I don't think we should ever be cutting Thought Scours, it's one of the best cards in the deck. Faithless Looting is seeing success in the recent lists because above all else it's Thought Scour 5-6. The card selection from Faithless Looting is ancillary to Looting's main purpose; to power out a turn 2 Angler. I strongly suggest Thought Scour as a 4-of no matter what mix of other cantrips you use. I wasn't on board with Faithless Looting at first but 2 really does seem perfect. GDS feels so so good when you lead with turn 1 discard, turn 2 Angler.
I'm on 4 Scour, 2 Serum Visions, 2 Faithless Looting. I understand the strengths of Bauble but I just don't enjoy playing it, and I think GDS' performance with Bauble vs. without Bauble is close enough that personal preference being the deciding factor is fine.
Would you guys play Young Pyromancer without the 3 Gitaxian Probe? I'm playing the more controling Overturf list but Vendilion Clique underwhelmed me a bit. My idea was to cut 1x Clique and 1x Countersquall to add 2x Young Pyromancer for more and faster threats. But I always disliked the Probes. Often the information isn't really valuable, my delve fatties got enough grave fodder and I play my Peezy not turn 2 into removal.
I recently hopped back on the Young Pyro bandwagon and I'm not running Probes. I don't like the added lifeloss when our only way to pad our life is with Collective Brutality. The odds of having Pyro and Probe in hand turn 2 are pretty low, and it's easy enough to get value out of him past turn two. I don't think Pyro should be a main focus of the deck, rather a complement, and adding 3 more slots for Probes because you add Pyro is too big of a consideration when he already slots into the pre-existing shell fine.
Depends on the exact list of burn, i suppose there are likely some that are bad MU's but in my experience burn has been at least even, likely close to 55:45/60:40 in our favor (overall i would put it at ~20-30% to win preboard, ~60-70% post). Tron is solidly in the favorable category, they dont do well against a fast clock normally, but we have burn+lots of disruption to back it up.
I'm sorry, but there is no way in hell that Burn and GR Tron are favorable match-ups for Grixis Delver. You must either be running a lucky streak or playing against bad pilots. I will concede that Burn has gotten better with Spirebluff Canal and Collective Brutality, but even the lists that run those new additions and 7-8 counters are going to be a dog in the burn matchup. As soon as Overturf claimed it was even or favorable everyone seemed to hop on that bandwagon and apparently no one actually played the matchup since.
RG Tron has always been rough because Grixis Delver is as much a midrange deck as it is a tempo deck, but I personally have always struggled against it and I know there are many other Delver players who have shared the same experience with me. My build is the Kevin Jones style, but even when I ran a more tempo-oriented build I never had success against RG Tron.
If you were to ask me, this is how Grixis Delver lines up against the rest of the meta.
Bant Eldrazi -- Poor. Cavern is *****. Green super ponder makes me upset.
Burn -- Poor
Infect -- Good. Plenty of cheap interaction, easy for one side to outplay the other.
Affinity -- Good. Plenty of options to bring in against them. Maindeck Kommands are great.
Jund -- Even, maybe favorable depending on the SBs.
Dredge -- Very poor, unless you warp your board to fight it, in which case you could easily make it positive.
Abzan -- Poor, Lingering Souls is a beating
RG Tron -- Poor, if you don't land T1 Delver or T2 delve fatty you'll never be able to close fast enough, even with counter backup.
Titan Breach -- Even, I've heard others say this MU is bad, the only times I've played it I've felt comfortable. Maybe someone else can comment.
Jeskai Control -- Even. Kommand is too good, we have cheap threats that we can wait to deploy since they won't be pressuring us.
Merfolk -- Poor. Harbinger is such a tempo blowout against delve fatties or flipped delvers. Master of the Waves is hard to overcome.
Ad Naus -- Good. I've found it comes down to them having Pact of Negation or bust when they need to go off.
Abzan Company -- Even. Voice sucks, the rest of the deck isn't scary if you play around CoCo.
Death and Taxes/Hatebears -- Even, maybe slightly favorable. Haven't played it recently, but TK Seer is a pain in the ass.
DSA -- Haven't really played it, seems like it would be even
Titan Shift -- Even
Bushwacker -- Can't say I've played the matchup. Probably comes down to bolt in opening hand.
Overall what does that say? Realistically, Grixis Delver has more poor matchups than good matchups. Still, I love the deck and will continue to play it. If F&%#ing Cavern of Souls didn't exist, I'd throw Ceremonious Rejection into the board so fast, and Eldrazi and Tron variants would all be solidly positive.
I'm not much of a standard player but my LGS rotates between Standard and Modern every week so I wanted something to bring on the Standard nights. Here is a list I've been playing around with.
I haven't made up the sideboard yet because I have no idea what my store's meta will look like. I will be including some generic cards though.
2 Infinite Obliteration which can be fetched and cast with Dark Petition.
1 Dragonlord Silumgar to side in against ramp
Some number of Duress, Negate, Dispel, Flaying Tendrils, Languish etc.
The win cons are obviously the walkers, but awakened lands and thopters can get there too if you can control the board. I chose Whirler Rogue because I wanted to keep my opponent's spot removal "turned off". It's also great to follow one up with a walker because you have 3 chump blockers to protect them. I was thinking about putting a Rise from the Tides in the board for surprise zombie hordes but that white exile card is too good against it.
I'm not sold on the Scatter/Clash spread. Clash is great as a 2 mana counter spell when the opponent is playing on curve, but I'm not sure if I want 2. I was thinking about running the exile counterspell for pesky recurring creatures too but that will be a meta call.
I've actually liked Epiphany as a source of card advantage. It's fine to play EOT for 3/4 mana when you aren't countering or killing something, but the fact that it scales from mediocre to massive card advantage the longer the game goes on is appealing.
I haven't played enough games (only been playing on cockatrice) or even know what standard looks like enough to know how well this deck will do, but I'm sure I could get a win or two a night from it. That's a win in my book for a deck that cost about $100 to build. I've been using this thread for some inspiration, so if anyone has any recommendations for my list I'd be glad to hear them! I didn't even know Dark Petition was a card until I heard people buzzing about it from the PT so I'm sure there are some other cards I've missed that are worth playing.
I've started running Grotesque Mutation in the side instead as my anti-burn/zoo card. You don't get the cute interaction with Eidolon but one successful strike with a flipped Delver or delve fatty is at least 6 life gained. You can throw it on a Snap or unflipped Delver too if you really need to which is an upside that Vampiric Link doesn't have. It's no Lightning Helix, but in Grixis colors it does the best impersonation it can. Has anyone else tried it? I've been playtesting on Cockatrice but only played a few matches against burn or zoo variants so I can't really say if it's worth replacing Link.
Hello to disenfranchised twin players looking for a new deck. I had transitioned to Twin because Delver loses to decks going over it (Tron) and decks out aggroing it (Zoo, Burn, etc) and I felt like I had to scrap so hard to get wins against decks that we are supposed to even/favorable. Now I'm obviously back on Delver. I figured I'd do a little writeup of how I personally felt Delver matched up against the field back when I was playing it. I am a FNM player and haven't played at a level above that, but here are my feelings on the deck. The percents are just a guestimate to give a little frame of reference.
Terrible Matchups ~ 40/60
Burn
Junk
RG Tron
Bogles
Bad Matchups: ~45/55
Podless Pod
Zoo
Merfolk
Even Matchups: 50/50
Jund
Grixis Control
UW Midrange
Storm
Good matchups: ~55/45
Affinity
Infect
Elves
Scapeshift
Living End
Hatebears
I'd imagine the new Eldrazi deck is a pretty rough matchup too. I've never played Ad Naus but I'd imagine it is a favorable matchup.
One of my favorite things about Grixis Delver is how often you get to see your sideboard cards with 10+ cantrips in the deck. Thought Scour + Snap means you really get to a lot of chances to cast your efficient Instant/Sorceries. So any of these matchups can be tuned pretty effectively based on your sideboard.
I think I like Geist just as much as Mantis. After running with Mantis so far, I found that more often than not he'd just get bolted. Paying 3 for a creature to get bolted never feels good. I also have the feeling that as soon as I switch to Geist I'll face a bunch of decks that put creatures on the board right away
The deck is fun and fresh. I can usually swing games pretty hard with a timely command, but I've also found that some games it's a non-impactful 4 mana spell. Once people see it once they are more prepared for it. It's great to counter a creature and bring back a Young Pyromancer. Sometimes I just bring back a creature and draw end of turn only to get the creature bolted again. It also isn't often that I have enough mana to bring back a snap and play something off of it.
All in all, it is pretty fun and can take people by surprise. Moving from Grixis, it is awesome to be able to gain life off of Helixes and Commands.
Admittedly, I haven't ever played UWR Delver, but I did play Grixis for a while. I wanted to experiment with something new and fresh. One of the things I loved about Grixis Delver was the ability to grind out when necessary and put creatures back on the board. I really wanted to try building UWR a little "bigger" by using Ojutai's Command. I don't expect this list to be great, but I wanted to tune this spin off brew and see what kind of advice you guys had. I built a basic list which has been fun playtesting so far. I managed to eek out some wins by using Command shenanigans. A problem is I had to drop the instant/sorcery count down to 26 to make room for more lands and I still feel threat light but I obviously can't cut down any more.
I haven't really put together a meaningful sideboard yet, but it seems like Meddling Mage would be fun to try out. I've always wanted to try and jam that guy into a modern deck =P
This list let's us have some pretty good value game with Command and 4 Snapcasters. It is definitely slower out of the gate than the more streamlined versions though.
One of the problems with being so cantrip heavy is you lose out on information of what you actually have. If I start a game with 2 cantrips in hand, let's say Probe and Scour, those are two cards that are going to replace themselves, but I have no idea with what. It could be two lands, it could be 2 Tasigurs. It leads to sub-optimal choices when you draw your starting 7, and after playing this deck for a while I have noticed that I've lost some games because I cantripped into junk. This, coupled with the damage we already take, are by far the biggest reasons I want to try playing without Probe.
I have been running 19 lands, and I plan to replace at least 2 Probes with Remands to test, so I think 19 is fine. As such, I'm not really losing any percentage points for Delver flips.
My biggest concern right now is the loss of a guaranteed token from a turn 2 Peezy, and less chance of a turn 2 Angler. I actually just played a game on cockatrice where I had Pyro and 2 Remands in hand. It felt bad that I could've dropped a turn 2 Pyromancer and gotten 2 tokens, but I ended up holding Remand up on turn 2, casting Pyro on 3 with Scour, and I managed to untap, which felt great with the second Remand in hand. I'm not saying it turned out to be better. I would have still rather played Pyro and 2 Probes, but that is the one case I already acknowledged where I am losing power. It's also worth noting I had to fetch + shock so I would've been down to 13 by self damage if I did that play.
I'm going to try to get as many games in as I can to get a feel for it, and I was just wondering if anyone else had tried removing Probes entirely, since I guess it has been discussed before.
Still talking about cutting Probes? I've got the feeling this thread is repeating itself every 2/3 pages.
The answer is no: you shouldn't cut Probes.
There is nothing about cutting probes in this thread. I checked the old one fairly often and I never really saw much discussion with playtesting it backing it up. I was asking if anyone here has had any experience playing without them, because I only get to play once a week. Your comment doesn't really help me or give me any insight.
I disagree because we have so many turn 1 plays that hardcasting a probe is never really a great option, especially since it's sorcery speed. The other option is to pay 2 life to cast it, and like I said previously, we already abuse our life total enough with our greedy manabase. Information is great, but there is a reason why every other deck in modern doesn't include 4 probes for "free" information. I also think that because we play 8 other cantrips, it makes a starting hand difficult to gauge if we have 2 or 3 cantrips in them. Do I keep the one lander? Do I keep the 4 lander? That probe could draw into a land or not, but you won't know.
The biggest concern I have with removing the Probes is:
Do I need to add a land to make up for it? - in this case I have been running 19 lands and I also plan to replace some number of probes with Remands, so I think this is a nonfactor
Will this slow down slamming a delve fattie? - There are cases where probe helps, but I think it increases the chances of a turn 2 Angler/Tasi by a very small percentage, which is acceptable to me.
Will I miss the information? - Certainly, but it will also help me get a better picture of my starting 7.
Anyway, I think I'd like to give it a try. I'm not sure if it will be optimal or not, but I won't know until I test! There are a bunch of cards throughout this whole thread that people have always wanted to try, but just couldn't find a slot for them. I think the Probes should be the first card to go if you're running 19 lands and what to try something new.
If you want to play a more down the line of tempo then that's where remand really shines; so for sure I would recommend 2 of them, might even say to cut the leaks and go for 4 remands if you want to really play a super tempo game. The main down side to that is if you don't have any pressure on board then remand is pretty poor
How do you feel about replacing probes with remands then? I'm leaning towards remands because they replace themselves and I love how often I see sideboard cards with so many cantrips.
Nutcase21 - EE is great against decks that go wide like Merfolk, tokens, zoo, etc. It can also come in against boggles. It is a great catch-all card, and also one of our only ways to deal with enchantments
I have been running 19 lands since I first started with the deck. I decided to experiment by taking out my probes and adding in additional countermagic in their stead. Dropping pyromancer turn 2 with a probe is definitely a play, but it's not backbreaking to the extent that I wanted to keep probes in. This deck abuses its life as a resource enough with the manabase as well, and we already run 4x Scours and Visions, which can make it hard to determine whether an opener is worth keeping if you have too many cantrips obscuring your information. Certain matchups I found that I truly missed the information from probe (Twin) but as already noted, that's a good MU anyway. I haven't really missed Probe in terms of powering out an early fattie, although I can't deny that it has helped me drop a turn two Angler several times. My list is looking like this:
This leaves me with 58 cards, and 2 slots to fill. I already added in a Clique because I wanted to give her a try. I was thinking about adding 2 Remands, but they don't really help any of the MU that give us a lot of trouble. I have found Remand to be fantastic against random on curve decks though, and it is decent against control, although a lot of the times we don't have the mana they do to truly abuse it. I have considered a singleton Rise // Fall, as it can be both tempo or midrangey depending on what we need, but that sorcery speed bums me out.
I'd also like to open a discussion about the untold tempo side to Delver. I've found that one of the truly powerful plays of Delver is doing something like: Kommanding their creature end of turn, bringing back Delver/Fattie, dropping Delver AND Fattie the next turn with counter backup. Along that line, Rise // Fall seems like it would be good. I had considered Rise // Fall originally because it makes that bolt-eating Delver come right back while bouncing whatever they happened to play that turn, but again, sorcery speed and the awkward mana are prohibitive. Do we have any cards available that can enable these type of plays more often? Again, Remand seems to fit well here, because it is a stall card that adds to our graveyard and lets us dig a card deep.
I'd like to hear some input on why these changes are good/bad. I've played a few random decks online with some of these changes and I just got back from FNM, but I don't have enough testing done yet to verify whether I like taking out the Probes or not.
To the Vampiric Link people - I still haven't tried out it but I'm going to counter argue it again! I promise I'll try it when I get some time.
I still like Death's Shadow though. He is truly and ultimately the best tempo play you can be making in a lot of situations, being potentially a 12/12 for 1 mana. I like to look at him like Tasigur and Angler, you have to know when to leverage him, and how much of your resource you want to sacrifice to set him up (Delving away key cards to get them out vs Life). Now obviously you aren't going to lose if you make a mistake delving away something you need, but I hope you understand the point I'm trying to make. Death's Shadow is a very hard card to play correctly, and I still feel like I haven't come close to playing him good enough to make an evaluation on him.
I'm not sure if he is better than Vampiric Link or Dragon's Claw in the burn MU. I think he gets the advantage of blanking however many Destructive Revelry get sided in and avoids you not gaining any life off an Angler/Tasi swing because of Atarka's Command or Skullcrack, but overall he is without a doubt more swingy and less reliable.
He can also be amazing in some of the creature based aggro matchups. I don't get to play as much as I'd like so I haven't tested it extensively, but I do sometimes side out a Delver/Young Pyromancer or two and bring him in against Affinity and Merfolk where chumping with tokens isn't very reliable or otherwise too slow to race. Going down to 3 Delvers and 2 Pyromancers to bring in two Death's Shadows has definitely helped me win some games. I will acknowledge the problem that some of these decks just go for "critical mass" type attacks where you get put in an awkward place where you can't play him one turn and it's too late when you drop him the next turn.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my notes again. I think Death's Shadow has more room to be explored as a great sideboard option to make this deck more explosive. I'm going to hop over to the old thread and re-read what other people have said about him there because I remember reading it a while back but I had not tested him at that point. I love this card because it has amazing art, amazing flavor text, and amazing flavor for a card as a whole. And it's a 13/13 for 1
I'm on 4 Scour, 2 Serum Visions, 2 Faithless Looting. I understand the strengths of Bauble but I just don't enjoy playing it, and I think GDS' performance with Bauble vs. without Bauble is close enough that personal preference being the deciding factor is fine.
I recently hopped back on the Young Pyro bandwagon and I'm not running Probes. I don't like the added lifeloss when our only way to pad our life is with Collective Brutality. The odds of having Pyro and Probe in hand turn 2 are pretty low, and it's easy enough to get value out of him past turn two. I don't think Pyro should be a main focus of the deck, rather a complement, and adding 3 more slots for Probes because you add Pyro is too big of a consideration when he already slots into the pre-existing shell fine.
I'm sorry, but there is no way in hell that Burn and GR Tron are favorable match-ups for Grixis Delver. You must either be running a lucky streak or playing against bad pilots. I will concede that Burn has gotten better with Spirebluff Canal and Collective Brutality, but even the lists that run those new additions and 7-8 counters are going to be a dog in the burn matchup. As soon as Overturf claimed it was even or favorable everyone seemed to hop on that bandwagon and apparently no one actually played the matchup since.
RG Tron has always been rough because Grixis Delver is as much a midrange deck as it is a tempo deck, but I personally have always struggled against it and I know there are many other Delver players who have shared the same experience with me. My build is the Kevin Jones style, but even when I ran a more tempo-oriented build I never had success against RG Tron.
If you were to ask me, this is how Grixis Delver lines up against the rest of the meta.
Bant Eldrazi -- Poor. Cavern is *****. Green super ponder makes me upset.
Burn -- Poor
Infect -- Good. Plenty of cheap interaction, easy for one side to outplay the other.
Affinity -- Good. Plenty of options to bring in against them. Maindeck Kommands are great.
Jund -- Even, maybe favorable depending on the SBs.
Dredge -- Very poor, unless you warp your board to fight it, in which case you could easily make it positive.
Abzan -- Poor, Lingering Souls is a beating
RG Tron -- Poor, if you don't land T1 Delver or T2 delve fatty you'll never be able to close fast enough, even with counter backup.
Titan Breach -- Even, I've heard others say this MU is bad, the only times I've played it I've felt comfortable. Maybe someone else can comment.
Jeskai Control -- Even. Kommand is too good, we have cheap threats that we can wait to deploy since they won't be pressuring us.
Merfolk -- Poor. Harbinger is such a tempo blowout against delve fatties or flipped delvers. Master of the Waves is hard to overcome.
Ad Naus -- Good. I've found it comes down to them having Pact of Negation or bust when they need to go off.
Abzan Company -- Even. Voice sucks, the rest of the deck isn't scary if you play around CoCo.
Death and Taxes/Hatebears -- Even, maybe slightly favorable. Haven't played it recently, but TK Seer is a pain in the ass.
DSA -- Haven't really played it, seems like it would be even
Titan Shift -- Even
Bushwacker -- Can't say I've played the matchup. Probably comes down to bolt in opening hand.
Overall what does that say? Realistically, Grixis Delver has more poor matchups than good matchups. Still, I love the deck and will continue to play it. If F&%#ing Cavern of Souls didn't exist, I'd throw Ceremonious Rejection into the board so fast, and Eldrazi and Tron variants would all be solidly positive.
1 Sphinx of the Final Word
2 Whirler Rogue
4 Walkers
2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
2 Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
27 Instants/Sorceries
2 Duress
2 Transgress the Mind
4 Anticipate
2 Epiphany at the Drownyard
1 Confirm Suspicions
2 Clash of Wills
2 Scatter to the Winds
4 Grasp of Darkness
2 Ultimate Price
2 Languish
1 Negate
1 Silumgar's Command
2 Dark Petition
4 Choked Estuary
4 Sunken Hollow
2 Submerged Boneyard
2 Blighted Cataract
1 Blighted Fen
6 Island
7 Swamp
I haven't made up the sideboard yet because I have no idea what my store's meta will look like. I will be including some generic cards though.
2 Infinite Obliteration which can be fetched and cast with Dark Petition.
1 Dragonlord Silumgar to side in against ramp
Some number of Duress, Negate, Dispel, Flaying Tendrils, Languish etc.
The win cons are obviously the walkers, but awakened lands and thopters can get there too if you can control the board. I chose Whirler Rogue because I wanted to keep my opponent's spot removal "turned off". It's also great to follow one up with a walker because you have 3 chump blockers to protect them. I was thinking about putting a Rise from the Tides in the board for surprise zombie hordes but that white exile card is too good against it.
I'm not sold on the Scatter/Clash spread. Clash is great as a 2 mana counter spell when the opponent is playing on curve, but I'm not sure if I want 2. I was thinking about running the exile counterspell for pesky recurring creatures too but that will be a meta call.
I've actually liked Epiphany as a source of card advantage. It's fine to play EOT for 3/4 mana when you aren't countering or killing something, but the fact that it scales from mediocre to massive card advantage the longer the game goes on is appealing.
I haven't played enough games (only been playing on cockatrice) or even know what standard looks like enough to know how well this deck will do, but I'm sure I could get a win or two a night from it. That's a win in my book for a deck that cost about $100 to build. I've been using this thread for some inspiration, so if anyone has any recommendations for my list I'd be glad to hear them! I didn't even know Dark Petition was a card until I heard people buzzing about it from the PT so I'm sure there are some other cards I've missed that are worth playing.
Terrible Matchups ~ 40/60
Burn
Junk
RG Tron
Bogles
Bad Matchups: ~45/55
Podless Pod
Zoo
Merfolk
Even Matchups: 50/50
Jund
Grixis Control
UW Midrange
Storm
Good matchups: ~55/45
Affinity
Infect
Elves
Scapeshift
Living End
Hatebears
I'd imagine the new Eldrazi deck is a pretty rough matchup too. I've never played Ad Naus but I'd imagine it is a favorable matchup.
One of my favorite things about Grixis Delver is how often you get to see your sideboard cards with 10+ cantrips in the deck. Thought Scour + Snap means you really get to a lot of chances to cast your efficient Instant/Sorceries. So any of these matchups can be tuned pretty effectively based on your sideboard.
The deck is fun and fresh. I can usually swing games pretty hard with a timely command, but I've also found that some games it's a non-impactful 4 mana spell. Once people see it once they are more prepared for it. It's great to counter a creature and bring back a Young Pyromancer. Sometimes I just bring back a creature and draw end of turn only to get the creature bolted again. It also isn't often that I have enough mana to bring back a snap and play something off of it.
All in all, it is pretty fun and can take people by surprise. Moving from Grixis, it is awesome to be able to gain life off of Helixes and Commands.
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Mantis Rider
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
4 Ojutai's Command
3 Path to Exile
4 Remand
2 Spell Snare
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Glacial Fortress
1 Seachrome Coast
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
I haven't really put together a meaningful sideboard yet, but it seems like Meddling Mage would be fun to try out. I've always wanted to try and jam that guy into a modern deck =P
This list let's us have some pretty good value game with Command and 4 Snapcasters. It is definitely slower out of the gate than the more streamlined versions though.
I have been running 19 lands, and I plan to replace at least 2 Probes with Remands to test, so I think 19 is fine. As such, I'm not really losing any percentage points for Delver flips.
My biggest concern right now is the loss of a guaranteed token from a turn 2 Peezy, and less chance of a turn 2 Angler. I actually just played a game on cockatrice where I had Pyro and 2 Remands in hand. It felt bad that I could've dropped a turn 2 Pyromancer and gotten 2 tokens, but I ended up holding Remand up on turn 2, casting Pyro on 3 with Scour, and I managed to untap, which felt great with the second Remand in hand. I'm not saying it turned out to be better. I would have still rather played Pyro and 2 Probes, but that is the one case I already acknowledged where I am losing power. It's also worth noting I had to fetch + shock so I would've been down to 13 by self damage if I did that play.
I'm going to try to get as many games in as I can to get a feel for it, and I was just wondering if anyone else had tried removing Probes entirely, since I guess it has been discussed before.
There is nothing about cutting probes in this thread. I checked the old one fairly often and I never really saw much discussion with playtesting it backing it up. I was asking if anyone here has had any experience playing without them, because I only get to play once a week. Your comment doesn't really help me or give me any insight.
I disagree because we have so many turn 1 plays that hardcasting a probe is never really a great option, especially since it's sorcery speed. The other option is to pay 2 life to cast it, and like I said previously, we already abuse our life total enough with our greedy manabase. Information is great, but there is a reason why every other deck in modern doesn't include 4 probes for "free" information. I also think that because we play 8 other cantrips, it makes a starting hand difficult to gauge if we have 2 or 3 cantrips in them. Do I keep the one lander? Do I keep the 4 lander? That probe could draw into a land or not, but you won't know.
The biggest concern I have with removing the Probes is:
Do I need to add a land to make up for it? - in this case I have been running 19 lands and I also plan to replace some number of probes with Remands, so I think this is a nonfactor
Will this slow down slamming a delve fattie? - There are cases where probe helps, but I think it increases the chances of a turn 2 Angler/Tasi by a very small percentage, which is acceptable to me.
Will I miss the information? - Certainly, but it will also help me get a better picture of my starting 7.
Anyway, I think I'd like to give it a try. I'm not sure if it will be optimal or not, but I won't know until I test! There are a bunch of cards throughout this whole thread that people have always wanted to try, but just couldn't find a slot for them. I think the Probes should be the first card to go if you're running 19 lands and what to try something new.
How do you feel about replacing probes with remands then? I'm leaning towards remands because they replace themselves and I love how often I see sideboard cards with so many cantrips.
Nutcase21 - EE is great against decks that go wide like Merfolk, tokens, zoo, etc. It can also come in against boggles. It is a great catch-all card, and also one of our only ways to deal with enchantments
I have been running 19 lands since I first started with the deck. I decided to experiment by taking out my probes and adding in additional countermagic in their stead. Dropping pyromancer turn 2 with a probe is definitely a play, but it's not backbreaking to the extent that I wanted to keep probes in. This deck abuses its life as a resource enough with the manabase as well, and we already run 4x Scours and Visions, which can make it hard to determine whether an opener is worth keeping if you have too many cantrips obscuring your information. Certain matchups I found that I truly missed the information from probe (Twin) but as already noted, that's a good MU anyway. I haven't really missed Probe in terms of powering out an early fattie, although I can't deny that it has helped me drop a turn two Angler several times. My list is looking like this:
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Snapcaster mage
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Young Pyromancer
Instants:
1 Dispel
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Mana Leak
1 Spell Pierce
2 Spelll Snare
3 Terminate
4 Thought Scour
1 Forked Bolt
4 Serum Visions
Lands:
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Darkslick Shores
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Swamp
1 Watery Grave
This leaves me with 58 cards, and 2 slots to fill. I already added in a Clique because I wanted to give her a try. I was thinking about adding 2 Remands, but they don't really help any of the MU that give us a lot of trouble. I have found Remand to be fantastic against random on curve decks though, and it is decent against control, although a lot of the times we don't have the mana they do to truly abuse it. I have considered a singleton Rise // Fall, as it can be both tempo or midrangey depending on what we need, but that sorcery speed bums me out.
I'd also like to open a discussion about the untold tempo side to Delver. I've found that one of the truly powerful plays of Delver is doing something like: Kommanding their creature end of turn, bringing back Delver/Fattie, dropping Delver AND Fattie the next turn with counter backup. Along that line, Rise // Fall seems like it would be good. I had considered Rise // Fall originally because it makes that bolt-eating Delver come right back while bouncing whatever they happened to play that turn, but again, sorcery speed and the awkward mana are prohibitive. Do we have any cards available that can enable these type of plays more often? Again, Remand seems to fit well here, because it is a stall card that adds to our graveyard and lets us dig a card deep.
I'd like to hear some input on why these changes are good/bad. I've played a few random decks online with some of these changes and I just got back from FNM, but I don't have enough testing done yet to verify whether I like taking out the Probes or not.
I still like Death's Shadow though. He is truly and ultimately the best tempo play you can be making in a lot of situations, being potentially a 12/12 for 1 mana. I like to look at him like Tasigur and Angler, you have to know when to leverage him, and how much of your resource you want to sacrifice to set him up (Delving away key cards to get them out vs Life). Now obviously you aren't going to lose if you make a mistake delving away something you need, but I hope you understand the point I'm trying to make. Death's Shadow is a very hard card to play correctly, and I still feel like I haven't come close to playing him good enough to make an evaluation on him.
I'm not sure if he is better than Vampiric Link or Dragon's Claw in the burn MU. I think he gets the advantage of blanking however many Destructive Revelry get sided in and avoids you not gaining any life off an Angler/Tasi swing because of Atarka's Command or Skullcrack, but overall he is without a doubt more swingy and less reliable.
He can also be amazing in some of the creature based aggro matchups. I don't get to play as much as I'd like so I haven't tested it extensively, but I do sometimes side out a Delver/Young Pyromancer or two and bring him in against Affinity and Merfolk where chumping with tokens isn't very reliable or otherwise too slow to race. Going down to 3 Delvers and 2 Pyromancers to bring in two Death's Shadows has definitely helped me win some games. I will acknowledge the problem that some of these decks just go for "critical mass" type attacks where you get put in an awkward place where you can't play him one turn and it's too late when you drop him the next turn.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my notes again. I think Death's Shadow has more room to be explored as a great sideboard option to make this deck more explosive. I'm going to hop over to the old thread and re-read what other people have said about him there because I remember reading it a while back but I had not tested him at that point. I love this card because it has amazing art, amazing flavor text, and amazing flavor for a card as a whole. And it's a 13/13 for 1