[Deck] Grixis Tempo

[Jaytron]

did u ever try Ancestral Vision ?
I am not sure if it fits in a tempo deck..

It doesn't, IMO.

[Delvis]

Went 3-3 with the Prowess build at Squabbles in Glen Burnie, MD yesterday. I replaced my Stifles with Therapies and an additional Abbot. I might swap the third Abbot for a third Pyromancer, but the list has been a solid performer for me. If not for losing my motivation at the end of round 5 and showing up late to round 6 (in which I faced Imperial Painter and should have trashed him), I'd have had a puncher's chance at Top 8 of a 66-player event.

I may not be on the most efficient list, or the most popular, but I have a blast while playing and it seems to work pretty smoothly.

Edit: And Ancestral Vision is hot garbage in any list not planning on Cascading into it. It's just bad if you don't get it on Turn 1, and we'd rather be playing a Delver or DRS or Swiftspear on turn 1. Or even a Ponder. Or Therapy. You get the idea.

[cherson]

Went 3-3 with the Prowess build at Squabbles in Glen Burnie, MD yesterday. I replaced my Stifles with Therapies and an additional Abbot. I might swap the third Abbot for a third Pyromancer, but the list has been a solid performer for me. If not for losing my motivation at the end of round 5 and showing up late to round 6 (in which I faced Imperial Painter and should have trashed him), I'd have had a puncher's chance at Top 8 of a 66-player event.

I may not be on the most efficient list, or the most popular, but I have a blast while playing and it seems to work pretty smoothly.

Edit: And Ancestral Vision is hot garbage in any list not planning on Cascading into it. It's just bad if you don't get it on Turn 1, and we'd rather be playing a Delver or DRS or Swiftspear on turn 1. Or even a Ponder. Or Therapy. You get the idea.

agree on the ancestral vision. it's only good on turn 1. afterwards every ponder, etc is better.

btw, did u play against enchantress?

[Delvis]

agree on the ancestral vision. it's only good on turn 1. afterwards every ponder, etc is better.

btw, did u play against enchantress?

No. I did play against it at the Duel for Duals during Eternal Weekend. That was not a fun matchup, but it's such a non-factor in the metagame I haven't been worrying about it. However, I'd have to imagine that since I now have 2 Explosives in my sideboard, the matchup gets marginally better, but I'm not sure how much we could improve it.

If Enchantress is a serious player in your metagame, I'd advise playing a different deck. My strategy for avoiding it has been to win matches. I usually see the Enchantress guys haunting the X-2 bracket.

[cherson]

No. I did play against it at the Duel for Duals during Eternal Weekend. That was not a fun matchup, but it's such a non-factor in the metagame I haven't been worrying about it. However, I'd have to imagine that since I now have 2 Explosives in my sideboard, the matchup gets marginally better, but I'm not sure how much we could improve it.

If Enchantress is a serious player in your metagame, I'd advise playing a different deck. My strategy for avoiding it has been to win matches. I usually see the Enchantress guys haunting the X-2 bracket.

no it is not, I am the only one playing it :) but I saw another report frm that tournament and enchantress crushed grixis delver and I thought u were the lucky one.
explosives are solid cards against enchantress and it will definitely help u out. as long as the board is not full of suppression fields, gaddog and nevermore, but unlikely.

[Delvis]

Nobody's posting anything and I feel like the only person who's still working on this deck, so I'm just going to go on a bit of a ramble about my thought process. So this is where I currently am with this deck:

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Abbot of Keral Keep
2 Young Pyromancer
2 Gurmag Angler

4 Lightning Bolt
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Polluted Delta
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Perish
1 Sudden Demise
1 Volcanic Spray
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Snare

4 Wasteland is starting to feel like too much without Stifles; I had multiple chances to Waste opponents out of mana and they withstood the attempt, then followed with their own Wastelands to kill all my sources of mana. Or that time I kept a 2-Waste hand against Jeskai Delver and my opponent fetched all basics and then ripped Wastes to kill my mana.

So, I wanted more colored sources, and I want more resiliency against Wastelands (I already don't care a whole lot about Blood Moon). I cut the third Volc and a Waste for the other two on-color basics. This opens up the possibility of play Moons of my own due to the heavy red base of the deck, but I elected not to with this board.

The rest of the main feels very tight. I would like to get the third Pyro and/or the fourth Therapy, but I just can't find the room. If you put a gun to my head to make the cuts, I'd cut an Abbot and a Ponder, but that doesn't feel quite right. It's possible I should be sideboarding extra YPs for the grindy matchups to maximize my Therapies. I dunno.

Volcanic Spray in the side is a test card. The design of it aligns very well with a heavy Prowess creature base. It's competing with the second Explosives, so if it doesn't live up to that performance level it might get cut. That loss to Maverick in Top 4 still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I imagine playing + flashing it and then attacking with two Prowess triggers after clearing their board will go a long way. I also really like the idea of being able to wipe Elves' board and have another sweep just sitting in the grave ready to go.

Pillar got a spot because I lost to TES and realized that without maindeck Stifles/DRS the matchup is actually not terrific. Bryant Cook's in my meta (although he wasn't the TES player) and I know of several ANT players running around as well, so being prepared for Storm is important as I'm virtually assured of having to beat it at least once in order to win a tournament. It can do a lot of damage to me, but they cannot go off without dealing with it, and it takes time to dig that answer out of their deck - time they won't have thanks to my creature pressure.

I'm playing Crypt over Spellbomb for a few reasons. One, it's a free Prowess trigger. Two, being free, I can play threats with my mana and keep up disruption for Storm without committing or holding up any mana (which is also true for Surgical and my counterspells). Three, being free, it's a lot better to flip when I play an Abbot with only two mana available. The drawback is you lose the ability to cantrip off of it, but I think the benefits outweigh that.

I'm playing Spell Snare over the second Flusterstorm because I realized it interacts with the key spell of the Storm decks, which is either Tutor or Wish, depending on how they're going off. It can also nab Cabal Ritual. Diversifying my hate package for them also protects me from Cabal Therapy. But why Snare over Mindbreak Trap? Well, Snare is usable in many other matchups where there is an important 2cc spell to counter: Miracles (Counterbalance, maybe Snapcaster), Shardless (half the stuff they Cascade into, including - notably - Tarmogoyf and Strix), Delver matchups (YP/Tarmogoyf/a whole bunch of stuff from BUG), Stoneblade matchups (SFM, Jitte, other value), and even Lands (Chalice on 1, or a timely Loam/Punishing Fire counter). I also chose Snare over Pierce because it hits Tarmogoyf, Stoneforge Mystic, and Baleful Strix (which is an enormous pest).

This list has a surprisingly good matchup against Lands and Shardless, as I've played four tournament matches against these decks now and have yet to lose a match (I even beat Shardless on a mull to 4 in game 1, and mulled to 6 three or four times against the Lands players). Putting a lot of early pressure on Lands can be more than they can deal with. I also beat Miracles once and I felt pretty solid about the matchup, especially considering he resolved 3 Terminus (each getting multiple creatures) in one game and I won anyway. I think my prediction about the metagame was correct, and that the slower, grindy decks cannot keep pace with fast tempo decks without DTT. They may adjust, but right now this build is hitting a sweet spot in the metagame.

[cherson]

4 Wasteland is starting to feel like too much without Stifles; I had multiple chances to Waste opponents out of mana and they withstood the attempt, then followed with their own Wastelands to kill all my sources of mana. Or that time I kept a 2-Waste hand against Jeskai Delver and my opponent fetched all basics and then ripped Wastes to kill my mana.

So, I wanted more colored sources, and I want more resiliency against Wastelands (I already don't care a whole lot about Blood Moon). I cut the third Volc and a Waste for the other two on-color basics. This opens up the possibility of play Moons of my own due to the heavy red base of the deck, but I elected not to with this board.

The rest of the main feels very tight. I would like to get the third Pyro and/or the fourth Therapy, but I just can't find the room. If you put a gun to my head to make the cuts, I'd cut an Abbot and a Ponder, but that doesn't feel quite right. It's possible I should be sideboarding extra YPs for the grindy matchups to maximize my Therapies. I dunno.

Volcanic Spray in the side is a test card. The design of it aligns very well with a heavy Prowess creature base. It's competing with the second Explosives, so if it doesn't live up to that performance level it might get cut. That loss to Maverick in Top 4 still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I imagine playing + flashing it and then attacking with two Prowess triggers after clearing their board will go a long way. I also really like the idea of being able to wipe Elves' board and have another sweep just sitting in the grave ready to go.

Pillar got a spot because I lost to TES and realized that without maindeck Stifles/DRS the matchup is actually not terrific. Bryant Cook's in my meta (although he wasn't the TES player) and I know of several ANT players running around as well, so being prepared for Storm is important as I'm virtually assured of having to beat it at least once in order to win a tournament. It can do a lot of damage to me, but they cannot go off without dealing with it, and it takes time to dig that answer out of their deck - time they won't have thanks to my creature pressure.

I'm playing Crypt over Spellbomb for a few reasons. One, it's a free Prowess trigger. Two, being free, I can play threats with my mana and keep up disruption for Storm without committing or holding up any mana (which is also true for Surgical and my counterspells). Three, being free, it's a lot better to flip when I play an Abbot with only two mana available. The drawback is you lose the ability to cantrip off of it, but I think the benefits outweigh that.

I'm playing Spell Snare over the second Flusterstorm because I realized it interacts with the key spell of the Storm decks, which is either Tutor or Wish, depending on how they're going off. It can also nab Cabal Ritual. Diversifying my hate package for them also protects me from Cabal Therapy. But why Snare over Mindbreak Trap? Well, Snare is usable in many other matchups where there is an important 2cc spell to counter: Miracles (Counterbalance, maybe Snapcaster), Shardless (half the stuff they Cascade into, including - notably - Tarmogoyf and Strix), Delver matchups (YP/Tarmogoyf/a whole bunch of stuff from BUG), Stoneblade matchups (SFM, Jitte, other value), and even Lands (Chalice on 1, or a timely Loam/Punishing Fire counter). I also chose Snare over Pierce because it hits Tarmogoyf, Stoneforge Mystic, and Baleful Strix (which is an enormous pest).

This list has a surprisingly good matchup against Lands and Shardless, as I've played four tournament matches against these decks now and have yet to lose a match (I even beat Shardless on a mull to 4 in game 1, and mulled to 6 three or four times against the Lands players). Putting a lot of early pressure on Lands can be more than they can deal with. I also beat Miracles once and I felt pretty solid about the matchup, especially considering he resolved 3 Terminus (each getting multiple creatures) in one game and I won anyway. I think my prediction about the metagame was correct, and that the slower, grindy decks cannot keep pace with fast tempo decks without DTT. They may adjust, but right now this build is hitting a sweet spot in the metagame.

I also changed my mana base and added basics. I am too afraid of wasteland :(
I play: 7 fetch, 3 wastelands, 2 volcanic, 1 usea, 1 tropical, 2 islands, 1 swamp, 1 mountain

but my list is in general a bit different. I play 3 stifle instead of your cabal, 2 tnn and 4 deathrite instead of your 4 monastery, 3 abbot.
I love the tnn's. too powerful.

well, u are not the only one who is working on that deck. :)

[HNana]

I won a small 8 man weekly legacy tourney with the decklist delvis posted: https://twitter.com/HBSTnipponbashi/...05973643456512
I changed around 1 abbot for a 4th cabal therapy, and the sideboard i made to deal with my meta.

Round 1 I beat blue control (propaganda/vendalken shackles, counterspell, back to basics etc) deck 2-0 pretty easy with delver, swiftspear and therapy.

Round 2 I beat miracles by beating with one beater at a time (letting him terminus away a single swiftspear etc), and just beating to the face. Sided in some hate for top and he couldnt deal with it. 2-0

Round 3 I beat omnishow really easy. He burning wishes for a show and tell turn 2, i play therapy, he fow's it, i daze the fow, and then name s/t, he's left with omniscience and a release the ants. He plays release the ants to deal 1 damage to me, i reveal a ponder, he reveals a land, it goes to the graveyard and he scoops.

Game 2 I thoughtseize, he fow. He resolves a turn 3 s/t, puts omni into play. He doesnt have any more cantrips or anything, and i've got fow backup. He plays another omni and passes. I git probe him, he reveals a land, i double pyroblast his omnis and then extrapate his show and tells and he scoops.
2-0

I won 6 games in a row. The decklist is legit, but if it runs out of gas I tended to have a lot of trouble. When it's good, it's really good though, grixis is not to be counted out!

[cherson]

I won a small 8 man weekly legacy tourney with the decklist delvis posted: https://twitter.com/HBSTnipponbashi/...05973643456512
I changed around 1 abbot for a 4th cabal therapy, and the sideboard i made to deal with my meta.

Round 1 I beat blue control (propaganda/vendalken shackles, counterspell, back to basics etc) deck 2-0 pretty easy with delver, swiftspear and therapy.

Round 2 I beat miracles by beating with one beater at a time (letting him terminus away a single swiftspear etc), and just beating to the face. Sided in some hate for top and he couldnt deal with it. 2-0

Round 3 I beat omnishow really easy. He burning wishes for a show and tell turn 2, i play therapy, he fow's it, i daze the fow, and then name s/t, he's left with omniscience and a release the ants. He plays release the ants to deal 1 damage to me, i reveal a ponder, he reveals a land, it goes to the graveyard and he scoops.

Game 2 I thoughtseize, he fow. He resolves a turn 3 s/t, puts omni into play. He doesnt have any more cantrips or anything, and i've got fow backup. He plays another omni and passes. I git probe him, he reveals a land, i double pyroblast his omnis and then extrapate his show and tells and he scoops.
2-0

I won 6 games in a row. The decklist is legit, but if it runs out of gas I tended to have a lot of trouble. When it's good, it's really good though, grixis is not to be counted out!

interesting, well done. how do u feel abt abbot? I am not quite sure if he is really 'better' than tnn.
what did u cast when he entered the battlefield? was it game breaking?

[HNana]

interesting, well done. how do u feel abt abbot? I am not quite sure if he is really 'better' than tnn.
what did u cast when he entered the battlefield? was it game breaking?

I usually cast him after a previous or eot brainstorm, usually for something like a swift spear or a bolt.
He was good as a card advantage engine, and when I cleared my opponents board he was a faster clock than Tnn, but I think Tnn might be overall better just for being a threat that's very very hard to deal with if it resolves. It was worth trying out but in the end I would say Tnn is just better.

[cherson]

I usually cast him after a previous or eot brainstorm, usually for something like a swift spear or a bolt.
He was good as a card advantage engine, and when I cleared my opponents board he was a faster clock than Tnn, but I think Tnn might be overall better just for being a threat that's very very hard to deal with if it resolves. It was worth trying out but in the end I would say Tnn is just better.

basically u can't play him before round three because u need (at least) one free mana for the exiled spell.
I will stick to the tnn. I am not convinced of abbot...

did anyone change somehting on the last decks? I fallen in love with stifle. stifling a fetch land and seeing the opp face is just what makes me happy

[Whitefaces]

I tried this at my LGS this week. Bit of a weak 2-2 finish, but one loss was to my friend on a 74 card mirror and the other was to a more typical Grixis Delver deck, I think I played that match suboptimally and got wastelanded out then zombie fished. Beat Bant Retreat and Shardless (with 3 deluge md!).

The idea behind it was porting a BUG delver list with 2x Bob and 2x TNN I've had a small bit of success with into a Grixis built as bolt is just insane. But the antisynergy of DRS and Volc was more apparent than comfortable in a few games.

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Dark Confidant
3 True-Name Nemesis

4 Ponder

4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
3 Spell Pierce
1 Abrupt Decay

3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
8 blue fetch


SB:
1 Forked Bolt
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Flusterstorm
1 Sudden Demise
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Null Rod
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Winter Orb
1 Sylvan Library
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Fire Covenant

[ironclad8690]

I tried this at my LGS this week. Bit of a weak 2-2 finish, but one loss was to my friend on a 74 card mirror and the other was to a more typical Grixis Delver deck, I think I played that match suboptimally and got wastelanded out then zombie fished. Beat Bant Retreat and Shardless (with 3 deluge md!).

The idea behind it was porting a BUG delver list with 2x Bob and 2x TNN I've had a small bit of success with into a Grixis built as bolt is just insane. But the antisynergy of DRS and Volc was more apparent than comfortable in a few games.

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Dark Confidant
3 True-Name Nemesis

4 Ponder

4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
3 Spell Pierce
1 Abrupt Decay

3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
8 blue fetch


SB:
1 Forked Bolt
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Flusterstorm
1 Sudden Demise
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Null Rod
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Winter Orb
1 Sylvan Library
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Fire Covenant

Nice list, I always wanted to try Bob in a similar way, but I always just went with Zombie fish instead.

[Whitefaces]

Nice list, I always wanted to try Bob in a similar way, but I always just went with Zombie fish instead.

Zombie fish was a consideration, might try it at some point in the future. I'm just a huge fan of Bob as he always overperforms for me in decks with cheap disruption. Obviously the strain of Bob vs high CMC is the reason to not include both, but they also perform different roles. The fish is just a beater, which we have in Delver and TNN, though they both have evasion too, whereas bob is utility. It's not as simple as replacing one with the other imo.

Moving forward, I feel like the correct number for both Bob and TNN is 2 in these tempo decks, whatever the flavour. One is enough to make an impact on the game, drawing multiples can be clunky. Not sure where the other two creatures come from though, possibly two YP. All threats would be attacking on different angles which is attractive.

I might switch the Stifle/Pierce split to 4/2 as well. Stifle is just better in multiples. I pierce cantrips very aggressively, but they can still get clogged up in hand on occasion.

[blablub]

Nice, im toying around with nearly the same List, just -1 True-Name Nemesis + 1 Abrupt Decay and i switched a Volcanic Island for a Taiga. Taiga feels really good because u gonna fetch Underground Sea first most of the Time.

Still not sure about the Sideboard. How much Disruption do you need against Storm? Do you want Discard to fight Combo? and i'm still not sure about the Removalspells you want to have Postboard...

I dont like the Fish in this type of Deck because its more or likley a lategame - Thread like the Nemesis

[cherson]

Nice, im toying around with nearly the same List, just -1 True-Name Nemesis + 1 Abrupt Decay and i switched a Volcanic Island for a Taiga. Taiga feels really good because u gonna fetch Underground Sea first most of the Time.

Still not sure about the Sideboard. How much Disruption do you need against Storm? Do you want Discard to fight Combo? and i'm still not sure about the Removalspells you want to have Postboard...

I dont like the Fish in this type of Deck because its more or likley a lategame - Thread like the Nemesis

hmm. I don't like non island duals. I tried badlands but I somehow ended up not having the blue mana/island for my 1 instants or daze.
concerning fish, I really like him. we don't need the cards in our graveyard anymore and dropping him round 3-4 is just game breaking.

[tescrin]

I have a buddy trying this for me:

-13-
4 Deathrite
4 Delver
2 Angler
1 Tasigur
2 Sulfur Elemental

-28-
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Forked Bolt
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

-19-
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
8 blue fetch


I've been happy with the early testing since Sulfur Elemental is:
-Immune to Counterspells for other Delver decks/Miracles
-Difficult to CounterTop against
-Kills planeswalkers or bolts the opponent with psuedo-haste
-Hedges against Maverick/D&T in the main; especially next to Forked bolt

It's better than it looks on paper I think; we'll see how he does tonight.

I'm trying Kolaghan's as a hedge against Equips that were doing good against him in testing.

[Maerlin]

Hello guys, these days I'm trying to get up after the DDT ban. I'm testing Bob too, but I don't know if i'm in the right path here.
Today I playtested it vs Elves and vs Burn and 2 times a FoW reveal by Bob almost killed me. What's the "best" way to play with Bob?

This is my list:

2 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Young Pyromancer
2 True-Name Nemesis

1 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt

1 Forked Bolt
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder

1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn

My Sideboard is still pretty generic and it looks like this:

1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Flusterstorm
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sudden Demise
2 Dread of Night

I'm really fishing for some advice here. :(
Thanks in advance guys!

[HNana]

basically u can't play him before round three because u need (at least) one free mana for the exiled spell.
I will stick to the tnn. I am not convinced of abbot...

did anyone change somehting on the last decks? I fallen in love with stifle. stifling a fetch land and seeing the opp face is just what makes me happy

While abbot worked well against miracles because of the etb effect, tnn is still so much better overall and can just win so hard pre-board against a lot of decks. I had to also worry about casting it and then not being able to play the card, so it was more effort than it needed to be for me. Tnn is just play it, turn it sideways.

Heck, bob serves a similar purpose (extra cards) and just does it a lot better imo.

[cherson]

While abbot worked well against miracles because of the etb effect, tnn is still so much better overall and can just win so hard pre-board against a lot of decks. I had to also worry about casting it and then not being able to play the card, so it was more effort than it needed to be for me. Tnn is just play it, turn it sideways.

Heck, bob serves a similar purpose (extra cards) and just does it a lot better imo.

that is exactly the point I don't like on abbot, there is always a risk that u can't play the card u exile.
I won't play him.

bob is actually the best alternative to draw more cards. but that wld mean I have to cut the fish and I don't like the idea.
currently I play two tnn and two fish. cutting fish means I got only two creatures which are immune to bolt, decay.
fish is also great against CB...
but the card advantage of bob, heck I don't know :(