. I'm wondering if this is better than Fulminator Mage since it replaces itself while disrupting the opponent's mana (and comes down a turn sooner) or its a budget issue?
I guess it's just a budget option.
1) You can't return it back to your hand with Kolaghan's Command like you could do with Fulminators
2) You can't cast it again like Molten Rain/Crumble to Dust with Snapcaster
3) You don't put nothing in the for your surgical extractions/Delve fatties.
Round 2, i get destroyed by living end. game 1 I did okay, he just beat me. Game 2 i got aggressive by trying to stick a turn 2 Tasigur with hopes he didn't have spirit guide and he did. I've been having a problem with this match up, is this a bad matchup or is there any advice I can get?
Street Wraith are very good against them, you could cicle in responde to Living End to put them in the yard and them come back to block their dudes or kill him (swampwalk) if they are at low life. You always could use your Fatal Pushes to kill your own Death's Shadow to come back too (because you'll have almost no targets in the Living End deck). Stubborn Denial and Countersquall are very good, be careful with your land drops or you'll get blown out by Fulminators. Our discard is ok, you could discard some cascade spell to slow them down, but it's not at it's best in this matchup. Nihil spellbomb and Surgicals are very good too by the way.
I'm sorry for the english, it's not my first language.
In my experience, UW Control with Seas is BY FAR our worst match-up.
Best card against them are, post-sideboard, planeswalkers (Lily TLH & Ashiok), Painful Thruths and more distuption. Seize + Snap + Stubborn is very likely the best way for us to prevent them landing threats (Jace is a game winner, so it is Elspeth/Gideon). You can't really grind them, but neither you can play the aggro role, because they have too many removals. A resolves Lily really is our best bet in the match-up.
You are running Ashiok? What's your toughts about it?
Invigorating Rampage is a nice tech to test. I don't know if the card is real, but it's worth trying.
What you guys think about the land count? With 4 Serum Visions 4 Thought Scour 4 Street Wraith we can go maybe to 18 lands or do you think it's a little gridy? Maybe cutting a fetch.
Do you guys think it's possible to run 2 Cryptic Command in Midrange Delver Builds?
You'll need more lands to run 2 Cryptics I guess, and with more lands you will need to remove creatures or spells. If you remove spells your Delver will flip less, if you remove creatures you will be playing Grixis Control. So...
No it doesn't work, very bad ruling since the answer is on the card itself, no real need for a judge here.
Can you elaborate? It looks like vines of vastwood makes the opponent's spellskite unable to target itself thus cannot redirect groundswell. Am I understanding this wrong?
YOU play the Vines, so the target creature can't be the target of YOUR OPPONENT SPELLS. The "opponent" don't change if you change the target of the Vines, because who casts the spell is you.
That's why Vines is very good against the mirror, because you can cast it on your opponents creatures to "protect" them from getting pumped and killing you.
In a not so far past it's our best answer game 1 against Splinter Twin ...
Against Grixis/Jund and decks that have lots of ways to kill our infect guys do you think that keeping 1 land 1 hierarch 1 agent is ok? Don't know if it's better to mulligan to 6 and find a better hand (with more lands), or just t1 land hierarch, t2 agent (without protection if you don't find another land) hoping to not die hehe
Pretty tricky question, what are the 4 other cards ?
If there's a Gitaxian probe I'd keep it : extra info + card draw would help me to sequence next play.
A mix of Become Immense/pump spells/dismember/twisted image : Probably ship it, I'm far from being able to cast two spells on the same turn and without a protection spell even if I draw a land I will put my Agent on the field naked, plus Grixis would be glad to see me slow roll my agent so they can serum vision their answers while Jund would discard it or play their tapland to have 2 mana open the next turn for the terminate or the decay.
Yeah, maybe shipping away the hand is the right answer. I kept hands like these and more then once I got blowed out by a kill spell on hierarch and not finding a second land, or sometimes drawing the land and don't having mana to protect my guy.
ps: sorry for my english, it's not my first language.
How is the deck against RG Tron and Control decks?
RG tron is favorable for infect, I'd say +70% infect win with a good pilot.
Grixis/Jund decks are hard for infect, Jeskai is almost unbeatable and UW control matchup is slightly better since they rely on Wall of Omens to survive early and we can Twisted image it
Against Grixis/Jund and decks that have lots of ways to kill our infect guys do you think that keeping 1 land 1 hierarch 1 agent is ok? Don't know if it's better to mulligan to 6 and find a better hand (with more lands), or just t1 land hierarch, t2 agent (without protection if you don't find another land) hoping to not die hehe
Does anyone know what the Kevin Jones 1st place list from the WMCQ looks like?
Looking to this photo at Cristian Calcano's twitter we can see a Delver and a Young Pyro, so maybe he is playing with the list Augustus Law won the GP.
Well i also agree that a playset of Spirebluff Canal could be the right way. It enables ALL T1 plays for our deck, bee it Visions, Delver, Bolt, Scour or whatever without costing us 2 life. As already mentioned, Jund runs 4 Cliffs for the same reason of beeing able to discard or bolt on T1 without lifeloss. However, the fetchland count should stay as high as possible to fuel delve.
My old manabase:
9 Fetches means: 14 red, 13 black 19 blue ---> 7 Fetch Targets
So i cutted 1 Mountain, the darkslick Shores, 1 fetch and the sulfur falls for a playset of the new fastland and added a third Watery Grave instead of the second steam vents. This means we can often go T1 spirebluff canal, T2 either fetch Swamp or Watery Grave depending on our hand. 9 Fetchland mean a T2 Tasigur is still very likely with a Thought Scour in hand. Without Sulfur Falls and the basic mountain, those awkward hands without an untapped blue source on t2 occour far less now.
Any opinions?
Greetings
I'm just not sure about the 3rd Watery Grave, I'd probably think about running a Blood Crypt instead. As far as the other lands, I like the idea of cutting the basic mountain now that we don't have to be desperate to fetch it t1 to bolt a Guide or something. I might be trying something very close to this instead of what I posted before.
With this manabase a upside is that Choke is not effective against us. (not so played in the current meta, but it's a pain in the ass)
Hi everyone, I've been playing Grixis Delver off and on for about a year now, and I last played the deck around March. I have decided to jump back into it. I looked through the forums a bit and saw Ryan Overturf's stuff on Modern nexus, so I have a general idea about how the deck has changed since then, but I still have a several questions.
I think someone asked about Collective Brutality. Did anyone get around to trying it yet? How is it?
What's the current anti-Tron plan? I think I might try Crumble to Dust, but I don't like how it costs 4 mana. I remember at one point running a several duress and rise // fall in the sideboard against tron. The amount of disruption through discard effects managed to work very well against tron at the time at local fnms. (Edit: What do you all think about Crumble to Dust vs Ghost Quarter vs Spreading Seas?)
The rise of dredge also has me a bit worried. I have always been a fan of 2x Rakdos Charm (because of how many matchups it's useful in as opposed to other graveyard hate cards). I think Nihil Spellbomb is great too, so I'm considering running 2x Rakdos Charm and 1x Nihil Spellbomb.
I also had Imp's mischief in my sideboard for a while, and I was wondering how it still holds up. I know it's effect is now especially useful against control matchups that run Ancestral Vision. Also, what do you guys think about Ricochet Trap vs Imp's Mischief vs Swerve?
What's the current consensus on Rise // Fall? I still think it's a pretty good sideboard card as it's useful in a variety of MUs, but I don't really see anyone mentioning it these days.
I look forward to getting back into Grixis Delver again!
I like Rise/Fall i have 1 maindeck before. But you really need to be lucky to get a hymn to tourach effect and you will rarely use the bounce effect. And you'll only be able to play it on turn 4 (for backup counters if you get unlucky)
Rise//Fall is a nice card. I always have one in my SB, but I don't think it will help you against Tron that much. You NEED to attack their lands, discard is effective but eventually they will find something to cast and if you don't have the counter for it you will lose. I'm tired of ripping my opponent's hand and a topdecked Ulamog/Ugin close the game. So I'm more biased in bringing land destruction against them. With 20 lands and 8 cantrips + 2/3 remands you will find that finding the 4th land is not that hard.
About the Graveyard hate, I'm running 2 Rakdos Charm (there's 2 Living End players in my meta, 0 dredges). Sometimes Rakdos Charm wins by allowing the Living End to resolve and then casting the Ping effect, that's hilarious and unexpected. And of course, they can't do nothing with Ricochet Trap.
Be nice, I'm long time casual player, for 2 months i'm trying little competitive in modern
-1 Countersquall (move to side) -1 Negate (SB too) -2 Duress (SB or cut)
+1 Thought Scour +1 Dismember (or another Terminate, or Dreadbore), +1 Spell Pierce +1 Forked Bolt maybe? Dispel could be good too. Your meta will dictate what is best.
I'm very lucky or you are playing your Merfolk matchup very wrong. I never drop a game against Merfolk playing Grixis Shadow. You don't have to kill all their creatures, land a early Tasigur/Gurmag, kill the lords with Islandwalk and control the game until you land other creatures and then go to the agressive route. Play around not getting mana screwed by Spreading Seas, use your discard spells to remove their card advantage(Silvergil and Spreading Seas) and you will be fine.
I guess it's just a budget option.
1) You can't return it back to your hand with Kolaghan's Command like you could do with Fulminators
2) You can't cast it again like Molten Rain/Crumble to Dust with Snapcaster
3) You don't put nothing in the for your surgical extractions/Delve fatties.
Street Wraith are very good against them, you could cicle in responde to Living End to put them in the yard and them come back to block their dudes or kill him (swampwalk) if they are at low life. You always could use your Fatal Pushes to kill your own Death's Shadow to come back too (because you'll have almost no targets in the Living End deck). Stubborn Denial and Countersquall are very good, be careful with your land drops or you'll get blown out by Fulminators. Our discard is ok, you could discard some cascade spell to slow them down, but it's not at it's best in this matchup. Nihil spellbomb and Surgicals are very good too by the way.
I'm sorry for the english, it's not my first language.
You are running Ashiok? What's your toughts about it?
What you guys think about the land count? With 4 Serum Visions 4 Thought Scour 4 Street Wraith we can go maybe to 18 lands or do you think it's a little gridy? Maybe cutting a fetch.
And now your Tasigur can't block a Goyf...
You'll need more lands to run 2 Cryptics I guess, and with more lands you will need to remove creatures or spells. If you remove spells your Delver will flip less, if you remove creatures you will be playing Grixis Control. So...
YOU play the Vines, so the target creature can't be the target of YOUR OPPONENT SPELLS. The "opponent" don't change if you change the target of the Vines, because who casts the spell is you.
That's why Vines is very good against the mirror, because you can cast it on your opponents creatures to "protect" them from getting pumped and killing you.
In a not so far past it's our best answer game 1 against Splinter Twin ...
Yeah, maybe shipping away the hand is the right answer. I kept hands like these and more then once I got blowed out by a kill spell on hierarch and not finding a second land, or sometimes drawing the land and don't having mana to protect my guy.
ps: sorry for my english, it's not my first language.
Against Grixis/Jund and decks that have lots of ways to kill our infect guys do you think that keeping 1 land 1 hierarch 1 agent is ok? Don't know if it's better to mulligan to 6 and find a better hand (with more lands), or just t1 land hierarch, t2 agent (without protection if you don't find another land) hoping to not die hehe
Looking to this photo at Cristian Calcano's twitter we can see a Delver and a Young Pyro, so maybe he is playing with the list Augustus Law won the GP.
https://twitter.com/CCalcano/status/777633688850923520
With this manabase a upside is that Choke is not effective against us. (not so played in the current meta, but it's a pain in the ass)
Rise//Fall is a nice card. I always have one in my SB, but I don't think it will help you against Tron that much. You NEED to attack their lands, discard is effective but eventually they will find something to cast and if you don't have the counter for it you will lose. I'm tired of ripping my opponent's hand and a topdecked Ulamog/Ugin close the game. So I'm more biased in bringing land destruction against them. With 20 lands and 8 cantrips + 2/3 remands you will find that finding the 4th land is not that hard.
About the Graveyard hate, I'm running 2 Rakdos Charm (there's 2 Living End players in my meta, 0 dredges). Sometimes Rakdos Charm wins by allowing the Living End to resolve and then casting the Ping effect, that's hilarious and unexpected. And of course, they can't do nothing with Ricochet Trap.
-1 Countersquall (move to side) -1 Negate (SB too) -2 Duress (SB or cut)
+1 Thought Scour +1 Dismember (or another Terminate, or Dreadbore), +1 Spell Pierce +1 Forked Bolt maybe? Dispel could be good too. Your meta will dictate what is best.
That's my opinion hehe