Force 4
I was hoping to get some feedback on Cabal Therapy in the side for a Stifle list. To be honest, I've never been all that great at blind-naming with Therapy. My main experience with Therapy comes from playing Storm where the cards you want to hit are easy and obvious (Thalia, Force, Chalice, etc.) and if you don't hit them, everything is alright because you can just combo out. I understand the power of Therapy with YP/Probe, the fact that it can nab multiple cards, and the value of the Flashback cost. However, since I kind of suck at soul-reading my opponents, I've been considering Thoughtseize in the side in its place. My concern is going up against decks that have redundant combo pieces (Sneak/Show, BR Reanimator, Storm) where I name Sneak Attack but they are holding Show and Tell, or Reanimate when they have Exhume.
How often do you find yourself blind-naming with Therapy? Further, when you whiff on Therapy how does this impact the game moving forward? Is this just a case of play more/get better?
How many Pyromancers are you playing? If you are playing 3, you probably want some number of Therapies in your sideboard, but I am not so sure about running Therapies in the side with only 2 Pyromancers.Originally Posted by apistat_commander
Casting Cabal Therapy blind isn't always about Soul Reading your opponent. When naming with Therapy you generally want to make the fairest name possible, especially in combo matchups where card advantage is not really a thing. There are 2 main routes you can take to make this decision. You can either; name what you are most afraid of, or, you can take into account what cards they have played during the game, how they have played, body language (in real life) etc.
Casting Cabal Therapy has an art to it, and you really have to get in a lot of reps to be able to blind name effectively. Playing Cabal Therapy in Grixis Delver also has more learning associated with it. You have to be able to evaluate how effective your own threats are, and understand when 1 is worth sacrificing to flashback Cabal Therapy.
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The patient Brainstormer always wins.
Hey guys!
I've tried Team Australia these past few weeks. I liked the no-Pyromancer take since it took away that tempo-negative aspect and the clogging up the ground without really applying pressure.
I must say though that I was not impressed with a few cards:
Tombstalker basically costs twice as much as Angler, having to have 2 black sources can be just really hard sometimes, especially when you're behind and have to stabilize. With so many more ways, especially in the SB, to sweep away creatures and TNNs I'm back on Angler.
Counterspell has been very bad for me in general. It is nice in the lategame, don't get me wrong, but whenever I draw it in these crucial opening turns I seriously question the reason to have this spell over something like a Spell Pierce. I switched it for a 1-of Probe and was more pleased though I'm not a big fan of Probe. Mainly because unlike other cantrips the random card you draw worsens your hand instead of improving it like BS or Ponder. This is especially bad in multiples in opening hands. It's also an awkward top-deck when you're low on life.
Badlands seemed bad (hehe). I've tried it out instead of the 3rd Volcanic in the Pyromancer version before but didn't really like it and here it has similar reasons:
You just play sooo much blue stuff, really only a handful of spells are actually another color. I'd argue that in the original Team Australia list the Badlands should be an additional Usea given the distribution of spells. I mean you play 8-ish black symbols and 4 black sources, 4 red symbols and 3 red sources, but 24 blue symbols (not counting daze and fow) and only 6 blue sources?
Despite the additional land I just had the feeling I got mana-screwed more compared to traditional Grixis: the BB from Tombstalker while wanting UU and R at the same time were just too much when you didn't have DRS out.
What I liked:
Having Usea instead of Volcanic as your go-to land with DRS in the deck just feels sooo much better! You don't have to be afraid with your black sources so much anymore, Usea lets you cast all your threats. And of course you get the small benefit of tricking people into playing into your counters because you look like ANT when you haven't played your first creature
The 2 TNN were really great. I know that LewisCBR has been on it for quite some time now, too and I really liked it. Finally got around buying the second on MtGO and I don't regret it. Having 4 really tough-to-deal creatures complementing the 8 1-drops gives you a really solid threat base.
Spell Snare is a card I started playing again when Miracles was a big thing and I love playing with it again. Sure it's bad against S&T, but that matchup is pretty good in general. Against all the other decks it catches this nice point in the curve where you can't always Daze them, but unlike cmc1 spells the things can already be game-changing.
Overall I still liked the RUG-Delver-esque playstyle of Team Australia, so I tweaked it a bit more to my liking:
I put in more soft counters, now completely cutting Probe. I like having more to do with open mana with Pierce and Snare, otherwise the mana often times just gets wasted when they don't fetch or play a Planeswalker. Besides, running 30 spells to flip delver like back in the day feels awesome
I cut the more clunky cards besides TNN and went down to 18 lands again, but I think without BB preboard my mana base is pretty solid now (1 colored source for every 2 symbols). I don't think more than 12 creatures is actually necessary when you have 4 "tough" ones, I have yet to encounter a deck that has me running out of threats. I've toyed around with F-Bolt over Push and liked it well enough with Tombstalker since I didn't really have to remove big threats to push through, but now with Angler I think I like Push better again. It's also instant which is nice and fits the mana because I don't have to rely on red that heavily.
Creatures (12):
4 Delver
4 Deathrite
2 Angler
2 TNN
Spells (30):
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Bolt
2 Push
Lands (18):
3 Underground
2 Volcanic
1 Tropical
4 Delta
4 Tarn
4 Wasteland
Sideboard (15):
1 Needle
2 Surgical
2 Thoughtseize
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Marsh Casualties
1 Hydroblast
2 Invasive Surgery
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Ancient Grudge
The Marsh Casualties in the Sb are a bit harsh with only 3 black sources and DRS, but I found it ok: Especially against Storm and Elves it's really good because they don't play Wasteland. Against D&T and Grixis it can be tough, but it's just a really good effect that you just don't get otherwise. Would I play effects like Fire Covenant instead I wouldn't want it against those decks anyways. I considered Profit/Loss but 3 mana is just way too expensive imo considering you want it against a t1 empty, t3 elfball-kill, thalia and daze/flusterstorm.
The reason I don't play flusterstorm btw is because in matchups I'd want it I already have enough cards to bring in. It's pretty much even against combo, but Invasive Surgery really helps against Elves and these grindy decks that are tuned to beat delver via Loam, Hymn, deluge, Pox what-have-you.
I'd be interested into playing Grixis matchup, anybody willing to play on MtGO this (European) night? I'll be online in about 4h.
So Agrippa's version of the deck is approximately where I imagined taking it, which is closer to the old Canadian Threshold shells. I like the list because it reminds me of a deck that I enjoyed playing and was successful with, however what I'm wondering is if it really is better than the standard list. If you look at tournament results almost every single sucessful Grixis list has two items in common: 14 threats and Gitaxian Probe. Now you could just ascribe all of that to people netdecking and not thinking for themselves, but I have to think that the sheer consistency of those two factors points to something important about constructing the deck.
I'm torn here because I like the look/numbers of a list running 12 creatures and more countermagic, it seems right to me, but tournament results overwhelmingly indicate that 14 creatures/G Probe is the most powerful version of the deck.
I remember Noah Walker winning several events with Grixis Therapy and everybody telling me how Stifle is "antisynergistic" with Young Pyromancer.
I still played it because I thought it was really good against Miracles and because I felt more comfortable playing with Stifle.
Now that LewisCBR (who btw. plays 2 leagues a day as he revealed in a recent interview) is putting up constant results with 3 Stifles nobody would think of calling his list bad. Instead people try to tell me how the fourth stifle is suboptimal because it's so bad later in the game yada yada.
I just think there's a lot more net decking going on in Legacy than people like to admit, especially with Grixis Delver since it is such a good entry door to the format.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy: People say "X Delver is better than Y Delver, look at the results!". And indeed, X Delver puts up better results because everybody plays it. The few Y Delver players put up less results and people say "look at Y Delver, it barely has any results, it's bad!".
Now this is of course all theorycrafting, what I'm certain of though is the following:
I might not put up results as good as LewisCBR with his list. But I will put up better results with this Delver list that has cards I'm comfortable and know how to play with optimally than with a list I'm just playing "because that one dude who's really good at it plays it".
Slightly off-topic, but look at Andrea Mengucci's latest video he recorded with Mentor Miracles: Now I know he's not the best player, but he's at least decent and knows Miracles well. The list is from GP Lille winner Claudio Banani, you can't just brush it off as "bad". But the list was just completely not Andrea's style and he dropped after 0-3, having only won a single game!
Do I have to say more?
I was trying to spur some additional discussion, not just shut it down by pointing to tournament results. I completely agree on the netdecking piece and playing what you are comfortable with. However, I don't think you can simply dismiss a pile of tournament results as "All of those people netdeck." Again, the sheer consistency of those two factors gave me pause. I'm mainly playing devil's advocate to try and tease out more discussion; I actually I agree with you: I've never liked Probe, Young Pyromancer was never amazing for me and I prefer to run additional countermagic. However, that is going directly in the face of tournament results which points to something important about those cards/that strategy that I must be missing. I'll try to dive a little deeper into each issue below, but again the idea is to examine what is it about the things that produces winning decks, because it is easy to use confirmation bias to find something to be "bad."
Gitaxian Probe - The main factor I wonder about here is if this card excels more in the online environment/big tournaments. For small local weeklies, you are much more likely to know what people are playing. Having a clear idea of what your opponent is doing early in the game is very important for utilizing your spells well. For example U Sea into DRS could be a wide range of decks, so Probe clears up the confusion here. If you know what your opponent is on, the information from Probe is still useful but not quite as vital. Probe never felt bad for me in testing but it also never felt amazing. I've always felt like I'm missing something here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I brought up this issue a few pages back and the explanations people gave are helpful, but never matched up with how it felt to me when playing the deck.
Creature count - I think this varies a lot with the meta that you are playing in. My local meta is super combo heavy, so running out of threats is less of an issue for me. I do think there is some validity to running a diverse suite of threats. I see the core as 4 DRS/4 Delver/2 Gurmag Angler with the other slots being more flexible. Running up to 14 creatures allows you to fit in a healthy number of Young Pyromancer and True-Name Nemesis, both of which provide the deck unique angles of attack. My first iteration of Grixis Delver was essentially what you are playing and I never felt like I was threat-light, whereas other folks in this thread expressed amazement at that. This may simply be a result of my more limited testing with the deck, compared to grinders like LewisCBR that are playing 10-15 matches a day with the deck.
No bad feelings
I feel like Spell Pierce and Spell Snare can be counted at least somewhat as "creatures" in the "fair" matchups. Whether you counter an actual removal spell, snapcaster mage, hymn or kolaghan's command, on your next turn you still have a creature which is what counts. Sure the comparison is somewhat lackluster, but simply stating "you need 14 creatures so you don't run out of threats" is just plain wrong imo.
Something I find especially nice about Pierce and Snare is that they counter a lot of stuff that would be able to deal with Angler and TNN since those cards outside of STP are costing 2+ mana.
So, after a long time away from the deck, I've recently returned to Grixis Delver, and am curious about thoughts on my list. I run Cabal Therapies main, since I've had plenty of practice with it and feel I'm pretty good at the soulread. That said, the maindeck is fairly standard, but I do run some different SB choices. My meta is currently a pretty hodgepodge mix of decks, with no single deck really having more than a few copies out of the 16-32 people that may show up on a given day (with a slight lean towards Lands).
Creature (14)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Gurmag Angler
1 True-Name Nemesis
3 Young Pyromancer
Spells (28)
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Daze
1 Fatal Push
4 Force of Will
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ponder
1 Spell Pierce
Lands (18)
2 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
Sideboard:
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Divert
1 Dread of Night
1 Fatal Push
1 Flusterstorm
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Null Rod
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Winter Orb
Winter Orb is sometimes Umezawa's Jitte depending on what I think I'll see.
Sooo... why are you writing this? Your list seems pretty standard, do you have any report on how the deck plays out in your metagame? Questions or opinions on specific cards?
A questions that comes to mind when I look at your sideboard is the 2 diverts. I know that this card was insane against Shardless and very good against burn and discard-heavy decks like Pox, but not against much else. Specifically against Shardless though I already had enough cards in my sideboard and the matchup was favorable enough that I didn't need direct hate. This led to me finally cutting the diverts.
What matchups do you bring in that card? Since it's fairly easy to play around personally I didn't like it vs. Grixis because people play too many Probes to be surprised by it.
Cythare, you are playing almost the same main 60 as me, except that instead of Spell Pierce, I'm running a copy of Kolaghan's Command. I also cut the 2nd Angler in favor of a 2nd TNN -- for me it's been helpful against DNT and the various midrange decks I tend to see. Instead of Spell Pierce, I would suggest running KCommand or a Counterspell.
Your sideboard is okay, but I agree with Agrippa91 saying Divert is less useful nowadays. I would consider cutting that for maybe 2x Baleful Strix.
Some other cards to consider in the SB:
Pithing Needle
Darkblast
Hydroblast (actually quite relevant)
Sudden Demise // Toxic Deluge // Fire Covenant
Agrippa - I tried your list on MODO last night and spent the evening enjoying having my Gurmag Angler brickwalled by everything, but mostly True-Name Nemesis. 18 lands left me feeling a bit short on mana too.
I think your issue with Tombstalker is due to you trying to power it out too quickly - which is much easier to do with Gurmag. Aside from maybe one match (where my opponent topdecked gas 5 turns in a row) there was no match where Gurmag was better than Tombstalker but it was always worse than Tombstalker.
My buddy Sean has been working on a similar sort of list to you but it's embracing the full-lean with 3 Gurmags over the 2-2 split and cheaper spells like Submerge and Forked Bolt in the sb. Thoughts?
Creatures: (12)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Gurmag Angler
1 True-Name Nemesis
Non-Creature Spells: (30)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
1 Fatal Push
Lands: (18)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
Sideboard: (15)
2 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Forked Bolt
2 Pyroblast
1 Flusterstorm
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Winter Orb
@Stevestamopz: Thanks for trying out my list. I would be curious as to how the Marsh Casualties/Diabolic Edict turned out. In my experience one of the strengths of the heavier black commitment are those cards. Without 3 answers to TNN postboard (+2 Pyroblast) I'd propably go Tombstalker, too. As it is though I think I prefer the Anglers.
It could be that I just want my delve creatures too early. But with 18 lands I really don't want to be stuck with too many uncastable creatures in my hand which happened more often than I liked when I played 2 Tombstalkers and 2 TNN. It's true that TNN is rather expensive, but it's really just there to push through these last few points of damage most of the time.
Again, I think this might just depend on the personal playstyle. I think I'll stick with 2 Anglers for now.
About Sean's list:
My first thought is: Does he really need 3 Volcanics, but only 2 Underground Seas? He only has 4 red spells in the mainboard, but 7 black spells (I like to count 4 DRS as 3 black and 1 green since that's kinda the percentage of how often I use these abilities). Sometimes people also seem to miss that with DRS out you can cast whatever color you like anyways, but you can only activate DRS if you also have black, otherwise it's just a bird.
I'd thus change the mana a bit and switch out a Volcanic for an Underground Sea.
I can't say much about the 3 Anglers, I feel that's something you can't theorize about but have to try out and see for yourself.
The biggest problem I have with the Anglers is the sideboard: With Sean's list there's no way to remove an opposing TNN once it hits the board. That's seems like a big flaw when you rely so heavily on 3 Anglers as your lategame.
I can understand that he's not a fan of the 2 Marsh Casualties though the 3rd Underground might change his mind. But if you don't play those I'd highly suggest 2 Edicts instead of the Submerges.
What specific matchups are the Submerges for actually? Personally I almost never have cards against BUG colors because I already have enough to board in against them anyways pyroblasts, removal, evtl. flusterstorm, otherwise the maindeck seems fine). They're suboptimal against 4c control I think, especially when those decks have ETB creatures, Leovold and barely green. Are they against Elves? In that case I'd suggest Invasive Surgery which does a lot more against them imo.
Good lands players on the other hand will play around Submerge whenever they can by wasting it or crop-rotating it away before they go off.
Now I'm a big fan not only of your show but also of sideboard maps. I'd be interested in sideboarding plans against all the decks you bring in the Submerges. Btw are you playing on MtGO or in a local meta?
Hi all. I'm not sure if this is the right deck thread, but I've recently been playing the more midrange ish version that's running 4 pyro's and 4 anglers as the only creatures, 4 therapy, 1 IoK, 1 seize, etc, and, well, my question is this: how does this deck ever beat Food Chain? Even if you delay/stop the combo, it still feels unwinnable.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...Thieves/page21
Don't let the name mislead you, the newest 4-Angler build gets discussed there in the most recent posts.
Personally I haven't played the version you do, but one quite similar with 2 cliques (more looks for therapies) and 2 tombstalkers alongside 4 strixes (additional sac outlets).
The problem was against exactly the decks like Food Chain, Alluren or 4c-control: More grindy and slower decks that had some sort of good card advantage engine. I saw that while my deck was great at disrupting the opponent and could get some 2-for-1s with strixes and therapies, I didn't really have a good way to pull ahead.
Also Therapy seemed waaay worse than in any sort of combo deck because once you're both in topdeck mode there's just so much answers he could have in his hand + brainstorm.
How can you fix this? Not quite sure, but I know for a fact that Anglers are very good agianst BUG (because they lack the necessary removal spells) IF you can get rid of their strixes. I'd consider bringing in ancient grudge alongside your pyroblasts to get more efficient answers. That card is quite good against certain BUG builds, against Alluren you can even go up to 2 Grudges because they play so many artifact creatures.
The combo itself of course is quite annyoing because Grixis doesn't run enchantment removal besides the occasional engineered explosives.
The key I think is to play aggressively: Don't try to outgrind them, you can't. When the game goes too long they'll get their engine online and you'll lose.
Instead try to disrupt them, saving your removal and counters for strixes and the occasional annoying shaman.
Played the deck last night. 3 rounds. Went 2-1.
Elves 2-1
RB reanimator 0-2 (He just had the nuts and I punted HARD on a therapy)
Sneak and show 2-0
Discussing with the sneak and show player. Game 2 i boarded out 4x deathrites and 2x Stifle. He told me that was likely incorrect, and I should never board out the deathrites. This was my first time running the deck, so I honestly didn't know. I mean I still beat him 2-0 mostly because stifle, wasteland and Zombie Mudfish are just absurd.
What I boarded in
2x Pyroblast
2x Diabolic Edict
2x Spell pierce (i don't own a fluster storm)
I felt like removing DRS in favor of countermagic was more beneficial than a generally slow clock. Thoughts?
You want to board out your removal spells, save for perhaps 1-2 bolts of potential lavamancer, as well as your TNN if you play one. The next cut would be Gurmag Angler though that one can be quite nice because it doesn't get hit by their red removal.
See I kept bolt in, just because bloodmoon could happen and I wanted to be able to cast at least a spell or two. I see your point though. I'll definitely keep this in mind.
Are you playing the Stifle version of Grixis Delver? I like to side out Stifles against S&S, and bring in Therapy. Usually, for me, it looks like -2 TNN, -3 Stifle, -1 Forked Bolt, -1 Lightning Bolt for +1 Fluster, +2 Pyroblast, +1 Pithing Needle (for Sneak Attack), +1 Diabolic Edict, +2 Cabal Therapy.
I dont like TNN because the last thing i want to do is tap out on turn 2 or 3 to play him. Angler is great because on turn 3 he usually still just costs one mana, leaving mana open for disruption and counter magic.
I am currently playing the stifle version of the deck. I think your strategy makes the most sense. I'll remember to do something like this moving forward.
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