Why waste on tropical in the Infect matchup if he have played Hierarch?
Turn 1 Deathrite imho is the right play.
Right to draw EE vs 2x Blighted Agents imho.
Enchantress ok.
Mirror ok.
Imho 4 slots vs greave are too many.
3x slot are right (maybe 2 in this meta), you have 4 deathrite maindeck for this.
If you want to find a slot in side, cut 1 of 4 greave hate cards.
Sorry, it wasn't a T1 Waste, I think the match went like this (I'm on the draw):Originally Posted by Hrothgar
T1 Opp: Windswept Heath, fetch a Tropical Island, Noble Hierarch
T1 Me: Underground Sea, Deathrite Shaman
T2 Opp: Inkmoth Nexus, cast Blighted Agent
T2 Me: If I Waste the Inkmoth, he can kill me next turn with several combinations of pumps. If I waste the Tropical, he can't cast Invigorate at all and can't kick Vines, so at best he can do 2 poison a turn until he draws a single-green pump spell or another Forest. That buys me a turn or three to draw into removal or dig spells.
Right now I'm playing:
4 delver
4 deathrite shaman
4 young pyro
2 angler
1 stifle
2 spell pierce
3 force of will
4 daze
2 cabal therapy
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 bolt
4 gitaxian probe
4 polluted delta
3 bloodstained mire
2 flooded strand
4 wasteland
1 volcanic
1 underground sea
1 trop
1 badlands
1 island
Is it worth it to upgrade the manabase to the usual one? How much of an impact does it really make?
Playing legacy and investing into proper dual lands is a big commitment due to their price. The difference however is like using dial up internet vs modern day fiber optics. This deck is extremely color intense and will require you to use many different colors of mana within the first three turns. Since this is a tempo deck those first few turns will set you up for success or failure. We do not have the sear card power other decks have to turn the game around mid to late so being able to cast the spells with their required mana costs is crucial. The extra fetches will help you negate some of this problem but your other issue will be vs other wasteland decks. The Trop in traditional lists is almost the 1 of Island in your list. Since green mana rarely matters anytime I draw the trop it feels terrible. I imagine having to fetch for it will equally feel terrible. Being able to continuously cast spells and use abilities faster than your opponents is what creates a Tempo deck. I'm not saying to invest into the other lands if you financial cannot, but it is not up for debate on if there is or is not a difference.
Maybe The worst mana base i've ever seen for this deck.
You require The right mana in the first 2/3 turns and island for Daze.
If your opponent Waste only one of this Lands, is very bad.
The sideboard require some Red and Black mana and with this setup you're not sure to have the right Lands into play imho.
You're honestly better off running 3 Steam Vents, 2 Watery Grave, and 1 Breeding Pool than that. Run the shocks until you can afford to upgrade.
Most of you propably already know, for those who don't:
Noah Walker started streaming for cardhoarder, you can check out his first videos here:
https://www.cardhoarder.com/content/...death-taxes-60
Thank you Agrippa for this link!
A very good lesson by Noah obv.
I save the link and follow this Noah's work!
So I decided to start playing Delvers again last week. I started from Noah Walker's list but quickly found that while Peezy is great against Miracles I was having to hold him back until I got to 3 mana to make sure I was getting at least a token and a removal spell out of him more than I'd like. I was much more impressed with the Donegan/Friedman-style lists with Thought Scour, Snapcaster Mage, and more Anglers. That style seems to play much better with the counter package (I went with 3 Pierce/1 Snare + 1 Forked Bolt instead of 4 Pierce and the fourth Thought Scour) and it felt even better against Miracles, especially with 2-3 Winter Orbs in the 75, and Angler is the ideal threat against Shardless BUG since you can keep their Goyfs at 4/5 between Delve and your Deathrites and it doesn't die to Decay, and is much stronger against Eldrazi than a collection of Elementals.
These are obviously preliminary thoughts, but they seem to be at odds with the approach most others are taking and I thought I'd share.
D&T will be very popular after CN2. How do we adjust the board to compensate for this? More Dread of Night?
Hello Everyone!
I am playing in a win-a-dual this weekend and I was thinking about playing Grixis. I have noticed that a lot of lists no longer play stifle, but I think that since it hasn't been around much, it might be time to catch people by surprise. What do you guys think of this plan? I currently have the Noah Walker list sleeved up. What do you guys think it worth cutting for the stifles? I haven't used stifle in a while so I may be rusty. Does anyone have any advice about using it?
Thanks!
mise 'miz v alter. of might as well (1997) 1: to win when you don't deserve to 2: to top-deck the "tings" you need 3: to be rewarded by an opponent's bad luck 4: to coin a phrase that spreads through the tournament scene like wildfire 5: to fling a monkey 6: to split firewood using a sharp instrument 7: To burn
Here's my current version of the deck (with stifle), sideboard updated:
creatures (13)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Gurmag Angler
instants and sorceries (29)
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
1 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Forked Bolt
lands (18)
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
4x Wasteland
sideboard (15)
2 Pithing Needle
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Pyroblast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Terminate
1 Fire Covenant
There're some important differences between the stifle version and the nonstifle version of Grixis. Most importantly you play much more like a tempo deck, meaning to the board. You really only want to attack their hand with Therapies from the sideboard if they're playing combo (I don't even bring in Therapies against Miracles anymore).
Abrupt Decays can get played not only against Miracles, but also against Wasteland decks since your stifles protect your lands. It's really good against other "fair", especially Tarmogoyfs and spicy sideboard tech like ensnaring bridge, chalice, Rest in Peace or a random jitte.
I know that many Grixis players play Baleful Strix these days, that's really not what you want to do when you play stifle though imo. The reason is that (besides costing 2 at sorcery speed) the Strix doesn't pressure the opponent enough when you're ahead on board, meaning he can catch up really well. I also don't like how it grows Tarmogoyfs, gets countered by Red Blast and gives us more guys that die to -1/-1 effects like Golgari Charm or even Forked Bolt.
Painful Truths is similar in that it costs 3, so you can't hold up counters when you play it. It also doesn't affect the board and it's not like you're drawing pure gas like a deck like shardless bug, but mostly reactive cards.
Instead of Strix and Truths I prefer Terminate and Fire Covenant which are also really good against Eldrazi. Fire Covenant I only bring in against decks that don't play counterspells because you pretty much lose if it gets countered (shardless being the exception because they board their FoW out very often and you can make them play their FoW into Daze rather often when you play your Fire Covenant because of the instant speed).
Personally I like the stifle version of the deck way more because it makes Dazes and Wastelands better as well as being better against bad matchups like 4c-loam, lands and Miracles.
To the sideboard: I cut Winter Orb because I feel like Pithing Needle is just better against Miracles, it also has uses against D&T and Lands which are rather bad matchups (hence I went up to 2).
Most people play 2 Pyroblasts, but I cut down to 1 because I have Abrupt Decays against Counterbalance and Flusterstorm/Invasive Surgery against Show&Tell.
Deathrite Shaman is already a Public Enemy number one when you're playing this deck because he makes stifle and wasteland look really bad. I have Grim Lavamancer in the sb over Darkblast for that reason.
The card advantage cards in my sideboard (Grim Lavamancer, Ancient Grudge, Fire Covenant) are there because they still let me play the tempo plan. It's not wrong to play something like Strix's and Painful Truths, it's just way better in the midrange-approach without stifles imo.
One last advice:
The cards you cut in fair matchups are mostly Force of Wills and Gitaxian Probes. When in doubt leave in 1-2 Force of Wills, sometimes you have to counter something, it also lets you use redundant Dazes and Stifles later in the game.
In unfair matchups you cut the Anglers first. Delver is faster, DRS is more disruptive (and lets you keep open mana while draining them) and YP has synergy with Therapy. Also Bolts come out fairly often in unfair matchups.
Matchups where I board out stifles are D&T (I leave in 1), Eldrazi, Infect, Merfolk, Burn (I leave in 2 for fetchlands and Rift Bolt, it still pitches to FoW), Stompy and Elves (they don't rely on their fetchlands, stifling craterhoof is awesome game 1, but they often bring in something like progenitus game 2).
Wow, that's some thorough analysis. Thank you!
It seems that when switching from the Walker List, you cut 2 Therapy, 1 Clique and 1 Dismember and 1 Gitaxian Probe and brought in 4 Stifle and 1 Forked Bolt.
Do you feel that going down by 1 threat and 1 cantrip gives you ability to find a threat quickly? I realize that Clique is hardly something that you need on turn 1 and I can't say that I've ever successfully cast one against anyone who wasn't on Storm but there are times when I am desperate to find any threat to keep up the pressure.
I also can't say I've ever been a fan of forked bolt. Being a 1 of, it always seems to be in my hand when I don't need it or never around when I do. The possibility for 2 for 1-ing aside, do you think it's better than dismember as an almost always playable source of removal?
All that being said, I like the idea of using the stifles to protect your mana base and keeping the opponent off of theirs. Mana bases seem to be pretty greedy these days which is why I want to play stifle.
I find your idea of using abrupt decay versus miracles interesting with only 1 Tropical island too.
I will goldfish and test with this list a little bit today.
Thanks again.
mise 'miz v alter. of might as well (1997) 1: to win when you don't deserve to 2: to top-deck the "tings" you need 3: to be rewarded by an opponent's bad luck 4: to coin a phrase that spreads through the tournament scene like wildfire 5: to fling a monkey 6: to split firewood using a sharp instrument 7: To burn
Forked Bolt:
Could be a Dismember if you play online. But in paper I run across a lot more D&T and Elves and a lot less Eldrazi so this card is sweet. It also lets you kill a t1 drs and you're not behind if they daze you back. If you expect a lot of Eldrazi in the metagame Dismember might be fine, but I prefer this spell as I can also just use it to go to the face. As I said it's just super important to get DRS off the table in a lot of cases when playing with Stifle.
Only 3 Gitaxian Probes:
I played with 4 Probes and was rather unhappy with starting hands that had multiple probes because I didn't know what card I was "actually" holding. Imagine a hand with 3 lands and 4 spells, one of them gitaxian probe. If the probe is another land it's awful, if it's another spell it's at least ok.
Also when you're under pressure and you draw a probe you almost always have to pay 2 life because you don't know which color of your lands you'll need. Paying the life to draw a random card from your deck can be rather bad.
The random card can also be rather bad if you need specific cards. When you're playing with stifle you're playing a lot more reactive than the classic Grixis lists (not saying it's more or less skill intensive). Drawing a random card can be bad a lot of times when you're trying to keep your opponent at bay while finishing him off.
I find that people overvalue Probe a bit. You should try to have reactive cards in your hand that shut down his game plan including his topdeck, not just his hand. The information of Probe can be rather useless 1-2 turns earlier, especially if your opponent cantripped. This card is a lot better in combo when you go off, but it's nice here with the therapies in the sb so it's worth it (I don't like it in RUG e.g. though except for maybe as a 1-of).
3 is the number I'm comfortable with. It gives me info about my opponent's deck often enough, doesn't accumulate in my hand too often and with a 3-3-3 YP-probe-therapy split I'm as likely to hit one of the other 2 components when I have a therapy as when I'm playing a 4-4-4 split.
Only 13 creatures:
I specifically went down to 3 YP because at times he is just really clunky. I like playing him as a "finisher"-like creature when my opponent has already wasted a lot of removal on my other creatures and I have a least 3 mana available (not necessarily for cantripping immediately, but also for holding up stifle if that line is strong at that moment because my opponent e.g. has an uncracked land or lacks a color).
When you have 4 YP it often felt like having a Dark Confidant: Play it on turn 2 to see if it survives and you get value off it next turn. Only when he gets killed by a cmc1 removal spell you're behind on tempo.
With UWR Stoneblade no longer in the meta I honestly don't feel like there's a deck that has so many removal spells that I run out of creatures any more. The 4th YP is definitely the worst 14th creature imo. I cut it because I wanted to play 4 stifle, 1 forked bolt (for DRS and Mom) and 1 Spell Pierce (they almost never play around it).
2 Pithing Needles in the sb:
This would propably be something else if I was playing online, with so many D&T and Lands in paper though this card is just really strong (especially since those decks hardly bring in artifact removal).
2 Abrupt Decay:
Call me crazy but I actually like these against almost every fair deck, as mentioned above there's a lot of targets people bring in because they don't think Grixis can deal with it. I begin to like the 2-2 split of decay-needle though against miracles. This way the cards don't get stuck in your hand, but you still have enough food answers for their lock.
The decays are like 0 problem against Miracles because they don't play Wasteland, but you'll have to get used to concentrate on what to fetch when playing against other fair decks. The rule of thumb is to keep the Tropical in your hand/deck until you actually cast the decay. It works out for me so far, even against Lands (expedition, vortex, chalice, crucible) and D&T (RIP, artifacts, creatures).
Great analysis! Once you've made the decision to not run Cabal Therapies in the main deck, the rest of the changes feel intuitive. I think it's a metagame call, the more combo you have in your local environment the better Therapies are G1; I may take the Stifle version out for a spin at my next Legacy night.
I've also considered going down to 3 Wastelands and running a 3rd Underground or 2nd Tropical, as cutting off a colour is a popular way to fight this deck post-board.
Dread of Night, Forked Bolt, Grim Lavamancer are all good known cards, but if you're willing to go a bit deeper, pick up Fire Covenant. It's a house against any fair decks that will let you get to 3 mana. And with that in mind, if you're really worried about D&T, I've considered playing a basic swamp or mountain in the sideboard to bring in against decks that will try to attack your mana base.
These new D&T lists seem really 3-drop heavy, I think Cabal Therapy in the mainboard is as good against them as stifling their Recruiters/Flickerwisps.
If you really want to punish them for playing these expensive new cards I think the way to go would be to play more Null Rods/Pithing Needles/Ancient Grudges to get rid of Aether Vial. Their combo seems rather poor if they don't get 3 free mana each turn.
Hey everyone. I will talk about my results for the tournament this last weekend. I decided to run almost the same list that Agrippa posted before. For reference I played:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Gurmag Angler
instants and sorceries (29)
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
1 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Forked Bolt
lands (18)
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Polluted Delta
4x Wasteland
sideboard
2 Pithing Needle
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pyroblast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Terminate
1 Fire Covenant
The main difference was I cut 1 Therapy for 1 extra Surgical in the SB. Here's how my games went.
R1: Esper Stoneblade (0-1)
Game 1: After some back and forth, I used all of my removal on his stoneforges and didn't have the counter for his TNN. He equipped a TNN with a Jitte and that was all she wrote.
Game 2: I drew lands instead of gas and he removed all of my creatures I played. He killed me with 3 power worth of creatures.
R2: I played against UW Helm.dec (0-2)
Game 1: I get him down to 1 life with my delver but he top decks his helm of obedience after landing his RIP. Had I draw a single bolt that game I would've won.
Game 2: I had him down to 2 life but I allowed a Helm of Awakening to resolve that I could've used a daze on but kept it to use a force later. He then played Alter of the Brood which I foolishly allowed to resolve. With 2 tops he mills me out. I forced one of his tops (felt aweful) but he Enlightened Tutor'd for another. Again, had I drawn 1 bolt all game I would've won.
R3: BW modern tokens. (1-2) This deck ran bitterblossom, token spells, pumps and shocks.
G1: I mull to 5 and can't keep up with his tokens but he wins at 3 life.
G2: My deck does a good burn deck impression and I bolt him to the dome and burn him with my grim lavamancer.
G3: similar to Game 2
R4: Punishing Jund (2-2)
G1: I play tight this game and line things up to keep him off of stuff. I am able to kill two of his bobs with the forked bolt so I am now a believer of that card. I stifle his punishing fire that he wants to use on my flipped delver, he bolts the delver using the red mana he created with his grove. Next turn I top a bolt and waste his grove. At 5 life he plays a Thoughseize and I bolt him in responce.
G2: He sees 2 badlands all game, one of which I waste. I pound away with a delver which he bolts. I land a gurmag which kills him before he can see another land. He reveals to me a hand with Lilly, bob and abrupt decay.
My performance was not enough to get me any prizes. I had fun with the deck and I definitely surprised a few people with my stifles. The esper stoneblade player I played R1 took 2nd over all so I don't feel too bad losing to him.
I think if D&T are gonna become more popular (checking the post traffic on the source I definitely think it will be) then I think that main deck cabal therapies might be better than stifle. However, stifling fetches will never stop being fun to me.
mise 'miz v alter. of might as well (1997) 1: to win when you don't deserve to 2: to top-deck the "tings" you need 3: to be rewarded by an opponent's bad luck 4: to coin a phrase that spreads through the tournament scene like wildfire 5: to fling a monkey 6: to split firewood using a sharp instrument 7: To burn
Just scrolling through the results made me feel "oh my god 0-4, he did terrible, now everybody will think my deck is garbage".
Then I realized you have some typos:
Esper Stoneblade is 0-2, UW tokens is 2-1, Jund is 2-0. This makes for a result of 2-2 which is good imo given the fact that you haven't played this exact deck before, so congrats! You had some really tough matchups, Stoneblade and Jund are super removal heavy decks, glad you were able to fight through one of them.
I'm happy you've been content with your list, I'd be interested to hear how much you boarded in the Abrupt Decays and how good you found them. I actually would've boarded them in in all 4 matches: Stoneblade has Jitte and RIP, Helm has RIP (and Energy field?), tokens has Bitterblossom and Intangible Virtue and Jund (besides the usual giant Goyfs and Liliana) has Chains of Mephistopheles and sometimes Choke.
Here's what I would've propably boarded:
Stoneblade (I guess UWR and not Deathblade):
-4 FoW (I can see keepin in 1 or 2)
-1 Gurmag Angler (being less reliant on the gy seems good)
+1 Decay (it's really just a versatile removal, but we don't necessarily need it).
+1 Ancient Grudge
+2 Cabal Therapy
+1 Pyroblast
UW Helm (I don't really know which deck you mean, I just know about a Miracle version with this combo so just guessing):
-1 Forked Bolt
-4 Lightning Bolt
-2 Angler
-1 Wasteland
+2 Pithing Needle
+1 Pyroblast
+2 Cabal Therapy
+2 Abrupt Decay
+1 Ancient Grudge
UB tokens:
+1 Grim Lavamancer
+2 Abrupt Decay
+1 Fire Covenant
-3 Gitaxian Probe
-1 FoW
Punishing Jund:
-3 Gitaxian Probe
-3 FoW (unlike against Shardless I like keeping in 1 because some cards are just really nasty)
+1 Grim Lavamancer
+1 Surgical Extraction (people keep telling me this is wrong and it might be, but as a matter of fact Punishing Fire kills 85% of our creatures and makes Angler combat weird. That said I like taking away Groves, leaving them with bad shocks to draw).
+2 Abrupt Decay
+1 Terminate
+1 Fire Covenant (MVP imo, card and sometimes tempo advantage. Just don't get too greedy, also boarding out other Lifetaxing cards helps)
Hi guys!
Just watching the latest CardKingdom stream, they have a Grixis player there (playing Noah Walker style) who is really good. His plays are just really solid so I thought I might want to share.
https://www.twitch.tv/cardkingdom/v/84926167
Edit: Unfortunately you only see him in one round, starting at 2: 12: 30. Still worth watching imo.
Last edited by Agrippa91; 08-22-2016 at 11:44 AM.
I'm back home on Delver after a few months hiatus on Miracles.
Feels good to be home.
I gave the 4 Angler build a try. I'm unsure how I feel about it. Feels really good vs BGx, but medium vs Miracles. However, it's much easier to resolve an angler through a CB.
Agrippa, thanks for the share, I'll check it out!
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