If someone sits opposite me with un-fetched lands in fear of stifle while I turn sideways with Delver or hit their basics with Sinkhole or ponder into another land-drop; I'm all good as they miss mana/turn. I'm also fine pondering into Dreadnought and aiming stifle at that instead, 2-3 turns not using the land is still value.
Stifle game 2 is weaker, but the implicit threat and narrowing of their options likely reducing the power of brainstorm, is all upside.
I'm not saying I think Sinkhole is a good choice at the minute, it's that 4 sinkhole is pretty random. You need to support it, as Stifle and Frostbringer do.
That's not the point. You're not swinging with Delver, you're casting Sinkhole. Or you're not, which leads to the tension between the two. I'm talking about the early turns of a game. If you're in the mid or late game these effects are terrible and should be used on other effects for Stifle (PW activations, Eldrazi triggers...whatever) or utility lands in the case of Sinkhole.Originally Posted by alastair
It's no secret that Delver decks with Stifle gain a huge percentage of a matchup when on the play. In theory 'not cracking fetches' sounds good to Delver, but that doesn't work when you're tapping out for a Dazable/Piercable spell like Hymn or Sinkhole. These spells just don't work in the same deck.
Congrats, man. What do you think about Grafdigger's Cage? It improves the Elves + generic GSZ MUs (and helps vs ANT / Dredge / Reanimator).
I'd cut the 3rd Surgical Extraction and probably the 2nd Winter Orb in favour of a Dread of Night, since the D&T MU looks like a massacre.
TEAM MtG Berlin
"Dredge isn't a deck, it's public masturbation with graveyard triggers."
Grafdigger's Cage is a fine sideboard card. It isn't a free spell, which is kind of annoying and those decks generally pack some kind of artifact/enchantment disruption, whether it be Reclamation Sage, Abrupt Decay, Nature's Claim, etc. Unfortunately, Grafdigger's Cage does stone nothing against Lands, which is a matchup we were trying to combat, especially here in eastern Maryland. I don't see Elves being played consistently enough for me to put specific hate cards in my sideboard for it.
Cutting the 2nd Winter Orb is reasonable, but you will definitely lose percentages against Miracles and Lands. Dread of Night certainly is a haymaker, and can be quite nice against the 4-Mentor build of Miracles in addition to D&T. I encourage you to test it and let us know what your results are. I will continue to be a proponent of this particular BUG build because I feel like it attacks the current meta very well and is as lean as a BUG Delver build has ever been.
If my meta were more D&T-heavy, rather than Lands/Aggro Loam/Miracles-heavy, I would have built the sideboard differently to include some number of sweeper effects.
Thanks for your answers. I will try and let you know my impressions on the deck.
TEAM MtG Berlin
"Dredge isn't a deck, it's public masturbation with graveyard triggers."
Hello Guys
Before i went to this deck i played RUG 2 years but always wanted to play Dark Confidant in a Delver shell.
So recently i saw this deck (Jim Davis list) and felt in love with it because it doesn't give up the mana denial plan.
I took the same list (changed maybe 2-3 SB slots) to GP Prague. On Friday the deck was bonkers.
I played in some small "Enter the Arena" events (4 rounds Swiss) and won a lot.
Then on Saturday i went 5-4 but was paired 3 times to Shardless (1-2, 2-1, 0-2), Lands (lost once at opponent at 2 life and at 3 life...), NicFit (just brutal vs Delver), and Imperial Taxes...
So the list was like 3 Decay, 2 Disfigure, 3 Stifle, 3 Confidant, 1 TNN, 3 Pierce, 3 FoW
SB:
2 Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Strix
1 Null Rod
1 Needle
1 Winter Orb
1 Clique
1 FoW
1 Golgari Charm
1 Dread of Night
1 Dismember
1 Pulse
So my question is how is your sideboard plan vs Shardless? I think they are generally in favor.
From my experience there are 2 ways to win: Stifle, Wasteland (mana denial) or Confidant (card advantage).
Tanks for some constructive answers of you guys!
This SB isn't well-equipped for Shardless, but I would probably go with -3 Force of Will, -3 Spell Pierce, +2 Baleful Strix, +1 Vendilion Clique, +1 Dismember, +1 Maelstrom Pulse, +1 Winter Orb. The 3rd Spell Pierce vs. the Winter Orb is a toss-up. I would say that Winter Orb is probably marginally better, but is very bad if you let them establish Deathrite Shaman presence. Stifle/Wasteland is probably your best route to victory. Shardless BUG will board into more removal and will take out their discard against you. They will just try to establish their mana, control your threats, and let cards like Ancestral Vision and Shardless Agent take over the game.
So this is what i don't understand. Why would you board in Strix? It is not really a creature which can close out games fast and i already play 16 of them.
What about the Charm vs. their Strix? It will kill your Confidant/TNN in the badest situation. But Maybe can also regenerate a targeted Delver/Goyf by Decay.
And what about the Thoughtseize, i know it's a bad topdeck but if you can early pick a BS, DRS, Agent, Hymn?
What about Needle on Liliana. Or do they already board it out?
Clique, Dismember, Pulse, Orb is set. But about the rest i'm not really sure.
Last edited by diablo4488; 08-07-2016 at 11:37 PM.
Let me preface this by saying that I don't think that Baleful Strix is actually a very good card vs. Shardless BUG. It is, however, better than either Force of Will or Spell Pierce. You have 6 cards that are actively bad in the matchup and 6 cards that are a bit better in your sideboard. Baleful Strix is perfectly reasonable because it replaces itself, it flies, and it trades profitably with every creature Shardless can present.
Charm is pretty bad vs. Shardless BUG as the -1/-1 ability hits only a single creature in their MD and the regenerate clause is pretty useless as you will only ever be trading it to save a single creature, which plays exactly into the Shardless gameplan. Thoughtseize, and all targeted discard, is quite bad because Shardless BUG isn't a deck that cares about the individual quality of its cards very much -- no one card is far and away better than the others. Discard is negative tempo as it does not affect the board and Shardless BUG plays draw 3s and every two-for-one imaginable, so they just don't care if you discard them. Also, they can just rip Shardless Agent and put 7 power on the board out of nowhere.
Pithing Needle is maybe justifiable as it hits Liliana, Jace, and Creeping Tar Pit, but it's not a card I would be super excited about drawing. It is also a nice Abrupt Decay target.
Top8'ed a small tourney (30 peepz) with a Stifle build of Team America. Draw vs Esper Deathblade, won vs Miracles, Junk, Shardless, UR Delver, Reanimator and lost in semis vs D&T.
If anyone is interested I could briefly write a report.
TEAM MtG Berlin
"Dredge isn't a deck, it's public masturbation with graveyard triggers."
I'm interested!
As requested by some of you, here's the report of my last tourney with deck. The list:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Stifle
2 Dismember
2 Spell Pierce
4 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Disfigure
2 Go for the Throat
1 Winter Orb
1 Pithing Needle
2 Painful Truths
1 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Thoughtseize
1 Dread of Night
I apologize in advance for any possible mistake I made reporting the games.
Miracles
We went for an extremely long game 1, where I put him low on life until he “stabilized” with Jace; unfortunately he had to -1 all the time in order to bounce my lonely Tarmo. I won at the time Jace left the field.
G2 was almost a recap of the first game, with multiple Termini hitting the table and a lot of Decay (4). He at 3 with two Angel tokens on the battlefield, I drew the mighty TNN after resolving two Painful Truths and right just before the lethal swing, a timely Terminus cleared the board. Turns were over after that.
1-0
SB
-2 Dismember, -2 Wasteland, -2 Daze
+1 Winter Orb, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Flusterstorm, +1 Dread of Night, +2 Painful Truths
Junk
I had the perfect curve with DRS + Tarmo. I Dazed an IoK and a SFM. He scooped very quickly.
I mulliganed to 5 in the second game and started with Delver + Delver + Daze backup. They flipped by themselves and flew over a Dark Confidant that revealed Choke first (non influential since I was way ahead) and Thoughtseize after, promptly played to speed up my clock.
2-0
SB
-4 Force of Will, -2 Spell Pierce
+2 Disfigure, +2 Thoughtseize, +2 Go for the Throat
Esper Deathblade
We know each other and we know what we do play. Not the greatest MU by my side.
I lost G1 due to the fact that I drew Stifle after Decay after Stifle after Decay and not a single threat. I messed up a bit his greedy manabase but in the end an equipped Snapcaster killed me.
I had a pretty fast clock in G2 and was able to completely screw up his manabase with Stifle and Wasteland. With 7 minutes left on the clock, we shuffled our decks and decide that time wouldn’t have been enough.
1-1-1
SB
-4 Force of Will, -2 Spell Pierce
+2 Disfigure, +2 Thoughtseize, +2 Go for the Throat
Shardless BUG
The not-so-easy-MU saga continues. We got deckchecked and my opponent was found with a Force of Will more than what his decklist was saying. We proceeded then to the second game where I was able to Decay his early Strix to let my Delver fly over the rainbow. I Fowed an Ancestral Recall and my opponent did not find any juice after that.
2-0
No SB but a pretty stock
-4 Force of Will, -2 Spell Pierce
+2 Disfigure, +2 Thoughtseize, +2 Go for the Throat
UR Delver
I stabilized the board with Tarmo and DRS plus removal for his Stormchaser Mage. He tried to PoP me to fast lethal but Spell Pierce saved the day.
He had his PoP revenge during G2, in which I was at 2 with active Wasteland + G DRS activation that wasn’t able to save me.
We went for G3, I killed his threats until a turn 3 True-Name Nemesis almost sealed the deal. He went for Grim Lavamancer but the race was from my side.
2-1
SB
-4 Force of Will, -2 Dismember
+2 Disfigure, +2 Go for the Throat, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Flusterstorm
Finished first after the swiss, straight to the Top8 where I had to face
Reanimator
I wrongly put my opponent on some kind of S&T variant since I saw him slammin’ a Show & Tell some matches before. I mulliganed a mediocre hand and kept a mono land hand with double Delver + double Stifle. I started with Delver, he went for Swamp and passed the turn. I masked my surprise and played another Delver. He went EOT Entomb grabbin’ the mighty Sphinx of the Steel Wind into Reanimate. I scooped.
I felt comfortable knowing my pretty strong SB and boarded like that:
-2 Dismember, -4 Abrupt Decay, -1 Wasteland
+2 Go for the Throat, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Flusterstorm, +2 Surgical Extraction, +1 Grafdigger’s Cage
Kept a nice hand with Surgical + DRS and went for the tiny planeswalker that got Decayed pretty soon. I was able to Pierce his S&T and Extract all his Griselbrands. Downhill from there, with Tarmo and DRS keeping safe the board.
We went for G3. We cantripped a bit and I sculpt my hand with 2x Force (with pitch), Flusterstorm and triple DRS. Nuff’ said.
2-1
Death and Taxes
Yeah, why not. Awfullest MU ever. G1 was really close, with a flipped Delver that putted him to 3. He found then a Serra Avenger that closed the road. A superlative Brainstorm showed me double DRS + True-Name Nemesis. I kept the Shaman and played quickly the second one. Suddenly, a random Revoker came from the top and shut the door. TNN was my last chance but an equipped (with Jitte) Mirran Crusader and me without Stifles decided that NO.
(Massive) SB
-4 Stifle, -3 Force of Will
+1 Dread of Night, +2 Disfigure, +2 Go for the Throat, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Winter Orb, +2 Thoughtseize
The most perfect curve killed me in 4 or 5 turns. Crusader alive and kickin’ for the win. There was absolutely no chance.
5-1-1, 10-1-1
The tournament went smoothly and all my opponents were very friendly and positive. Props to the organizer and to my Berlin fellas.
TEAM MtG Berlin
"Dredge isn't a deck, it's public masturbation with graveyard triggers."
Cheers for the report, and nicely done! Sounds like TNN was clutch a number of times. How have the Cliques been for everybody? I understand they're largely with Miracles in mind, but we do have Stifles for miracle triggers, could it become two of the fish instead? It's such a huge trump in a lot of fair matchup and is Mongoose 5-6 vs Miracles.
Regarding the DnT matchup. I think we have to go to two Dread of Night in the SB at least or just abandon the matchup, it's such a nightmare.
Cheers man.
Clique is really versatile and has a lot of applications. An underrated card.
Regarding the Dnt matchup. I was thinking at a Jitte: it's the only way to kill a Crusader, our biggest and problematic creature.
TEAM MtG Berlin
"Dredge isn't a deck, it's public masturbation with graveyard triggers."
It's good no doubt, I love playing with it too, but TNN seems to be a perfect fit in this deck too. Might give this list a run with 2x soon over the Cliques, will let you guys know if I get the chance.
TNN can deal with Crusader too in a sense as long as you keep Mother of Runes off the table.
I don't think you can play jitte in this deck, DRS isn't ideal to carry it, you can't equip to the goose because of shroud, Delvers rarely live in the matchups you want Jitte. If we had more TNNs then there's an argument for itWould probably need some Strix in the SB too to have enough creatures to equip to, and evasion is great for this plan. But this is moving away from the Stifle plan of the deck too much.
I agree. The 2nd Dread of Night seems to be the better choice, even if I'm still wondering what to cut.
Btw 4-0ed the local tonight. Won against Miracles, Eldrazi, the mirror and UR Delver.
TNN MVP: confirmed.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.
TEAM MtG Berlin
"Dredge isn't a deck, it's public masturbation with graveyard triggers."
I see some recent lists, like the previously discussed, running 2 Painful Truths. My question is wouldn't we want to play Sylvan Library in that spot? Lower mana cost, pumps goyf when it's in the GY, can use every turn, etc.
In order to get in 2 Dread of Night, I am looking at something like this (+1 Orb, +1 Library, +1 Dread of Night, -2 Painful Truths, -1 GD Cage):
2 Disfigure
2 Go for the Throat
2 Winter Orb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sylvan Library
1 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Dread of Night
If anyone has already tried this please let me know your experience. I'll be trying this out myself.
I'm not a fan of Sylvan Library these days. It's slow vs other Delver or midrange decks and vs Miracles they will be bringing in W//T for Orb, Needle and Null Rod already, having an Enchantment too is such a blowout. I'm not big on Painful Truths either but would play it over Library. Also, when comparing Truths vs Library, to get the CA Truths gives you have to pay an additional 5 life.
I think if you're playing Stifle you just play to get under these decks and tempo them out. Otherwise you lean on Hymn primarily for card advantage.
Nice work!
Especially now with this new Recruiter I'll be running a couple of Dread of Nights at least I think, haymakers are imperative to win the matchup, I'm just worried they'll have easy access to a Leonin Relic-Warder now
I'm not sure what the cut is either, though. I think a piece of removal could go, with 4 Decay/2 Dismember MD and 4 additional pieces in the SB a GffT could be shaved, would depend how it effects Eldrazi SBing tables.
I've been concentrating on 4c Delver and Miracles recently in the run up to MKM London, but will try and get some games in with the Mongoose build soon!
I am a big fan of Jim Davis' innovation of Stifles with a few spots shaved to introduce 3 Confidants. This is where I'm at for the Legacy Open at SCG NJ this weekend:
Legacy Stifle BUG Delver
//Threat
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Dark Confidant
1 True-Name Nemesis
--16
//Counter
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
4 Daze
--10
//Disruption
3 Stifle
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Disfigure
1 Dismember
--8
//Draw
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
--8
//Mana
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
--18
//Sideboard
1 Marsh Casualties
1 Dread of Night
1 Disfigure
2 Baleful Strix
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Force of Will
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Winter Orb
1 Bitterblossom
--15
In trying out Bitterblossom vs. Miracles, Lands and grindy fair decks. Has anyone used it before?
I wonder why this matchup is so bad for you? 2x Disfigure, 3x Confidant, 3x Decay, 1x TNN are just powerhouses vs. them.
And after sideboarding it's even more in our favor i think.
Just don't keep greedy landlight hands.
+2 Strix (good)
+2 Thoughtseize (ok)
+1 Null Rod (amazing)
+1 Needle (amazing)
+1 Golgari Charm (amazing)
+1 Maelstrom Pulse (good)
+1 Dismember (good)
+1 Dread of Night (amazing)
-4 Daze (always bad i feel vs. them)
-3 Stifle (yes i know good vs. RIP, Mother, Vial, etc.)
-3 Spell Pierce (nope)
I think i would give this matchup 60/40 in our favor (with my list).
Other Delver variants are a lot more in trouble.
Miracles is already a good matchup with the Stifle/Confidant version i feel like.
Vs. Lands i would probably give it a try!
| Grixis Control
| Canadian Threshold
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote
