@Draggo: The only reason you faced burn twice in the top 8 was b/c I dropped the semis to be home in time for pizza.
@others: I'm the Nic Fit player he mentions. Please do note we played quite some games at my place the day after and he got forcefed quite some rhino-power.
On top of that overall meta breakdown, here's the Top 16 from the Legacy Classic at the SCG Invi: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...egas&limit=100Originally Posted by h2o
Grixis Delver took it down, with another copy in the Top 8. The only other deck that had multiple copies in the Top 8 was ANT, and in fact no deck had more than 2 copies in the Top 16.
Grixis Delver is everywhere and the only people not aware are the mods of The Source. I'd set the over/under at 3 copies in the Players' Championship next week.
More interestingly than petty forum squabbles, it seems we've settled on a maindeck 60 for this deck in the North American meta. Both decks in the Top 8 had stock maindecks and were mostly identical, with the only exception being they used different fetchland counts. It seems condensed and focused, and I don't see any particular reason to deviate from this list at this time. The only thing I would want is at least one basic land to avoid getting blown out by Blood Moon and/or Wasteland, but it doesn't seem like that's actually all that necessary. I'm going to copy the winning list here and take it to the local mid-major tournament this weekend, because I think his sideboard is better for my meta.
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
I sort of see it as a core 58 with the 4th Stifle and 4th Probe as flex slots. In a large tournament I'm fine playing that 60, but in smaller local metas I tend to put in some tech.
I don't think playing a basic is correct, because this deck is so color-intensive as is. Between Deathrite and Pyromancer we can still win through a Blood Moon and I've done it before. If you're playing against a Moon deck and you're going to play Deathrite, make sure you have some way to get lands in the yard so you can cast some spells.
Yeah, this is where I am currently at. You cede some percentage of games against Wasteland due to your entire mana base being vulnerable to it, but it's about an equivalent amount to how many you cede to color screw by playing a basic.
I played four rounds last night at a small local event, went 2-2 but my fourth round opponent reported it as a win for me since he was ineligible for prizes. Good dude.
Got paired down twice in a row to two different turn 1 Chalice decks (Aggro Loam and a terrible Magistrate's Scepter brew who had a match mis-reported and was supposed to be 0-3) and just got wrecked. I think I may have just made poor mulligan/sideboarding decisions due to inexperience against these types of decks, so in the future I'll be mulliganing more aggressively, but 2 of the 4 games I lost to it were because they had multiple copies to push through my counters. I'd like to put an Ancient Grudge in the sideboard. How do you guys sideboard for t1 Chalice decks?
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
New to the deck, can anyone please provide some tips for beating lands?
Your only way to beat them is with an aggressive draw. You will not be able to outgrind them, barring a low-percentage Gamble whiff or something. There are some draws from them that you will not be able to beat, so if you're debating a 6-card keep because it's cold to Tabernacle or Punishing Fire, you may have to just keep and pray they don't have it.
Wasteland and DRS are the best cards in your deck, being the primary method you have of interacting with what they are trying to do.
Surgical Extraction out of the sideboard is a potential gamebreaker, but you have to pick your targets carefully because odds are that's the only one you're drawing.
Pithing Needle is very good but you have to be careful with this as well. I lost a win-and-in to prizes because my opponent responded to Needle by copying a Forest with his Stage, and then like an idiot I named Stage anyway and he promptly combo'd me on the next turn (Stage copies the name, too).
Keep up a Wasteland if you can, unless they are showing a mana screw hand (which is unlikely). They can drop a Tabernacle at instant speed and will commit hard to tutoring for it when you go wide, and you need to be able to answer it. Keeping up a Wasteland also makes them play around it to set up the Marit Lage combo. Being a tempo deck, this can go a long way to winning the match.
Counter any Exploration/Manabond effects!! You probably have to let Mox Diamond resolve; it sucks, but countering it just never works out. However, a resolved Exploration makes it virtually impossible for you to win. Countering Crop Rotation is also anywhere from fine to very good. Countering Gamble is reasonable if they're low on cards in hand or don't have a Loam, because you can be assured that's what they're getting (that, or something even worse for you).
Stifle is fine, but be very careful: you can't really Stifle the Dark Depths trigger. It will be countered, and then it will trigger again. You have to Stifle the Stage activation, which means it's just a delay tactic and not a blowout. You can Stifle the buyback trigger for Punishing Fire, which can be enough to push through lethal.
Also, don't Stifle the Mox Diamond discard trigger. I've seen a Delver player do this. It's not Chrome Mox; it can still tap for mana. You just saved them from the drawback of pitching a land.
Some people board out Bolts against Lands but I think this is 100% wrong. You need to be aggressive and burn them out, and there's no way you're doing that without Bolts.
Daze is bad because it gets blanked by Mox and is basically useless past turn 1 or so. But Force isn't much better. You really kind of have to pick your poison here because you need counterspells for their gamebreakers but all your counters are subpar. I opt for Force here for the most part because it doesn't get blanked by a Mox, but YMMV.
Therapy is pretty bad but not dead. If you're on the play, it can help protect you from the really dangerous stuff like Exploration or Chalice. Just be aware that past turn 2 that card is basically blank. I never bring them in.
EDIT: I completely forgot Submerge and Sulfuric Vortex. You bring those in, obvi. Submerge hits Marit Lage and is a huge play, but keep in mind you need an island to play it. Vortex is very good because it's difficult for them to answer and it shuts off Punishing Fire.
TL;DR mulligan to an aggressive draw, counter Explorations, bring in Extractions, hope for variance.
Last edited by Delvis; 12-15-2015 at 11:24 AM.
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
Sorry for posting another essay but I played in another local last night. Still jamming the winning list from Sunday's SCG Classic, no changes.
I went 2-0-1, splitting prizes in the third round with a good friend. We played it out for fun and he crushed me 2-0 with Elves because I drew a little poorly and made several play mistakes. I was not really focused on this match as there was nothing on the line and I hadn't seen my friend in months (he was studying abroad, and it was his first day back), but that's no excuse. It felt like this matchup was not very good, but that may have been partially due to my failure to draw Force of Will, Wasteland, or Lightning Bolt in any significant quantities.
Round 2, I beat Maverick. He had a triple Mom draw in game one but I had a double Bolt draw, and eventually was able to just ignore the last one with some flipped Delvers. Game 2 he gets me with an early Knight. Game 3 I draw the nut high Pyromancer draw, with double Pyromancer, double Bolt, Deathrite to accelerate out a turn 2 Pyro-Bolt sequence, Brainstorms for cantripping, and Dazes to stop Swords. There may have been a Stifled fetch somewhere. I wind up attacking him with something like 9 tokens on like turn 5 into his board of Mom, DRS, and BoP. Filthy.
Round 1, I beat Aluren. I think it was the same 75 from the GP SeaTac Top 8 list. The guy was brand new to the deck and wasn't even sure how the combo worked (long story), but he sussed it out. I won game 1, he won game 2, and I cleaned it up in game 3. I misplayed game 2 and gave him the win. I'll break it out:
We both have three mana available. I pass, then in his draw step I Clique him. I see Toxic Deluge, Imperial Recruiter, Aluren. My board is now DRS + Clique, the rest of my hand is basically blank (Sulfuric Vortex + another DRS, so no counters).
If I take Deluge, he can combo me out if he draws a land off Clique.
If I take Recruiter, he can Deluge for just 2 and clear my table.
If I take Aluren, he can still Deluge and probably will, and has a castable Recruiter back to grab a value creature.
If I take nothing, he will Deluge, and any land off the top is live for combo-killing me.
I tanked for a while and took the Deluge. I was immediately punished, as he drew a land and killed me.
Taking Aluren is definitely wrong as it gives him two castable cards in hand, one that he immediately plays to sweep my team, and the second that he follows up with to grab a Baleful Strix or DRS or something.
Taking nothing is also wrong, as he can Deluge to wipe my team, and then next turn any land is live to instantly kill me. Since I don't have a blue card in hand, I'd have to draw exactly Daze to stop the combo. A cantrip to dig for it would work, too, in theory. But it's a low percentage. The only way I take this line is if I'm trying to bluff Daze and/or Force, because taking nothing just seems so wrong on the face of it that it might make him think I must be counting on a counterspell. I'm not a good enough poker player for this line. Yet.
So, thinking back, I would 100% take the Recruiter in the future. I just have to accept the loss of my creatures to Deluge, or hope he puts me on Daze and holds it back. Taking the Recruiter means he has to draw a land to cast Aluren, and even if he does, he needs to draw another Recruiter to actually combo me out. I have another DRS in hand and I can cast Vortex with it if I draw a fetch or Volc (I had 2 Seas), so that is a reasonable clock and gives me a way to get ahead in the Vortex race, along with hampering the combo.
Thoughts on that scenario?
Also, taking a step back, was it correct to Clique in the draw step? I still think it was the correct play, and he just had a basically Clique-proof hand. Almost any other configuration of 3 cards in his whole deck is preferable to that situation.
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
@Echelon proberly true, I think you would have beaten the burn deck. But hey, you got pizza
@Beating lands:
Like Devis said, counter really aggressive on their mana ramp. Don't counter the mox, unless you know it's only one in their deck.
Watch out with Daze if you end up without lands becouse you take one back/waste something else or something like this.. They might Crop Rotate to Tabernacle and kill any creature you have on the field.
Don't board Therapy if you are on the draw. It's really terrible becouse they have only a few targets you want to hit. I proberly won't take it when you are on the play either for the same reason. Lands dumps their hand and hits for topdecks/loam. You can't discard any of that.
Rather get anything that kills artifacts (becouse of Chalice) or slows/stops Tespian Stage and Maze of Ith (try TNN and Submerge if you have it on the board).
Stifle will only slow lands down for a turn. You can use it to hit trough Maze of counter a draw from cycling land so they can't get Loam back that draw.
I find myzelf also countering Loam sometimes if I feel I slow down the curve of their deck for a bit, or use Deathrite to remove it right after that.
You can not win the grind game vs. Lands. So get quick Delvers en Shaman activations to close out the game.
Don't board out the Lightning Bolts. You will need them to close down the game.
@Delvis
I think the Clique was the right call to cast. Like you said, next time take the Recruiter.
If he draws the land to play Aluren, you can also dump creature on your side of the field right after. He proberly won't cast Aluren without winning right after becouse of this, and he needs a recruiter for that.
Losing 2 creature is always bettter then giving them a shot on winning the game instantly, especially since you had no counters at hand.
Played in my third small local tonight. Went 3-0-1 and made another $20 in store credit. This deck is cranking.
I switched the sideboard around a little bit:
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Submerge
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Darkblast
1 Fire Covenant
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Pithing Needle
I also swapped 1 Gitaxian Probe in the maindeck for 1 Spell Pierce, which came up in like half my games for some reason but was always solid-to-great.
Round 1 was Grixis Painter. This round went to time, as I killed him quickly in game 1 and he took forever to kill me in game 2, so we didn't have enough time to finish game 3. I won game 1 mostly off of mana denial, Wasting a Volc or two and Stifling a fetch.
Round 2 was Shardless BUG. This is a pretty reasonable matchup for me, but unfortunately he was able to grind me out in game 2. Since it was a smaller local and less was on the line, I wanted to see if I could draw out of the lock he had me under, but my draws were poor. At a higher level event, I would have quickly scooped after he stabilized and moved on to a game 3 that I would start on the play.
Speaking of game 3, we have to rush to finish, and by the time turn 5 rolls around, he's in a dominating board position. There's no question he would have beaten me, however, since he lost round 1, I ask him cordially if he would consider scooping to me since I'm more alive for prizes (flat 4-round tourney with prizes based on standings), and a draw really puts a damper on both of our chances at prizes. He eventually scoops to me, so if you're reading this, you're an awesome guy.
I move on to round 3 against my good friend Paul Lynch playing Infect. This was a feature match, and you can watch it here if you'd like: http://www.twitch.tv/snapcasters/v/30670925?t=01h57m32s
I make a few play mistakes and Paul went over them with me. My sideboarding was wrong, and he explains to me why it was. Basically, I should have left the Therapies in the side, boarded out 1 Daze (going down to 3) and leaving in the Force of Wills. Especially since I was on the draw.
My line of thinking was that I wanted the Therapies, but bringing them in meant cutting too many blue cards and the Forces would be too difficult to cast. Looking back, I was wrong. The Therapies aren't even that good, and Force is mostly just better for fighting over lethal pump spells. If I leave the Therapies in the board, there should be enough blue to support the Forces.
Fortunately, none of this punished me, as I cleaned him up pretty quickly in two fast games after losing the die roll.
One specific misplay that I'm coming back to is in game 2, when I fight over my Pyroblast on his Agent, lose the fight, then untap and immediately Bolt the Agent. I was still in the mindset of, 'I'm protected by this Daze in my hand,' when in reality I had just cast it. As a result, I'm immediately punished as he's able to fetch for a Savannah and cast STP on my Delver with the world's saddest Spell Pierce sitting in my hand. Again, fortunately, I drew out of it, immediately picking up another land and a Deathrite, but I feel like the correct play would have been to wait on a pump spell to Bolt the Agent, since I'm not in any immediate danger of dying to poison counters and have both counterspell and removal protection with that untapped mana available.
The other misplay was Forcing his Probe. There's no real reason to do this. I was basically thinking, I have so many resources to counter his Berserks, I can afford to try to get him to play into my counters and removal. But countering the Probe tipped him off that I had a wall of counterspells and/or removal, so he held back on the Berserks and tried to use them as removal. Realistically, there's nothing Infect can draw there that poses any threat to my triple Force hand.
Anyway, after 2-0'ing Paul, I move on to round 4 against ANT. He kills me game 1 on his last turn (don't they always?) with a little help from Lady Luck. A little tilted and upset that I'm about to miss prizes because of Storm (I hate losing to Storm), I board in my hate suite and settle in.
Game 2, I'm on the play, and my 7-card has 3 counterspells and a Wasteland, but no threat. Knowing that without pressure, the Storm deck will simply sit back and sculpt its hand to perfection, I mulligan to 6. No land there. Mulligan to 5, see Deathrite, two lands (both fetches IIRC) and a Ponder and Bolt. Not the best hand against Storm (in fact, it's a pretty bad one), but I keep it as it's very unlikely I'm going to get anything remotely playable out of a mull to 4. Either way, I wind up putting enough pressure on him that he is forced into going off before he's ready, casts Ad Nauseam at 10, flips three cantrips, a Past in Flames, and an Empty the Warrens, and dies.
Welp.
Game 3, I'm on the draw, but my 7 is LITERALLY perfect. Delver, fetch, Waste, Force, Spell Pierce, Daze, Brainstorm. You cannot draw up a much better hand against Storm. Predictably, he is completely incapable of playing through my immense counterspell wall, and even though he manages to Abrupt Decay my Delver, I draw a Young Pyromancer in short order and keep the clock on. On his final turn, I have two Pyromancers in play and way more than lethal on the table. My hand is Force, Ponder, Daze. He casts Ad Nauseam at 4 life, leaving up a Volc. He told me afterwards he was on the Empty plan, but his only out was that I pitch Daze to Force. I'm not sure how it all worked out, but I Daze the Ad Nauseam to tap down his Volc, then Force it to actually kill it. He scoops.
This deck is unreal. It's smooth, consistent, and draws very well, allowing you to play a multitude of different roles.
Also, it may have just been the metagame for the night, but I definitely feel like I want 1 more Spell Pierce in the maindeck. That card was my MVP on the night, showing up in over half my matches and providing a very strong shield every time it did.
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
Just a follow-up to my last post. I almost crushed the mid-major local yesterday. I opened up 3-0, then finished 0-3 drop. I was still alive for a money finish at 3-3, but I didn't want to have to deal with the psychological pain of losing a fourth consecutive round.
I got on camera again, same channel as last time (SnapCasters). The stream went down a few times during my match, so it's broken up into three different videos on that channel. I also sat down for a post-game interview. It was round 3, my final round of success, and as it happens I 2-0'd Dave Long playing R/G Lands (with a huge assist from Lady Luck to overcome some sloppy play from me). That makes me 2-0 in camera matches, 4-0 in camera match games.
My first two rounds were against Storm and I drew a perfect balance of clock and disruption in 3 of the games. The other game I won was against TES and he killed himself after I got one turn.
After Dave Long, I played Rob Long on Miracles and misplayed multiple times to drop the match 1-2. Then I played against Bobby Birmingham on RUG Delver and we reached parity on the board in game 3, except he had a Sylvan Library. Then I played against Grixis Painter and lost twice to perfect draws from my opponent (like he literally was hellbent both games when he killed me, and needed every card).
I think that's it for me for Legacy this year. It's going to take some time to come back from that tilt.
Last edited by Delvis; 12-23-2015 at 10:44 AM.
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
A friend of mine is trying out 2 Md pierce and 3 sb bob, which seem pretty solid. He cut the 4th probe and stifle for the pierces. I'm still new to the deck so I'm gunna sick with a stock list for a little while so I can get a feel for the deck before making any changes. Thoughts on his build? The bobs seem super strong vs miracles.
Spell Pierce is feeling more and more correct for me in the main deck. I don't like cutting a Stifle for one, as it plays incredibly well with your mana denial package. I'm not sure what else you would cut though. If not Stifle, I think you're looking at Ponder, because Brainstorm, Daze, and Force are too good, and there's no sense in cutting a threat.
Bob does seem sweet against Miracles. How did your friend make room in the sideboard? Did s/he take out Therapies? I've wanted to try Bob for a little while but I don't know where to make room.
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
Delvis, can you post the list you are currently using?
So far I don't feel like the need to swap my 3 Angler/1 Clique build. But if I would go back to using actual Pyromancers I proberly would use something like this:
Land: 18
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
Creatures: 13
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Gurmag Angler
3 Young Pyromancer
Spells: 29
4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
Sideboard 15
1 Pithing Needle
1 Submerge
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Dimir Charm
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Null Rod
1 Terminate
3 Cabal Therapy
Either Spell Pierce or Spell Snare should be fine in the main board, depending on your own preference and what you think to face in the meta. I would prefer Snare in this build becouse you have the ability to hard counter most problematic cards like Goyf/Chalice@1/SFM to the opposite of countering the Bolts/Liliana/Top that are in general less effective to the deck anyway. (just calling a few cards, we all know there are a ton of cards to counter with either spell and that some of these can be countered by both)
@Draggo, sure thing.
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
1 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
I'm switching Tarns to Strands unless I start playing basic Mountains. This is because it doesn't matter what fetches you use, as long as they are blue fetches.
The reason for the change is that Flooded Strand and Polluted Delta both represent a much wider variety of decks than Tarn and Misty do. This is normally a miniscule advantage, but there will be games when you lead with Flooded Strand and your opponent assumes Miracles/Stoneblade and cracks their fetch straight into your Stifle. The opportunity cost for this is zero, so that equates to free game wins. To be honest, I'm becoming well known around here for playing Grixis Delver (two camera matches in one weekend will do that), so it may never come up. But it might one day.
The Prowess build did me well for a while, but now that the metagame has settled, Pyromancer is proving himself to be a fine choice again.
Sideboard is currently constructed as such:
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
2 Submerge
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Pithing Needle
1 Fire Covenant
1 Darkblast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
Not much to say. Seems to be right about where I want to be.
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
I'm on the exact same main and I love it.
SB is slightly different with 4 cabal therapy 2 submerge, 2 decay, and 1 cage as the differences. Deck has been super solid lately and really have enjoyed playing it. If anything at times I feel like the deck gets suck on lands where I've gone through multiple cantrips to find nothing.
That list is so close to the first Grixis list I played with alot of succes back in halfway 2014
Needles to say, there were no Anglers back then. The new lists are alot smoother.
About the fetch lands: Guess you can get some random blue fetch lands instead of the 4 Delta 4 Tarn since you don't run the Badlands like I do. Won't have much effect when you get around people that know what you play though. Also the last time someone tried to deny my fetch lands with a Needle (and failed to be honest) was about 2 years ago. Naming the Delta while I had Mire's that fixed everything.
The old list I started with:
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Ponder
1 Dimir Charm
4 Brainstorm
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Tombstalker
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Badlands
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Stifle
// sideboard
1 Shattering Spree
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
2 Submerge
2 Mizzium Skin
4 Cabal Therapy
Yeah, if you run a Trop and a Badlands, you don't have much choice with what fetches you can run. If you just run Trop like me, you can use any blue fetches. If you just run Badlands, you can use Delta and Mire, both of which still hide the Stifle. Tarn and Misty are the two biggest indicators of Stifle; Delta is used in a huge variety of decks, and Mire does not represent blue at all.
I'm tempted to try out Chandra, Pyromaster against Miracles, as it seems next to impossible for them to answer and represents solid card advantage and a clock. She's relatively easy to push through a Countertop lock and can be cast through Blood Moon. She even protects herself against attacks as her +1 kills their entire suite of creatures (except Mentor). I suppose Clique+Karakas is a problem. The draw she gives you doesn't line up well with counterspells, but I think you take some number of those out against them anyway as they're very likely to play around Daze and Stifle.
I'm playing a small local tonight, so I may proxy a couple into my sideboard to try to improve the likelihood of drawing her. She may be terrible but I'll let the testing bear that out.
Does anybody have any sweet strategic plans for Miracles that they'd like to share? I realized today that I haven't played the matchup nearly enough and I don't feel confident in what I'm doing against them.
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
Never ever board counters away from miracles, ever. You want to counter the Counterbalance/Mentor/Terminus.
Just keep the Stifles to counter the Miracle triggers too. You'll need it. Also hating on their manabase is a solid strategy in defeating them.
I just board Needle for top, Pyroblast for counterwars and Counterbalance, Dimir Charm for the sweepers and add the two Decays I run in the board to kill anything remotely annoying (basicly any permanent they play).
it's dabateble to take out the bolts in this matchup, becouse it can give you the reach you need. On the other hand if you can take over control, there is no need for the reach. If top/counterbalance hits, you won't be able to bolt anyway.
I don't see why you would want to have Chandra in a tempo deck, apart from the one damage per turn to the face. Might be better off just to get in Sulfuric Vortex since you are the aggressor in this match.
Yes, sulfuric vortex is great, and not commiting more than 1 or 2 threats at a time. So if you have YP and SV out you force them to find a terminus or multiple STP's PLUS council's judgmen.
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