[Deck] Canadian Threshold (aka RUG Delver, Tempo Thresh)

[blablub]

i would be interested in your Boardingplans especially how you switch your creature suit in the different matchups :) the list look really nice !

[Raticate_Tail]

Congrats.
Can I ask for more details about the burn match?

G1 I'm on the play. Hand is 3 lands, 2 goyfs, delver and a daze. Very good hand in the mu. Delver go, let swiftspear resolve, jam a goyf, daze eidolon, jam another goyf. Game is over from there.

Sided like this: -2 dismember, -1 true name, -2 stifle, -2 wasteland, +1 flusterstorm, +1 sylvan library, +2 rough//tumble, +1 destructive revelry, +1 tarmogoyf, +1 nimble mongoose.

Wasteland and stifle have their merits individually. Sometimes you get to stifle fetchlands or barb ring, wasteland casts goyf, kills barb ring and gives you p.o.p. insurance. I chose to split them. Dismember and true name are just horrible. As far as rough//tumble is concerned, I usually don't like 2 mana removal in the matchup, but I don't think playing literally just the four bolts is good enough. I also saw multiple grim lavamancers game one.

G2 I remember keeping a 6 of goyf, preordain, volc, waste, rough//tumble and a brainstorm. The plan here is to find a green source and jam a goyf. From there, if our opponent has a creature heavy hand we easily win, and if he has a burn heavy hand we have to draw well. I remember brainstorming to draw a card off of goblin guide, finding a green source in the process. Goyf was played and rough//tumble swept up a swiftspear and a guide. I end up drawing into another goyf, counterspells and cantrips to find more counterspells. I ended up using wasteland to tap for mana twice this game for the record.

How easy the matchup is depends on how many goyfs you play. I happened to draw the few that I was playing quite frequently.

[Raticate_Tail]

i would be interested in your Boardingplans especially how you switch your creature suit in the different matchups :) the list look really nice !

In general I like them in the following matchups:

Nimble Mongoose: Grixis delver, Death and Taxes, UR delver, Infect, Burn, Jeskai delver, Miracles, Stoneblade, Loam, S&S, Reanimator

Tarmogoyf: Grixis delver, UR delver, Eldrazi, Burn, Stompy, Storm, Elves

True Name: Death and Taxes, Eldrazi, Stompy, 3/4 color goodstuff, Stoneblade, Loam, Lands

If there is a matchup you would be interested in sideboarding for specifically let me know. I'm a little too lazy to do a full
on sideboarding guide right now. The sideboard is in constant flux anyways.

[jattra]

How easy the matchup is depends on how many goyfs you play. I happened to draw the few that I was playing quite frequently.

Nice, thx.
I switched from goyfs to monkeys and it is quite an issue against burn. I am often forced to bolt/counter their creatures first three turns to survive until a blocker finally comes down.

[bamannov]

I wanted to get everyone's take on Andrea Mengucci's Channel Fireball video here:
https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-mengucci-legacy-canadian-threshold/

He plays a pretty "stock list" or something that saw play in 2010-2012...made some playmistakes and interesting lines, but I was impressed with how well nimble mongoose held up.

Here's the list:
Lands
2 x Flooded Strand
2 x Polluted Delta
3 x Tropical Island
3 x Volcanic Island
4 x Wasteland
2 x Misty Rainforest
2 x Scalding Tarn
Creatures
4 x Tarmogoyf
4 x Nimble Mongoose
4 x Delver of Secrets // Insectile Aberration
Spells
4 x Stifle
4 x Lightning Bolt
4 x Force of Will
2 x Forked Bolt
4 x Daze
4 x Brainstorm
4 x Ponder
2 x Spell Pierce
2 x Spell Snare

Sideboard
2 x Ancient Grudge
2 x Grafdigger's Cage
2 x Dismember
2 x Red Elemental Blast
2 x Submerge
1 x Pyroblast
1 x Null Rod
1 x Flusterstorm
2 x Rough // Tumble


I still think mongoose is not needed in this post-top Miracles meta...but would love to get other's thoughts on this...especially JONATHAN ALEXANDER

[Jonathan Alexander]

At first I thought you still wanted to have Mongoose, then my impression was that it was worse than Mandrills, then Miracles came back and I wanted to go Jonadian again... What's probably correct is to have access to Mongoose, but likely it shouldn't be main. I think we should look at something similar to what I was playing last year (https://deckstats.net/decks/65431/538742-canadian-threshold-24-07-2016/en), with the 13 creatures total setup. I really liked being able to switch between threats; you almost never want more than 10 in any matchup anyway. If we play something like 4 Delver 4 Mongoose 3 Mandrills 2 True-Name, we can potentially still play Pyroclasm as well. Not sure if that is the correct configuration, but for each creature, there are matchups where it's pretty bad in and always having the best ones was a big draw to that list.

I think what you first want to figure out is the Grixis Delver matchup; I'm not super sold on boarding out Delver against them, but I haven't really gotten to play the matchup with the Mandrills + Mongoose + Pyroclasm setup; maybe that's worth it.

I heavily dislike playing against Swords to Plowshares (especially in conjunction with Snapcaster Mage) without Nimble Mongoose in my deck. It may actually be worse than Mandrills vs. D&T, especially if you run Delver anyway.

I'm also fairly sure you want some number of True-Names somewhere. The card steals an unreasonable number of games vs. midrange decks.

Mandrills is by far the best creature in combo matchups (it's generally the fastest clock and doesn't get killed which is great, what with Sneak & Show boarding stuff like Grim Lavamancer and Pyroclasm, while Storm also has Pyroclasm and Fatal Push). Mandrills are also great against all the Abrupt Decay decks; making them rely on clunky removal like Liliana, Deluge and Diabolic Edict is great, especially considering they don't run many copies of those generally.

Delver may very well be the weak link, but it does come with some number of free wins, which is great. It makes matchups like Maverick and D&T much better and Delver + Mandrills is definitely the best combination of creatures vs. combo. I think you need Delver or Winter Orb in your 75 and Delver has more impact because you get to run it maindeck.

Overall, I like the Jonadian approach, but it's most likely a setup you want to have access to after sideboarding, not something you want as your baseline.

There's also the option of running Grim Lavamancer, but I think it's too narrow and likely also too cute. I would probably include LoamRing again before running Grim and even that I'm not a huge fan of right now. The main draw of this deck is how efficient and straightforward it is, I don't think you want to mess with that concept.

[Malakai]

I'm posting this in the RUG forum because it is spiritually a RUG deck. If I post it over on the BUG thread they're just going to tell me to cut Stifles and run a pile of bad cards like Hymn to Tourach and Leovold.

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle

4 Fatal Push
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Deathrite Shaman
2 Dark Confidant

8 fetches
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland


I've been trying to find a way to not play Tarmogoyf for some time. Fatal Push is a nice upgrade from Bolt against most creatures, and the minor loss of reach is still present in Deathrite. I have the 4 Geese because they're still the best 1-drop after Delver. Three deathrites because we don't really ever want two. Bob might be too cute, in which case there should just be more spells in that slot. The list does feel a little light on removal; the options in black past Push are lackluster at best.

[BKclassic]

I've been playing a bit of Canadian Threshold on MODO of late...

About 2 weeks before Top was banned, I saw the light and realized that Winter Orb was The Truth against Miracles. A traditional build (4 Delver of Secrets/4 Tarmogoyf/4 Nimble Mongoose/2 Spell Pierce/2 Spell Snare/2 Forked Bolt) with 2 Winter Orb was overwhelmingly favored against CounterTop Miracles.

Around the same time, I saw the light again and realized that a traditional build with 2 Dismember and 3 Pyroblast in the Sideboard was overwhelming favored against Grixis Delver. People obsess too much about how effective Deathrite Shaman is against Nimble Mongoose. Tempo decks without Nimble Mongoose still want to kill opposing Deathrite Shamans on sight. Opposing Deathrite Shaman are only an issue against Sultai Delver because when we tap out to destroy their turn 1 Deathrite Shaman, they are in a good position to resolve Tarmogoyf on Turn 2 which we don't have removal for, combined with their removal for our Tarmogoyfs. Post-board, once we have 7-8 spot removal spells main deck, we have huge a strategic advantage against Grixis Delver. The only card in their deck that matters is the curmudgeonly Gurmag Angler as a 2-of while we have 4 of the dynamic Nimble Mongoose.

I was wracking up 4-1's in leagues on the back of wins against Miracles and Grixis when Sensei's Divining Top was, of course, banned. I made some hay in the immediate discord after the banning, but people started playing these decks with a lot of Baleful Strix and Fatal Push. It was then that I started re-evaluating the creature suite. I basically tried all manner of configurations with Delver of Secrets, Nimble Mongoose, Hooting Mandrills and True-Name Nemesis.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 Hooting Mandrills
2 True-Name Nemesis

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 Hooting Mandrills
2 True-Name Nemesis

4 Delver of Secrets
3 Nimble Mongoose
2 Hooting Mandrills
3 True-Name Nemesis

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 True-Name Nemesis

Regarding the creature suite, the deck basically needs to start with 4 Delver of Secrets and 4 Nimble Mongoose. When Delver is cut, opponents are in a much better position to play around Stifle and Daze. Nimble Mongoose usually dominates the board when opponents are limited to 2-3 mana.

Hooting Mandrills is great against combo, great against Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt, bad against Miracles, and sometimes isn't good with Nimble Mongoose. I think Hooting Mandrills would best be played in a configuration that has extra ways to dump cards in the graveyard, which would probably mean maindeck Life from the Loam, Thought Scour or Gitaxian Probe. The trouble I have is fitting those extra cards when I really don't want cut any of the 2 Spell Snare, 2 Spell Piere and 2 Forked Bolt package.

I think some amount of True-Name Nemesis in the maindeck is basically a must. It's definitely an improvement over Tarmogoyf against Baleful Strix, Fatal Push and Miracles. Costing 3 mana is obviously an issue sometimes but the ability to pitch it to Force of Will heavily mitigates this drawback and makes the card not too terrible against combo. Another issue is the tension between True-Name Nemesis and Rough/Tumble against Death and Taxes, but there are alternatives to Rough/Tumble.

The 4 True-Name Nemesis ultimately proved to be my favorite configuration of the above options. My current build:

4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 True-Name Nemesis

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Forked Bolt

2 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force of Will

Sideboard:
1 Forked Bolt
1 Spell Pierce
3 Pyroblast
4 Submerge
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Vendilion Clique

In this configuration, the plan against Grixis Delver is -2 Spell Snare, -2 Spell Pierce, +3 Pyroblast, +1 Forked Bolt. The win percentage with this build drops a bit against Grixis Delver compared to configuration with access to Tarmogoyf and Dismember. However, it's still pretty east to burn all their small creatures and trump Gurmag Angler with True-Name Nemesis or Force of Will.

My plan against Elves and Death and Taxes vis-a-vis Rough/Tumble was to max out on Submerge (also great against the hated Sultai Delver) and hope for the best with what I've got against Death and Taxes, which is normally played pretty infrequently.

In leagues, I seem to be getting more 3-2'd than the 4-1's I was getting pre-Sensei's Divining Top ban. Also, Death and Taxes performed well in the last Legacy Challange. For these reasons I'm wanting to re-evaluate my sideboard and possibly creature configuration further. I'm definitely interested in Delver/Mongoose/Mandrills build with Loam/Scour/Probe. Also, a 4 Delver/3 Mongoose/3 Goyf/2 TNN seems promising as well.

In any case, I think with the re-emergence of Miracles in the meta and the on-going dominance of Grixis Delver, Nimble Mongoose and Canadian Threshold are reasonably well positioned.

[Raticate_Tail]

Hey all, stopping back in with another local weekly summary. My list was the following

Maindeck

18 Lands

4 Delver of Secrets
3 Nimble Mongoose
2 Tarmogoyf
1 True-Name Nemesis

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Dismember

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
1 Counterspell

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain

4 Stifle

Sideboard
1 Nimble Mongoose
1 Tarmogoyf
1 True-Name Nemesis
2 Rough//Tumble
1 Seal of Fire
2 Pyroblast
1 Cursed Totem
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Flusterstorm
1 Divert
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Ancient Grudge

So overall changes were -1 Surgical Extraction, -1 Rough//Tumble, -1 Spell Snare, +1 Seal of Fire, +1 Divert, +1 Cursed Totem. The only matchup where I actively wanted to draw multiple Rough//Tumbles was Elves (granted there's a lot of it at my store) so three felt a little heavy. I added seal in as another removal spell that is also reasonable against stuff like Burn, and is much better than the third Rough//Tumble against Grixis. Due to the difficulty I was having with Elves in testing, and the waning of Reanimator at the store I got greedy and played Cursed Totem in place of Surgical number three. Divert was an attempt to add in another card for D&T and Abrupt Becay based good stuff decks.

I went 3-1 beating Lands and Elves twice, losing to Bug Delver. I think with this setup Elves is very close to a 50-50 MU. I got very lucky versus Lands and fairly unlucky versus Bug Delver. That deck seems really difficult to beat with only 2 True-Names in the deck. Tarmogoyf just does too much work against us. With the ridiculous 20 land Bug lists it's hard to even keep them off of mana. I don't really know what could possibly be done to make that matchup manageable.

I've still been liking Mongoose a lot, but I'm interested in trying a build with Cryptic Serpent as the fatty of choice over something like Tarmogoyf or Mandrills (which I think has far too much tension with Mongoose). I wish the card were just a little better (slightly reduced cost and swapped power and toughness) and it would be absolutely perfect in the slot, but regardless I would like to try it out.


I'm posting this in the RUG forum because it is spiritually a RUG deck. If I post it over on the BUG thread they're just going to tell me to cut Stifles and run a pile of bad cards like Hymn to Tourach and Leovold.

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle

4 Fatal Push
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Deathrite Shaman
2 Dark Confidant

8 fetches
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland


I've been trying to find a way to not play Tarmogoyf for some time. Fatal Push is a nice upgrade from Bolt against most creatures, and the minor loss of reach is still present in Deathrite. I have the 4 Geese because they're still the best 1-drop after Delver. Three deathrites because we don't really ever want two. Bob might be too cute, in which case there should just be more spells in that slot. The list does feel a little light on removal; the options in black past Push are lackluster at best.

I feel like this deck wants Dismembers, as it can't hope to beat a single Angler. I think that Bob is super good in a shell like this, but it seems like we'd miss Bolt a lot. Just having Bolt in your deck makes Bob so much better against combo, because that's just even less dead draws available to you.

@JonLX Try my list. The extra selection available supplements the idea of being able to swap threats on the fly in different matchups. The sideboard is obviously not good in the MTGO meta, but I think that at very least the three creatures and two Rough//Tumbles are pretty much universal.

[Raticate_Tail]

I've been playing a bit of Canadian Threshold on MODO of late...

The 4 True-Name Nemesis ultimately proved to be my favorite configuration of the above options. My current build:

4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 True-Name Nemesis

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Forked Bolt

2 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force of Will

Sideboard:
1 Forked Bolt
1 Spell Pierce
3 Pyroblast
4 Submerge
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Vendilion Clique

In this configuration, the plan against Grixis Delver is -2 Spell Snare, -2 Spell Pierce, +3 Pyroblast, +1 Forked Bolt. The win percentage with this build drops a bit against Grixis Delver compared to configuration with access to Tarmogoyf and Dismember. However, it's still pretty east to burn all their small creatures and trump Gurmag Angler with True-Name Nemesis or Force of Will.

My plan against Elves and Death and Taxes vis-a-vis Rough/Tumble was to max out on Submerge (also great against the hated Sultai Delver) and hope for the best with what I've got against Death and Taxes, which is normally played pretty infrequently.

In leagues, I seem to be getting more 3-2'd than the 4-1's I was getting pre-Sensei's Divining Top ban. Also, Death and Taxes performed well in the last Legacy Challange. For these reasons I'm wanting to re-evaluate my sideboard and possibly creature configuration further. I'm definitely interested in Delver/Mongoose/Mandrills build with Loam/Scour/Probe. Also, a 4 Delver/3 Mongoose/3 Goyf/2 TNN seems promising as well.

In any case, I think with the re-emergence of Miracles in the meta and the on-going dominance of Grixis Delver, Nimble Mongoose and Canadian Threshold are reasonably well positioned.

Some thoughts on your build:

1) I think that you want less than 12 creatures in pretty much all builds of Canadian, and especially so when you are playing multiple True-Names. I think that you can very easily get away with one less True-Name, probably two if you would like to.

2) I don't like what playing so many True-Names makes you have to do to your sideboard. Rough//Tumble is one of the main reasons to play Canadian IMO.

3) I am usually not a fan of forked bolt in canadian, but I actually like it in your list with so many True-Names. You don't NEED to kill Deathrite immediately like a standard goyf/mandrills list does.

4) I would almost consider siding a basic Island in your list as a card against grixis. Stifle grixis in particular I could see you having a lot of difficulty with, as you're forced to take the midrange role. This ensures you can't get wasted off of cantrip mana, and is an extra land that you can use to cast True-Name. Given your current configuration I'd actually approach the matchup after board differently (assuming stifle grixis):

In: 1 Forked Bolt, 1 Spell Pierce, 3 Pyroblast
Out: 2 Nimble Mongoose, 2 Force of Will, 1 Spell Snare

I would approach the game with the idea of getting to the midgame and just winning with True-Name. The only card that really ends up mattering is Young Pyromancer, as he is the only card that can single-handedly win the game before you get to that point. This is why I would choose to leave in a single spell snare over something like the third Mongoose. You use Stifle to protect your own lands and Spell Pierce to counter Pyroblasts (on your True-Names) and Stifles from the opponent's side. In the matchup Force is only ever used to counter Angler and True-Names anyways, and with 4 of your own True-Names I just don't think that you need the full 4 in.

[jattra]

Thresholders, could aby of you answer a question for me, pls?
Should I try to run Sylvan Library in this deck?
I haven't seen it in your lists posted here. I would like to understand why.
Thanks.

[tescrin]

Ponders just tend to do the same thing a turn earlier while powering Goose.

That said, people often run it as a 1-of in the Side IIRC.

[Raticate_Tail]

Ponders just tend to do the same thing a turn earlier while powering Goose.

That said, people often run it as a 1-of in the Side IIRC.

Library is more of a threat than a cantrip, not that the distinction is terribly important. You should NEVER consider running Library over something like Ponder. I like playing Library in place of Goyf when there's a lot of Swords decks and combo decks.

[Jonathan Alexander]

We originally started playing Library back in 2012 because we wanted 10 1/2 threats preboard and 6 1/2 removal spells. Library did that much better than Snapcaster Mage on average, but back then there were a lot of Swords to Plowshares around to fuel Library.
Library is really only good when you can draw 2+ extra cards and in the current metagame you can't really do that. It's a liability in Delver mirrors, heavy lifeloss is too dangerous against Storm and paying two mana mainphase is too risky vs. all the fast combo decks. There's also Abrupt Decay, which is kind annoying (Decay comes with Goyf, which grows when they kill Library to make it even worse).

Library is still good against Miracles, Stone/Deathblade, D&T, Show and Tell & Maverick, but Winter Orb is better against all of those anyway while also being great against Loam strategies. Sylvan Library tries to win the long game, Winter Orb shuts it off, which plays much better in this deck.

[jattra]

got it. thx

[apistat_commander]

Sylvan Library is a great card, but like all sideboard slots, it is metagame dependent. I like Library in games where other decks have you beat on card advantage so it ensures a consistent stream of card quality for you. At the very least it is like getting a Top activation each turn, but sometimes you can pay 4/8 life to grab a bolt, 2nd counterspell, etc. to allow you to close out the game in a single turn. I ran a singleton Library maindeck when my meta was infested with Blue Jace decks and it was quite helpful there. Sometimes I would even swap a Goyf out for it in Game 2 so that I could draw extra counters against combo.

That being said, the deck has a variety of tools for fighting slow decks: Winter Orb as mentioned before as well as Sulfuric Vortex. Each card gives you different advantages for different MUs so it comes down to what plays well at your local level.

[tescrin]

Yeah I goofed a bit. I should've mentioned what was implicitly mentioned above: It's CDA unless you can spend the life, and in an environment filled with Delvers and Pushes you don't have the luxury. Glad people found a better answer; I partly answered because I thought he may get no feedback.

[Raticate_Tail]

Anyone playing at vegas? I'd love to hear how everyone is doing/ see some reports after.

[cheerios]

There's a 9-0 Rug delver list

[Raticate_Tail]

There's a 9-0 Rug delver list

I just saw! Looking forward to seeing the list.

[ptahetep]

I just saw! Looking forward to seeing the list.

Here you go:

Creature (12)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 Tarmogoyf
2 True-Name Nemesis
Sorcery (5)
1 Forked Bolt
4 Ponder
Instant (25)
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
2 Dismember
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
Land (18)
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
60 Cards
Sideboard (15)
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Flusterstorm
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroblast
2 Rough // Tumble
1 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Vendilion Clique

[Deadeye_Mongoose]

I ended up running canadian to 10-5 with this list:

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 Force of Will
4 daze
4 stifle
4 Spell Pierce
4 Lightning Bolt
2 dismember

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
2 Flusterstorm
2 Rough // Tumble
2 submerge
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ground Seal
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Winter Orb


Rounds were:
4c Loam 1-2
Esper Stoneblade 0-2 I got blown out by supreme verdict
BR reanimator 2-0
Storm 2-0
Burn 0-2 I punted really hard
Sneak & Show 2-0
Sneak and Show 2-0
Grixis Delver 2-1 I was playing against a friend of mine, games 1&3 were weird games which ended up being land-battles until eventually I stuck a threat and won. Game 2 he stuck an early TNN with counterspell backup.
No show 2-0 I later learned this was someone from my area who was playing a Show & Tell deck so I'm kind of disappointed he didn't show up.

Mono-red prison 2-0
Bant Deathblade 1-2
Bant Deathblade 2-1
BUG Delver 1-2
Sneak & Show 2-1 This was the one game I dropped vs combo. He got me with a Blood Moon + Force backup
12-post 2-1 notably I sideboarded as if he was playing infect and ended up with 3 dead SB cards game 2. I should have had more coffee

There was a ton of Sneak and Show, Mono-red, and BR reanimator that day which was a big help to anyone playing delver. I don't remember a single match where there wasn't someone at one of the tables next to me wasn't playing one of those decks. The 4x pierce paid off big even against the fair decks.

The only thing I'm super worried about right now with the deck is TNN, especially out of Bant Deathblade. I think I'm gonna try and fit 2 TNN's of my own in the sideboard

[blablub]

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/678079#online

Another 5-0, maybe this deck will be a thing again :)

the 2/2 split solves your TNN problem i guess. Maybe you can play 2 Mandrills in the Slot of the Goyf to fight Pushes and Nemesis as well

[mcbain]

I'm interested for what matchups the pierces are boarded out in.

Sent from my SM-G925W8 using Tapatalk

[Deadeye_Mongoose]

I'm interested for what matchups the pierces are boarded out in.

Sent from my SM-G925W8 using Tapatalk

4-color deathblade I bring out most of them because I really only care about their creatures. If they're good they'll board out Jace against me.
Death & taxes I take out all of them.
Some number come out in delver matchups for flusterstorm

Probably some others I'm not thinking of, but honestly the card is jut amazing right now.

[MTB]

Everyday without Canadian content makes my heart bleed so here is my tournament report from Vegas.

My list was:

// 60 Maindeck
// 11 Creature
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 Hooting Mandrills
1 True-Name Nemesis

// 26 Instant
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Dismember
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle

// 18 Land
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

// 5 Sorcery
4 Ponder
1 Preordain


// 15 Sideboard
// 2 Creature
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Izzet Staticaster

// 11 Instant
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Flusterstorm
1 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Submerge
1 Spell Pierce
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Red Elemental Blast

// 2 Sorcery
1 Rough // Tumble
1 Life from the Loam


Round 1 & 2

Byes

Won a trial in Frankfurt and 4-0ed a trial the day before (conceded for my opponent in the last round after winning 2-0)


Round 3 Death and Taxes

I lose game 1 to a overwhelming board position after my two Delver decided to stay wizards for 4 turns.

+ 1 True-Name Nemesis
+ 1 Izzet Staticaster
+ 1 Ancient Grudge
+ 1 Destructive Revelry
+ 1 Rough // Tumble
+ 1 Life from the Loam

- 1 Daze (maybe Force not sure)
- 2 Spellpierce
- 1 Preordain
- 3 Stifle

I opened a pretty removal heavy hand but without a threat. After I cleared every creature he played he manages to stick a mirran which finishes me after failing to find a removal or threat.


Round 4 Sneakshow

He tryes to combo turn 1 lucky me I have the force and beat him down with double delver.

+ 2 Flusterstorm
+ 1 Pyroblast
+ 2 Surgical Extraction
+ 1 Spell Pierce
+ 1 Red Elemental Blast

- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 2 Dismember
- 1 True-Name Nemesis

I start with a delver and a REB for his Show and Tell on turn 2. I hit him while he is cantripping and after two hits with the delver I am able to surgical his S&T so he scoops.


Round 5 Grixis Delver

I beat the shit out of him as my creatures are all better (except for Angler maybe), the disruption too and the manabase also.... really why do people play this shit?

+ 1 True-Name Nemesis
+ 2 Flusterstorm
+ 1 Pyroblast
+ 1 Red Elemental Blast
+ 1 Rough // Tumble
+ 1 Life from the Loam

- 2 Stifle
- 2 Spellpierce
- 2 Spell Snare
- 1 Force of Will

I find loam and 4 wastelands :D


Round 6 Burn

I never find a creature.......

+ 2 Flusterstorm
+ 2 Submerge
+ 1 Spell Pierce
+ 1 Destructive Revelry
+ 1 Rough // Tumble

- 4 Stifle
- 2 Dismember
-1 Wasteland

I got a Goose for the beats and he draws only one mana bolts which bring me down to 3 with him also at 3 and he topdecks....fireblast :(

Round 7 White Drazi

I go first with Delver but without any disruption. My oppenent mulls to 6 and starts with tomb into petal....I started cursing as I feared S&T again but he “only” has little Thalia and passes. We race and I finally win with me at 5 and him at 3.

+ 1 True-Name Nemesis
+ 1 Ancient Grudge
+ 1 Spell Pierce
+ 1 Destructive Revelry
+ 1 Rough // Tumble

- 4 Stifle
- 1 Preordain

My opponent mulled to 6 again and plays plains pass. Trop go counters a chalice out of the cavern with a pierce. For the next turns my opponent fails to find a land and just plays 3 walking balistas. The last finally sticks and he finds a City of traitors. So we race Mandrills against Balista....he invests his whole mana each turn in the balista so I figure I am fine with that and I bolt the balista as he tries to put on the fourth counter.


Round 8 Deathblade

I am not sure but the lifetotals tell a story of a zoo-style game from my side and a lot of nothing from his side.

Dont know what I boarded something like

+ 1 True-Name Nemesis
+ 1 Ancient Grudge
+ 1 Pyroblast
+ 2 Submerge
+ 1 Destructive Revelry
+ 1 Red Elemental Blast
+ 1 Rough // Tumble
+ 1 Life from the Loam

- 2 Spellpierce
- 2 Stifle
- 2 Hooting Mandrills (Swords on Mandrills is tough)
- ???

I get my Delvers sworded but stick a goose which rides me to victory till at him at 10 a nemesis joins on my side so he scoops.


Round 9 Maverick

A really classic of legacy and it feels like 2012 again :D

We race each other and I win a close race thanks to delver and goose.

+ 1 True-Name Nemesis
+ 1 Ancient Grudge
+ 2 Submerge
+ 1 Destructive Revelry
+ 1 Rough // Tumble
+ 1 Life from the Loam

- 4 Stifle
- 2 Spellpierce
- 1 Preordain

He does a lot of noting but suddenly is able to stick a stoneforge into batterskull and suddenly gets marit large (both lands in his hand.....) finally I am 2 damage short as he is able to bounce batterskull in response to my revelry.... my out was that he wont notice.... he did :(

Game 3 I played the classic Combo of goose into Mandrills which finish him after I removed a stoneforge and another random creature with two bolts.


So 7/2 day 1 so far so good

Day 2 to come :)

Kind regards

Marius

[MTB]

Round 10 Deathblade

I manadenial him into oblivion while beating down with goose & delver.

+ 1 True-Name Nemesis
+ 1 Ancient Grudge
+ 1 Pyroblast
+ 1 Destructive Revelry
+ 1 Red Elemental Blast
+ 1 Rough // Tumble
+ 1 Life from the Loam

- 2 Hooting Mandrills
- 2 Spell Pierce
- 1 Daze
- 2 Stifle

I keep a greedy hand with one Tropical and find the second just in time as he wastelands me right afterwards. Thanks to his wasteland I am stuck on a volcanic which cant cast the gooses I draw and I die after he sticks a Batterskull.

I mull down to 6 and play Delver turn 1. He drops a land and passes. I dont flip but I draw the second delver which I play and pass. My opponent fetches and plays Meddling mage (O.o) naming Bolt. My Delver flip with a dismember and a cantrip finds me another Delver.....After the game he is boarding back and I see he boarded 2 meddling mage and 2 surgical – any ideas why meddling mage?


Round 11 ANT

I dont know what my opponent is on and keep a threat heavy but disruption light hand... I die after bringing him down to 2 but unable to finish him :(

+ 1 Izzet Staticaster
+ 2 Flusterstorm
+ 1 Pyroblast
+ 2 Surgical Extraction
+ 1 Spell Pierce
+ 1 Red Elemental Blast

- 2 Dismember
- 1 True-Name Nemesis
- 3 Lightning Bolt
- 1 Nimble Mungoose
- 1 Preordain/Trop?

I dont remember much of these games but my notes suggest I beat him down with a Delver in both games.


Round 12 Grixis Delver

We trade resources for eternity until I stick the mandrills and he has a Deathrite and I slowly beat him down while he is gaining life with the shaman.

+ 1 True-Name Nemesis
+ 2 Flusterstorm
+ 1 Pyroblast
+ 1 Red Elemental Blast
+ 1 Rough // Tumble
+ 1 Life from the Loam

- 2 Stifle
- 2 Spellpierce
- 2 Spell Snare
- 1 Force of Will

The Game starts good for me and I feel already the win as he is down to 1 but finally kills my Delver and follows with Angler in the next turn which kills me while I am unable to find a bolt or critter :(

I beat him down with goose while he is never really in the game and probes twice which makes my clock even faster.


Round 13 BUG Delver

I feel the matchup is pretty even if they dont play more than 1 Tombastalker....my opponent had none but at least 2 Angler instead -.- So I loose in a fast fashion to Angler + shaman.

+ 1 True-Name Nemesis
+ 2 Submerge
+ 1 Life from the Loam

- 2 Spell Pierce
- 2 Stifle

Luckily my opponents only creatures are Delvers in this game which I can kill to get my own Delvers through.

In the last game my opponent produces a steady stream of goyfs and Anglers. I even dismember an Angler and a Goyf but he follows with more goyfs :(


Round 14 ANT (Rodrigo Toggores)

I am a little bit nervous after the pairing but I have a great seven with 2 lands Delver 2 Pierce 1 Force 1 Ponder....I beat him down to 5 before I die O.o

+ 1 Izzet Staticaster
+ 2 Flusterstorm
+ 1 Pyroblast
+ 2 Surgical Extraction
+ 1 Spell Pierce
+ 1 Red Elemental Blast

- 2 Dismember
- 1 True-Name Nemesis
- 3 Lightning Bolt
- 1 Nimble Mungoose
- 1 Preordain/Trop?

This time my Hand is pretty bad and I play a Delver t1 but my only disruption is pyroblast and daze....When he is down to 6 he comboes off while I have one card he doesnt know (other 2 are pyroblast and land). He uses Dark petition without cracking his LED and plays tutor afterwards....So I think damn my surgical is pretty useless....but then I notice he discarded tendrills with his LED :D

I just have a Mongoose for beats but a Mandrills joins him pretty fast. He therapys me for force of will and sees Surgical Snare and 2 Dazes (and something not relevant). After he passes the turn I attack (drew another Snare ) and pass. He plays land pass. Now I draw my second surgical so I figured I dont want to get therapied so I surgical in his drawstep....lucky me I hit a second one in his hand. When he is at 7 he asks how much cards are in my grave which where 2 at that moment so he passes and in my turn I played:
Surgical your probes
Daze my surgical
Spellsnare my Daze
Daze my other Daze
Fetch
Attack for 7.... he didnt saw that coming :D


Round 15 Grixis Delver

I loose the first to after he kills my delver which brought him down to 7 but is able to stick an Angler (I hate this card so much)


+ 1 True-Name Nemesis
+ 2 Flusterstorm
+ 1 Pyroblast
+ 1 Red Elemental Blast
+ 1 Rough // Tumble
+ 1 Life from the Loam

- 2 Stifle
- 2 Spellpierce
- 2 Spell Snare
- 1 Force of Will

He cant remove my Mungooses while I bolt his shaman and red blast his delver.

Delver and Mungoose team up for a quick beathdown while he gets his Delver killed and and Angler dismembered.

So 12/3 overall and place 55 :)

Some thoughts about cardchoices

Preordain:
Before the tournament I discussed my list excessively with a friend (thank you very much Kevin :))and we figured that preordain is the best for this slot as other options were:
Forked Bolt
Creature
Spell Pierce
We figured that if these cards are good they are really good but if not they are horrible. So we decided on preordain as cantrips can never be THAT bad doesnt matter which matchup.

True-Name Nemesis:
Felt pretty clunky as 3 mana are a lot but I definitly wanted 11 threats and was not sure which would fit best as all alternatives felt worse:
Hooting Mandrills #3 – They really mess up the Thresh for the goose and drawing multiples sucks
Goyf – Feels really awkward at the moment as it dies to so much and gets walled by Angler and Nemesis
Vendillion Clique – The additional disruption is nice but 3 mana for an unimpressive body is a lot.
Snapcaster Mage – Also a 3 Mana thread but with an even worse body than Vendillion

Izzet Staticaster
Another suggestion from a friend was the Staticaster over the second Rough // Tumble as it comboes better with Nemesis. I sadly never played it but it stayed in the board and I have to say I really like the repitable damage source against Elves Taxes and Infect. Sadly Grimm is not playable in my list as I already run Hooting Mandrills and Mungoose :(



Overall the list felt pretty solid the only thing I would love to have is another good answer to Delve threats and Goyfs but the third dismember is not playable I think :( But the Loam was a good tech in this matchups and defnitly helped here.


Hour of Devastation
Could tragic lesson be playable? It offers real CA like painful truths did in the black splashed lists or in the BUG Threshold. Bouncing a Land is not a real drawback when you already have 3 in play if you play it sorcery speed you can even replay the land to cast it for actually 1U or you can brainstorm the land away.

Kind regards

Marus

[Beast]

Hi guys!

Have been reading here for a while now and finally decided to register. Just for a short introduction of myself, I'm playing MtG for almost 2 decades now and started playing Legacy a couple of years ago. I started Legacy by playing Dredge but shortly thereafter switched to more interactive decks like Punishing Jund, D'n'T and tried out some stuff until I got stuck with all kinds of tempo decks which I made a couple of decent results with since then.
I would consider myself a decent player with some experience yet far away from being a pro player but I'm willing to learn and improve and so here I am asking questions like...



Round 3 Death and Taxes

I lose game 1 to a overwhelming board position after my two Delver decided to stay wizards for 4 turns.

+ 1 True-Name Nemesis
+ 1 Izzet Staticaster
+ 1 Ancient Grudge
+ 1 Destructive Revelry
+ 1 Rough // Tumble
+ 1 Life from the Loam

- 1 Daze (maybe Force not sure)
- 2 Spellpierce
- 1 Preordain
- 3 Stifle

I opened a pretty removal heavy hand but without a threat. After I cleared every creature he played he manages to stick a mirran which finishes me after failing to find a removal or threat.


Why would you side out that many Stifles against D'n'T? I usually don't cut any of them or 1 at best since they rely on a lot of different abilities which makes Stifle pretty versatile here in my opinion. SFM (both abilities), equip or damage triggers of equipments, the Batterskull token, Wasteland, Vial, Wisp and even mother are things I'd love to stifle from time to time. I want them to spend as many resources as possible on things they eventually get stifled while I can make the clock ticking. They do have inevitability in this matchup I think so I want to gain every advantage possible in the early turns and Stifle does a great job here. Also Stifle protects my lands in the post board games which helps me cast a Nemesis.
As mentioned, I like to keep them in and shave more Forces/Dazes and to me it seems to be pretty legit. I have hardly had any losses in tournament play against D'n'T at all when playing Canadian Thresh. ^^



Round 5 Grixis Delver

I beat the shit out of him as my creatures are all better (except for Angler maybe), the disruption too and the manabase also.... really why do people play this shit?



Cause it's better in the black, I guess. Canadian sure is great against most kinds of relevant decks (including Grixis) right now, but when it comes to facing less common decks I'd also pick Grixis over Canadian since it has more active plays and pretty diverse threats which are hard to handle for most opposing decks. I top-8'ed a 200+ player tournament last year playing Grixis having to fight through 3 Eldrazi decks along with Dredge, Infect, Miracles and 2 times the mirror. I don't think that Canadian would have taken me that far especially against Dredge and the Eldrazi players. Grixis did a great job here since YP stalls the board and DRS puts on some pressure.
Also the combo matchup is pretty decent for they cannot afford waiting to go off as late as possible in order to assamble a counter proof hand 'cause you could just tear apart their hand with Therapy. The mirror spells hard times indeed but when it comes to the rest of the field, Grixis's got a point there. :)

[jattra]

Maybe a noob question: how do we fight Knight of the Reliquary.
It tutors for lands and gets quickly big. I find both very annoying.

[Ralf]

Maybe a noob question: how do we fight Knight of the Reliquary.
It tutors for lands and gets quickly big. I find both very annoying.

Usually you race.
Post side submerge (x3 when Maverick was a thing) is usually enough.

[KobeBryan]

Maybe a noob question: how do we fight Knight of the Reliquary.
It tutors for lands and gets quickly big. I find both very annoying.

Why are you worried about it. No one is playing more than 2 in a deck. And there's only 1 deck that plays it.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Daze.

[jattra]

Why are you worried about it. No one is playing more than 2 in a deck. And there's only 1 deck that plays it.

They also play gsz. And I loose to late game knight time to time. It's already big beast and daze is useless at that time. Submerge would be nice but I don't like it against other frequent decks, hello grixis.

[MTB]

...

Why would you side out that many Stifles against D'n'T? ...


I bring them out as they are nice in some cases but overall pretty narrow as they are only good in combination with other cards
Stifling...
...Mother - you need a creature to deal damage (you can't decide what you kill) or a removal (2for1 yourself but still decent)
...Stoneforge search - works until they topdeck the equipment or have some in hand already (seems dangerous to me)
...Stoneforge put into play - Timewalks which is fine with a clock but most of the time not good enough
...Batterskull - Works well except they have a ton of mana

The point is you get a lot of cards which deal with all this problems better like Artifact removal or recurring/mass removal.
So I think stifle is easier to cut than Daze and Force as they present safe answers to all troublesome cards.
I could see a point for keeping 1 or 2 Stifle over 1 or 2 Daze but I'm not 100% sure on this.



Cause it's better in the black, I guess. Canadian sure is great against most kinds of relevant decks (including Grixis) right now, but when it comes to facing less common decks


I don't think so Grixis is only really better in the Storm Matchup and maybe some fringe stuff.
Show and Tell - Stifle + Pierce do lot more than 3 cabal therapy here
Elves - More Removal if you play Mandrills trample is HUGE
Stoneblade & Miracles - Goose wins alone here in combination with so much counter magic its pretty good matchup
Deathblade - More removal for manadorks + manadenial



I'd also pick Grixis over Canadian since it has more active plays and pretty diverse threats which are hard to handle for most opposing decks. I top-8'ed a 200+ player tournament last year playing Grixis having to fight through 3 Eldrazi decks along with Dredge, Infect, Miracles and 2 times the mirror. I don't think that Canadian would have taken me that far especially against Dredge and the Eldrazi players. Grixis did a great job here since YP stalls the board and DRS puts on some pressure.
Also the combo matchup is pretty decent for they cannot afford waiting to go off as late as possible in order to assamble a counter proof hand 'cause you could just tear apart their hand with Therapy. The mirror spells hard times indeed but when it comes to the rest of the field, Grixis's got a point there. :)

This really depends on your list actually the Eldrazi Matchup is favored for you if you play Tarmogoyfs, if you dont its little bit worse than grixis.
Dredge is totally up to your SB. Most of the time DRS is not enough to keep this deck under controll
Infect is much easier for canadian as we have more removal and hardcounters for the Agent (if you play Snare)
Miracle was undoubtly one of Canadians best matchups while it was pretty shacky for grixis.


Maybe a noob question: how do we fight Knight of the Reliquary.
It tutors for lands and gets quickly big. I find both very annoying.

Thats a troublesome card for Canadian no question but so are Chalice of the Void, Bloodmoon, Batterskull, True-Name Nemesis, Choke, Trinisphere or any non boltable permanent but the simple answer is DON'T LET TROUBLESOME STUFF RESOLVE.
If you are in the lategame without any board presence and they topdeck the zenith while you have nothing in Hand you would also have lost to a scavenging ooze, chalice, stoneforge or a naturally drawn knight so you were in a bad spot in the first place. You need to force you opponents to play into you softpermission by applying pressure with your creatures.

[jattra]

Thats a troublesome card for Canadian no question but so are Chalice of the Void, Bloodmoon, Batterskull, True-Name Nemesis, Choke, Trinisphere or any non boltable permanent but the simple answer is DON'T LET TROUBLESOME STUFF RESOLVE.
If you are in the lategame without any board presence and they topdeck the zenith while you have nothing in Hand you would also have lost to a scavenging ooze, chalice, stoneforge or a naturally drawn knight so you were in a bad spot in the first place. You need to force you opponents to play into you softpermission by applying pressure with your creatures.

You are probably right. Just everything looks fine, then suddenly they deluge my goose and put a knight in and I am dead. One needs to learn to play this deck max efficiently, not to get out of gas.

[MTB]

If Knight Decks are realy an issiue in your meta you should play 2 dismember main and maybe up the Number of submerge or mind harmness.

When maverick was the Deck to beat i have seen Knight of the mists in some sideboards :D but it seems realy janky to me :D

[jattra]

i have seen Knight of the mists in some sideboards :D
That is a very nice card :)
We are safe if legacy gets ripped in pieces by knights on day :)

[Jonathan Alexander]

Knight of the Mists was a Maverick / Dredge split card. I still have mine, and I tried very hard to justify playing them at Eternal Weekend; didn't get there =(

[MTB]

Knight of the Mists was a Maverick / Dredge split card. I still have mine, and I tried very hard to justify playing them at Eternal Weekend; didn't get there =(

Against dredge a three mana way to remove bridges seems pretty lackluster. I would bring them in if I had them in my sb for sure but considering it a anti dredge card seems ambitious to me O.o

[Beast]

The point is you get a lot of cards which deal with all this problems better like Artifact removal or recurring/mass removal.
So I think stifle is easier to cut than Daze and Force as they present safe answers to all troublesome cards.
I could see a point for keeping 1 or 2 Stifle over 1 or 2 Daze but I'm not 100% sure on this.

Thanks for explaining in detail, I really appreciate that.
I get your point but I still tend to disagree. I don't like having too much countermagic here for it gets worthless quickly if they stick a Vial or Cavern. Sure you can counter/destroy Vial itself but that still comes at the cost of one piece of countermagic or removal so not much is won here in my opinion.
Stifle on the other hand often may be just a short time solution but more often than not this is just what I want in this matchup, another turn of dominating the board state and pushing through damage/force them to chump. Stifle is versatile here and pretty often enables another turn of "no changes" on the board - be it for denying (triggers of) equipment or a vial activation or maybe even a wisp trigger that otherwise would de-flip an Insectile Abberation.
The fact that Stifle usually trades unfavorable here doesn't really count for me because that's what Stifle does most of the time it doesn't target a land and also we're a tempo deck and thus shouldn't care too much about CA. If our gameplan works as intended, the opponent will lose with a hand full of cards he just can't cast so trading 1 for 2 from time to time isn't that much of deal to me. :)



I don't think so Grixis is only really better in the Storm Matchup and maybe some fringe stuff.
Show and Tell - Stifle + Pierce do lot more than 3 cabal therapy here
Elves - More Removal if you play Mandrills trample is HUGE
Stoneblade & Miracles - Goose wins alone here in combination with so much counter magic its pretty good matchup
Deathblade - More removal for manadorks + manadenial

S'n'T - You may be right. I would still throw in that early Therapies with flashback can be devastating here as well. This however only does affect the early game.
Elves - I don't play Mandrills. :( Regardless of that I think the matchup is unfavorable anyway, no matter what kind of Delver deck you play. You'll need to find your sideboard cards here.
Stoneblade & Miracles - True that is.
Deathblade - Haven't played this matchup from a Grixis point of view yet, but also seems legit.
Then again I would mention Reanimator which is a huge thing right about now and has way more issues battleing DRS and stuff (Probe for example is great vs. chancellor) than it has beating countermagic alone as well as any deck that tries to chalice lock us. Chalice @ 1 is lethal to Canadian while Grixis can just fire off worthless spells and convert them into 1/1 token and/or delve them to an Angler.



This really depends on your list actually the Eldrazi Matchup is favored for you if you play Tarmogoyfs, if you dont its little bit worse than grixis.
Dredge is totally up to your SB. Most of the time DRS is not enough to keep this deck under controll
Infect is much easier for canadian as we have more removal and hardcounters for the Agent (if you play Snare)
Miracle was undoubtly one of Canadians best matchups while it was pretty shacky for grixis.

Miracles is a major reason to pick Canadian for sure but Miracles also has had lost a ton of weight when it comes to meta share right after SDT got banned. Right now it seems to be on its way back to the top because players seem to have realized that it still is a pretty decent deck without the CB/SDT lock. But between ban date and about now there was not much Terminus to be seen which made a point for Grixis.
Shaman usually doesn't stop Dredge on his own but having shaman and a tiny bit of countermagic puts Dredge on a spot where they have to find at least 2 dredge cards, also you can sac token to CTs to trigger their Bridges. On the other hand Dredge could be more or less ignored as a matchup I think.
Don't get me wrong, I also love playing Canadian way more than I do like playing Grixis but I still think Grixis currently is a good deck to play. It may have less really favorable matchups than Canadian but it also has less dead ends it could run into.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Against dredge a three mana way to remove bridges seems pretty lackluster. I would bring them in if I had them in my sb for sure but considering it a anti dredge card seems ambitious to me O.o

Back when Knight of the Mists was played, it think it was pretty deece because of how much worse Dredge was and a lot of the better hate didn't exist. You could never play it today and use Dredge as justification, of course.


stuff about Stifle vs. D&T

I'm with MTB here, Stifle is really awkward vs. D&T in my experience, extra removal / ways to deal with Vial and equipment are better.



Elves - I don't play Mandrills. :( Regardless of that I think the matchup is unfavorable anyway, no matter what kind of Delver deck you play. You'll need to find your sideboard cards here.

I like Canadian vs. Elves, I dislike other Delver decks vs. Elves. It used to be a really bad matchup, but then they stopped playing 10 Forests and it got much better. Still not a great matchup if you go in unprepared. Monkeys are huge here, but you should try them anyway.


Chalice @ 1 is lethal to Canadian while Grixis can just fire off worthless spells and convert them into 1/1 token and/or delve them to an Angler.

You can't play a list from last year. Mandrils, True-Name, Tarmogoyf (not that it's playable right now) and Sulfuric Vortex all get through Chalice and you should play Ancient Grudge as well (the last list I played had 4 Mandrils, 3 Goyfs, 2 Vortex, 3 Grudge - Goyf was garbage, but you get the idea).

[diablo4488]

You can't play a list from last year. Mandrils, True-Name, Tarmogoyf (not that it's playable right now) and Sulfuric Vortex all get through Chalice and you should play Ancient Grudge as well (the last list I played had 4 Mandrils, 3 Goyfs, 2 Vortex, 3 Grudge - Goyf was garbage, but you get the idea).

I want to have a little discussion right now about the creature suite and the flex slots.
This is what i play right now:

4 Delver
3 Goose
2 Mandrils
2 TNN
(note only 11 creatures, none in sideboard)

3 Probe (i love to have the information what card i should play next, or not)
2 Dismember (Angler, Eldrazi, Knight, Tombstalker)
2 Spell Snare

The rest is pretty stock. I have good results right now!
Goose, Mandrils and TNN cant get hit by Push, Bolt, Decay
Goose, TNN not by Swords
The only problem is a huge creature or Strix.
This is why i play 2 Dismember and 2 Snares (nice catch all).

What are your thoughts ?

[CptHaddock]

I want to have a little discussion right now about the creature suite and the flex slots.
This is what i play right now:

4 Delver
3 Goose
2 Mandrils
2 TNN
(note only 11 creatures, none in sideboard)

3 Probe (i love to have the information what card i should play next, or not)
2 Dismember (Angler, Eldrazi, Knight, Tombstalker)
2 Spell Snare

The rest is pretty stock. I have good results right now!
Goose, Mandrils and TNN cant get hit by Push, Bolt, Decay
Goose, TNN not by Swords
The only problem is a huge creature or Strix.
This is why i play 2 Dismember and 2 Snares (nice catch all).

What are your thoughts ?

Seems kind of weird to run 3 goose, goose is one of the biggest reasons to run this archetype still imo.

[MTB]

I want to have a little discussion right now about the creature suite and the flex slots.
This is what i play right now:

4 Delver
3 Goose
2 Mandrils
2 TNN
(note only 11 creatures, none in sideboard)

....

What are your thoughts ?

Ok so:

Delver:
Shines against Combo removal light Decks or Decks you need to clock fast e.g. Show&Tell, Reanimator, Maverick
Bad against decks with a lot of removal e.g. Lands, mirror
A backbone of the Deck nowadays as its rarely bad as its at least a fast cloock although prone to removal

Nimble Mungoose:
Shines against removal heavy/creature light Decks e.g. Stoneblade, Lands
Bad against decks with a fast clock or giant undercosted beaters e.g. Eldrazi, Burn
The classic threat of Canadian is definitly the best creature against Controll decks as its easy to cast and removal proof. That said against some decks its quite slow but against Combo its at least decent as you can deploy it fast without tapping out.

Tarmogoyf:
Shines against aggressiv decks without much ways to deal with it e.g. Eldrazi, Burn, Grixis Delver
Bad against decks that rely at abrupt decay, fatal push or swords to plowhare as they are hard (or impossible) to counter and can handle the goyf easily e.g. Deathblade, Bug Delver
Nowadays mostly obsolet as it is a bad choice in a meta full of decays and pushes. That said its quite handy against Grixis Delver and can give you an edge in some games as you can overrun your opponent "Zoo-Style" with a creature heavy draw. Pretty mediocre against combo as its rarely bigger than 3/4 and hard to deploy without tapping out.

True-Name Nemesis:
Shines against removal heavy/creature based Decks e.g. Death and Taxes, Stoneblade
Bad against all sorts of Combo decks e.g. Storm, Show and Tell
Often a 1 or 2 off in the main as it can seal the game pretty fast by providing an endless roadblock or clocking without any possible for most decks to interact with it. But for this deck 3 mana is a lot and it will often strand in your hand or is not deployable as its close to impossible to cast it against combo without tapping out. Also decent in the mirror but really hard to resolve against manadenial + Daze. Keep in mind postboard it trades poorly with REB.

Hooting Mandrills:
Shines against decks that rely on non white Removal spells / True-Name or you need to clock fast e.g. BUG (all variants), Grixis, Combo, Aggro Loam
Bad against most of the "swords-Decks" or Jace (luckily the rest of the deck is pretty good against Jace) e.g. Stoneblade, Miracles
A huge addon against decks where Mungoose doesnt shine e.g. Aggro Loam. The antisynergie with the Mungoose comes up from time to time but is woth it most of the time.

Vendillion Clique:
Shines against Combo and Control Decks e.g. Stoneblade, Show and Tell
Bad against removal heavy/very redundant Decks e.g. Delver, Burn
3 Mana is often an issue with Canadian and the effect is not that powerful so you maybe want it in the Sideboard but most of the time you can play cards that are more effective in the given Matchup e.g. Winter Orb/Sulfuric Vortex against Stoneblade or Fluster/Null Rod against Storm

Grim Lavamancer:
Shines against creature heavy Decks e.g. Death and Taxes
Bad against creature less Decks e.g. Combo, Control
Another "more sideboard card" as its pretty bad against Combo or Control (2 damage is a much too slow clock and the antisynergie with Mungoose and Mandrills is pretty bad)

Snapcaster Mage:
Shines against decks where you board in high value SB spells like Combo e.g. Show and Tell, Storm
Bad against decks with a lot of blockers/creatures to race which makes the 2/1 body obsolet or against Decks which make the manacosts troublesome e.g. Delver, Death and Taxes
Essentially a 3 mana creaure (except you flashback surgical) with a poor body (2/1 doesnt make the cut most of the time) so there are better options like Sylvan library (for card advantage) or straigther hate cards e.g. Null Rod against Storm

Side note
Other "playable creaure":
Scavenign Ooze - Canadian only runs 3 green sources so this is very very slow but can come handy against Delver, Burn or Knight decks.

Young pyromancer - Sometimes played as "additional shroud creature" but only playable with Probes and Canadian is a reactive deck at heart so with the incorporation of Probes you weaken the primary deck plan as you cut counter and removal.

Deathrite - Needs 1 or 2 Useas in the deck which weakens the manabase a lot that said its pretty powerful and also enables a lot of powerful sb cards

Cryptic serpent - Could be playable as 1 off has a decent antisynergie with Mandrills but plays quite well with goose. Loosing it to a REB sounds horrible and it wont survive a Gurmag Angler (at least it trades).

Regarding your llist:

I played a similar configuration at GP Vegas but -1 TNN +1 Goose as I really dislike TNN in some matchups while most of the time Mungoose is at least "Something" the TNN is often best used as pitch card. In my oppinion the Mainboard should be as lean as possible and Mungoose supports the gameplan much better than TNN as TNN is a mid-/lategame card while Mungoose provides staying power while also beeing easily castable. So I bring in a second TNN from the SB if I feel I need them and still have 5 shroud creatures MB.

Kind regards,

Marius

[Beast]

I'm with MTB here, Stifle is really awkward vs. D&T in my experience, extra removal / ways to deal with Vial and equipment are better.

Yeah but the question is not "Stifle or removal?" - the question in my opinion is "Stifle or countermagic" since you usually won't have more than 6 cards you want to board in while on the other hand the most awkward cards in this matchup are amongst Force, Daze, Stifle, and Pierce which makes at least a total of 14. I usually end up siding out all Pierces and then shave some FoW/Daze (concrete numbers depend on who is the starting player, in general I like to side out 3-4 of those in total) and sometimes a Stifle or two, depending on the list I play. Worked out pretty well so far. :)


I like Canadian vs. Elves, I dislike other Delver decks vs. Elves. It used to be a really bad matchup, but then they stopped playing 10 Forests and it got much better. Still not a great matchup if you go in unprepared. Monkeys are huge here, but you should try them anyway.

I agree that Canadian feels much better Elves than other Delver decks. However I still don't like the matchup before boarding even though the figures don't lie and my overall rate vs. Elves is slightly positive.
I tried the monkeys a couple of times yet always disliked them in the end. I might give them another shot but not until next week after Cardmarket Series Prague. I'm not going to experiment in that short amount of time any more.


You can't play a list from last year. Mandrils, True-Name, Tarmogoyf (not that it's playable right now) and Sulfuric Vortex all get through Chalice and you should play Ancient Grudge as well (the last list I played had 4 Mandrils, 3 Goyfs, 2 Vortex, 3 Grudge - Goyf was garbage, but you get the idea).

As a former president of the US once claimed, yes I can. ^^
I like the streamline build more than ever, I think that being as efficient as can be is the key to victory in a meta full of greedy value decks. I agree on Vortex and Grudge, also I play 2 TNNs in my 75 but I also still like having Goyfs since they are less clunky while being the faster clock against many decks. Push is not that much of a factor in my opinion especially since it usually splits with or even takes the slots of Decay in most decks. I don't feel like I have to dodge this at any means.
Efficiency is Canadian's greatest strength and the only way we can achieve tempo plays is by having efficient threats combined with low-cost permission, if I wanted to go for more value plays I would rather switch colors than trying to press it in a RUG shell.

[mcbain]

Has anyone tested Abrade yet? I'm thinking in place of fork bolt and maybe 1 dismember or pierce.

It's more removal when you need it and also blows out batterskull and other problematic artifacts.

Sent from my SM-G925W8 using Tapatalk

[Jonathan Alexander]

Yeah but the question is not "Stifle or removal?" - the question in my opinion is "Stifle or countermagic" since you usually won't have more than 6 cards you want to board in while on the other hand the most awkward cards in this matchup are amongst Force, Daze, Stifle, and Pierce which makes at least a total of 14. I usually end up siding out all Pierces and then shave some FoW/Daze (concrete numbers depend on who is the starting player, in general I like to side out 3-4 of those in total) and sometimes a Stifle or two, depending on the list I play. Worked out pretty well so far. :)

Countermagic is one way to deal with Vial and Equipment. I vastly prefer having Spell Pierce over having Stifle. Countering Vial is important and countering a Swords to Plowshares can also be very important. I generally don't cut any countermagic; the only exception is the random maindeck Flusterstorm I sometimes play.


Efficiency is Canadian's greatest strength and the only way we can achieve tempo plays is by having efficient threats combined with low-cost permission, if I wanted to go for more value plays I would rather switch colors than trying to press it in a RUG shell.

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're getting at. That being said, I agree that for example the Barb Ring + Loam package is not quite where you want to be in a number of matchups; it's just a tad too durdly a lot of the time and you often end up one land drop short of going completely out of hand with it and then you lose because of it. Then again, in some matchups it's downright amazing, mainly against the non-blue creature decks (D&T, Aggro Loam, Maverick), but also against the Delverless Stoneforge Mystic decks.

And that is, in my opinion, the biggest problem for the deck right now; it's being pulled in so many completely different directions. Pretty much no matter what you do, you always end up with some really awkward matchups amongst the top decks. Maybe there is a way to perfectly adjust the deck to the current metagame, but I certainly haven't found it.



Has anyone tested Abrade yet?

I have. It's nice to have, which is annyoing because now there are like four different removal spells you have to choose from and I have no idea which is best. I'm thinking that it might be best to not care about big creatures, but that might be completely off.

[MTB]

Has anyone tested Abrade yet? I'm thinking in place of fork bolt and maybe 1 dismember or pierce.

It's more removal when you need it and also blows out batterskull and other problematic artifacts.

Sent from my SM-G925W8 using Tapatalk

Yeah I did. I played it in the SB slot of the second Grudge/Revelry and it was nice to have one additional removal against some decks.
I played it against maverick and burn so far and I really liked the possibility to kill creatures as burn only plays bridge and maverick only has 3 equipments as target for artifact removal which makes bringing in Grudge/revelry little shaky....

[Beast]

Countermagic is one way to deal with Vial and Equipment. I vastly prefer having Spell Pierce over having Stifle. Countering Vial is important and countering a Swords to Plowshares can also be very important. I generally don't cut any countermagic; the only exception is the random maindeck Flusterstorm I sometimes play.

Spell Pierce pretty often did nothing in this MU in my experience. They do not have plenty of targets for it and most of them can at least be delayed by Stifle. Yet I might give it another try some day.


I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're getting at.

It is our road to victory to not let the opponents follow their gameplan. To achieve this we try to at least delay any relevant play they want to commit (hello Cpt. Obvious). This won't work forever so inevitably the opponent will win over time for they usually play stronger effects than we do. I don't like adding some stronger effects to our shell which are good for themselves but struggle against the way Canadian usually wants to play. Tapping out for 3 in our own turn for a TNN opens a window where the opponent can without us having mana to react (sure we have FoW/Daze but those alone are not always enough). So rather than putting a fish into a Canadian shell just because it's a good card I would dismis almost any disruption that requires me to keep my mana open and build a shell that totally commits to tapping out and apply pressure from the start like Grixis or Team America.
I admit that I am a little bit biased here. I don't like having a gameplan and then add some cards that just are good stuff but I want some kind of harmony within my deck. All cards should commit to a higher strategy in order to execute my gameplan as tight as it can be (even though I recently read an article that just embraces the opposite and reads like "doesn't matter if your cards don't cooperate if they hit your opponent harder than you" and I must admit the author's got a point there).


That being said, I agree that for example the Barb Ring + Loam package is not quite where you want to be in a number of matchups; it's just a tad too durdly a lot of the time and you often end up one land drop short of going completely out of hand with it and then you lose because of it. Then again, in some matchups it's downright amazing, mainly against the non-blue creature decks (D&T, Aggro Loam, Maverick), but also against the Delverless Stoneforge Mystic decks.

And that is, in my opinion, the biggest problem for the deck right now; it's being pulled in so many completely different directions. Pretty much no matter what you do, you always end up with some really awkward matchups amongst the top decks. Maybe there is a way to perfectly adjust the deck to the current metagame, but I certainly haven't found it.

That is exactly what I think. You can't add a slow rolling grind engine to a deck that totally isn't designed to grind out a game at all. Sometimes it'll be amazing starting to deny the opponent a land or two and then starting the loam engine to ensure they will never again set foot in the game. Some other times it'll just make you stick around one mana short with no pressure to apply. The times it would be amazing then again often you could just stick a "real" threat and ride it to victory while the opponent tries to struggle his way out of the mana screw.
So why try to adapt the deck to any possible scenario instead of just focussing on what we are best at? Sure the main plan can't always win but decreasing it for occasionally good cards (that may be crap from time to time) doesn't do so either. What I learned in Prague last week was once again that every deck can be denied its resources. I won games/matches against Food Chain, Jund and Blade with ease because they were unable to move due to me attacking their mana base - it sure would have been tough to win the grind against them. Unfortunately in the end I dropped at 3-3, I usually don't like to blame the deck and rather try to spot mistakes and misplays to improve but this time there wasn't much to play different - if you draw tons of Delvers, Mongooses and lands against combo decks you'll end up short on countermagic when they are going for the kill. :(

[diablo4488]

Regarding your llist:

I played a similar configuration at GP Vegas but -1 TNN +1 Goose as I really dislike TNN in some matchups while most of the time Mungoose is at least "Something" the TNN is often best used as pitch card. In my oppinion the Mainboard should be as lean as possible and Mungoose supports the gameplan much better than TNN as TNN is a mid-/lategame card while Mungoose provides staying power while also beeing easily castable. So I bring in a second TNN from the SB if I feel I need them and still have 5 shroud creatures MB.

Kind regards,

Marius

Thank you for your thoughts.
I switched the 2nd TNN for the 4th Goose.
I'm not totaly sold on Mandrils... But much less on Goyf in this Push-meta.
I also switched the 3 Probes against 2 Spell Pierce and 1 Forked Bolt (i feel now confident enough again with the deck without seeing their hand).
How good is Library MB with 11 Creatures? I have the Forked Bolt as testing slot in it and Library in SB.
Both are really good in the early (one answers problematic 1/2 drops, the other draws mostly 3 cards) and in the in the late game to push true the last 2 damage or find the bolt with the other one.

[kombatkiwi]

I've been testing:
4 Delver
4 Goose
2 Hooty

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Bolt
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Force

18 Lands the usual suspects

2 Pierce
2 Snare
1 Counterspell
1 Forked Bolt
1 Loam
1 Dismember

The tension between Mongoose and Mandrills doesn't come up enough to be concerned about (although it has been an issue sometimes). Trample + Push Proof + Able to cast for 1 mana has been enough better than big Tarmogoyf I think. Against Angler decks you need to trample over postboard (or maindeck) TNN anyway so it's sort of a wash there and so the main loss is against Eldrazi which doesn't seem to be very popular anymore.

I made the 3/1 split of Snare/Pierce into 2/2 because Counterbalance isn't a thing anymore, although now Baleful Strix is everywhere so maybe this isn't right.
I like the 1 Loam still although the Barbarian Ring interaction (1 Ring sb) has never come up.

I sort of agree with the idea of "I'm a super streamlined efficient machine and I'm not interested in playing any clunky goodstuff" but in practice the adage of any low-to-the-ground aggressive deck will generally hold true, which is "If you want the advantage then you need to either be a bit bigger or a LOT faster." When all the opponents are playing Daze, StP etc it's impossible to be even faster/more efficient and you trade resources often, so when the dust settles if you can just jam a Loam or a TNN you will pull ahead by a lot compared to if you just had another copy of a Force Spike type of card. In a way it's a case of "there are no wrong threats, only wrong answers".

I have been using the following Sb
2 TNN
2 Grudge
3 Pyroblast
1 Disrupt
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Electrickery
2 Winter Orb
1 Roast
2 Surgical

I could consider cutting 1 or both Grudge for Abrade but I think in every matchup where you want artifact hate the flashback is way more important than the flexibility.
Now that Top is not a card I'm not sure how much I like Winter Orb any more. It seems like a mediocre 'catch all' kind of card that is only okay in different matchups but not an ideal option in any of them. It almost feels like putting a maindeck card in the sideboard in that sense. I already was unimpressed with WOrb in non-Miracles MUs in the last format but I still played 3 because I thought it was worth it just for that, now I don't know.

I kind of want to test a pinger in the SB because DNT/Elves/Strix are all really annoying. Sparkmage/Staticaster/Granger Guildmage/Daybreak Ranger/Gelectrode/Suqata Firewalker all have various pros/cons but maybe Honden of Infinite Rage could be the pick? Immune to creature removal means that maybe it's also okay in matchups where you would want Sulfuric Vortex. (All of these except maybe Daybreak suck against Leovold though which is kind of disappointing).

The other reason why I was thinking of these is because I was looking at Hornets Nest as an anti-creature option but it's probably too expensive and there are too many non-damage ways to remove it (and the idea of combining it with a pinger is probably way too ambitious besides).

Edit:
After playing some games with Honden it actually seems really good!
Against the new Miracles it's like a 1/1 TNN that is immune to Terminus/Pyroblast but unlike Sulfuric Vortex it also mops up all Snapcasters and mentor tokens
Against DNT or Elves it's almost like a 3 mana Avatar of Woe (i.e. not too much worse than Staticaster)
Edit Again: Is Granite Shard better?

[koten]

Would BUG stifle lists discussions belong in this thread or the Team America thread?

[kombatkiwi]

Would BUG stifle lists discussions belong in this thread or the Team America thread?

Historically I think BUG Stifle lists go in the Team America thread unless you're also playing Nimble Mongoose

[Beast]

Hey guys

short and maybe simple question: How do we beat Bant Blade? How do we sideboard against them?

I'm really having issues beating them. I've tried to attack their mana which feels sort of difficult due to their 8 dorks (maybe I was just not lucky there since the approach kind of felt right), I've tried to let go of parts of the tempo plan and just add more artefact hate and I've tried to just trade their main business spells which didn't work out neither for they have more quality in the mid game.
I'm really struggeling here. I'm aware the matchup is rather unfavorable but they are not unbeatable (are they?) so I would really appreciate a short guide line of how to finish them off... :)

[Hrothgar]

By now I play Canadian just for fun, my two cents: i like to bring in vs bant blade: 2 Blast, 2 Flusterstorm, 2 Ancient Grudge and 2 Price of Progress and set up the game only in pure tempo style. If i have success in the first turns, defending my Delver and Stifle Batterskull germ / equip or Jitte equip, I take the time to play Ancient Grudge, then Price of Progress / Nemesis end the game.

[jattra]

Hello,
currently I am running the RUG in Denial list by Sean Brown.
Mentioned here, at the bottom of the page https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/this-week-in-legacy-07-10-17-legacy-challenge

Anybody else trying that build? In the current meta, I like it much more than the classic Mongoose build.

[TheManWithaPlan]

I think right now people haven't been giving Canadian Threshold enough credit for how good it actually is right now. It is the deck that is the best home for Stifle right now and it has a favourable matchup against Czech Pile. It is very difficult for Czech Pile to answer Mongoose, Mandrills or TNN, and Canadian has the ability to cripple their mana development with Stifle and Wasteland. I think the performance of Canadian Threshold at MKM Hamburg is a big testament to this point.

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16936&d=304761&f=LE

I honestly think that this is the optimal build of Canadian Threshold right now. I have been playing a list very similar to this at some local events recently and it has felt very strong.

I would like to make a couple observations:
-Hooting Mandrills is great, even if it gets in the way of Nimble Mongoose. The anti-synergy isn't as bad as you think.
-You want 6-7 removal spells main deck.
-Play Spell Snare, it is very good right now, because of the number of Snapcaster Mages.
-Play 1-2 TNN's in the main, it is very good when your opponent is off balance.
-Life from the Loam is one of the most insane sideboard cards (i might be a little biased).

Please feel free to dispute the points I am making, I would love to discuss and develop Canadian Threshold more right now.

[kombatkiwi]

My maindeck is the same as that -1 TNN, -1 Preordain, +1 Life from the Loam, +1 Counterspell (only a few posts back). Of course these are very minor choices and could be argued either way.
Vs the Czech Pile matchup one of their most effective cards against this deck is Baleful Strix, so the number of those that they choose to use can have a significant effect on the expected win percentage. I saw that some versions of 4C are adding white for Lingering Souls instead because it's better in the mirror, which is probably good for RUG.
I have never really liked Submerge that much but with the popularity of various Marit Lage decks increasing maybe it is okay. At the moment I think 2 Grudge is better than 1 Grudge 1 Abrade but I need to test this more. I think the move away from Winter Orb is correct with no Divining Top around but I think having access to 1 copy in the SB is still reasonable.

[MTB]

My maindeck is the same as that -1 TNN, -1 Preordain, +1 Life from the Loam, +1 Counterspell (only a few posts back). Of course these are very minor choices and could be argued either way.
Vs the Czech Pile matchup one of their most effective cards against this deck is Baleful Strix, so the number of those that they choose to use can have a significant effect on the expected win percentage. I saw that some versions of 4C are adding white for Lingering Souls instead because it's better in the mirror, which is probably good for RUG.
I have never really liked Submerge that much but with the popularity of various Marit Lage decks increasing maybe it is okay. At the moment I think 2 Grudge is better than 1 Grudge 1 Abrade but I need to test this more. I think the move away from Winter Orb is correct with no Divining Top around but I think having access to 1 copy in the SB is still reasonable.

I played the Abrade over the second grudge as I wanted to have the option to increase the removal count postboard as I had no rough//tumble in the board. Also I never felt 2 grudges would be necessary in any relevant Matchups....against D&T you maybe want 2 Grudges but Abrade is awesome in that matchup.
Sadly I think you have to play at least one or two Submerge as its really good although its pretty narrow because there are not much green Decks in the format right know. Against lands I dont bring the in if I think my opponent knows what he is doing because he will play around it anyway.


I think right now people haven't been giving Canadian Threshold enough credit for how good it actually is right now. It is the deck that is the best home for Stifle right now and it has a favourable matchup against Czech Pile. It is very difficult for Czech Pile to answer Mongoose, Mandrills or TNN, and Canadian has the ability to cripple their mana development with Stifle and Wasteland. I think the performance of Canadian Threshold at MKM Hamburg is a big testament to this point.

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16936&d=304761&f=LE

I honestly think that this is the optimal build of Canadian Threshold right now. I have been playing a list very similar to this at some local events recently and it has felt very strong.

I would like to make a couple observations:
-Hooting Mandrills is great, even if it gets in the way of Nimble Mongoose. The anti-synergy isn't as bad as you think.
Definitly Against BUG Mandrills are the best creature while weak to swords to plowshare where Mungoos shines. Both were great at the whole trounament and I never ever wished the Mandrills would be goyfs.
-You want 6-7 removal spells main deck.
I would prefer 6 as they are pretty useless against some decks. Thats also one of the reasons for the one of Preordain as it delivers you cards needed for a given matchup.
-Play Spell Snare, it is very good right now, because of the number of Snapcaster Mages.
Yeah Snare is definitly good at the moment but I dont think you want more than 2 as they are dead in some matchups and pierce is also very important against the slwoly rising amount of combo decks.
-Play 1-2 TNN's in the main, it is very good when your opponent is off balance.
Double TNN seems pretty ambitious to me for the Maindeck its still a 3 Mana 3 Power guy and not really supporting the primary gameplan as you have to tap low for a "small" amount of damage
-Life from the Loam is one of the most insane sideboard cards (i might be a little biased).
Thought about adding one instead of the compost before the tournament but finally endet up with compost (one time drawn in the tournament - instantly abrupt decayed) as it really helps against czech pile because your now generating incredible card advantage.

Please feel free to dispute the points I am making, I would love to discuss and develop Canadian Threshold more right now.


Kind regards,

Marius

[rlesko]

Do you draw a card if Compost gets Abrupt Decay'd?

[H]

Do you draw a card if Compost gets Abrupt Decay'd?

No, Compost is in the Graveyard when Abrupt Decay finishes resolving so it will not "see" it and not trigger.

This is the same reason why if you Decay a Rest In Peace, the RiP is exiled (it "sees" it's own ability) and Decay would go to the 'yard (RiP is gone and so is it's effect).

[rlesko]

Thanks for the explanation. I think I will take Marius' list for a spin this friday at FNM. I had some success previously with some similar lists that Jon Alexander played with all removal proof guys

[Raticate_Tail]

I think right now people haven't been giving Canadian Threshold enough credit for how good it actually is right now. It is the deck that is the best home for Stifle right now and it has a favourable matchup against Czech Pile. It is very difficult for Czech Pile to answer Mongoose, Mandrills or TNN, and Canadian has the ability to cripple their mana development with Stifle and Wasteland. I think the performance of Canadian Threshold at MKM Hamburg is a big testament to this point.

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16936&d=304761&f=LE

I honestly think that this is the optimal build of Canadian Threshold right now. I have been playing a list very similar to this at some local events recently and it has felt very strong.

I would like to make a couple observations:
-Hooting Mandrills is great, even if it gets in the way of Nimble Mongoose. The anti-synergy isn't as bad as you think.
-You want 6-7 removal spells main deck.
-Play Spell Snare, it is very good right now, because of the number of Snapcaster Mages.
-Play 1-2 TNN's in the main, it is very good when your opponent is off balance.
-Life from the Loam is one of the most insane sideboard cards (i might be a little biased).

Please feel free to dispute the points I am making, I would love to discuss and develop Canadian Threshold more right now.

Concerning this list I really dislike a couple things:
1) The sideboard. I think that if you're gonna play a pinger it needs to not be creature based, or needs to be able to go tempo neutral. Three mana for a pinger who can just die to bolt/push is unacceptable IMO. Abrade seems like a pretty poor option, and I'm not crazy about the exclusion of rough//tumble, but I can see the rationale if you think that true name is a more important card.
2) Only 1x dismember in the whole list. For a list that has no way to attack through angler besides delver, I think you need more ways to kill it if one comes down. I think that 2x dismember main is pretty free to play.

In general, I really like this creature configuration along with preordain main (something I had been advocating for a few pages back). I am, however, interested in trying out some amount of cryptic serpents instead of hooting mandrills in order to completely remove the anti synergy between mandrills and nimble mongoose.

[jattra]

Concerning this list I really dislike a couple things:
1) The sideboard. I think that if you're gonna play a pinger it needs to not be creature based, or needs to be able to go tempo neutral. Three mana for a pinger who can just die to bolt/push is unacceptable IMO. Abrade seems like a pretty poor option, and I'm not crazy about the exclusion of rough//tumble, but I can see the rationale if you think that true name is a more important card.
2) Only 1x dismember in the whole list. For a list that has no way to attack through angler besides delver, I think you need more ways to kill it if one comes down. I think that 2x dismember main is pretty free to play.

In general, I really like this creature configuration along with preordain main (something I had been advocating for a few pages back). I am, however, interested in trying out some amount of cryptic serpents instead of hooting mandrills in order to completely remove the anti synergy between mandrills and nimble mongoose.

If I played Izzet Staticaster, I would play it against Storm, Elves, Rabblemasters, D&T. I would not need to worry about bolts and pushes. Creature is even better than a spell against Duress and Thalia.

I already tried Cryptic Serpent and I think it is waaay too expensive.

[kombatkiwi]

I have found 2x Dismember is not free because of the life loss, 1/5 of your starting total is a lot. I have been playing 1 Roast in the SB for matchups where you need this effect.

Re: Marius comments on Abrade, I agree that I don't think you want 2 Grudge in any matchup, but I do think there are many matchups where you want 2 Shatters, and it's easier to draw 1 Grudge than 1 Abrade + 1 other Shatter

The problem I anticipate with Serpent is that there are many spots where I cast Mandrils exiling exactly my entire graveyard. Cryptic Costs 2 at minimum in this situation and likely costs more as there are probably fetchlands or wastelands or creatures among those cards. Not having evasion is also relevant, and I find that Mandrils hardly ever messes up Mongoose, but serpent seems good enough that I will test it.

Rough/Tumble is consistently one of the most unimpressive sideboard cards for me unless I expect a lot of my opponents to be playing Nettle Sentinel. I agree that noncreature pingers seem better than Staticaster (not only are they harder to kill but they can also go face).

Does anybody think the new sorcery could be decent?

Chart a Course
1U
Draw 2, then if you didn't attack this turn, discard 1

Probably just as a 1-of (e.g. in the Preordain spot)

[MTB]

Concerning this list I really dislike a couple things:
1) The sideboard. I think that if you're gonna play a pinger it needs to not be creature based, or needs to be able to go tempo neutral. Three mana for a pinger who can just die to bolt/push is unacceptable IMO. Abrade seems like a pretty poor option, and I'm not crazy about the exclusion of rough//tumble, but I can see the rationale if you think that true name is a more important card.

What pinger would you suggest? There is no good noncreature pinger at a reasonable cmc. Abrade was great as it also came in in matchups where I needed more removal and I dont see a point in playing a second grudge. I also dont see which decks could Bolt/push my staticaster even if they do so I get a 2 for 1 at worst as staticaster has haste. Also if they dont remove it she will most likely dominate the game as you can gun down a creature every round

2) Only 1x dismember in the whole list. For a list that has no way to attack through angler besides delver, I think you need more ways to kill it if one comes down. I think that 2x dismember main is pretty free to play.

The list hast 1TNN Main and one in the side to push through angler. Also 2 dismember are far from "free to play" as paying 4 life to remove a lonely shaman, strix whatever is a huge liability especially in delver mirrors. At the moment close to no decks play creatures which are non boltable except for angler. Tarmogoyf is rare, Eldrazi is not really existing.....

In general, I really like this creature configuration along with preordain main (something I had been advocating for a few pages back). I am, however, interested in trying out some amount of cryptic serpents instead of hooting mandrills in order to completely remove the anti synergy between mandrills and nimble mongoose.

I played the preordain since GP Chiba this year and I am really happy with the choice, Regarding cryptic serpent I have to say its crap and I tested it. Its just too expensive and the trample of the Mandrills is HUGE against nemesis and pyromancer. Also I really disliked that it only trades with Angler and getting it redblasted feels like the worst thing ever



...

Does anybody think the new sorcery could be decent?

Chart a Course
1U
Draw 2, then if you didn't attack this turn, discard 1

Probably just as a 1-of (e.g. in the Preordain spot)

I thought about it (and also tried tragic lesson) but I dont think its good enough sadly as tapping 2 Mana sorcery speed seems lackluster for just drawing 2 cards. I wouldnt place it in the preordain slot if I would play it I would think about the TNN Slot to keep the mainboard as lean as possible.



Regards
Marius

[Raticate_Tail]

If I played Izzet Staticaster, I would play it against Storm, Elves, Rabblemasters, D&T. I would not need to worry about bolts and pushes. Creature is even better than a spell against Duress and Thalia.

I already tried Cryptic Serpent and I think it is waaay too expensive.

The fact it is a creature is relevant against thalia. Against D&T you similarly have to worry about swords obviously, so being a creature is once again a liability there.


I have found 2x Dismember is not free because of the life loss, 1/5 of your starting total is a lot. I have been playing 1 Roast in the SB for matchups where you need this effect.

Re: Marius comments on Abrade, I agree that I don't think you want 2 Grudge in any matchup, but I do think there are many matchups where you want 2 Shatters, and it's easier to draw 1 Grudge than 1 Abrade + 1 other Shatter

The problem I anticipate with Serpent is that there are many spots where I cast Mandrils exiling exactly my entire graveyard. Cryptic Costs 2 at minimum in this situation and likely costs more as there are probably fetchlands or wastelands or creatures among those cards. Not having evasion is also relevant, and I find that Mandrils hardly ever messes up Mongoose, but serpent seems good enough that I will test it.

Rough/Tumble is consistently one of the most unimpressive sideboard cards for me unless I expect a lot of my opponents to be playing Nettle Sentinel. I agree that noncreature pingers seem better than Staticaster (not only are they harder to kill but they can also go face).



In my experience, the tempo that you keep/gain from the 1 mana cost of dismember will more than likely even out with the fact that you have to pay 4 life. Maybe it's just my playstyle, but I really like the card and almost never play less than 2.

I think that you need to make a decision on what sideboard card you want to play, and not play a suboptimal version of artifact interaction and removal.

I will likely agree with you on serpent when I get around to playing it. I really want it to be good, but costing two (at best) is probably going to make my opinion pretty poor.

I really just don't like playing pingers in general. I'd rather play rough//tumble or forked bolt/arc trail in that spot.

@Marius, as I said above, I just don't really like pingers, and would rather more stack based removal. A non-creature pinger you could try is Honden of Infinite Rage?

I talked about the second dismember above. I really value being advantaged in the grixis delver mu. I think you need multiple dismembers and rough//tumble in order to be advantaged.

I think the point about red blast is gonna be another nail in the coffin for serpent for me. I hadn't even thought of that tbh. I still want to test the card, but yeah it seems not good enough.

[eldub]

Dissenter’s Deliverance is another good option in these colors for artifact destruction to accompany Ancient Grudge.

[rlesko]

The fact it is a creature is relevant against thalia. Against D&T you similarly have to worry about swords obviously, so being a creature is once again a liability there.

I don't understand this logic. If you kill one thing with it, you are already way ahead. It forces your opponent to have an answer immediately or you take over the game. Even if they have an answer, it is a 2 for 1, and of course, you could always counter the removal spell


In my experience, the tempo that you keep/gain from the 1 mana cost of dismember will more than likely even out with the fact that you have to pay 4 life. Maybe it's just my playstyle, but I really like the card and almost never play less than 2.

I like one in my sideboard, one in the main. You can't cast two of these in a delver mirror and expect to win. I bring it in against Eldrazi, elves, and taxes. But never against a deck with lightning bolts.


I think that you need to make a decision on what sideboard card you want to play, and not play a suboptimal version of artifact interaction and removal.

But that is the entire point of the card. Have you ever gotten randomly screwed over by an ensnaring bridge, meekstone, or umezawa's jitte? (the list goes on). Many times I've drawn both grudges against D&T and end up having a dead card. I think 1 Grudge, 1 Abrade is perfect. Sometimes they open with Aether Vial, sometimes they open with Mom. Also, sometimes eldrazi has an aggro start like double mimic, sometimes they play a chalice. Drawing too many grudges is a good way to lose a game IMO.


I really just don't like playing pingers in general. I'd rather play rough//tumble or forked bolt/arc trail in that spot.

Not sure why you are so opposed to pingers, as they are usually 2 for 1's in a deck thats short on those. I play rough // tumble at times, but sometimes is awkward with true name. I've gravitated away from rough // tumble as of late.


@Marius, as I said above, I just don't really like pingers, and would rather more stack based removal. A non-creature pinger you could try is Honden of Infinite Rage?

3 mana sorcery speed not to have an effect until the following turn? I don't think thats good enough.


I talked about the second dismember above. I really value being advantaged in the grixis delver mu. I think you need multiple dismembers and rough//tumble in order to be advantaged.

I can't believe you are having success with two dismembers in the grixis delver MU. They have so much reach in their deck with deathrites and bolts.

[poxy14]

Im currently trying 2 pierces/1 izzet charm... (swiss knife) and can load up our graveyard fast for multiple mongeese/mandrils. Im playing 1 goyf still with 2 mandrils and 1 tnn main. For the removal suite i'll try 3x burst lightnings (before it was tarfires) but you dont wanna use it without our own goyfs. Fpush is everywhere, goyf just eats lots of removals. The idea basically is cast spells on opponents turn and continue to dedicate our own turn tempoing. Will post my analysis here...soon.

[TheManWithaPlan]

I don't play any pingers in the sideboard because all the good pingers are expensive, and Grim Lavamancer isn't what you want in Threshold. I also like that a lot of cheap sweepers deal more than 1 damage, as killing Deathrite Shamans and opposing Delvers is paramount. I love a split of Rough/Tumble and Sudden Demise as sweepers of choice. I find Rough/Tumble and Sudden Demise to be excellent in the deck as mass removal. I love Sudden Demise because it can kill flying creatures, which Rough/Tumble cannot, and it can deal with Leovold and all his buddies without even targeting the opponent.

My current removal suite:
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
1 Forked Bolt
1 Chain Lightning

I feel like Chain Lightning as the 7th removal spell is excellent. It acts as another Lightning bolt at sorcery speed which is fine honestly. You play a lot of your removal at sorcery speed anyway because you don't want to tap out, especially when your opponent has an exposed fetchland, so you wait to untap. Chain Lightning plays very well to the aggressive side of the deck, being another burn spell that can go to the face, thus giving you more reach in the late game.

[Raticate_Tail]

I don't understand this logic. If you kill one thing with it, you are already way ahead. It forces your opponent to have an answer immediately or you take over the game. Even if they have an answer, it is a 2 for 1, and of course, you could always counter the removal spell



I like one in my sideboard, one in the main. You can't cast two of these in a delver mirror and expect to win. I bring it in against Eldrazi, elves, and taxes. But never against a deck with lightning bolts.



But that is the entire point of the card. Have you ever gotten randomly screwed over by an ensnaring bridge, meekstone, or umezawa's jitte? (the list goes on). Many times I've drawn both grudges against D&T and end up having a dead card. I think 1 Grudge, 1 Abrade is perfect. Sometimes they open with Aether Vial, sometimes they open with Mom. Also, sometimes eldrazi has an aggro start like double mimic, sometimes they play a chalice. Drawing too many grudges is a good way to lose a game IMO.



Not sure why you are so opposed to pingers, as they are usually 2 for 1's in a deck thats short on those. I play rough // tumble at times, but sometimes is awkward with true name. I've gravitated away from rough // tumble as of late.



3 mana sorcery speed not to have an effect until the following turn? I don't think thats good enough.



I can't believe you are having success with two dismembers in the grixis delver MU. They have so much reach in their deck with deathrites and bolts.

Guess we will have to disagree on a lot of these because it appears our experiences have varied and we think of the deck differently. FWIW I don't think honden is good enough either, but the same goes for staticaster for me.


I don't play any pingers in the sideboard because all the good pingers are expensive, and Grim Lavamancer isn't what you want in Threshold. I also like that a lot of cheap sweepers deal more than 1 damage, as killing Deathrite Shamans and opposing Delvers is paramount. I love a split of Rough/Tumble and Sudden Demise as sweepers of choice. I find Rough/Tumble and Sudden Demise to be excellent in the deck as mass removal. I love Sudden Demise because it can kill flying creatures, which Rough/Tumble cannot, and it can deal with Leovold and all his buddies without even targeting the opponent.

My current removal suite:
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
1 Forked Bolt
1 Chain Lightning

I feel like Chain Lightning as the 7th removal spell is excellent. It acts as another Lightning bolt at sorcery speed which is fine honestly. You play a lot of your removal at sorcery speed anyway because you don't want to tap out, especially when your opponent has an exposed fetchland, so you wait to untap. Chain Lightning plays very well to the aggressive side of the deck, being another burn spell that can go to the face, thus giving you more reach in the late game.

I've always been a fan of playing a split of either 1-2 rough//tumble and 1-2 forked bolt/seal of fire/arc trail in the sideboard to round out the removal suite. I've never gotten around to trying sudden demise in the board, though it sits in my bench waiting to be played one day. In canadian electrickery or the new sorcery speed one for one mana typically make the cut over it.

[Jonny Tempel]

Hi Guys!

How viable is canadian threshold in the current meta? What are your opinions about the Hooting Mandrills build over more traditional lists? Would be nice to hear some opinions.

Greetings

[JackaBo]

A couple of guys @ our LGS tried Canadian last wednesday. I went 1-3, one went 3-1 and one 4-0. Notably there were two mirrors played. The biggest problem right now is the prevalence of DRS. Thus all of us played 6 or 7 removals main. I believe that's a necessary evil where I'd rather play more counters, probes or card selection.
Our consensus regarding beaters is that goyf is better in some matchups and mandrill in other matchups notably those who play push. Perhabs the best is to play a mix to hedge different strategies. There's also the question of playing 11 or 12 threats. On the positive side stifle, wasteland and daze is great right now.

[Jonny Tempel]

Thanks for your answer.
My local meta is very prison/combo heavy atm with only 2 or 3 other people playing Delver (1 UR, 2 Grixis) and few other DRS decks so RUG does not seem too bad positioned to me.

I don't own Goyfs so i would like to use Sean Brown's list as a starting point and see how it goes, does this look reasonable?

4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Hooting Mandrills

4 Lighting Bolt
2 Forked Bolt (or 1 Chain Lightning/1 Forked Bolt split)
1 Dismember
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare

4 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta

Sideboard:
1 Life from the Loam
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Abrade
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Flusterstorm
3 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Sudden Demise
1 Submerge
2 True Name Nemesis

[JackaBo]

Looks great. If there's not too many DRS:s I would love to fit 2 probes in the spot of 3rd pierce and 2:nd forked bolt. Turn one probe can win you the game.

I would also want to play another anti-control card beside TNN, blasts and loam. Be it winter orb, sylvan library or compost.

[rlesko]

I've noticed hooting mandrills is popular as of late...as a matter of fact I have ran it with some success too.

However, I don't think the configuration of 4 delver, 4 goose, 2 mandrills makes sense. All this configuration will do is assure that your delver will die. 40% of our threats die to fatal push / decay. Don't sleep on the goyf against Eldrazi, and he can become 5+ power against the deck he is "bad" against (czech pile has artifact and planeswalker).

Another reason why I like goyf is sometimes we need to have the role of an aggro deck. It is easy to play a creature turn 1 and follow it up with a creature turn 2. Mandrills prevents this. Goyf is perfect for this.

Also, if you look at the numbers from EW, there aren't many fatal pushes and abrupt decays floating around. Those decks are now running extra edicts main and in the sideboard. I would rather board into TNNs if I was trying to play some sort of hexproof creature lineup.

I've noticed as of late that there are a lot of flusterstorms in people's sideboard. I've never realy liked this card, so perhaps someone can share their experience with it. Simply "upgrading" my spell pierces to flusterstorms in some match ups isn't enough justification for me, as spell pierce is already strong. Also, against weird decks like blood moon stompy, or decks where I want more countermagic but pyroblast is weak( BR reanimator, burn), I want additional spell pierces, not flusterstorms.

I'm interested in hearing some thoughts on winter orb in the current meta, as well. I'm accustomed to having a card like this that can come in against most fair decks. Now, I find myself short on cards coming in against fair decks, but an abundance of cards that I want to take out. For example against Eldrazi, I would like to board out all stifles and mongooses, that is 8 cards. Or perhaps death & Taxes, where I want to cut my stifles and spell pierces, there just simply isn't enough to bring in and feel good about post board games.

This brings me to the conclusion that I think there are too many cards in sideboards for decks like czech pile. Our gameplan is already very strong against them, and bringing in pyroblasts as well as true names is already a winning proposition. I say this because I see cards like Compost (and I even ran a ground seal for this match up) but I am finding that I have too many cards I want to bring in, and not enough cuts.

TL:DR I think the deck is too narrowly configured right now with mandrills, flusters, etc. We are neglecting the "fair" match ups (eldrazi, maverick, burn, D&T) to beat a deck we already have a strong game plan against.

[Ralf]

Hello,

Since a few months, I play the following:

4 Delver
4 Tarmo
2 Mandrills
1 Vendilion Clique

1 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Forked Bolt
1 Dismember
1 Fire // Ice
1 Become Immense

//sideboard

1 Sulphur elemental
1 Graffdiggers' cage
1 Winter Orb
1 Spell Snare
1 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Hydroblast
2 Pyrosalve
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Submerge
2 Rough // Tumble

The deck is pretty balanced to my taste and doesn't suffer too much from DRS.
I like playing 11 threats, on the control-y side of things.
Become Immense is pure "ice on the cake" but the burst is definitely real and often leads to numerous blowouts.
Furthermore, having access to 2 virtual CA cards with Fire//Ice and Forked Bolt is mandatory as far as the current meta is concerned.
Fire // Ice is also a very nice tempo card -> Tap your lone blocker EoT + draw a card and attack for lethal.

[kombatkiwi]

However, I don't think the configuration of 4 delver, 4 goose, 2 mandrills makes sense. All this configuration will do is assure that your delver will die. 40% of our threats die to fatal push / decay. Don't sleep on the goyf against Eldrazi, and he can become 5+ power against the deck he is "bad" against (czech pile has artifact and planeswalker).

Another reason why I like goyf is sometimes we need to have the role of an aggro deck. It is easy to play a creature turn 1 and follow it up with a creature turn 2. Mandrills prevents this. Goyf is perfect for this.

Also, if you look at the numbers from EW, there aren't many fatal pushes and abrupt decays floating around. Those decks are now running extra edicts main and in the sideboard. I would rather board into TNNs if I was trying to play some sort of hexproof creature lineup.

If your opponent has a removal spell for your delver and you don't have a counter then your delver will die. Playing worse creatures to bait removal on your delver is not a winning strategy. If you play Tarmogoyf and Delver then your opponent has the choice to either kill Tarmogoyf or Delver with Push. This is worse than them only being able to kill Delver, because you are giving your opponent extra options.

EW Top 8
- 3 Push 2 Decay (1 Decay SB) in BUG Delver
- 1 Push 2 Decay in CP

There is no commonly played removal spell that kills Mandrills but not Goyf; as long as people are playing a non-zero number of push/decay this will always be an important consideration.

You already are (or should be) boarding TNN in matchups where your opponent will be bringing in edict. All of your creatures die to edict so I'm not sure what your point is. If you're saying that 'If all creatures die equally then just play the better one i.e. Goyf' then I have found in many situations being able to cast Mandrills for 1 mana or having trample is an upgrade over being slightly larger or not requiring cards in the graveyard.

Against CP Goyf can become 5/6+, but the size of Goyf (compared to Mandrills) in this matchup is irrelevant because they don't have any 5/X or 4/X creature and all their removal and small creatures don't care about 4 toughness vs 5 or more. (Maybe you can argue that Mandrills trades for Kolaghans + Snap for example)

Playing Goyf does let you aggro people out in ways that Mandrills doesn't, but these draws don't often happen. The main reason to play Goyf imo is that it can be bigger than Angler/Eldrazi, but to make that consistent you need to play 2+ cards of additional type and Eldrazi doesn't seem too popular at the moment.

In matchups where people are boarding in Fluster they probably aren't boarding out Pierce, but in general I agree with your sentiment that Pierce is probably good enough in the matches where you want Fluster and the additional versatility vs other card types is important. I also agree that you want to try to build a SB with a solid plan for every matchup. I think that 1 Winter Orb is still fine but with the approximate demise of miracles there aren't many matchups where this card is very strong (in my opinion).

As an aside I think the creature suite of 4/4/2/1 Delver/Goose/Monkey/TNN is the best.
I have tried maindeck Life from the Loam in the TNN slot for a while as an additional 'threat' (it applies pressure to your oppponent and can eventually 'win') but
- I have been let down too many times by the fact that if you're behind on the board it doesn't do anything
- I don't think the dredge is necessary to support Goose/Mandrills
- I still feel that 11 is the right number of threat cards

[JackaBo]

TL:DR I think the deck is too narrowly configured right now with mandrills, flusters, etc. We are neglecting the "fair" match ups (eldrazi, maverick, burn, D&T) to beat a deck we already have a strong game plan against.

I like where you are going with this. The question is how would you configure your sideboard?
I've played compost as well and it's not just for czech pile, I think of it as that I'm generally weak to DRS and thus want to board in a card that gives me an edge against all DRS-based deck. It is also a good play against reanimator, storm, dredge and a bunch of other decks.
But I totally agree that maybe people, me included, may be overboarding versus certain decks.
In my sideboard, versus Eldrazi, i would board in Abrade, Grudge, Loam and Winter orb for the stifles. That is exactly zero spells that deal with TKS and smashers.
I totallt agree on that Goyf (which i play 4 of) is crucial in competing with the fair decks where your softcounters, bolts as removal and unkillable 3/3:s feels anemic.

[rlesko]

If your opponent has a removal spell for your delver and you don't have a counter then your delver will die. Playing worse creatures to bait removal on your delver is not a winning strategy. If you play Tarmogoyf and Delver then your opponent has the choice to either kill Tarmogoyf or Delver with Push. This is worse than them only being able to kill Delver, because you are giving your opponent extra options.

EW Top 8
- 3 Push 2 Decay (1 Decay SB) in BUG Delver
- 1 Push 2 Decay in CP

There is no commonly played removal spell that kills Mandrills but not Goyf; as long as people are playing a non-zero number of push/decay this will always be an important consideration.

Of course, however there are two schools of thought here...you can either
1) be immune entirely to spot removal (play creatures like goose, monkey, TNN) or
2) overload with targets (play delver and goyf, goose shines in different match up)
I'm merely stressing that scenario 2 is an option in a decay / push meta, and that the current creature suite doesn't successfully do "1"

You already are (or should be) boarding TNN in matchups where your opponent will be bringing in edict. All of your creatures die to edict so I'm not sure what your point is. If you're saying that 'If all creatures die equally then just play the better one i.e. Goyf' then I have found in many situations being able to cast Mandrills for 1 mana or having trample is an upgrade over being slightly larger or not requiring cards in the graveyard.

Yes, I was more stressing that "if all creatures die equally" then it isn't an obvious choice to simply play creatures with shroud or CMC > 4

Against CP Goyf can become 5/6+, but the size of Goyf (compared to Mandrills) in this matchup is irrelevant because they don't have any 5/X or 4/X creature and all their removal and small creatures don't care about 4 toughness vs 5 or more. (Maybe you can argue that Mandrills trades for Kolaghans + Snap for example)

It matters in the sense that you have less restriction on when you can deploy it. Whether this outweighs not dying to removal for CMC <= 4, that is the question I'm really stressing here

Playing Goyf does let you aggro people out in ways that Mandrills doesn't, but these draws don't often happen. The main reason to play Goyf imo is that it can be bigger than Angler/Eldrazi, but to make that consistent you need to play 2+ cards of additional type and Eldrazi doesn't seem too popular at the moment.

I would say that they happen enough (especially in game 1) that it should not be ignored (in regards to an aggro role). Being far ahead on board and stepping on your opponents throat can win games that we have no business winning againt decks such as taxes, czech pile, and loam decks. And we barely need to play additional types ourselves, as czech pile has 4 artifacts and 4 planeswalkers, eldrazi has 6 or so artifacts, loam decks have enchantments, artifacts, and perhaps even planeswalkers

In matchups where people are boarding in Fluster they probably aren't boarding out Pierce, but in general I agree with your sentiment that Pierce is probably good enough in the matches where you want Fluster and the additional versatility vs other card types is important. I also agree that you want to try to build a SB with a solid plan for every matchup. I think that 1 Winter Orb is still fine but with the approximate demise of miracles there aren't many matchups where this card is very strong (in my opinion).

Yea, winter orb strikes me as an "ok" card but by no means the haymaker it was when miracles was at the top. What cards do you board for eldrazi, taxes? I find little overlap between the two except for maybe a copy of dismember if it is in the sideboard.

As an aside I think the creature suite of 4/4/2/1 Delver/Goose/Monkey/TNN is the best.
I have tried maindeck Life from the Loam in the TNN slot for a while as an additional 'threat' (it applies pressure to your oppponent and can eventually 'win') but
- I have been let down too many times by the fact that if you're behind on the board it doesn't do anything
- I don't think the dredge is necessary to support Goose/Mandrills
- I still feel that 11 is the right number of threat cards

I've come to a similar conclusion regarding loam, I have it in my SB now. Quite simply there are too many match ups where it either is not good or like you said - win more.




I like where you are going with this. The question is how would you configure your sideboard?
I've played compost as well and it's not just for czech pile, I think of it as that I'm generally weak to DRS and thus want to board in a card that gives me an edge against all DRS-based deck. It is also a good play against reanimator, storm, dredge and a bunch of other decks.
But I totally agree that maybe people, me included, may be overboarding versus certain decks.
In my sideboard, versus Eldrazi, i would board in Abrade, Grudge, Loam and Winter orb for the stifles. That is exactly zero spells that deal with TKS and smashers.
I totallt agree on that Goyf (which i play 4 of) is crucial in competing with the fair decks where your softcounters, bolts as removal and unkillable 3/3:s feels anemic.

Yea, I'm honestly trying to figure that out myself. In a miracles meta I felt more comfortable game planning around winter orb, but I'm just not sure if its still a card that is positioned appropriately to plan several match ups around. I am also having a difficult time finding overlapping cards for maverick / loam / taxes / burn. dismember is good sometimes, sylvan library good sometimes, submerge good sometimes, but with 15 slots I can't find a good balance yet. I'm gonna think about it some more and come back with a proposal. In the meantime, if you have any good ideas I would love to hear them.

I used compost as an example but didn't mean to single it out as a "bad" card. Of course it has its applications. But for example against Czech, storm, and reanimator I'm first bringing in pyroblasts / surgicals / additional copies of spell pierce / flusterstorm (if I was playing it). At the point where I want to have compost I'm already cutting good cards for good cards, so to me that is a signal of an unbalanced SB. Unless of course I am facing dredge but that is not something that is influencing me in deck construction right now :D

[JackaBo]

I agree with this statement. The sideboard should be built from what you want to side out.

[kombatkiwi]

Maybe you have 1 creature and are attacking for lethal next turn, and your opponent only has 1 drawstep to find a kill spell.
Maybe the threat is Delver and it dies to Push, maybe it's Mandrills and it doesn't die to Push. Being killed by fewer things is still an argument in favour of the card, even if the entire creature base isn't Decay/Push proof.

I agree that having multiple Goyfs in the deck let you sometimes execute an aggro gameplan that the deck can't really do with Mandrills, and if Mandrills was only a 4/4 Vanilla I would be more likely to play Tarmogoyf instead. Overall I find that Trample + Smother-Protection is a better deal at the moment but this may not necessarily always be true in the future.

[rlesko]

We can contrive examples where one card is better than another...maybe that same opponent would already be dead because your goyf would have been 5 or 6 power. Or because you got to play it a turn sooner.

[rlesko]

Anyways, I'm not trying to convince anyone to change their deck. The merits for mandrills vs goyf are clear. I expect a resurgence of Eldrazi after it almost won eternal weekend. I think Goyf leads to an overall more well rounded deck than mandrills. I will be rocking goyfs.

That doesn't change the fact that, I still feel most of the RUG lists that pop up lack a clear plan for nonblue fair decks.

[kombatkiwi]

I was mainly trying to point out that this...

Of course, however there are two schools of thought here...you can either
1) be immune entirely to spot removal (play creatures like goose, monkey, TNN) or
2) overload with targets (play delver and goyf, goose shines in different match up)
I'm merely stressing that scenario 2 is an option in a decay / push meta, and that the current creature suite doesn't successfully do "1"
...Is a false dilemma, because making your creatures as immune to removal as possible is still advantageous even if you can't make them all invincible

[Ralf]

Playing Goose + Mandrills in the same deck put too much pressure on your graveyard which is different with a Goyf + Mandrill setup.

I think Mandrills are replacing Goose, not Goyf.

My two cents.

[TheManWithaPlan]

Playing Goose + Mandrills in the same deck put too much pressure on your graveyard which is different with a Goyf + Mandrill setup.

I think Mandrills are replacing Goose, not Goyf.

My two cents.

Delving away threshold for Mongoose to play a Mandrills is fine. You now have a 4/4 trampler, which in many matchups is just better than the thresholded Goose, then you will grow the Mongoose back in time. Playing Goose and Mandrills may look insane, but when you actually try it, it really isn't that bad. I recommend that everyone actually play with the deck, if you haven't, with the Mandrills Mongoose threat sweet before ragging on it. I have played the deck quite a bit in the past couple of months and I am very high on the Mandrills/Goose threat base.

[Ralf]

Delving away threshold for Mongoose to play a Mandrills is fine. You now have a 4/4 trampler, which in many matchups is just better than the thresholded Goose, then you will grow the Mongoose back in time. Playing Goose and Mandrills may look insane, but when you actually try it, it really isn't that bad. I recommend that everyone actually play with the deck, if you haven't, with the Mandrills Mongoose threat sweet before ragging on it. I have played the deck quite a bit in the past couple of months and I am very high on the Mandrills/Goose threat base.

I did try both setups.
I prefer Goyf + Mandrills rather than Goose + Mandrills.

[rlesko]

kombatkiwi,

Can you share your board plan vs Eldrazi & czech pile?

Ralf, can you do the same?

Can you both characterize how you feel each match up is?

[Agrippa91]

Hi guys!
Got a bit tired of Grixis Delver recently and decided to play a little bit of RUG for old time's sake, trying to update it to modern standards.
After a few days of playing in the mtgo practice room I came up with this current build:

4 Delver
4 Mongoose
4 Mandrils(!)

4 Force
4 Daze
2 Pierce
2 Snare

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtscour(!)

4 Bolt
2 Dismember

4 Wasteland
8 blue fetches
3 Volcanics
3 Tropicals

Sideboard:

2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pithing Needle
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Flusterstorm
2 Rough/Tumble
2 Ground Seal
2 Destructive Revelry (RIP and Leyline make this a must instead of Grudge)
1 Vendilion Clique


Mandrils and Mongoose seem really good against a lot of the other fair decks, especially 4c-control. The only issue against this deck is DRS, I found that going more than 6 removal spells really hurts the combo matchup though.
So I decided to go for the full 4 thoughtscour to power through the shaman, making use of Ground Seal postboard to combat decks that have deathrite, snapcaster and loam. The full 8 tough creatures allow me to board out the delvers in matchups that rely heavily on non-stp removal spells.
Thought Scour is also really handy post-sb against combo where it's often times draw-go and you don't have a fast clock without delver. This allows you to get cards in the yard without having to counter stuff just to fill your yard.

If you look closely you'll notice that I've sacrificed the holy cow and the reason that many people play RUG: Stifle!
Now, hear me out: Stifle can be pretty good, no doubt. The things we lose to though stifle isn't gonna stop: This is first and foremost Baleful Strix, but also Edicts, Planeswalker, RIP and Mass Removal like Deluge.
I've tried to Pierce and Snare instead 4 stifles, but ultimately I did way better with the split.
Note that pretty much everybody who's a bit smart will play around stifle as best as they can when they face RUG, it's not like Grixis where only half of the decks play that card.
Not only will people not play around Snare and Pierce excessively, we also only need to hold up these spells in the opponent's turn most of the time, meaning we can scour ourselves at the end step. This was not possible with stifle and led to some very weird mana-constrictions on side.

The sideboard is pretty straightforward:

2 Pithing Needles against Marit Lage because I don't have Edicts or bounce-spells. These matchups can be tough as nails otherwise. It's also really good against D&T and decent against Miracles and Sneak&Show.

Ground Seal is there to punish everyone who tries to stop us with deathrite or lock us out with Loam. It's also a "cantrip" that gets snapcaster and K-Command on their dead strixes. The fact that it's an enchantment is huge because unlike Winter Orb they can't just K-Command it.
Since I don't play DRS it's also good to have gy-hate #3+4, a pseudo-cage that can only be circumvented with exhume.

The clique is there against all those pesky decks that try to play draw-go until they have a critical mass, these games go long, so the anti-synergy with Daze won't matter too often. I won't bring it in against loam since I have ground seals.

Destructive Revelry instead of Grudge is a necessity because there's abunch of decks like Loam and Eldrazi that play Leyline, but also a few RIPs that can shut off our entire shroud-gameplan.

I don't play TNN because I don't feel the necessity: I already have 4 3-power shroud creatures, TNN also plays bad with our dazes and against opposing dazes and pyroblasts.


So yeah, while I don't think this deck is necessarily better than Grixis Delver, it's certainly still good, especially against the right meta. It's basically a delver deck tuned to combat anti-delver decks (4c-/Grixis-control, lands, Miracles).

[Ralf]

kombatkiwi,

Can you share your board plan vs Eldrazi & czech pile?

Ralf, can you do the same?

Can you both characterize how you feel each match up is?

Eldrazi

- 4 stifle
- 1 Forked

+1 Ancient Grudge
+1 Snare
+1 Winter orb
+1 Pierce
+1 Elemental

Czech Pile

+2 REB
+1 Snare
+1 Pierce
+2 Submerge
+1 Hydro
+1 Fluster
+1 Elemental

-4 Daze
-4 FOW
-1 Stifle

[rlesko]

Very interesting, I board against czech pile completely different than you.

I also don't have Submerge in my sideboard anymore. I don't think it is good anymore, as a matter of fact there is many times czech pile will not fetch a forest at all. (Against us, probably first fetching basics and underground seas, then maybe badlands / volcanic afterwards).

Even if submerge is able to be cast for free, what creatures are good to submerge? Deathrite? Strix + Snapcaster have very nice ETB triggers, and Leovold they will draw a card and then they may cast it again.

I also don't like to cut free countermagic against them, especially if you will bring in winter orb.

[Ralf]

Very interesting, I board against czech pile completely different than you.

I also don't have Submerge in my sideboard anymore. I don't think it is good anymore, as a matter of fact there is many times czech pile will not fetch a forest at all. (Against us, probably first fetching basics and underground seas, then maybe badlands / volcanic afterwards).

Even if submerge is able to be cast for free, what creatures are good to submerge? Deathrite? Strix + Snapcaster have very nice ETB triggers, and Leovold they will draw a card and then they may cast it again.

I also don't like to cut free countermagic against them, especially if you will bring in winter orb.

I have pondered whether or not I should bring Winter Orb.
Without free counters, I don't side it in as you can see.

But these sideboard plans have to be thoroughly tested. I can see at least another attack's angle (cutting all the stifle + 2 wastelands and keeping the daze + Winter orb)

Submerge is a pure tempo card. While submerging any of their creature save Gurmag is not the best value play, you would still profit from the tempo's gain which could be massive. Don't forget that submerge can also be used on one of your creature (to protect it from a spot removal for example) and I did it a non 0 amount of game.

I don't want the game to drag on forever. In this very MU, you'd rather want something "quick and clean". They'll usually have 3 to 4 removal spells within the first 10 turns and this is where you want to swing for lethal. They'll max out on removal spell (Toxic + 2 edict at least + 1 decay).
The match is not particularly difficult to be fair.
I would even say it is easier than Shardless with 4 decay.

Cheers,

Ralf

[rlesko]

Whoops, I saw you bring it in against eldrazi and thought I saw it against Czech.

I understand the tempo gain of submerge can be great, but I am concerned that often there won't be a forest in play.

I feel like our deck is already good against their deck, sideboard I only want pyroblasts and flusterstorms.

I have considered bringing in a copy of surgical extraction, since they run 4 snapcaster / jace

[Ralf]

Whoops, I saw you bring it in against eldrazi and thought I saw it against Czech.

I understand the tempo gain of submerge can be great, but I am concerned that often there won't be a forest in play.

I feel like our deck is already good against their deck, sideboard I only want pyroblasts and flusterstorms.

I have considered bringing in a copy of surgical extraction, since they run 4 snapcaster / jace

There should be a forest in most cases (if they want to use the lifegain ability of DRS or to cast leovold).
But anyway, if you are going to test a few sideboard plans, try different approaches and please keep us posted.

[rlesko]

I’ve never seen a basic forest in any list. They have 0 basics or swamp + island. The next time I test is going to be SCG DC :laugh:

[Ralf]

I’ve never seen a basic forest in any list. They have 0 basics or swamp + island. The next time I test is going to be SCG DC :laugh:

When I say forest I mean tropical or bayou...

[rlesko]

Haha, sorry. How do you feel about surgical extraction against them? I keep going back and forth on it

[poxy14]

I have 2 vapor snags in my SB, replacing submerges... ive tested it a week ago and i loved it! (hits opposing delve crits, marit lage and can somehow save your own crit except mongoose of course.

My crit config:
4 delvers
2 hooting mandrils
3 nimble mongoose
2 goyfs
1 TNN

I ran 7 removals too, so DRS wont touch my gy
4 bolts
1 forked bolt
1 dismember
1 fire/ice

[koten]

Hi guys!
Got a bit tired of Grixis Delver recently and decided to play a little bit of RUG for old time's sake, trying to update it to modern standards.
After a few days of playing in the mtgo practice room I came up with this current build:

This list is very intriguing. Do you have much data on how this list matches up against Grixis delver?

[Agrippa91]

This list is very intriguing. Do you have much data on how this list matches up against Grixis delver?

I actually played my first league today and went 5-0! I played against new Miracles (mentor and counterbalance main), BUG Merfolk (Ixalan + DRS), Grixis control (3 Angler), Grixis Delver (Stifle) and Deathblade. Shoutout to cbl who he helped me with the sideboard, we had some very intense talks about various card options and boarding strategies.

My current list:

4 Delver
4 Mongoose
4 Mandrils

4 Force
4 Daze
2 Pierce
2 Snare

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtscour

4 Bolt
2 Dismember

4 Wasteland
7 blue fetches
3 Volcanics
4 Tropicals

Sideboard:

2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sylvan Library
1 Ground Seal
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Flusterstorm
2 Rough/Tumble
2 Destructive Revelry (RIP and Leyline make this a must instead of Grudge)

What changed?
- Sylvan Library instead of the second Ground Seal really helps with the control matchups without being redundant.
- Grafdigger's cage instead of Clique replaces the 2nd seal as the 4th gy-hate card and provides the additional angle against combo that I was aiming for without costing 3 mana in a deck with daze, wasteland and no drs-acceleration.
- The 4th tropical instead of the 8th fetchland. With 4 Thought Scour getting stuck on lands is way less of a probem, it's even better because you don't have to spend a land to shuffle your library. The 4th tropical is there because sometimes tropical gets milled which can be nasty against heavy wasteland decks. In the league I still played with only 3, fortunately I didn't play against lands or 4c-loam and the Grixis Delver matchup wasn't grindy.

Without further ado here's my summary of the matches:


Round 1 (Kiwishingo): Miracles

G1 I keep my hand otp with Delver, 2x brainstorm, thought scour, spell snare, FoW and Volcanic and lead with Delver. My opponent plays Plains and stp on delver.
Fearing D&T with a potential wasteland I brainstorm after having drawn a hooting mandrills and hit no land but another mandrills, another thought scour and daze.
Should my opponent just play port I could scour myself in response now. My opponent plays island and ponders.
I scour myself in the upkeep and draw dismember and wasteland. I play it out, fearing a merciless Mentor and a potential daze should my opponent smell the blood in the water. He just plays another island and passes though.
On my turn I draw delver and decide to brainstorm again, I need to hit my second actual land drop. Miss again! Thankfully I can scour myself next upkeep again after my opponent plays flooded strand pass. I draw misty and bolt for my turn, playing out the delver to keep potential mongooses life, I'm also certain my opponent can deal with the threat anyways. He does and plays stp eot.
On his turn he has tundra, finally turning on my wasteland, and plays mentor while leaving up 2 mana. Smelling a counterspell I decide to not risk the dismember and simply force it. Because of the potential counterspell I pitch my second brainstorm instead of the daze. He doesn't fight back, but next turn when I play mandrills he feels forced to counterspell and I get to cash in my daze.
He plays another mentor which I bolt, hardcasts terminus which I daze and dies to bolt #2 and #3 after I attack with the mongoose.

Sideboard notes: Seeing he's heavy on the mentor build I left in all bolts. Since I don't play stifle I don't think wasteland does much, I board the following:

-2 daze, -2 dismember, -4 wasteland
+2 flusterstorm, +2 pyroblast, +2 destructive revelry, + ground seal, + sylvan library (I didn't expect Jace, especially postboard, so needles stayed out).

G2 I kept a mana-light hand again with mandrills, pierce, fluster, 3x brainstorm and volcanic, figuring that I can eot brainstorm, then brainstorm again to look 5 cards deep for a land.
My opponent leads on ponder and I draw a tropical (yay!), getting the chance to spell pierce counterbalance t2. I draw a thought scour which is awesome because it means I can brainstorm eot and scour to clear up, then cast mandrills the next turn. Fortunately I draw a mongoose which means I can mill the mandrills and ride the mongoose to victory. With Snare, Flusterstorm, brainstorm and destructive revelry in hand I felt pretty confident, but I realize I don't have an answer to mentor in hand. After I play a delver, leaving my second mongoose in hand, the inevitable comes and he actually plays a mentor. Though I try fighting through it with 2 mongeese, a delver (which he plows) and mandrills (which he forces) the monks quickly overwhelm me.

g3 an interesting scenario comes up: I keep a hand that has 2 fetches and trop, but also daze, ponder and (most importantly) 2 mongoose. As I play the mongoose my opponent chooses to FoW. I decide to not daze it. My reasoning behind it is that I have a second in hand anyways which would be dead-ish should I choose to daze because I don't want to overcommit to terminus.
I land my second one on t2 and my opponent flusters my ponder, trying to prevent mongoose from getting threshold. Thankfully I've drawn a Thought Scour which means my mongoose starts attacking for 3 at t3 already. My opponent plays terminus on 10 life with plains, island and volcanic. I choose to Force pitching daze because I could spell snare a potential counterspell while also having enough mana for flusterstorm. Sadly my opponent has pyroblast and I'm left with delver, spell snare and bolt.
I draw 2 fetchlands while my opponent plows my delver without letting me scry with fetchland. I finally rip a ponder and see 2x bolt and FoW. I decide that this is my best chance at winning and draw the FoW, hoping he goes from 10 to 9 or lower with 3 lands and 2 fetchlands. 2 turns later my opponent cracks down to 8 and casts Jace fatesealing me. I bolt him twice, he has to crack down to 4 for counterspell which I spell snare, he forces going down to 3 and I bolt ftw. In my defense I drew a mongoose that turn that might've won the game, too.


Round 2 (BobButtons): BUG Merfolk

I mull a no-lander and reluctantly keep a 6 consisting of daze, 2 pierce, dismember, mandrills and misty, bottoming a mongoose in search for a land or cantrip. My opponent leads on usea, leading me to think that my hand is pretty decent against storm.
My opponent plays a mutavault and Chalice. Wut? Well, at least I get to use my spell pierces. I hit my second land drop and pass, my opponent plays wasteland and silvergill adept, revealing lord of atlantis. Well, at least now I know what I'm up against. He wastes on my upkeep and I dismember, figuring that now I can still pay the life comfortably, also Merfolk is all about masses. Additionally this gives me my 5th card for Mandrills that turn. I draw a second mandrills and choose to tap out instead of leaving open spell pierce because it makes my second ape quicker. My opponent forces pitching Meerow Reejery, a card I pretty much haven't seen since TNN became a thing. Not that that card would've saved him. I daze back.
On his next turn he plays his second usea and 2 deathrites, leaving me confused about his tribal. Well, now I at least get why this deck plays black. I draw and play thought scour, play my second mandrills and pass with 2 mandrills in play and FoW+spell pierce in hand. I force the harbinger he plays and drawing 3 bolts over the next several turns put the nail in the coffin.

-4 FoW, -2 Daze (only because I have so many amazing cards to bring in), -2 spell pierce
+ Pyroblast, + REB, +2 Needle, +2 Revelry, +2 Rough/Tumble

G2 I keep a hand with fetch, ponder, 2 bolt, pyroblast, rough/tumble and destructive revelry. Seems good!
The game itself isn't too spectacular: I hit my second land drop and destroy everything he has, then drop mongoose and delver to seal the deal.


Round 3 (Fra44): Grixis Control (Preordain - 3 Angler build)

G1 I keep a hand with 4 lands otp only because I have thought scour and hooting mandrils, the other card is spell snare. I usually snap-mull any 7 with 4 lands in them, but this one seemed pretty decent when I thought about it as a 6-card hand without the 4th land.
Unfortunately my opponent thoughtseizes me off Usea on the first turn. Don't see that quite that often! I put him on either UB reanimator or some BUG Delver list, maybe 4c-control. Well, there goes my Mandrills!
I scour, draw daze and bolt and pass the turn, my opponent plays volcanic and preordain. The video where Andrea Mengucci piloted that 3 Angler-Grixis build with Preordains came to mind, didn't that deck play 1 thoughtseize and 1 Inquisition?
I get another Mandrills of a second thought scour and put it on the battlefield, my opponent discards my spell snare, potentially preparing for pyromancer, but even without my bolt that would likely be too slow.
He finds an Angler at 11 life, but I get a second bolt and shoot both at Angler and pierce his FoW on the second bolt. My opponent gets to land a YP and bolts my Mandrills, killing it with his Elemental. The three trample damage he takes put him to 3 though. I go full ape and drop a third Mandrills, still having 7 cards in the yard. I ponder before my next attack and find a FoW, counter his Snapcaster and that's game.

Sideboard notes: I wasn't sure how many Snapcasters and K-commands the deck plays, but I figured at worst the ground seal would be a 2-mana cantrip. With 2 dismembers and my red spells I also didn't feel the need to keep any FoW for Anglers, with our thought scours we can produce much more threats. Considering he likely has K-commands and pushes in addition to his bolts while not being nearly as aggressive as Grixis Delver I boarded out my delvers, making a lot of his removal worse.
-4 FoW, -4 delver
+1 Pyroblast, +1 REB, +2 Flusterstorm, +2 rough/tumble, +1 library, +1 ground seal

G2 I keep a solid hand with mandrills, bolt, dismember, snare, ponder, brainstorm and delta as the only land. My opponent passes doing nothing (the disadvantage of not playing DRS) and I ponder, failing to find a land. In hindsight I probably should've kept open spell snare and brainstorm (therapy), planning to brainstorm eot and ponder next turn for a land.
My opponent cracks his 2 lands and plays probe-therapy, taking my 2 spell snares. Now this should've signaled me that he has Pyromancer in hand and I should've left brainstorm and bolt open. I was fixed on getting that land drop though and tried to brainstorm, running into a pyroblast. My opponent untaps on his next turn with 3 mana to my (tapped) 1, plays pyromancer, bolts me and flashes back therapy naming bolt. Unfortunately I've drawn a third one so he got 5 cards with his probe. I honestly might've still pulled out from that one, because I have Mandrills and Dismember in hand.
I have to kill his pyromancer and my opponent plays an Angler, forces my topdecked brainstorm (basically timewalking me). I theoretically have mandrills and bolt to deal with the angler, but not enough mana and I have to scoop after some unlucky draws, but most importantly some blunders by me early in the game.

G3 I keep mandrills, thought scour, flusterstorm, REB, tropical, misty and wasteland. Perfect!
I scour myself on my opponent's eot after he plays his first land and passes, preparing for a quick mandrills. I get a mongoose though and decide to play that one instead. My opponent manages to get a Pyromancer on board, but I whipe his board with Rough for my seventh card, letting my mongoose survive after wasting his underground. My opponent draws Diabolic Edict and plays it off another, but I simply play my Mandrills the next turn, wasting his second underground (figuring the only spells I'm afraid of like edict and Angler are black). He draws a pyromancer which I snare, but manages to get an angler down the next turn though he was at 2 life already. I land another Mandrills and win the next turn through Pyromancer + Angler.


Round 4 (m0ller): Grixis Delver (stifle)

As a Grixis Delver player myself I knew exactly what m0ller is playing, he was one of the first people to play stifle in Grixis delver and having success with it despite everyone else copying the Noah Walker list.
G1 otp I keep an aggressive hand with mongoose, ponder, daze, bolt, tropical and 2 wastelands. My opponent mulls to 6. If the mongoose was a delver I'd ponder on my first turn, knowing though that people really respect the mongoose and wouldn't blindly wasteland because it's bad I lead with the threat. Note that I would've dazed a probe had my opponent played it before his land drop so he can't wasteland my tropical after seeing my vulnerability.
My opponent though led with a very weak t1 ponder off volcanic, shuffling his library and signaling a major weakness.
I draw a thoughtscour, but decide to ponder instead: I couldn't hit threshold this turn anyways, better search for a volc for my second land drop so I can cast by bolt. I I find misty, daze and fow, drawing the cards in that order before wasting the volcanic.
My opponent wastes me, signaling he has no actual land in hand. With 2 dazes, bolt and an additional wasteland in hand the game is over very quick.

Sideboard notes: The matchup can get quite grindy, I only like my green enchantments on the play though: Groundseal answers a t1 drs only when I'm otp and sylvan library seems very weak if my opponent has the better dazes and gets to play his creatures earlier than me. Instead of the enchantments I keep in 2 FoW otd. Unlike Grixis Control it's important to keep enough pressure on Grixis Delver, otherwise they just hit our face and outrace us with their giant threats. Them having to bolt our creatures also makes our dismembers look better. For that reason I like keeping in the delvers, I boarded as follows:

-2 FoW, -2 Spell Snare, -2 Spell Pierce (inferior to flusterstorm, often hard to cash in with an active drs on their side)
+1 Pyroblast, +1 REB, +2 Flusterstorm, +2 Rough/Tumble

G2: I keep an aggressive hand with delver, mongoose, mandrills, daze, thought scour and 2 misty. Nothing to answer a t1 DRS, but if he has it I might be able to put on pressure with the delver and/or land a quick mandrills, taxing his gy so he has more difficulties landing an Angler.
Fortunately my opponent "only" leads with a delver. I draw a second delver on my own and play the first one.
My opponent flips with Diabolic edict, but plays a ponder instead, probably to find his second land. He attacks with his delver, plays a delta and passes.
I flip my delver with brainstorm and crack my fetchland since I have daze + daze mana for a potential stifle. He plays one and I daze it, now able to play a Delver as well as my Mongoose, my threat destined to eat the edict since my small gy was destined for mandrills.
M0ller plays wasteland, but seeing how he's behind on board he decides to slam wasteland into daze to not fall behind. I have to let it resolve and he hits me down to 12.
I could set up my second delver to flip with brainstorm, but that would mean I couldn't play thougt scour into mandrills, so I pray. I reveal Ponder off delver. Yes! Better lucky than good! I thoughtscour myself since that's what I had planned anywas, the durdly ponder was not something I wanted when facing TNN and Delver at 12 life. I drew bolt and wasteland. My Mandrills didn't get dazed and I attacked my opponent down to 10, having 2 flipped delvers, a 1/1 mongoose and mandrills against a flipped delver and TNN. My opponent edicts me and I sac the mongoose, then attacks with TNN since it wouldn't do much blocking 1 trample damage.
He wastelands me in my upkeep and I bolt his delver in response which he flusterstorms. I brainstorm in response, hoping to hit a daze to save my red land and maybe even get another bolt, but find misty, ponder and delver instead. I attack for 10, forcing him to chump with delver and play another one. My opponent scoops after drawing his next turn.


Round 5 (ECE): Esper Deathblade

G1 otp I keep a good, but mana-light hand with 2x delver, bolt, FoW, Ponder and Thought Scour, leading with a delver (with a less aggressive hand I would've led with ponder). My opponent plays delta and passes.
I flip with a second bolt, ponder for a tropical, attack and play my second delver. Despite having FoW on my own I let it slide since I know I have thought-scour into mandrills coming up. My opponent plays a deathrite which I bolt, durdles around with snapcaster and cantrips. He wastelands my volcanic, I bolt him down to 4. He plows my mandrills which I FoW and he scoops.

Sideboard notes: I really dislike REB-effects and flusterstorms in this matchup. Besides TNN those cards don't counter the things that bother us. This is not spell-heavy stoneblade, but deathblade which let's be honest is basically blue Maverick in that it plays a bunch of annoying permanents. I'd rather have dazes for the expensive stuff, should a TNN resolve I'll very likely be ahead in the race so the only thing their 3 mana creature does is holding back my 1 mana mongoose.
-4 FoW, -2 Dismember
+2 Rough/Tumble, +2 destructive revelry, +1 library, +1 ground seal

G2 I keep an ok-ish hand with delver, mandrills, destructive revelry, brainstorm, daze, misty and wasteland.
My opponent leads with deathrite, but I rip a second land and play delver. My opponent wastelands me and plays another deathrite, but doesn't attack or exile a land which leads me to believe he has either fluster/pierce or swords. Unfortunately I'm really not in the position to play around anything.
I flip with brainstorm and play a fetchland so I can brainstorm eot into hopefully land and removal without leaving myself open to wasteland.
My opponent doesn't rest and plays creeping tar-pit and stoneforge, searching for Jitte. Yikes!
My eot brainstorm reveals no land, but a ponder so I keep that one and shuffle on my next turn even though the third card from the bottom is a rough/tumble I could theoretically play the next turn off volcanic and wasteland. If my opponent plays his Jitte next turn though (he has to cast it to have an untapped creature to attack with) i have to daze it, forcing me to go back to no lands.
No way then, I have to shuffle and draw another Mandrills. Ugh. My opponent draws life from the loam and gets back his wasteland, putting the nail in the coffin.
I don't think loam is good against us from deathblade's side, it really only did anything because it was land+delver vs. 2drs + sfm + 2 lands. If I hit my land drops and can play out my threats (that cost 1 mana each) my opponent shouldn't have time to get a loam-waste-engine going.

G3 I feel very confident: I'll be otp and have time to prepare for a t1 drs while my dazes will be at their best. I keep a hand with delver, rough/tumble, daze, thought scour, 2 fetches and wasteland.
I play my t1 delver and daze a deathrite because I'm not sure my delver flips so my rough/tumble would be live.
It does flip with spell snare and I play my other fetch, preparing to cast snare or thought scour. My opponent has another fetch and drs.
With Tropical and another land drop yet to make I now have the option to either play delver and waste one of his lands or play rough/tumble. I hope to get more value from rough/tumble so I go for the first line of play though i risk not flipping the delver. The quick aggression is key in this matchup though in my experience.
My opponent uses this time to resolve his Umezawa's Jitte because I'm tapped out (he knows about my snare from the first delver flip).
I flip delver with daze and pray he doesn't have flusterstorm or FoW for my rough. He doesn't and I attack him down to 8 with a lone Jitte on the board.
My opponent plays a lone snapcaster mage with nothing in the gy to flashback. He plays it in his mainphase to play around my spell snare.
While I don't draw a removal or burn spell I do draw Sylvan Library which I can land and still keep Spell Snare (and daze) open. My opponent draws his next card and concedes.



My thoughts about the deck:
I started this deck simply because I wanted to test out ground seal and there's really only one delver deck that can play that card. I now know that while it's amazing against 4c-control it's not always good to bring in against every drs deck, especially when otd because it doesn't answer a t1 deathrite directly.
On the other hand Sylvan Library was a card I had almost forgot about, it seemed like a natural inclusion to fight midrange and control. Though I didn't draw those cards in the matches of this league I've tested Ground Seal a fair bit. As for Sylvan library: I think everybody in this thread knows how great that card is against swords-to-plowshares decks, right?
Whenever I build Delver decks I look to play 2 Wrath effects that fight Elves, D&T, Pyromancer and Empty the Warrens. In Grixis it was Marsh Casualties which had the upside that it also killed Strixes and TNNs, Rough/Tumble has the huge upside that it destroys drs and many other important 2-power creatures while being way easier to cast.
Having played a fair share with and against RUG I know that Mongoose can be a real pain once this critical threshold is reached. Often times though it's just one or two cards off and that pesky DRS won't let the goose have any fun! I've experimented with Thought Scour before, but the prevalence of Miracles (and Jace bouncing my Gurmag Anglers) gave me a hard time. It's a brave new world now though and everybody seems to play non-stp removal, why not try again?
I thought that if the normal RUG list plays 4 Mongoose 2 Mandrills by playing the full 4 thoughtscours I can surely go up to the full 8 creatures, right?
I'm less and less a fan of TNN: Not only does it die to our Rough/Tumbles, it also gets countered by REB- and -1/-1 effects and costs 3 mana, how annoying is that?
Cutting the stifles was not an easy decision, believe me: I really like playing with that card and have played it pretty much ever since I shifted from swiftspear-delver to grixis-delver once deathrite was printed. But in this deck you really want to tap out eot for you thought scours (which would give your opponent time to crack their fetches). It also felt like lands wasn't was I should fight, instead there are other things that directly ruin our game-plan: Baleful Strix, Diabolic Edict, Toxic Deluge, Planeswalkers and lockpieces just to name the most important ones. Pierce and Snare do a much better job at this and are also very good against some specific sideboard cards that fight mongoose and mandrills specifically.
Plus you always have the upside of people playing around stifle as soon as they realize you're on RUG ;)

Now the decks I played today were very fair, but I think this deck has also a pretty good shot vs. unfair decks, especially because thought scour makes your green beaters beat much faster.
I realize that I got quite lucky with the dice (starting 4x), on the other side I think my cantrips for lands were abysmal, I lost 2 out of 3 times because I got mana screwed against decks that don't even play wasteland! Only against Miracles did I get to play and lost to the mentor.
If your meta has many black leylines you might consider a third destructive revelry, but otherwise I think the sideboard as it is right now is very well suited to beat just about any deck that legacy has to offer right now.
Going 5-0 in the first league with a deck is always exciting, I'm looking forward to play more with this deck!

I'm super tired so forgive me the typos and bad grammar, English is not my first language. I really wanted to finish this report though before I go to sleep.

[now]

I think you need to explain a bit more about the “no stifles” part of your deck. :cry:

[kombatkiwi]

I think you need to explain a bit more about the “no stifles” part of your deck. :cry:

It's not exactly a new idea
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/23898_The-Ultimate-RUG-Delver-Primer.html

[now]

It's not exactly a new idea
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/23898_The-Ultimate-RUG-Delver-Primer.html

So? The meta is hardly the same as it was in 2012.

[Agrippa91]

Let me start by saying whoever wrote that article was a bad RUG player. Especially before DRS got printed stifle was absolute bonkers vs. blue decks. It still is when you can keep DRS off the table.
I remember BBD saying during one of those old vs. videos that he doesn't like daze (he was playing RUG) because it's so situational and the opponent can almost always play around it. I guess you either have the RUG spirit or you don't, some at starcitygames simply don't seem to have it.

The reason why I don't play stifle in this deck is different:
When I decided I have to go to 4 thoughtscours to battle our archenemies (drs, angler and draw-go against combo without delver) I had to decide what to cut.
The cutting options were the following:

(1) mandrills #3 and 4, only bringing in 2 thought scours

OR

(2) all spell pierces and spell snares

OR

(3) a mixture between stifles and spell snares/pierces, e.g. 2 stifle, 1 pierce, 1 snare.

OR

(4) all stifles

I played around with each of those configurations:
I quickly ruled out #1 because while it felt the most like traditional RUG, it had the same problems I wanted to avoid: Green creatures fighting over my grave with drs eating away and angler coming down way too fast compared to my own threats.

Trying option 2 I felt like while still got to stifle the opponent it simply didn't seem relevant. I kept wishing my stifles were cards that would actually counter his wraths, edicts, flashed in snapcasters, strixes. Those cards were waaay more annoying than I was used to with Grixis where I could simply go wide with pyromancer to play around those things.

I tried option three and it was the first time I was actually content: I had a few counters for his wraths and stifles were still there though I came more and more into situations where I was like "I have to keep this stifle for snapcaster on edict/swords or jace-bounce".

Option 4 is not so much "without stifles" but "with 2 snares and 2 pierces" because that was the main appeal: Ways to get rid of planeswalkers, wraths and lock pieces while having actual hardcounters to strixs, snapcasters and edicts. Stifle is only good against Jace/Lili and the spells snapcaster flashes back (though the body itself blocking can sometimes times be a pain).

Now is our land base more vulnerable now that we don't play stifles to protect us from wastelands? Yes and no. Yes for obvious reasons and No because we play 4 more cantrips and a fourth tropical which offers resilience against getting wasted off our green sources.
Our curve is also much lower: When we use all the cost reduction our whole maindeck costs either 0 or 1 mana. This means that while traditional RUG is probably most comfortable at 3 lands I'm totally ok with 2 for the entirety of the game.


So yeah, you see that it's not that I hate stifle in general, I simply don't have room for it and think that the deck wants to spend its counters on spells that actually fight our tough-to-deal-with creatures.
On another note this leverages a playstyle that's not so much about holding up or representing stifle when the opponent has a fetchland. You hold up your counters on their main phases, sure, but eot you can just scour or bs-scour yourself for value, not caring if they have a fetchland out or not.
Slamming a t2 Mandrills for G or attacking with a loose goose on t3 certainly feels more poweful than anything fair I've done in Legacy for a long time.

[JackaBo]

Classical RUG is partly a mana denial deck. What you present is more agresssive and obviously less controlling.
I also have some issues with Stifle eventhough i love it , especially if i keep a one lander hold up Stifle and doesnt get to use it then don't draw a second land. An instant cantrip is really nice in that instance.
I would like life from the loam in your list. It's a nice card to mill off scour and can be dredged to further mill cards and leverage your wasteland daze plan

[Agrippa91]

Classical RUG is partly a mana denial deck. What you present is more agresssive and obviously less controlling.
I also have some issues with Stifle eventhough i love it , especially if i keep a one lander hold up Stifle and doesnt get to use it then don't draw a second land. An instant cantrip is really nice in that instance.
I would like life from the loam in your list. It's a nice card to mill off scour and can be dredged to further mill cards and leverage your wasteland daze plan

It's not a card I would like in the maindeck but in the sideboard. Here though I think that ground seal and sylvan library do a lot more against 4c-control and even lands. Against Delver neither of the 2-mana do-nothings are great on the draw.
Ultimately loam is just a slow card. The main issue that I have though is that with deathrites everywhere they'll eat your wastelands first in anticipation of a loam, I don't want to spend 2 mana to draw 2-3 lands in this deck! And against any control deck playing lots of basics like Miracles loam does nothing. Again my both green enchantments are better there.
Not to speak about the fact that Mandrills doesn't like loam particularly much. I don't want to dredge loam to get lands I don't want just so I can play Mandrills without eating it.
Against Marit Lage decks I think the 2 Pithing Needles are just better: They're efficient and they attack the combo in a way that's not easily dealt with by those decks game plans (BG depths has pithing needle/quarter for wasteland, lands has port/wasteland/quarter). Now BG depths has decays for the needles, but it's still better than the slow loam imo. The needles also serve as MVPs against D&T and are good against Sneak and Show where unlike against other combo decks I need sideboard card 9+10 for spell snares.
Last, but not least I don't want yet another card that's vulnerable to gy-hate. We're already struggling against Leyline, but the ground seal at least prevents us from getting wasteland-locked by 4c-loam while the library helps us find those 2 destructive revelries we have against Leyline, but also RIP decks like D&T.

[Jonny Tempel]

I wonder what advantages your build has over the similar Grixis lists with 4 Angler i've seen recently? And no, i'm not trolling, this is a serious question because it basically comes down to Gurmag vs. Hooting and DRS vs. Mongoose.

[Agrippa91]

I just saw that Grixis deck on the scg tour, I wasn't aware that I'm not the only one experimenting with Thought Scour at the moment. I played a similar list, but in BUG colors, back when Miracles was a thing. Your question is totally legit. Here's how I see it:

When playing Grixis you have access to thoughtseizes postboard. That additional angle of attack in addition to Deathrite (against ANT, reanimator) makes the Grixis version better against combo.

When playing RUG you have Mongoose which is a house against fair decks. Having 8 threats instead of 4 that dodge the whole push/k-command roaster makes RUG able to simply cut delvers against non-stp-control, something Grixis simply can't do.
Both versions have 4 threats that get blanked by TNN and 8 threats that don't care, so it's about equal on that front.
Another big advantage is that Mongoose is great against planeswalkers, when trying a simlar thought-scour build I had real problems with Jace because he bounces delver/gurmag and drs is really ill equipped to pressure planeswalkers.
In addiion to all that, with RUG we gain awesome sideboard cards against control in Sylvan Library and Ground Seal. Those enchantments are good in addition to being enchantments which is super hard for some decks to deal with.

That said when fighting each other the Grixis deck might be better because of Angler, at least pre-sideboard. On the other side they have to have Angler for Mongoose, their removal seems pretty mediocre. Likely close to 50-50.

I'd be curious about that Grixis list though, it seems like Dylan Donegan is playing stifles, I guess he's not playing snares and pierces? There's that debate again, personally I still think that the 1-mana counters complement the game plan better than the stifles.

Something I just remembered: The reason why I went BUG over Grixis back then was also because I thought Grixis was too easily outhated with RIP and Leylines because it doesnt have enchantment removal. In both Grixis and RUG 8 out of the 12 threats rely on the graveyard, that's a lot and shouldn't be underestimated. I almost went with a third destructive revelry because of that, but settled with library reasoning that I could find the revelry/some delvers easier that way.

Tl; dr: RUG with thought-scour is better against control and has answers to gy-hate enchantments, Grixis with thought-scour is better against combo.

[ptahetep]

Congrats to the 2 fellow RUG pilots who made top32 at the SCG Washington open!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kombatkiwi]

For the record:
List A
Ryan Lesko
6th Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 10/28/2017


Creatures (11)

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Tarmogoyf
Lands (18)

1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
3 Wooded Foothills
Spells (31)

4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
1 Dismember
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
1 Chain Lightning
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
Sideboard

2 Winter Orb
2 True-Name Nemesis
1 Seal of Fire
1 Sylvan Library
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
1 Spell Pierce
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Vendilion Clique



List B
Jadine Klomparens
28th Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 10/28/2017
Legacy



Creatures (12)

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Tarmogoyf
1 True-Name Nemesis
Lands (18)

3 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
Spells (30)

4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
1 Dismember
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
1 Chain Lightning
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
Sideboard

1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Sylvan Library
2 Abrade
1 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
1 Spell Snare
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Rough
1 Ghost Quarter

I have been testing Tarmogoyfs again this week after the discussion with Ryan and can see his points more clearly.
I think one problem is that I overestimated the prevalence of Push and Decay, where currently BUG delver is the only deck that plays more than 1-2 of these. The problem with trying to beat BUG with Mandrills is that BUG also plays Tarmogoyf x4 which trumps Mandrills anyway and against the RUG mirror you have the same problem that packing Mandrills vs Goyf is basically a recipe for disaster.
The lack of any kind of wide removal in the SB is a little surprising and I almost feel like Loam would be better in the Ghost Quarter slot but I have been liking the 1 Preordain. I would also like to know what matchups you brought in winter orb and how strong you found it.
[Edit: Sorry, the Ghost Quarter is the other player]

Have you considered playing maindeck Seal of Fires in the Dismember/Chain Lightning slots?
I was testing 2 Seal 1 Preordain 2 Snare 1 Pierce 4 Goyf and I was fairly happy with that but it's not an ideal configuration for Tarmogoyf mirrors. The idea is that you don't need Dismember to beat X/5s when your Tarmogoyfs are larger and this would also give you an extra SB space. When I tested 3 Goyf with 1 Seal in SB (a la the J Alexander build from earlier in the year) I found that interaction wasn't consistent enough.
Anyway congrats on top 8.

[Jonny Tempel]

nice to see the deck putting up results!
I'm not sold on the Mandrills yet but i do like to have creatures that are hard to interact with. What about a 2/2 Split on Goyf and TNN?

[JackaBo]

@Agrippa: I like your 5-0-report, it shows both anaytical some play and more importantly some analytical evaluation of errors. I also like your reasoning regarding the traits of Grixis and Canadian delver, I believe your analysis is spot on.
Thus, if you say Life from the loam isn't good in a Thought scour build, I believe you, eventhough mine and others' experience with loam has been good.
However I'm not sure I agree about your reasoning on ground seal - a card which I have also played and unfortunaly cut from my sideobard. As you say RUG is already well equipped to deal with Control-decks due to Goose and the ability to play more cheap counters than the other delver decks. Why do we need a card that is specifically aimed to fight shaman + snapcaster in our sideboard? If reanimator didn't play exhume, and our go-to graveyard hate wasn't surgical extraction, it would have implications here as well. Sylvan is probably more all-round and Compost is probably more valuable versus black-based Control (as well as black-based combo).

@Kombatwiki: My take on push is that it "pushed" goyf out of the format. But when there were no more goyfs around grixis decks rather play bolt so they can target the face, and thus goyf is playable again. I guess if goyf makes a big comeback, push will be everywhere again.

On another note: Have any of you tried to board in Pithing Needle versus Control decks with lots of basics (such as New miracle) to tag a fetchland (i.e. Flooded stand)? It seems that they would have a hard time finding plains without strands and it might make stifle on delta and wasteland on tundra more potent. I'm debating running Mistys + Foothills just for this reason.

[rlesko]

I have been testing Tarmogoyfs again this week after the discussion with Ryan and can see his points more clearly.
I think one problem is that I overestimated the prevalence of Push and Decay, where currently BUG delver is the only deck that plays more than 1-2 of these. The problem with trying to beat BUG with Mandrills is that BUG also plays Tarmogoyf x4 which trumps Mandrills anyway and against the RUG mirror you have the same problem that packing Mandrills vs Goyf is basically a recipe for disaster. The lack of any kind of wide removal in the SB is a little surprising and I almost feel like Loam would be better in the Ghost Quarter slot but I have been liking the 1 Preordain. I would also like to know what matchups you brought in winter orb and how strong you found it.
[Edit: Sorry, the Ghost Quarter is the other player]

Have you considered playing maindeck Seal of Fires in the Dismember/Chain Lightning slots?
I was testing 2 Seal 1 Preordain 2 Snare 1 Pierce 4 Goyf and I was fairly happy with that but it's not an ideal configuration for Tarmogoyf mirrors. The idea is that you don't need Dismember to beat X/5s when your Tarmogoyfs are larger and this would also give you an extra SB space. When I tested 3 Goyf with 1 Seal in SB (a la the J Alexander build from earlier in the year) I found that interaction wasn't consistent enough.
Anyway congrats on top 8.

Thanks :)

What is in bold is exactly what caused me to play Goyf, in addition to the fact that I wanted to have a big beater against eldrazi / chalice decks. I wouldn't have changed a single card in the main deck. It is not an accident that Preordain and Chain Lightning are both sorceries (for Goyf purposes). Funny enough, I was also able to chain lightning an opposing 2/3 goyf (land and ponder in GY).

Seal + Goyf is something I independently arrived at in previous RUG iterations for the same reasons Jon played it - grows your goyf to 5/6 against Gurmag Anglers and can't be touched by Deathrite. Conveniently enough I was also to play a seal in advance against Burn, to kill his Eidolon after it resolved!

Onto Winter Orb..I owe it to Jon for pioneering that card in RUG. I was bringing in Winter Orb against new miracles, various blade decks, cloudpost decks, and loam decks. It honestly overperformed, but I wouldn't add a 3rd one at the moment. The night before the tournament I was testing the esper stoneblade matchup with a friend and I tried out boarding out all stifles, goyfs, and preordain for 2 winter orb, 2 True Name, 2 Ancient Grudge, and 2 Pyroblast. It honestly never even felt close, they simply have no choice but to play into the orb, needing to tap 3-4 mana per turn.

The best play of the day was when I was stuck on one land with a goose in play vs an opponent who had a SFM + Batterskull. I had a grudge, bolt, daze, and Orb in hand but no red. Finally I drew a red source and passed (I almost scooped TBH, life total was like 10-30 and I had a 1/1 goose). With 5 mana open, my opponent cantripped twice, then attacked with batterskull. I grudge his batterskull which he bounces in response (he is now tapped out). On my turn I draw another land and bolt his stoneforge and played winter orb. It was simply a blowout, with mongoose going the distance.

I hadn't considered running things like Seal main deck. There is the fear that you grow opposing goyfs, and I like my burn spells to all be able to burn my opponents face for 3. Fork Bolting / Seal of Fire-ing a combo opponent is just too lack luster for me. But in a heavy elves meta perhaps I could be persuaded to play forked bolt (So I think right now Chain Lightning > Forked Bolt > Seal of Fire for that slot).

In the end I also decided that sweepers weren't strong enough in the current meta, especially since we want to bring in True Names against most decks where something like rough // tumble would be good. My deck was definitely a little soft to elves but I was able to dodge it all day. That being said I definitely still think the matchup is winnable with my current 75.

I'll probably write up something a bit more extensive but for now, the only card that underperformed was Sylvan Library. Probably would change it for a cage, submerge, or a sulfur elemental. Though I haven't given it much thought.

[Agrippa91]

@JackoBo: Thanks for the compliment. I like Ground Seal because it provides gy-hate #4 (as you say only exhume dodges it and we have plenty for that one) and is good against every control variant. Getting Snapcasters against white control decks is pretty nice imo because swords on mandrills can be a real pain, especially when they have TNN blocking Mongoose. Against pile I want to stop DRS as well as Strix recursion.
I agree that library is better against control in general, however I already play 2 dismember and don't want additional life loss since there're matchups where I bring in all of these cards, e.g. vs. all these deathrite-midrange decks. There's just no other card (besides a 2nd library) that's good against lands, miracles, 4c-control, deathblade, stoneblade, 4c-loam at the same time.
Now that said this sb-is not carved in stone, I might cut it at some point if I'm not content . So far though it performed quite solid.

[JackaBo]

I agree that library is better against control in general, however I already play 2 dismember and don't want additional life loss since there're matchups where I bring in all of these cards, e.g. vs. all these deathrite-midrange decks. There's just no other card (besides a 2nd library) that's good against lands, miracles, 4c-control, deathblade, stoneblade, 4c-loam at the same time.

Except maybe winter orb. Eventhough both new miracle and 4c have maindeck answers in UA and K-command, resolving those spells versus RUG with orb in play should not be too easy.

[trinkets]

Would you say that RUG has pretty even matchups across the board, or not really?
Are there any terrible matchups for the decks? Besides Eldrazi, that is.

[maharis]

Would you say that RUG has pretty even matchups across the board, or not really?
Are there any terrible matchups for the decks? Besides Eldrazi, that is.

I played Thresh the other night using the 2 pierce/snare/mandrills, 1 TNN/chain build from champs. Lands was a nightmare. Otherwise I managed to 2-0 Maverick and BUG midrange so it felt pretty good.

[rlesko]

Would you say that RUG has pretty even matchups across the board, or not really?
Are there any terrible matchups for the decks? Besides Eldrazi, that is.

Even match ups, even Eldrazi if you are playing at least three tarmogoyf.


I played Thresh the other night using the 2 pierce/snare/mandrills, 1 TNN/chain build from champs. Lands was a nightmare. Otherwise I managed to 2-0 Maverick and BUG midrange so it felt pretty good.

Lands should still be ok with the monkey build. But I wouldn't play mandrills if I unthresh'd my geese vs them.

[kombatkiwi]

Just played a match against CP where my Goyfs got pushed 4 times in 3 games :frown:
There's no right answer lmao (also snaps are a beating)

I have been playing Loam/Ring in the SB and liking it but maybe it's worth it to play Ground Seal somewhere and then cut loam to play Library in the 'grindy card advantage' slot.
But if I am mainly bringing in Ground Seal against black decks then maybe compost is better? Does anybody have any experience with these?

[JackaBo]

If you really want to beat pile Compost is the way to go. Marius Hausman gave me that advice. I've haven't had enough testing versus pile myself.

[rlesko]

Just played a match against CP where my Goyfs got pushed 4 times in 3 games :frown:
There's no right answer lmao (also snaps are a beating)

I have been playing Loam/Ring in the SB and liking it but maybe it's worth it to play Ground Seal somewhere and then cut loam to play Library in the 'grindy card advantage' slot.
But if I am mainly bringing in Ground Seal against black decks then maybe compost is better? Does anybody have any experience with these?

:cry:

How many copies of spell snare are you running?

[kombatkiwi]

:cry:

How many copies of spell snare are you running?

2

[Jonny Tempel]

Interesting article from Jeff Hoogland about Canadian:
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/jeffhoogland-11032017-temur-delver-in-legacy/

[Nestalim]

Would you say that RUG has pretty even matchups across the board, or not really?
Are there any terrible matchups for the decks? Besides Eldrazi, that is.

I would say that reanimator is quite hard.

[JackaBo]

Interesting article from Jeff Hoogland about Canadian:
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/jeffhoogland-11032017-temur-delver-in-legacy/

Interesting article but I'm not sure about his list though. Sixth burnspell over dismember, sure, but green sun zenith?

[kombatkiwi]

Interesting article but I'm not sure about his list though. Sixth burnspell over dismember, sure, but green sun zenith?

Yeah GSZ is a bust and apart from that his list isn't anything exciting. Maindeck clique feels like a meta call that isn't exactly warranted at the moment.

I still feel 2x Grudge is better than the split with Abrade. Have been testing the following list

4x
Delver
Goose
Goyf
Bolt
Ponder
Brainstorm
Force
Daze
Stifle
2 Seal of Fire
1 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Preordain
3 Trop
3 Volc
4 Waste
8 Fetches

2 Grudge
2 Surgical
2 TNN
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Blast
1 Loam
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Forked Bolt
1 Pierce
1 Honden of Infinite Rage
1 Scavenging Ooze

I like the Loam/Ring sideboard a lot, and I don't think I want Loam AND Sylvan Library.

I have tested both Honden and Granite Shard:
Granite Shard pros:
- More flexibility on when you can activate it
- Colorless (Mother of Runes)
Honden Pros:
- Doesn't cost mana to activate
- Doesn't die to Kolaghans Command

The reason why I like this slot is because it's repeated removal vs Elves, DNT etc but also a Sulfuric Vortex against Czech Pile and UW
vs CP it kills Strix for free and against both control matchups it also kills Snapcasters

Ooze is a catch-all that does many things
- Big ground dork / Tarmogoyf #5
- Eat graveyards (Good against fair decks Snapcaster/Delve/Kolaghans/Goose but also combo Griselbrand/Ichorid/Past in Flames)
- Lifegain (Not that important but fine vs Burn)

Not convinced it's the best thing for that slot but based on how it has performed in the past I am happy to play it for now.

For winning the 'big ground dork' wars I have also tried Rhonas in the SB but I found against most Goyf/Angler matchups it was too hard to keep 1 other creature (and it doesn't cooperate with Mongoose, which is flavorful for a Snake but not ideal for winning matches).
If your meta has a lot of Chalice decks in it then I think maybe it's worth considering but in general not fantastic (not that anyone was wondering...)

[Qweerios]

Howdy!

I have a very specific question that I feel the RUG crowd is best positioned to answer. I play a 4c Delver deck that basically boils down to Team America with Bolts over Decay and Pierce over Hymn. I have 2 flex slots to dedicate ideally to blue sorceries. Given that I play 3 Goyfs, 2 Gurmags/Stalkers, and need access to 4 colors, should I play Preordain or Gitaxian Probe? A split? Or perhaps Stifles/Snares are better?

More selection vs. More velocity is difficult to answer.

How good is Probe compared to Preordain if you don't play Pyro and Therapy? Probe is simply a good card to draw a singleton in every game as it provides info, often grows Goyf, and speeds up Delver creatures. Preordain offers a more powerful cantrip effect while also contributing to the Goyf/Delve plan but will always cost you mana.

Is there a way to know how many cantrips is too many? How much of an impact knowing your opponent's hand has on the game?

Thanks!

[kombatkiwi]

In order of importance for Probe synergies Goyf and Threshold are probably last on the list behind Pyro/Therapy/Snapcaster/PIF. (Delve is somewhere in between).

When Grixis Delver is the most (or one of the most) popular decks in the format then paying 2 life to cycle is a real cost and even CP can win by Snap-Bolting you. Without any of the above mentioned cards the only value from the peek is figuring out how to line up your disruption and I don't think this is generally worth it.

You can see the BUG delver list from Eternal Weekend with 3 Tarmogoyf and 2 Tombstalker which played 7 sorceries (4 Hymn 3 Ponder) 0 Probe.
The Grixis lists from same event all have 4 Probe, but not only do they have multiple Delve cards (1 list had only 1 Tombstalker for delve but also played snapcaster) but also Pyromancer main and Therapy in the sideboard.

I wouldn't play more than 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 2 'X' (Probe, or Thoughtscour, or Preordain, or whatever) because you don't want to be spending too much mana 'spinning your wheels', and they are also blank draws if your opponent has a Leovold out. At the moment I am playing 4-4-1 Preordain and I like how that feels.

[JackaBo]

I believe probe becomes stronger the more narrow but strong cards like Stifle and Spell snare you run - which Canadian run. Knowing when to tap for a threat and when to hold up countermagic can be very strong.

[Hrothgar]

Hi guys!
Another very good result by Marius Bender at MKM Barcelona, yesterday!
I report here the list:

Main Deck:

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
4 Delver of Secrets / Insectile Aberration
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 Hooting Mandrills
1 True-Name Nemesis
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
1 Forked Bolt

Sideboard:

2 Submerge
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Sylvan Library
2 Surgical Extraction
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Abrade
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Spell Pierce
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Flusterstorm
1 Izzet Staticaster

I don't know the matchup of the Swiss, but in top 8 Marius defeat a Stompy Soldiers deck, and lose in semi-final by Sneak and Show.

[rlesko]

Sweet!

Marius, how did you find snapcaster mage was during the tournament? What MU have you wanted to bring this in for?

I have honestly thought about snapcaster mages before in the sideboard primarily for combo. But I think the combo decks are already pretty good MU, and I would be hesitant to side in snapcaster mages against all the Deathrite decks

[JackaBo]

I see Marius cut Compost from SB and are now only running 2 grind cards in extra TNN and Sylvan.
Btw didnt he lose to show n tell last tournament finals?

[Qweerios]

What do you guys think about Spell Snare?

I absolutely love the card but I can't justify it as good enough because it is very narrow. Snare has little or no application against a lot of the top decks such as SnT, Elves, Grixis Delver/Canadian, Eldrazi, and more... For every time Snare is good, there is another time when it completely blows. Why not just play more cantrips/removal/threats instead?

[TheManWithaPlan]

What do you guys think about Spell Snare?

I absolutely love the card but I can't justify it as good enough because it is very narrow. Snare has little or no application against a lot of the top decks such as SnT, Elves, Grixis Delver/Canadian, Eldrazi, and more... For every time Snare is good, there is another time when it completely blows. Why not just play more cantrips/removal/threats instead?
I think that Spell Snare is excellent right now. With Czech Pile being a top deck right now, Legacy is flush wit Snapcaster Mage and Baleful Strix, 2 cards that are excellent targets for Spell Snare. Storm has Infernal Tutor and Cabal Ritual to hit. I will agree it is lacklustre against Grixis Delver and Elves, though hitting Chalice feels pretty good, but when Spell Snare is good, it is an extremely good counterspell.

[rlesko]

What do you guys think about Spell Snare?

I absolutely love the card but I can't justify it as good enough because it is very narrow. Snare has little or no application against a lot of the top decks such as SnT, Elves, Grixis Delver/Canadian, Eldrazi, and more... For every time Snare is good, there is another time when it completely blows. Why not just play more cantrips/removal/threats instead?

I would never cut the card. Even its not so bad against grixis delver with 3-4 pyromancer, and 2 edicts post board, even sometimes snapcaster.

I would board them out against elves but it does counter visionary and green sun's for 1, so its not entirely dead game 1.

Snare is the cleanest way to deal with creatures that have ETB ability (like snapcaster, strix, stoneforge, and visionary)

Theres no shortage of non creature CMC 2 either

[Jesture]

On the topic of Spell Snare, how much does this deck care about Dark Confidant? The life loss for the opponent is nice, but the card advantage is often enough to dig us into a hole that we can't tempo our way out of. I typically hold onto Snare against Bob if I think there's another more impactful 2 drop incoming (Snapcaster, Tarmogoyf, Stoneforge Mystic) but that then creates the risk of losing to a flood of non CMC 2 cards.

The broader question here - is it generally correct to fire off Spell Snare at first possible chance (excluding corner cases such as against Daze)?

[rlesko]

On the topic of Spell Snare, how much does this deck care about Dark Confidant? The life loss for the opponent is nice, but the card advantage is often enough to dig us into a hole that we can't tempo our way out of. I typically hold onto Snare against Bob if I think there's another more impactful 2 drop incoming (Snapcaster, Tarmogoyf, Stoneforge Mystic) but that then creates the risk of losing to a flood of non CMC 2 cards.

The broader question here - is it generally correct to fire off Spell Snare at first possible chance (excluding corner cases such as against Daze)?

Well, there are not hard and fast rules in MTG. Everything depends on the contents of your hand, life totals, etc. If you have a lightning bolt and a spell snare in hand, and your opponent casts a dark confidant, its not such a simple question to say "snare it" or "bolt it". What is the avg CMC of their deck? Whats their life total? How many 2 drops do they have in their deck? Are you pressuring their life total in a significant way?

Maybe you should daze first even if you have a spell snare, because spell snare is a hard counter until the end of the game, whereas daze is going to eventually be dead. But maybe not, as Daze can potentially counter any spell, and spell snare can only target spells with CMC 2.

If you want me to generalize, I typically envision bolting my opponents 1 drops, snaring their 2 drops, and dazing their 3 drops. More specifically, I want to lean on my dazes / forces when I'm playing a threat on my own turn, so my opponent never has a turn where there I can't interact with them. In your scenario, knowing literally nothing else, I would spell snare their dark confidant (and this is a card we care very much about), as this is a resource denial deck that trades 1 for 1, we simply can't afford our opponent drawing extra cards (and even extra lands are very impactful vs RUG, as mana screwing our opponents is pretty much what our game plan relies on).

Also, a good way to lose games with this deck is to be too concerned with what else your opponent will play in future turns. Can you imagine how silly you would feel by saving a spell snare for "future 2 drops" and letting dark confidant resolve, while your opponent draws 2-4 extra cards?

[Jesture]

Appreciate the quick response, congrats on the recent top8


Well, there are not hard and fast rules in MTG. Everything depends on the contents of your hand, life totals, etc. If you have a lightning bolt and a spell snare in hand, and your opponent casts a dark confidant, its not such a simple question to say "snare it" or "bolt it". What is the avg CMC of their deck? Whats their life total? How many 2 drops do they have in their deck? Are you pressuring their life total in a significant way?

Maybe you should daze first even if you have a spell snare, because spell snare is a hard counter until the end of the game, whereas daze is going to eventually be dead. But maybe not, as Daze can potentially counter any spell, and spell snare can only target spells with CMC 2.

You're right, all matchup advice is always contextual. I appreciate you adding a disclaimer that your advice shouldn't be taken at face value.


If you want me to generalize, I typically envision bolting my opponents 1 drops, snaring their 2 drops, and dazing their 3 drops. More specifically, I want to lean on my dazes / forces when I'm playing a threat on my own turn, so my opponent never has a turn where there I can't interact with them. In your scenario, knowing literally nothing else, I would spell snare their dark confidant (and this is a card we care very much about), as this is a resource denial deck that trades 1 for 1, we simply can't afford our opponent drawing extra cards (and even extra lands are very impactful vs RUG, as mana screwing our opponents is pretty much what our game plan relies on).

Also, a good way to lose games with this deck is to be too concerned with what else your opponent will play in future turns. Can you imagine how silly you would feel by saving a spell snare for "future 2 drops" and letting dark confidant resolve, while your opponent draws 2-4 extra cards?

This is great information and exactly what I was looking for. I'm new to RUG Delver, and having general legacy knowledge unfortunately doesn't help me with decisions like whether or not to Spell Snare opposing Dark Confidants.

Additionally, I really like how you've laid out your general game plan. Making decisions in the moment is a huge part of Magic, but having a solid heuristic can save a lot of mental energy over several rounds, which is definitely something I've struggled with at larger events.

[rlesko]

Thanks :)

Glad you found the advice somewhat useful - I know how useless "it depends" can be when trying to learn a deck.

[MTB]

Hi there,

sadly I cant provide a detailed tournament report as my notes look horrible.

Round 1
Bye - I drew in the finals of the Trial on Saturday (27 Players) with Momme Grupp who later Top8ed in the Main Event.

Round 2
Czech Pile
I lost Game 1 to triple DRS and a strix which kept my Mandrills at bay. In the games 2&3 I took out all Delvers and he died both times with tons of removal stranded in his hand.
Most memorable moment was game 3:
He: Usea -> Ponder
Me: Volc -> Go
He: Fetch -> Go
Me: Wasteland your Usea
He: Nothing -> pass
Me: Land -> Go
He: second fetchland -> he:fetch -> Me: stifle -> He:fetch the other -> Me:fetch in response second stifle
My turn -> Land -> TNN
One Turn later a mandrills joint his fishy friend and the game was sealed fast.

Round 3
Elves
I win Game 1 with double delver and Game 2 my opponent mulls down to 5 :(

Round 4
Czech Pile
I win the first Game pretty fast after using my dismember on his shaman and rushing in with mandrills. In Game 2 I board out all Delvers again and after he was overrun by mandrills and goose he reveals his hand with REB, decay and push.

Round 5
Soldier Stompy
Game 1 I am on the draw with a fine hand (I think something like 2 lands, Brainstorm, Bolt, Daze, Ponder, Mungoose/Delver). He is on the play with Plains...I think "Oh crap it's D&T...he plays chrome mox-> Chalice on 1.... ok it's even worse. I manage to get a Mandrills on board but get overwhelmed pretty fast by a ton of random dorks. Game 2 I daze the chalice out of his tomb and he never finds a second land. Game 3 I got a Nemesis on board but he was able to regain life due to Aerial resonder and the Monarch drew him a lot of Cards while exiling my mandrills.

Round 6
Hex Depth
I threw away Game 1 by the most idiotic mistake ever (basicly the ability to sum up the power of Mandrills + TNN) and really raged about my stupidity but my opponent was a great guy who said me to relax as it was just game 1.
Highlight of game 3 was me attacking him -> cop rotation in response -> I waste his depth -> crop rotate again -> I surgical his depth and fluster both rotations O.o

Round 7
BUG Delver
I won both games without taking a single damage from him. Game 1 I think by a Mandrills (my notes suggest that at least) and some 3 power creature. In Game 2 I used Mandrills to shrink his goyfs to 3/4 so he had to double block my mandrills in my next attack but one Goyf met a submerge so that 1 Goyf was down. The second was recast in his next turn but I Snapcaster-> bolt him eot just to submerge the goyf again and bolt him to death (this was the only game I drew the Snapcaster so I can't say much about how good he was althogh I boarded him in a lot)

Round 8
ID with Grixis Delver (after winning Game 1 :D)

Quarterfinals
Soldierstompy
I get my revange by winning Game 1&3. In Game 2 he was dead on board just to draw Whorship with his prelate in play....I was not able to find the Abrade or dismember in time and got overwhelmed by his army (Odric gave his whole team first strike, vigilance, lifelink, flying..... well that was enough).

Semifinals
Sneakshow
Game 1 I started with a nice hand (2 lands, double force stifle, mungoose, snare (just pitch but thats fine)) sadly all I manage to draw in this game were lands, mungoos and mandrills. Game 2 I play land go -> tomb -> Defence Grid... I saw myself loosing and played Delver + Mungoos which my opponent asnwered with bloodmoon...I just attacked for 4 until he was dead O.o
Game 3 I got a perfect hand I just need to find the second land with my ponder....3 nonlands-> shuffle -> draw ponder...Next tunr ponder-> 3 nonlands -> shuffle -> non land. So my lonely force is not enough to stop his sneak attack and I can't use the fluster or REB in my hand as my only land is tapped due to the ponder.

I will explain some of the card choices at the end of this week :)

Regards,

Marius

[JackaBo]

Not drawing the second land is the biggest problem with this deck IMO. I dont want to add more lands but perhabs cutting a creature, a removal and a counterspell for 3 probes may do it. It indirectly adds to the landcount and also "increases" the mana denial package of Stifle-wasteland

[JackaBo]

Great result and great report, Marius. I'm excited to hear more about your card-choices, and how they performed!

[rlesko]

I've never really liked the idea of multiple probes in the deck. It does do some nice things (fuel thresh, add sorcery for goyf), but its always felt like there is too much "air" in the deck with the addition of any significant amount of probes (2 or more).

Mana screw is a part of magic. No matter how many lands you play, or ways to hit land drops, it will happen. It does not happen at a significant enough rate to make any changes to the main deck.

[MTB]

So I'm back with a few explanations what cards I played and which I didn't.

First of all the list

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
4 Delver of Secrets / Insectile Aberration
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 Hooting Mandrills
1 True-Name Nemesis
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
1 Forked Bolt

Sideboard:

2 Submerge
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Sylvan Library
2 Surgical Extraction
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Abrade
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Spell Pierce
1 Snapcaster Mage (Barcelona) / Compost (Hamburg)
2 Flusterstorm
1 Izzet Staticaster

Mainboard:
4 Delvers / 4 Mungoose / 2 Mandrills / 1 TNN
The thread suite was designed to withstand the most common played removal. While the role of Delver is primarily to serve as a fast clock against combo all your other creatures are somehow immune to at least 2 of the most common played removal:
Mungoose: Push, Decay, Swords, Bolt
TNN: Push, Decay, Swords, Bolt
Mandrills: Push, Decay, Bolt
Also Mandrills allows you to circumvent infinite blocks by opposing TNN's while "hating" opposing deathrite shamans. With that creature base you have very flexible tools for most common matchups

2 Snare / 2 Pierce
I choose this combination of additional counter as I think Snare is very well positioned right now and it handels a lot of the problematic spells for Canadian: Baleful Strix, Stoneforge, Tarmogoyf (not that common anymore but I snared more than one in my last 2 tournaments), Hymn to Tourach, Dark Confident...
That said I think you also want at least 2 Pierces although the targets in some decks are not that great but same is true for Snare.
While Snare shines in a lot of fair Matchups Pierce is a better choice for the unfair ones.




Snare
Pierce


Czech Pile
great
crap


Sneakshow
crap
great


Grixis Delver
few but fine targts
lots but mediocre targts


Death and Taxes
fine
crap


So I will always prefer a mix of both to get the maximal flexibility.

1 Dismember / 1 Forked Bolt / 1 Preordain
I choose a forked bolt over the second dismember as in some Matchups paying 4 life is a big cost. Some people said it's not a problem as your mostly the aggressor anyways but most of these people also play goyf which changes how the deck works. I also liked the forked bolt as a way to clean up Mancer + token out of Grixis delver or Strix + Strix/Snapcaster against Czech pile. The Preordain is intended to be just a little bit of extra cantrip-glue which holds together the deck and ensures that you get the cards you need for this very situation. So the concept to be flexible continous here.

What I didn't play
Tarmogoyf
In the current Meta (Czech Pile other BUGx Midrange decks) Goyf feels pretty lackluster as he gets removed pretty easy (all removals mentioned above except for Bolt). Also the number of TNN's at the moment is pretty high which brickwalls Goyf all day long. In the combo matchup the ability to cast Mandrills for G is also a nice plus as it allows you to keep more mana open for stifle/pierce/snare etc.
That said I could definitly imagine a local meta where you want goyf! For example a lot of budget decks like Burn or Eldrazi where you need to close out the game fast. Goyf also allows you to play a more "Zoo-style" game with stuff like T1 Delver T2 Goyf T3 Goyf. That will definitly get you some free wins but in a format full of czech pile Goyf is pretty lackluster compared to mandrills.

Probe
Probe has always been controvers discussed in the Canadian community. Yes it's free information but how important is that? People always say "it helps you to choose what to counter" - yeah maybe but if you add probes your deck won't have much counter as you need to cut something and every probe is also partly land, creature and removal. The cost of 2 life can be a hefty cost in some matchups too, mostly Burn/Ur Delver. Drawn in the later turns it will show you what is in your opponents hand but just in that exact moment you cast it. The format is full of cantrips so seeing something like 1 Show and Tell, 2 Ponder, 1 Brainstorm, 2 lands won't help you much most of the time as their hand will look totally different after their next turn.

Loam
While one of the most powerful sideboard cards loam is not something I want in my maindeck. You can singlehandly lock some decks out with it but other decks won't be impressed much like Sneakshow, Storm, Burn etc. It's also a pretty slow engine and if you compare loam to the slowest and most narrow card in the deck - TNN you see TNN is, althogh hard to cast and slow, never dead. At least TNN will deal 3 damage a turn while loam without wasteland doesn't do much except for fuelling *****/Delve.

Vendillion Clique
3 Power flash disruption...sounds like a good deal at first glance but...
...it's 3 mana so you will most likely tap out so your stifle/pierce/snare (not that important as there are not much cmc2 flash/instants beside Snapcaster) are down
...it's fragile Clique is as easily handed as Delver but costs threetimes as much
...it's disruptive effect is overrated - yes you can put down one card but your opponent will draw a new one its not like thoughtseize it's just a cycle of your choice

Sylvan library
Similar to loam a pretty good sideboard card but also specific and slow.

Chain lightning
Burning out my opponent is not my plan A. I don't play burn. If you play Tarmogoyf I could understand that you want to go "full Zoo mode" but paired with a plan resolving around resilent threads you want to be able to remove stuff like Angler/Goyf and Strix as effective as possible.

Counterspell
I really love the card (7th edition foil <3) but leaving up 2 Mana is a hefty cost in the early game and my list has already TNN (to some extent Mandrills) as clunky card.



Sideboard Coices to follow....

Regards,

Marius

[koten]

Hi Marius,

Thanks for the detailed write up! Just out of curiosity, what would your list look like if you ran the goyfs instead?

[trinkets]

Thanks for the write up, Marius! Definitely curious to read about your sideboard choices!

[LewisCBR]

5-0'd an online League with this list the other day, but alas, it didnt get chosen to be publicized. :(

Deck was gas, and still lots of fun to play. It might not have the raw power of Grixis, but no other deck really does.

https://imgur.com/a/SnaG9

Beat Storm, Mav, BUG Delver, New Miracles, and Sneak and Show.

[JackaBo]

I've never really liked the idea of multiple probes in the deck. It does do some nice things (fuel thresh, add sorcery for goyf), but its always felt like there is too much "air" in the deck with the addition of any significant amount of probes (2 or more).

Mana screw is a part of magic. No matter how many lands you play, or ways to hit land drops, it will happen. It does not happen at a significant enough rate to make any changes to the main deck.

While I both trust your judgement and agree on the air-part, sometimes I keep a one-lander, which is totally acceptable, with a reactive card that i want to hold up mana for - Stifle versus fetchland decks, pierce and snare versus chalice-decks for example. I dont want to tap out incase these cards could become live (and if they do they sometimes wins you the game). Then I will just draw go, possibly eot BS or bolt, until i find another land. Probes would fill a double purpose in this situation: Dighibg through your deck faster without tappning out and teliing me wether holding up mana for said card is necessary.

I guess I will start with 2 probes and see how it goes.

[rlesko]

5-0'd an online League with this list the other day, but alas, it didnt get chosen to be publicized. :(

Deck was gas, and still lots of fun to play. It might not have the raw power of Grixis, but no other deck really does.

https://imgur.com/a/SnaG9

Beat Storm, Mav, BUG Delver, New Miracles, and Sneak and Show.

Damn, those are some beefy goyfs :laugh:


While I both trust your judgement and agree on the air-part, sometimes I keep a one-lander, which is totally acceptable, with a reactive card that i want to hold up mana for - Stifle versus fetchland decks, pierce and snare versus chalice-decks for example. I dont want to tap out incase these cards could become live (and if they do they sometimes wins you the game). Then I will just draw go, possibly eot BS or bolt, until i find another land. Probes would fill a double purpose in this situation: Dighibg through your deck faster without tappning out and teliing me wether holding up mana for said card is necessary.

I guess I will start with 2 probes and see how it goes.

Yea, I understand where you are coming from. I have tried probe before, and for me at least, it rarely impacted the plays I was making. Just sort of like, "ok", and the information not particularly meaningful a few turns later.

Say for example you probe and they have 3 fetches, and you have 1 stifle. Are you not going to stifle their fetch now? Or maybe they have no chalice when you probe, but can you really feel comfortable not holding pierce up since they could easily top deck a blood moon / chalice / ensnaring bridge / <you name it> etc.

Nevertheless, I don't want to stifle (pun intended) your innovations or fun in MTG, so by all means, try out probes and see how they do for you, and let us know.

[MTB]

Ok so here is the missing part about the SB

Sideboard:

2 Submerge
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Sylvan Library
2 Surgical Extraction
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Abrade
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Spell Pierce
1 Snapcaster Mage (Barcelona) / Compost (Hamburg)
2 Flusterstorm
1 Izzet Staticaster

2 Submerge
An Allstar against troublesome creatures - Knight of the Religuary, Tarmogoyf, Marit Large, whole Elves deck, etc. Beeing free provides a nice tempo boost but sadly the matchups Submerge shines are not that common at the moment so I could see cutting one.

2 Red Blast Effects
Great in the current meta dominated by Strix and Snapcaster also a clean out to TNN which is hard to deal otherwise. Split is choosen because I like the German FBB Red blasts :D Points could be made for Pyroblast to fuel ******** but some one could also argue about meddling mage, misdirection....I don't think it will make a difference.

1 Sylvan Library
My current choice as anti control weapon, not as powerful as winter orb but more flexible as you can bring it also against decks with manadorks like Czech pile or deathblade.

2 Surgical Extraction
While not that brutal like cage it's more flexible and has a nice synergy with the Snapcaster. Additional turn 0 interaction is also great against RB reanimator although the popularity of this deck dwindles at the moment.

1 True-Name Nemesis
An additional shroud thread to further push the "shroud only" plan against midrange and control decks.

1 Abrade + 1 Ancient Grudge
This split felt great as Grudge is more powerful but Abrade offers flexibilty. Especially against D&T Abrade shines as some of their draws don't inlcude any artefacts but spamming with random white dudes. Grudge on the other side is a smooth way to get rid of Vial+Equipment or 2 Strixes and can bring you back in games against stompy where you grudge their chalice + bridge etc.

1 Spell Pierce + 2 Flusterstorm
My additional "hard counter" for the combo matchups is fluster as it provides more flexibily than something like invasive surgery. Spell Pierce was primary meant to help against S&T and Stompy. Fluster can't hit Moon or sneak which makes me want a additional pierce in that matchup.

1 Izzet Staticaster
My mass removal of choice as it's easily capable of dominating the board against Elves or taxes while also helping against goblin tokens of ANT/TES. Yes you can remove it but even if it's hit by a sword eot you still tradet at least 2 for 1 as haste and flash makes it pretty scary for some decks especially if you untap with it.

1 Snapcaster Mage (Barcelona) / Compost (Hamburg)
Compost was a way to keep up on cards against pile or a additional hate versus storm. This worked out pretty nicely but I wanted an additional threat against combo so I choose Snapcaster. Sadly I drew him only once but he was pretty good in that very moment so.... Another factor was that with my boarding plan against czech pile they wouldn't have much targets for their decays so compost would die pretty fast so I choose to reduce the numer of targets even more.

What I didn't play
Pithing Needle:
While very flexible and strong in some matchups I didn't see which common matchups I want it at the moment. Lands isn't that big at the moment so is D&T and against the most common decks (Pile,Grixis, BUG) it's not really useful.

Invasive Surgery:
On paper Surgery looks quite impressive (Counter + Surgical your Show and Tell?) but in reality you will rarely reach dilirium as most of the decks you want Surgery won't kill your creatures - Sneak Show / Storm / Miracles
So in most matchups it's just envelope with a lot of flavor text which is fine but most probably not good enough.

Rough//Tumble
Pretty good against Elves as it's able to kill every Elve compared to Staticaster but can't touch strixes or flickerwisp which is a real drawback. Especially against Taxes you shouldn't underestimate that you bring in 2 TNN which get killed by your own rough / Tumble. Also 2 Mana seems a lot when your opponent hast Thalia and/or Port in play. Against Storm it's also pretty clunky (sorcery so they can flashback cabal after making goblins) and can't hit Xantid swarm which forces you to keep in more Bolts.

Grim Lavamancer
Similar to Staticaster Grim is able to dominate the board in a brutal way. It's woth a lot that he is able to kill shamans but sadly 4 Mungoose 2 Mandrills and Grim would be too reliant on the grave :(

Winter Orb
While pretty powerful in some Matchups (Miracles, 12 Post, Lands) none of these matchups is very common at the moment. Thats why I choose Sylvan library instead although I really love Winter orb.

Sulfuric Vortex
I don't see in which matchups you want these. In all matchups vortex shines orb is usually better.


Of course there are a lot more sideboard options so I just covered the most common. Did I miss something? If yes let me know :)

Regards,

Marius

[MTB]

Hi Marius,

Thanks for the detailed write up! Just out of curiosity, what would your list look like if you ran the goyfs instead?

I think thats the last tournament I played with goyfs so I would start from this:

http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=21826&iddeck=167829

But at this time Miracles and Eldrazi where big players so you have to tune the list for YOUR current meta - As you want to play goyfs it must be heavy on Eldrazi and burn so I would cut Dismembers for tarfire/seal of fire at least. But again I think in the current "international" meta the mandrills version is far superior.

Regards
Marius

[BeTeP]

Hi Marius, can you tell what you think about some SB options:
1. electrickery - do we need that as an additional sweeper atm?
2. sulfur elemental to answer DNT and mentor?
3. Maybe to answer eldrazis we can use some Narnam Renegade?
4. What do you think about Dead // Gone? With it problems whith big creatures can be solved. You can kill shaman or bounce marit lage sometimes or gurgag/tombstalker.
5. Cursed Totem is still fine option for sb, but now maybe it is not that needed.
6. Do we need Price of Progress to punish midrange and control decks now?

[LewisCBR]

[COLOR="#FF0000"]What I didn't play

Rough//Tumble
Pretty good against Elves as it's able to kill every Elve compared to Staticaster but can't touch strixes or flickerwisp which is a real drawback. Especially against Taxes you shouldn't underestimate that you bring in 2 TNN which get killed by your own rough / Tumble. Also 2 Mana seems a lot when your opponent hast Thalia and/or Port in play. Against Storm it's also pretty clunky (sorcery so they can flashback cabal after making goblins) and can't hit Xantid swarm which forces you to keep in more Bolts.

Personally, i think a lot of the appeal to RUG is getting to play this one sided sweeper.

[rlesko]

Personally, i think a lot of the appeal to RUG is getting to play this one sided sweeper.

The problem is, what are you bringing it in against ? Deathrite is kill in sight. Mother of runes is kill on sight. There is little comeback potential for the card since you’re primarily 1 for 1ing or trying to be ahead on board. It’s even just mediocre against elves (all sorcery speed removal is mediocre vs them). Doesn’t kill Leo or other big guys. It’s good in theory but the meta is not good foR it right now

[LewisCBR]

The problem is, what are you bringing it in against ? Deathrite is kill in sight. Mother of runes is kill on sight. There is little comeback potential for the card since you’re primarily 1 for 1ing or trying to be ahead on board. It’s even just mediocre against elves (all sorcery speed removal is mediocre vs them). Doesn’t kill Leo or other big guys. It’s good in theory but the meta is not good foR it right now

I think Rough is a huge trump vs any creature deck; Merfolk, Elves, D&T, Mav, etc, and I wouldnt call it mediocre versus any of that. I dont know, we've obviously had different experiences with the card, but traditionally, RUG doesnt get the luxury of running evasive/unstoppable damage like TNN and DRS. So, you have to clear the way, which makes other creature decks rather difficult to get through sometimes. Its not like the replacement cards the previous post listed out are 'Leovold killers'.

[Agrippa91]

I think Rough is a huge trump vs any creature deck; Merfolk, Elves, D&T, Mav, etc, and I wouldnt call it mediocre versus any of that. I dont know, we've obviously had different experiences with the card, but traditionally, RUG doesnt get the luxury of running evasive/unstoppable damage like TNN and DRS. So, you have to clear the way, which makes other creature decks rather difficult to get through sometimes. Its not like the replacement cards the previous post listed out are 'Leovold killers'.

I second this. The biggest deck currently, Grixis Delver, is actually quite succeptible to Rough/Tumble and I often times get a 2-for-1 when I play it. Sometimes I also get a ooze/mandrills attack in when they have an Angler out.

On an unrelated note I can confirm that ground seal isn't that hot against DRS. I thought it would be a nice card to have, but you simply can't bring it in otd because the biggest boost DRS gives is on t2 where they wasteland/play leovold/whatever, ground seal only prevents that otp which is simply not enough for a sideboard card.
I'm currently playing 2 Oozes in the sideboard. I don't like TNN since it's super expensive and EVERYBODY is prepared for it with -1/-1 effects/pyroblast/daze. Besides it goes badly with rough/tumble.
The Scooze is just a really good card vs. all these fair decks, the life gain and the gy-hate gives the deck an additional, unexpected angle of attack imo. It's a bit like ground seal in that it's good against DRS/Snapcaster, but it has the upside that it's good on its own and advances our gameplan instead of being a situational answer. I like it against Delver, Elves, D&T, Burn, 4c-loam, Deathblade, even Miracles and just in general U/W control decks.

[maharis]

I think Rough is a huge trump vs any creature deck; Merfolk, Elves, D&T, Mav, etc, and I wouldnt call it mediocre versus any of that. I dont know, we've obviously had different experiences with the card, but traditionally, RUG doesnt get the luxury of running evasive/unstoppable damage like TNN and DRS. So, you have to clear the way, which makes other creature decks rather difficult to get through sometimes. Its not like the replacement cards the previous post listed out are 'Leovold killers'.

I cast Tumble the other night against Aluren to kill double Baleful Strix and a Parasitic Strix. Wheeeee mana flood!

Then I died with three lands in my hand. Six in play, three in my hand. Not where Thresh wants to be.

That's a dumb aside but I also agree that I like the card. Actually, with Mongoose in the deck, beaing able to clear out late DRS + Snapcasters simultaneously so they can't shrink + chump is pretty nice. It's also good at finishing off Anglers that have chumped Goose or Mandrills.

[kombatkiwi]

Hi Marius, can you tell what you think about some SB options:
1. electrickery - do we need that as an additional sweeper atm?
2. sulfur elemental to answer DNT and mentor?
3. Maybe to answer eldrazis we can use some Narnam Renegade?
4. What do you think about Dead // Gone? With it problems whith big creatures can be solved. You can kill shaman or bounce marit lage sometimes or gurgag/tombstalker.
5. Cursed Totem is still fine option for sb, but now maybe it is not that needed.
6. Do we need Price of Progress to punish midrange and control decks now?

Not Marius but my opinions:
1. I like Electrickery in most matchups where you would board in Rough/Tumble, this seems to be a personal preference thing
2. Sulfur Elemental is okay but is a big metagame call because it's extremely narrow
3. I have also considered Gnarlwood Dryad, the reason why I am not a big fan of this angle is that again it is very narrow (against Delver mirrors it is -okay- but do you really want it against anything else) and I don't like boarding in 1 mana cards as targeted hate vs a Chalice deck
4. Three mana is a lot for an Unsummon and I am not sure if that is enough of an upside for a shock that can't go face, in matchups that you would board in this card is it better than Submerge?
5. Falls under same umbrella as Sulfur Elemental: 'decent in the matchups you want it but those matchups aren't so much of the meta to warrant playing this'
6. Possibly not the worst option vs those decks, you need to decide if you want to approach these matchups with a burn plan or a grind plan because it doesn't make too much sense to be boarding this in alongside Sylvan Library.

With respect to rough/tumble discussion:
- I mostly agree with Ryan that against decks like DNT/Delver you will be sad that you can't kill things on turn 1 with it, and agree with Marius on the downsides vs other matchups.
- In general I don't like the fact that against decks where you want to Pyroclasm their creatures you also want TNN and this is an obvious nonbo.
- Reading comments along the lines of "I like R/T because it gives me the option to 2-for-1 myself by attacking Mongoose into Angler" has caused my eyebrows to lodge in the ceiling. (I get that you can also sweep away a YP or a DRS at the same time but anytime you are attacking your goose into an Angler you are obviously telegraphing a burn spell so your opponent will always have the final decision on whether it's worth it for them to block or not).
- LCBR's comment that 'we have no evasive damage like TNN so we need to sweep blockers' seems a bit disingenuous when nearly everybody has 2 TNN in the 75 (although your list doesn't so I guess I can see where you are coming from). But generally I feel that you can beat the small blockers by attacking into them with big dudes and you can't beat the big blockers with R/T anyway.
- The only stated drawback I disagree with is that I don't agree with Ryan that it's suboptimal against Elves (Can you post how you SB for this MU?). But I think that other cards are good enough against this matchup that are also much better in other matchups that you don't need to play Rough/Tumble (or at most 1 copy) (e.g. Electrickery, Forked Bolt).

Scooze is fine but I don't like that it dies to Bolt (if they have it immediately) AND Strix AND Swords AND Push so I wouldn't consider it a TNN alternative.
I agree that TNN has drawbacks but I don't think there's a very good replacement. I think the closest comparison is maybe Troll Ascetic? Which is unpyroblastable and has 2 toughness but is still 3 mana (and needs double green).
Jolrael's Centaur is also an amusing idea (Flanking lets you attack into Strix/Snapcaster/TNN/Thalia etc) but it's not very good at blocking and 2 power is pretty anemic (also double green again).
Wilderness Elemental I think would be an interesting option if it had 4 toughness (Skyshroud War Beast is similar I guess).
Similarly Scythe Tiger would maybe be interesting if it had at least 3 toughness but dying in combat to everything seems like it's not worth its ETB trigger.
You can look to noncreature wincons/damage to fill this 'shroud' role but most of them are too slow (like Curse of the Pierced Heart or something) and/or cost 3+ mana anyway (Sulfuric Vortex)
I guess the other option would be to approach these TNN matchups with a totally different sideboard plan but it seems like TNN covers too many different strategies for this to be effective.

[rlesko]

When I say mediocre vs elves I mean it is sorcery speed and 2 mana

In my experience when I've cast this card they typically bounce 2 things with quirion ranger / symbiote, then untap and play several things again

And the good players won't walk into it anyways, and I generally find it hard to board sweepers in since our gameplan revolves around 1 for 1ing, the effect isn't redundant enough with only 2 cards in the 75 to reliably craft a game plan around.

Minimally, I would board like this against elves

-4 mongoose
-1 Preordain
+2 TNN
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Grafdigger's Cage
+1 Seal of Fire

I'm not sure if spell snare should be left in. Having a clean answer to visionary and scooze is nice (and GSZ for 1), but that is a small part of their deck. If Spell snare is bad, I would bring in 1 spell pierce + 1 flusterstorm for the snares.

[Raizen884]

I play elves, and saw the discussion, so I'll put on my side about Rough//Tumble :laugh:

The truth is, board wipes are overestimated usually against elves, it is true that usually against a good elf player you probably won't get more than 2-for-1, but I think if you have it in you SB you must play it. Not because it will blow out the elves plan, because it won't, but the tempo gain is huge. So usually a Rough//Tumble on an empty board by the RUG side is actually pretty bad and doesn't usually do much since you are also needing to bolt the early creatures, but a Rough when you have pressure like Delver and even more, it turns on ground pressure like Nimble, and that tempo gain is what can bring you the victory on the MU.

I think Rough//Tumble against elves must be seen more as a tempo play than actually a board wipe, to set the game plan he has 1-2 turns back which can allow you to out tempo the deck.

[JackaBo]

Skyshroud war beast was a card i haven't seen before. That card is perhabs not so synergestic with waste/Stifle but very synergestic with winter orb. Not sure how good orb is when half the meta plays the black mana-dork. But an intriguing card, for sure

[rlesko]

I play elves, and saw the discussion, so I'll put on my side about Rough//Tumble :laugh:

The truth is, board wipes are overestimated usually against elves, it is true that usually against a good elf player you probably won't get more than 2-for-1, but I think if you have it in you SB you must play it. Not because it will blow out the elves plan, because it won't, but the tempo gain is huge. So usually a Rough//Tumble on an empty board by the RUG side is actually pretty bad and doesn't usually do much since you are also needing to bolt the early creatures, but a Rough when you have pressure like Delver and even more, it turns on ground pressure like Nimble, and that tempo gain is what can bring you the victory on the MU.

I think Rough//Tumble against elves must be seen more as a tempo play than actually a board wipe, to set the game plan he has 1-2 turns back which can allow you to out tempo the deck.

Thanks for chiming in with the Elves perspective!


Skyshroud war beast was a card i haven't seen before. That card is perhabs not so synergestic with waste/Stifle but very synergestic with winter orb. Not sure how good orb is when half the meta plays the black mana-dork. But an intriguing card, for sure

Obviously the card we are in need of is WHIRLING DERVISH...

[aslidsiksoraksi]

How do you guys approach the Delver mirror, especially grixis or BUG?

I'm new to the deck and struggling with this part - it seems like we are the aggro, and that plan can work sometimes, but are there any good silver bullets in the board we could be bringing in?

[MTB]

Hi Marius, can you tell what you think about some SB options:
1. electrickery - do we need that as an additional sweeper atm?
Although I really like it I think Staticaster is a better choice atm. Staticaster is much better against Elves and also against Taxes despite him beeing not able to handle a turn 1 Mother. Not beeing able to hit DRS or prelate/SFM is also a drawback but I think its on par with Rough//Tumble as it is able to hit T1 Mother, Flickerwisp, Strix but not SFM, Shaman etc.

2. sulfur elemental to answer DNT and mentor?
If your meta is very saturated with DNT I could see it but in a normal meta it's much to narrow for my taste.

3. Maybe to answer eldrazis we can use some Narnam Renegade?
Why would you board in Narnam Renegade when you could board in Goyf which seems far superior? Goyf won't die to chalice and can block more than once while also providing real offensive power.


4. What do you think about Dead // Gone? With it problems whith big creatures can be solved. You can kill shaman or bounce marit lage sometimes or gurgag/tombstalker.
I don't think it's a big issue that you can't go face with it but the unsommon part seems pretty expensive. I think it could be playable but I haven't tested it yet.

5. Cursed Totem is still fine option for sb, but now maybe it is not that needed.
Cursed Totem has the same problem as Sulfur Elemental, it's great in very few matchups - Lot's of Elves/Taxes/Maverick (that meta would be weird :D) go for it otherwise probably not.

6. Do we need Price of Progress to punish midrange and control decks now?
I prefer to use the "shroud plan" against midrange and control. Price is very anti synergistic with this plan (you need a lot of landdrops for TNN+protection) so I am not a fan. If you wan't to go the maximal aggression plan against midrange + Control why don't you simply play UR Delver?



I think Rough is a huge trump vs any creature deck; Merfolk, Elves, D&T, Mav, etc, and I wouldnt call it mediocre versus any of that. I dont know, we've obviously had different experiences with the card, but traditionally, RUG doesnt get the luxury of running evasive/unstoppable damage like TNN and DRS. So, you have to clear the way, which makes other creature decks rather difficult to get through sometimes. Its not like the replacement cards the previous post listed out are 'Leovold killers'.

I don't think R/T is such a trump against Mervolk as it's pretty useless against TNN or all Merfolks if they got 2 lords out (or an untapped Vial @2). Same goes for Taxes they will protect one of their threats with mother or vial in Flickerwisp (which survives R/T) and your still not in the greatest spot. Against Elves they will expect it and bounce part of their board but you can swing through for at least 1 turn. So you can run evasive threads in TNN and Mandrills which will provide you the ability to go through Elves or Taxes chump blocker or tricks and you can use Staticaster / Grim to keep them under control.


How do you guys approach the Delver mirror, especially grixis or BUG?

I'm new to the deck and struggling with this part - it seems like we are the aggro, and that plan can work sometimes, but are there any good silver bullets in the board we could be bringing in?

Depends on your list and your oppnent. Against Grixis I wouldn't say you have to rush them - if you get the double delver nuts go for it but your threads are larger (except of Angler or Pyromancer if he completly goes of control) so I would focus on removing shamans, keeping Angler of the board and resolving the creatures they can't remove.
BUG on the other side can be little bit more difficult as they run Goyf (sometimes STalker) but beside from that they struggle against mandrills and Submerge comes in handy here.
Silver Bulltes:
Life from the Loam - Manadenial them into oblivion but won't help you to come back if they already landed a thread (especially shamane)
Submerge - Great at removing Goyfs - sadly useless against Grixis
Mind Harmness - Old shool way to beat goyfs also useful against Aggro Loam, Maverick etc.
Dismember - Helps you to kill Angler/Goyf but the lifeloss can be a pain if you play more than 2 (although the second already comes with a real cost)
TNN - Can get you damage through while also blocking Angler / Goyf forever - I like. But against Grixis you have to be careful as Pyroblast is pretty good against TNN.
Snare - Good against BUG (Goyf, Hymn) but against Grixis not so much.
Tarmogoyf - An additional big thread against Grixis is nice but he really sucks against BUG as they can Push, Decay it.
Roast - Another way to deal with Angler/Goyf although 2 mana sorcerys are easy targets for Flusterstorm.



Regarding Scavenging ooze
I would see him as Tarmogoyf #5 not as TNN. He is soft to all removals in the format and you don't have enough green sources to really abuse his potential. What is in the hand of your Czech pile opponent that won't kill Ooze? Push, Bolt, Decay and even K. Command (except you have at least one G open and your oppenent has no shamane) kills it. Same goes for UW control most of the time it's a better Grizzly bear as your opponent won't kill many of your creatures as Swords exiles and Terminus puts them under your library. Also Scooze seems pretty lackluster against decks like taxes where TNN shines as he blocks forever and can't be stalled by Thalia+Karakas or Mother nor can you sword him. So if you really wan't to go deep on the Goyf plan (Burn/Eldrazi) you could go for 1 Ooze in the board as he shines in those matchups but Goyf is also great here...

Regards
Marius

[biglongjohns]

First off, congrats to MTB and rlesko for their recent success with the deck. I have built this variant of Delver now and am trying to get better with it. Thank you both for taking the time to help us out in this thread.

@Marius I have a few questions for you if you have any more time for these.

-You mention siding out Delvers against Czech. What's generally the full SB plan vs this deck?
-What's your general rule for siding out FoW? Against which decks do you absolutely not want any copies in all games of the match?
-How do you pilot this deck against Storm? I was testing against Storm this weekend and just couldn't seem to win. With that said, I was probably not applying enough pressure and always trying to hold some sort of counter magic that eventually got picked off with targeted discard.
-rlesko mentions a SB plan (for his build) against Blade decks of +2 TNN, +2 Ancient Grudge, +2 Pyroblast, +2 Winter Orb -4 Stifle, -3 Tarmogoyf, -1 Preordain. How would yours look? Also, have you found it good to side out Stifles in this matchup?
-You mentioned maybe cutting a Submerge. If you did that, do you know which card you would use as replacement?

Thanks!

[MTB]

-You mention siding out Delvers against Czech. What's generally the full SB plan vs this deck?
Against Czech Pile I usually board like this:
+2 rebs
+1 snapcaster
+1 staticaster
+1 abrade
+1 grudge
+1 fluster
+1 library

-4 delver
-1 fow
-1 daze
-1 stifle
-1 pierce

The Delvers are sided out as close to all cards in their deck can handle it - Push, Strix, REB, Command, Decay....
The other cuts are balanced out as all these cards are good but not fantastic. MVP in your maindeck is Snare as it's a clean way to deal with Strix and Snapcaster. So you see my plan resolves around the "untouchable" creatures and loadin up on permission as hard as possible. If I see in game 2 that my opponent sided out the removal for Delver, in anticipation of my "shroud plan", I could see boarding them in again.



-What's your general rule for siding out FoW? Against which decks do you absolutely not want any copies in all games of the match?
There's no Deck you will side out all. If you side out too much forces (or dazes or a combination) the deck won't work anymore. You need the tempo boost the free spells offer. However you can side out 1-2 forces against some midrange decks or in the Delver mirrors if they don't have critical plays like Knight etc.



-How do you pilot this deck against Storm? I was testing against Storm this weekend and just couldn't seem to win. With that said, I was probably not applying enough pressure and always trying to hold some sort of counter magic that eventually got picked off with targeted discard.
You need a good combination of pressure and disruption to get a chance. It's tough before boarding but depending on your Sideboard G2/3 can get much easier as you get rid of cards like Dismember or TNN.
I board something like this:
+2 Surgicals
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Snapcaster/Compost
+1 Izzet Staticaster
+1 REB
+1 Spell Pierce
-1 Dismember
-1 Forked Bolt
-1 TNN
-2 Nimble Mungoose
-2 Bolts
-1 Tropical

If you want silverbullts for this matchup you could consider the following
Mana Maze - Pretty narrow but very powerful as it's really hard to go of through this....also nice vs. Burn and Elves
Grafedigger's Cage - Offers permanent Grave hate but is slower than Surgical and has a dissynergy with Snapcaster
Compost - He goes off - You draw your deck you should be able to get some counter at some point....
Null Rod - Shuts down the easiest way to get hellbend for them also pretty good VS Taxes and some random decks

One last note - Don't try to hold Stifle for the stormtrigger they will use a PIF loop and flashback the discard. The idea to catch a stormtrigger with stifle is a smiliar good idea like stopping a tank with a club.



-rlesko mentions a SB plan (for his build) against Blade decks of +2 TNN, +2 Ancient Grudge, +2 Pyroblast, +2 Winter Orb -4 Stifle, -3 Tarmogoyf, -1 Preordain. How would yours look? Also, have you found it good to side out Stifles in this matchup?
With riesko's list I would side similar as I feel Stifle is the weakest disruption in this matchup if you play a goyf list.
I would side something like:
+ 2 REB
+1 Sylvan library
+1 Abrade
+1 TNN
(+1 Spell Pierce - against Jeskai)
(+2 Fluster - against Esper)

-4 Delver (I think Mandrills is better here as he can ignore REB (if Jeskai), Push (if Esper), Decay (if Deathblade) and TNN.
(-1 Dismember - leave in vs Deathblade)
(-1 Stifle - against Jeskai)
(-2 Spell Pierce - against Esper&Deathblade)

Maybe I would side in the grudge for one Daze or Stifle. Against Deathblade I probably would side out Pierces and against Esper I would change the Pierces to Flusters. However against Jeskai I would keep the pierces for Bloodmoon.



-You mentioned maybe cutting a Submerge. If you did that, do you know which card you would use as replacement?
I would make these changes based on your meta. You could add silver bullts or cards with a wider application - third REB comes to my mind.


Regards,

Marius

[biglongjohns]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write these responses! It was all very helpful.

[JackaBo]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write these responses! It was all very helpful.

+1
Very thorough. Thanks Marius!

[biglongjohns]

Would anyone be willing to shed some light on sideboarding for some of the more Lands-focused archetypes? Specifically Lands, 4c Loam, and Depths. Here's what I've got so far and it's incomplete and probably somewhat wrong.

LANDS
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Submerge
+1 Spell Pierce
+1 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Forked Bolt
-1 Dismember
-1 Preordain
-1 True-Name Nemesis
-2 ???

4C LOAM
+2 Submerge
+1 Abrade
+1 Ancient Grudge
+1 True-Name Nemesis
+1 Spell Pierce
-4 Stifle?
-2 Nimble Mongoose

DEPTHS
+2 Submerge
+2 Surgical Extraction

EDIT: Assuming MTB's latest list

[MTB]

Would anyone be willing to shed some light on sideboarding for some of the more Lands-focused archetypes? Specifically Lands, 4c Loam, and Depths. Here's what I've got so far and it's incomplete and probably somewhat wrong.

LANDS
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Submerge
+1 Spell Pierce
+1 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Forked Bolt
-1 Dismember
-1 Preordain
-1 True-Name Nemesis
-2 ???

4C LOAM
+2 Submerge
+1 Abrade
+1 Ancient Grudge
+1 True-Name Nemesis
+1 Spell Pierce
-4 Stifle?
-2 Nimble Mongoose

DEPTHS
+2 Submerge
+2 Surgical Extraction

EDIT: Assuming MTB's latest list

I would board like the following:

Lands:
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Spell Pierce
+2 Surgical
+1 Snapcaster Mage
(+2 Submerge)
+1 Abrade
-1 Forked Bolt
-1 Dismember
-1 TNN
-combination of Bolt / Stifle

The exact number of Bolt/Stifle depends if I see Tracker of him G2. Abrade can do double duty here as it can remove the chalice and the trackers. Submerge is not that great here as they can play around it pretty easily and good lands players will anticipate it. So I wouldn't bring it if I expect them to play around it.


4C Loam
+2 Submerge
+1 Ancient Grudge
+1 Abrade
+1 Spell Pierce
+1 TNN
+1 Sylvan
-3 Stifle
-4 Delver

Except for Knight all their creatures are weenies which fall fast to Mungoos or Mandrills so you want to prevent them from getting a knight under all circumstances. With the "shroud-plan" you blank a huge part of their deck (Pfire&decay partly swords if they have them in the sb). Focus on landing a thread and don't let them get/keep their knight.


Depth
+2 Submerge
+2 Surgical
+2 Fluster
+1 Pierce
-1 TNN
-1 Forked Bolt (Sorcery speed is an issue here)
-1 Mungoose
-1 Daze
-1 Dismember
-1 Stifle
-1 Preordain

You wan't the fast threads here so you can take out 1 TNN & 1 Goose. Stifle is here much more potent than against the other "land-based" decks as stifling a hexmage is a good way to deal with one of their wincons. The additional Pierces and Flusters are for countering crop rotations and sylvan scrying. In case they play the chalice list I would go with Grudge and Abrade over 2 Stifles.

Regards,
Marius

[biglongjohns]

Once again, thank you so much! That should about wrap-up my sideboard map. If anyone wants to know how to sideboard with this deck, you can scan back from now through the last 5 pages and figure out pretty much every matchup.

[Agrippa91]

About stifle: I would argue that stifle is one of the best mainboard cards against lands. I usually use it to protect my wastelands from theirs. Sometimes you also have to protect your own lands when you're landlight. You can basically timewalk them this way which is awesome.
When they have stuff to deal with your own wasteland on board you can also just leave wasteland in hand, then stifle the stage and waste it afterwards.
Daze is way worse imo, I'd also keep in all the bolts for Tracker and to grow mongoose. That's especially effective when you have a soft counter for a potential crop rotation or a surgical for the combo piece you target.

About Submerge: In my experience this card is really good against 4c-loam, mediocre against lands and abysmal against BG depths. The last one rarely plays forests but Blooming Marshes, Spirit Guides and Petals, lands will look to wasteland/crops away their one forest before going for the combo.

About the threats: I like cutting the delvers against lands, it makes their p-fires much worse and also means that you can safe your surgicals for more important combo pieces. They usually don't have too much stuff that can deal with Mandrills (mazes) and nothing that deals with mongoose besides the occasional drop of honey, meaning you still have 8 threats.
Against BG depths you need the fast clock, 4c-loam plays so many different removal spells you just want everything you have that can deal damage.

So what are MVP sideboard cards?

- Imo the best card against lands is Pithing Needle. That card is also decent against BG depths (they have decays though), but bad against 4c-loam (Knight is still big, they usually don't play stage-depths, liliana is still a threat due to a decay on the needle).
- Submerge is best against 4c-loam, decent against lands and bad against BG depths
- Surgical is best against lands, decent against 4c-loam and bad against BG depths.

So yeah, David Long was right when he switched from lands to BG depths because there was so much land hate, the hexmage combo is just really strong against decks that don't play STP or discard in addition to their wastelands.

[MiraclesWizard]

so heres a question, what do you side in vs. Grixis Delver and Grixis Pyromancer?

[MTB]

About stifle: I would argue that stifle is one of the best mainboard cards against lands. I usually use it to protect my wastelands from theirs. Sometimes you also have to protect your own lands when you're landlight. You can basically timewalk them this way which is awesome.
When they have stuff to deal with your own wasteland on board you can also just leave wasteland in hand, then stifle the stage and waste it afterwards.
Daze is way worse imo, I'd also keep in all the bolts for Tracker and to grow mongoose. That's especially effective when you have a soft counter for a potential crop rotation or a surgical for the combo piece you target.
....
About the threats: I like cutting the delvers against lands, it makes their p-fires much worse and also means that you can safe your surgicals for more important combo pieces. They usually don't have too much stuff that can deal with Mandrills (mazes) and nothing that deals with mongoose besides the occasional drop of honey, meaning you still have 8 threats.
Against BG depths you need the fast clock, 4c-loam plays so many different removal spells you just want everything you have that can deal damage.


Sadly most Stifle targets are not really great options against lands and as you even want to side out Delvers Stifle will rarely be better than bolt. Besides that a lot of Lands players side out some Pfires as they only handle Delvers.
Stifling Maze -> You can connect one times (Delver 3/Mandrills 4 damage) - Basicly Bolt
Stifling Stage -> Buys you one turn again you can connect one time - Basicly Bolt again
Stifling waste your waste -> they will never do that if they don't have loam or multiple Wastelands going so your close to beeing depermanised or close to getting comboed anyway
I think it's possible to side out the Delvers but only if you board AT LEAST 2 Winter orb. This allows you to play a longer game and you don't need to push damage that hard.
I aggree with your plan against Depth but I think you don't want to tap 3 mana for TNN as you need to hold up mana for Stifle/Pierce/Fluster.
Against 4C Loam you don't need to be that aggressive like against Depth so siding out Delver is fine as Delver pretty much dies on the spot (3-4 Decays / 4 Fire maybe Swords). So if you side out Delvers the opponent has even more air in their deck (additional to their 26 mana sources).




About Submerge: In my experience this card is really good against 4c-loam, mediocre against lands and abysmal against BG depths. The last one rarely plays forests but Blooming Marshes, Spirit Guides and Petals, lands will look to wasteland/crops away their one forest before going for the combo.

I agree on the 4c loam Part. They play a lot of forests and Knights are a great target for Submerge. I don't think it makes the cut against Lands as they can play around it pretty easily and have no problem with rebuilding the token or removing all your islands before making it.
I just checked TC decks for the most common version of Depth and it seems like the standard version would not run blooming marsh (http://tcdecks.net/archetype.php?archetype=Dark%20Depths&format=Legacy 1 of the first 5 lists did run blooming marshs although one of the four other lists was pretty light on forests). If you notice your opponent is on a list without bayous you shouldn't side them in I think but I would decide that after G1.



So what are MVP sideboard cards?

- Imo the best card against lands is Pithing Needle. That card is also decent against BG depths (they have decays though), but bad against 4c-loam (Knight is still big, they usually don't play stage-depths, liliana is still a threat due to a decay on the needle).
- Submerge is best against 4c-loam, decent against lands and bad against BG depths
- Surgical is best against lands, decent against 4c-loam and bad against BG depths.

I agree on most of this except for surgical. If you hit against BG Depth it's great and you probably won on the spot and it's not too hard to get one depth to their yard. I don't like it against 4c Loam as there is no real key card you can target and the loam lock is not that threatening as they don't have explorations to speed up.
As good techs I would add
Winter Orb - Great against Lands and decent against 4c Loam (decay is an issue here) allows you to play a more controling game
Tsabos Web - Very narrow helps against lands and Taxes but is not worth it in a normal meta.


so heres a question, what do you side in vs. Grixis Delver and Grixis Pyromancer?

Grixis Delver
+1 TNN (more non removeable creatures)
+2 REB (counters TNN/Delver/counterwars)
+2 Fluster (strict upgrade to Pierce)
+1 Abrade (additional removal some lists got 1 Jitte in the board)
-2 Stifle
-1 Force (otp)
-2 Spell üierce
-1 Daze (otd)

Try to cut them off black, don't counter removal on delver, the green threads are all bigger than theirs except for Angler (which you should avoid to stick). REB and Daze are great against TNN while REB can sometimes be used to kill Delver its main purpose is TNN or counterwars against Angler.

Grixis Control
+2 REB
+1 Izzet Staticaster
+1 Sylvan Libary
+1 Abrade
+1 Grudge
+1 Snapcaster
-4 Delver
-2 Stifle
-1 Preordain
I would hesitate to board out Pirece although it's not that great in that matchup it is able to handle Bloodmoon which is very important. REB, Staticaster, Grudge and Abrade help you against the Strixes while Staticaster is also a nice out to Pyromancer armys. Delver is pretty bad here as they rely on Bolt as their pirmary removal.


Regards,
Marius

[ChemicalBurns]

I'll probably look to responding more comprehensively at some stage, but against Turbo Depths I always board in artifact destruction. You can tag a Map and Chalice/Thorn also are brought against us. But most importantly they are leaning on Pithing Needles to defend against our most potent tool at disrupting them - Wasteland. I have blown out Depths many times by instant-speed breaking Needle and then Wastelanding for the full blowout.

I agree with Marius on Surgical.

Also Dead // Gone is fun for randomly cheesing out a Marit Lage >

[JackaBo]

Marius, you bring so much knowledge to this thread. All reasoning sounds so well thought out. Thanks for sharing!

[ChemicalBurns]

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/ruglyf-the-rug-delver-primer-part-5-the-rug-renaissance

Hello all! I wrote a thing that may be relevant ;D

[MiraclesWizard]

pumped to see a great primer / write up on the resurgence of RUG.

[MTB]

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/ruglyf-the-rug-delver-primer-part-5-the-rug-renaissance

Hello all! I wrote a thing that may be relevant ;D

Thank you very much Sean!

Its a great write-up and a pleasure to read.

Regards
Marius

[Hrothgar]

Very good stuff!
This improve the rug community!
Thanks a lot!
:wink:

[TheManWithaPlan]

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/ruglyf-the-rug-delver-primer-part-5-the-rug-renaissance

Hello all! I wrote a thing that may be relevant ;D
Wow, this is awesome! I love the amount of depth, and, clearly you put a ton of effort into this article. A great read, wonderful content, super well done!

[ptahetep]

In this post: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/this-week-in-legacy-mkm-hamburg-and-an-interview

It is mentioned:" Staticaster gets around Mother of Runes "

Can someone familiar with this interaction explain it?

Awesome posts recently! thanks for the great participation.

[koten]

In this post: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/this-week-in-legacy-mkm-hamburg-and-an-interview

It is mentioned:" Staticaster gets around Mother of Runes "

Can someone familiar with this interaction explain it?

Awesome posts recently! thanks for the great participation.

Flash it in at the end of the opponent's turn and ping, forcing mom to tap. Untap and ping again on your turn when mom is tapped.

[ptahetep]

Flash it in at the end of the opponent's turn and ping, forcing mom to tap. Untap and ping again on your turn when mom is tapped.

I should have figure that out! thanks!

[MiraclesWizard]

anyone ever consider running Dack Fayden in RUG? +1 helps feed threshold and goyfs, -2 takes obnoxious artifacts?

just thinking out loud, its stupid just tell me and I'll pipe down!

WiZ

[biglongjohns]

Played in a larger event this past weekend, going about 50/50 in matches, and came up with a few more questions after playing this deck for the first time in a tournament.

Assuming the MTB list, how do we board against the following decks?

Portent Miracles
UR Delver
The Mirror
BUG Midrange with TNN

Against new Miracles I feel that Stifle is likely bad since they play so many basics and there are not a ton of other applications. Pyroblast and Library is obviously good. Do we want both Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm or are the Pierces just upgraded? Snapcaster likely comes in? Since they are not taxing our mana and recurring countermagic seems pretty good here.

Against UR Delver I think I sided out Stifles as well since they played several basics and there weren't many other applications as well. It's probably a bad matchup, but maybe I'd bring in Pyroblasts, Flusterstorms, Abrade? Dismember seems very bad here.

As for the Mirror, I have no idea how to play this matchup. I didn't play the mirror at this event, but I would like to be prepared for it and not really sure what cards to prioritize over others.

Lastly, there is a fair amount of BUG decks at my LGS. I know the SB plan vs BUG Delver is as follows +1 True-Name Nemesis +2 Submerge -2 Spell Pierce -1 Stifle/Force of Will...but how does this change when facing the more midrange BUG decks with TNN and a couple basic lands? I guess it could be played similar to the Czech Pile matchup?

Thanks in advance for any help y'all can offer!

[rlesko]

anyone ever consider running Dack Fayden in RUG? +1 helps feed threshold and goyfs, -2 takes obnoxious artifacts?

just thinking out loud, its stupid just tell me and I'll pipe down!

WiZ

I would never play that card in rug delver. Theres no real way to abuse the filtering (save for 0-1 loams in the 75), and typically there isn't a surplus of cards in our hand. You can't "steal" a batterskull for example, unless you also have 5 mana to equip it to a creature you control (and they don't have 3 mana to bounce it). The most problematic artifact (Chalice for 1) doesn't do anything with a change of ownership. I would play thought scour if I wanted a way to dump cards in my graveyard. If I wanted filtering, I'd probably play izzet charm, but I don't think that card is very good either.

Also I don't like playing 3 drops @ sorcery speed, the exception being TNN.

[JackaBo]

Played in a larger event this past weekend, going about 50/50 in matches, and came up with a few more questions after playing this deck for the first time in a tournament.

Assuming the MTB list, how do we board against the following decks?

Portent Miracles
UR Delver
The Mirror
BUG Midrange with TNN

Against new Miracles I feel that Stifle is likely bad since they play so many basics and there are not a ton of other applications. Pyroblast and Library is obviously good. Do we want both Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm or are the Pierces just upgraded? Snapcaster likely comes in? Since they are not taxing our mana and recurring countermagic seems pretty good here.

Against UR Delver I think I sided out Stifles as well since they played several basics and there weren't many other applications as well. It's probably a bad matchup, but maybe I'd bring in Pyroblasts, Flusterstorms, Abrade? Dismember seems very bad here.

As for the Mirror, I have no idea how to play this matchup. I didn't play the mirror at this event, but I would like to be prepared for it and not really sure what cards to prioritize over others.

Lastly, there is a fair amount of BUG decks at my LGS. I know the SB plan vs BUG Delver is as follows +1 True-Name Nemesis +2 Submerge -2 Spell Pierce -1 Stifle/Force of Will...but how does this change when facing the more midrange BUG decks with TNN and a couple basic lands? I guess it could be played similar to the Czech Pile matchup?

Thanks in advance for any help y'all can offer!

Pierce takes jace and Stifle the miracle trigger. You're probably not countering neither swords nor terminus so I'm not sure that flusterstorm is an uppgrade.

Not sure that everyone agree on this but in the mirror i find surgical on tropical or volcanic after wasteland being devastating.

When you face a deck with lots of basics, dont you rather board out wasteland than Stifle?

[kombatkiwi]

Re: Miracles
Postboard I am more reluctant to Stifle a Miracle trigger, because it puts you down a card and the games tend to go very long where your opponent is likely to find a way to Brainstorm it back and/or just get to 6 mana and hardcast it.
A more useful application for Stifle in g2/3 against Miracle is to counter a Snapcaster trigger, also remember you can Stifle the Portent draw on upkeep just to 1-for-1 the opponent. (EDIT: Miracles players also often use EE as an answer for Nimble Mongoose)
Since the Divining Top days I have fewer Orb to board in so I end up keeping some bolts in order to have outs to a resolved Mentor
In my experience quite a few Miracles players are trying Azcanta now, which means that Wasteland becomes much more useful than it was in the past (where it was still fine just to pressure your opponent's mana because they were unlikely to draw only basics).

Using my list
50 Stock
4 Tarmo
2 Seal of Fire
2 Snare
1 Pierce
1 Preordain

1 Loam
1 Barbarian Ring
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Blast
1 Winter Orb
2 Grudge
2 TNN
2 Surgical
1 Honden of Infinite Rage
1 Pierce
1 Forked Bolt

-4 Tarmogoyf
-2 Seal of Fire
-4 Delver of Secrets
-2 Bolt

+2 TNN
+3 Red Blast
+1 Winter Orb
+1 Loam
+1 Barbarian Ring
+1 Pierce
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Honden

This is what I am on at the moment
Not 100% sure about the 2nd Surgical

Re: Dack Fayden
a 3 mana PW is something that I would be interested in a few matchups, but it needs to be something that is generically threatening on its own and I don't think Dack does this well enough. I have thought about Domri Rade or the UGX Nissa but the problem with these two is that in matchups where a PW would be good you are often boarding some number of your creatures out (and therefore it's too hard to get an advantage from these).

[JackaBo]

I mean sure, sometimes a Stifle on terminus isnt worth it, but sometimes it wins the game.
Playing winter orb makes this matchup so much better.

[MTB]

Hi,
I would board like this:
-4 Delver
-2 mandrills
-1 dismember
-1 forked
+1 library
+2 reb
+1 pierce
+2 fluster
+1 tnn
+1 snapcaster
Lately I wasn't that happy with snapcaster and I am looking for something else for that slot. If your meta is saturated with miracles you could use orb but I think the matchup is good even without orbs.
Regards
Marius

[kombatkiwi]

Hi,
I would board like this:
-4 Delver
-2 mandrills
-1 dismember
-1 forked
+1 library
+2 reb
+1 pierce
+2 fluster
+1 tnn
+1 snapcaster
Lately I wasn't that happy with snapcaster and I am looking for something else for that slot. If your meta is saturated with miracles you could use orb but I think the matchup is good even without orbs.
Regards
Marius
For the Orb slot in my SB I wanted a card that's good against control matchups like Miracles and CP.
I guess another option for me would be to include another counterspell instead (I have 3 REB 0 Fluster 1 Pierce compared to your 2/2/1) which also makes combo matchups slightly more favourable, but at the moment I think Orb is good in enough matchups that I'm ok with having 1 copy.

[MiraclesWizard]

Is there a discord group for RUG or any other resources online?

[biglongjohns]

Lately I wasn't that happy with snapcaster and I am looking for something else for that slot.

I am going to start testing a Pithing Needle in the place of Snapcaster Mage. Here is my reasoning:

Low mana cost so it fits the deck well
DRS decks where you side it in will usually side out Pierces
Can shut off DRS but can also shut off fetch lands in corner cases, forcing your opponent to fetch into Stifle
Opponents will have no artifact hate (aside from the small amount of Decay still around)

Plus, it can most of the time serve as a direct swap against the decks where we were already siding Snapcaster: Portent Miracles, BG Depths, Lands, Sneak & Show, Blade Decks...and most importantly DRS decks.

[alasfrica]

I played in a local 1k yesterday (78 people) and went 4-2-1

Burn 2-1

Sneak and Show 2-0
Game 1 I started with Moongoose beats and put in a Tarmogoyf off S&T. Stifle Emrakul's annihilator trigger and swing back with bolt to finish. :)

UWR Stoneblade 2-1

Czech Pile 1-2

Death and Taxes 1-1-1

BUG Stiflenaught 2-1

Grixis Faeries 1-2

List:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Chain Lightning
1 Dismember

3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland

SB:
2 True-Name Nemesis
2 Winter Orb
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Seal of Fire
2 Submerge

[ekal22]

List:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Chain Lightning
1 Dismember

3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland

SB:
2 True-Name Nemesis
2 Winter Orb
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Seal of Fire
2 Submerge
[/QUOTE]


How did you feel about the lack of goyf growers in the main? What happened in the Czech match up? I feel like I don't know how to play that match up.

[eldub]

In my experience playing an almost exact 75 is the Czech Pile matchup is all about clearing out Baleful Strix and getting there with Mongoose. You need to try and just bait out as much removal as you can with Delver and Goyf. Play around Diabolic Edict as much as possible to protect your goose.

Post-board gets a lot easier since you get to play 6 shroud threats with TNN and Winter Orb/Pierce do work.

[kombatkiwi]

I just won the Saturday 'Big Prize Legacy' side event at GP Singapore.
2-1 RB Reanimator
2-0 BUG Crane Aluren
2-1 RGb Charbelcher
2-0 Azcanta Miracles
2-0 Eldrazi Post

List was the same as my most recent suggestion (first time I have played this in an actual event) (as opposed to cockatrice '2 man queues' kappa)
4 Goyf
4 Goose
4 Delver

4 Force
4 Daze
4 Bolt
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
1 Preordain
1 Pierce
2 Snare
2 Seal of Fire

3 Volcanic
3 Tropical
4 Wasteland
8 Fetches

SB
1 Winter Orb
1 Pierce
2 Surgical
2 Grudge
3 Pyroblast
1 Honden of Infinite Rage
2 TNN
1 Forked Bolt
1 Loam
1 Barbarian Ring

Notable plays/lessons

- In 5 Rounds Stifle hit 2 Snaps, 1 EE, at least 3 fetchlands, 1 Charbelcher, 1 Animate Dead, 1 Glint Nest Crane

- I won a game against RB when my opponent had Griselbrand in play (by blocking with Delver and then shooting it with Seal of Fire to prevent the lifegain, and Stifling his follow up Animate Dead to kill him on the swingback).

- I punted game 1 against Charbelcher where my opponent is basically topdecking with Charbelcher and 1 Mox in play vs my Aberration, and played a 2nd Mox. I reasoned that because I had already destroyed both his lands I would be able to save my counter for whatever his last mana source was going to be (I was particularly afraid of him drawing LED if I counter the mox) but of course his deck is playing 8 Spirit Guides so I died immediately.

- Game 3 I kept a 6 card hand of 1 FoW and 5 blue cards, my opponent Probed me to see my 1 FoW and plays Xantid Swarm, which I basically have to FoW, then before my opponent tries to go off I topdeck a 2nd FoW and counter his Seething Song for a pretty big blowup.

- Honden was insane G2 against Miracles, it killed 2 Snapcaster, 1 Monk token, and dealt my opponent like 10-15 damage. The only creature I cast all game was 1 TNN which immediately got killed by Supreme Verdict, all I had to do was protect the Honden (he tried to kill it with CJ, EE, AND Wear/Tear) and that was enough to win the game. Near the end of the game when I extracted his Mentors he had 2 Swords and 1 Terminus in his hand

- Recently against all my Miracles opponents they have no real win conditions (snapcaster beatdowns lul) game 2 if you can extract their Mentors. I'm not saying you should aim for this all the time, but Surgical is playable in the matchup anyway vs Snapcaster/Terminus, so you should value this play more highly than in the Top era when the opponent typically had 1-2 Entreat

- Regarding the Goyf/Mandrills split, Goyf was clearly the best choice for this event. Didn't see any Push, my Goyf did get Decayed once but I had both Delver and Goyf in play anyway and it was a pretty close decision which one my opponent wanted to target. It may have helped me race in the combo matchups (wasn't trying to think about that too much at the time), and if I didn't have 4 Goyf in the Eldrazi matchup I think it's highly likely I would have lost. I wouldn't even say my matchups were weird for the meta because there were at least 2 more RB reanimator players and 1 other Eldrazi Post player in a tournament with like ~25 people, the number of 'fair decks' didn't seem to be very high. Maybe you can argue that at a big Eternal-Weekend-style event (where more people are likely to be playing Underground Sea) Mandrills is better but I'm not totally convinced of this (as per my post on the last page).
[edit, page 119, I'm clearly a bit behind haha]

I think this list is very good, in the SB I might want to either -1 Pyroblast or -1 Winter Orb for +1 Pierce or +1 Flusterstorm. Against the combo decks without Pyroblast targets I feel a bit light on interaction.

[wcm8]

Why play Honden of Infinite Rage when you could instead run Curse of the Pierced Heart?

Edit: oh, I see that you can target creatures with the Honden. That's actually pretty tech, I was thinking you were running it as just a single-sided Sulfuric Vortex.

That said, CotPH stacks and could be used as a potential alt-win condition against control decks that have tons of creature removal or methods of preventing you from profitably attacking. It's less versatile than Bitterblossom in some ways, and obviously on it's own is slower than the aforementioned Sulfuric Vortex, but perhaps it's worth considering if UWr Miracles or similar decks become a real problem.

[rlesko]

Never underestimate streamlining the deck and playing big dumb beaters :smile: Congrats kombatkiwi!

[wcm8]

I saw a list doing well that's running 4 copies of Chart a Course, 2/2 split between main and SB. Seems easy enough to enable as a straight-ahead Draw 2 for 2. Has anyone had much experience with this card in RUG or a similar deck?

[Plague Sliver]

I just won the Saturday 'Big Prize Legacy' side event at GP Singapore.
2-1 RB Reanimator
2-0 BUG Crane Aluren
2-1 RGb Charbelcher
2-0 Azcanta Miracles
2-0 Eldrazi Post



Congrats! We still see a fair bit of Canadian in the Beijing meta. I've moved on to Grixis but always love playing the matchup.

Finishing a game with 2 lands out and 15 cards in the graveyard is definitely my idea of a great time :cool:

[kombatkiwi]

There was a similar event on day2 which I played with the same list to a semi-flop result
R1 2-0 Eldrazi Post (same guy)
R2 1-1-0 Miracles (same guy)
R3 "0-2" Grixis Delver (Result of games played was 1-1-1 but I was paired up after my draw in round 2 (my opponent had 6 points rather than 4). Under the prize payout for the event a 2nd draw was essentially a loss so I just conceded.
R4 0-2 Moon Stompy (In game 2 my opponent was on 1 life when he stabilized and I had like 5 turns to topdeck ANY land so I could cast Honden and kill him but I didn't find one)
R5 "0-2" Rector Fit (I got paired up again so now with my record I don't get any different amount of prize even if I win the match, but my opponent is guaranteed more prize if he wins so I concede immediately. We play to 1-1 but don't get into G3 because his wife confiscates him.)

I would argue that both me and Miracles guy played at a reasonable (albeit not lightning-fast) pace and that it would be hard to claim that one player was more at fault than the other, although we both should have probably been trying to play faster (also, the way the matchup works every game goes for like 20 turns).

The Grixis Delver player was a fucking snail and after I called him out for tanking like 1min+ on whether he wanted to cast Therapy or not (on turn 2, after seeing my whole hand with probe) he got pretty belligerent so I just dropped it.
At the end of game 3 I was at a very low life total but he had already used 3 of his bolts and I had Loam/Waste/Ring going and destroyed all his lands, so I think I probably would have won.

The game against the Moon dude reinforced my thoughts of wanting another Spell Pierce

[Tee]

lol dude,
i was the sneak show player at the same touranment who share the points with you and the other guy for a case of ixalan booster.

Pretty tickled by my miracles friend who said he was gonna quit magic if he was ever gonna let Honden of infinite rage resolve again. That's how bad you tramutised him lol.

Is a tarfire strictly better than a 2nd seal of fire? Probably 2nd spell pierce in mainboard would be safer than a preordain in the combo meta of the tourney. I was wandering whether you have considered a 3/1 or a 2/2 splilt between tamogofy/hooting mantrils prior to the touranment?

[Agrippa91]

@kombatkiwi: Congratz! Really like the 2 seal of fires, the fact that they can't be removed by drs seems like a major advantage paired with the fact that you get 5/6 goyfs against Eldrazi and Anglers in the maindeck.

[kombatkiwi]

lol dude,
i was the sneak show player at the same touranment who share the points with you and the other guy for a case of ixalan booster.

Pretty tickled by my miracles friend who said he was gonna quit magic if he was ever gonna let Honden of infinite rage resolve again. That's how bad you tramutised him lol.

Is a tarfire strictly better than a 2nd seal of fire? Probably 2nd spell pierce in mainboard would be safer than a preordain in the combo meta of the tourney. I was wandering whether you have considered a 3/1 or a 2/2 splilt between tamogofy/hooting mantrils prior to the touranment?

Yeah I agree 2 Pierce main would have probably been a good decision, that is still always an option.
You can play 1 Seal 1 Tarfire if you want

Pros for 2 Seal
- Seal doesn't get eaten by DRS and there is a reasonable chance of not finding the 1 copy of seal and the Tarfire getting exiled
- I think Seal is a slightly better removal spell than Shock (it's better vs things like Thalia or Eidolon of the Great Revel, etc and you can play it whenever you feel you can spend mana to gain tempo later on, e.g. you play Seal turn 1 on the play and if your opponent plays DRS turn 1 on the draw then they can't protect it with Daze)

Pros for 1-1 Seal/Tarfire
- Tarfire can flip Delver
- If you have both of them in the graveyard it pumps Goyf twice

It's such a small % decision either way but I think I like 2 Seal.

I haven't considered playing a split of Hooting Mandrills and Tarmogoyf, I can't think of a strong argument not to do this but I think Tarmogoyf is better at the moment. (Additionally, if you play fewer copies of Tarmogoyf the decision to play Seal of Fire instead of e.g. Chain Lightning becomes worse)

[Mastikor]

How come no one considers Cryptic Serpent? Has anyone tested it? On paper it seems better then Tarmo (its bigger and dodges most removal, also pitches to Fow) or Mandrils (better sinergy with threshold).

[kombatkiwi]

How come no one considers Cryptic Serpent? Has anyone tested it? On paper it seems better then Tarmo (its bigger and dodges most removal, also pitches to Fow) or Mandrils (better sinergy with threshold).

5/6 is better than 6/5, but the main reason why I think this card is not good is that it's just way harder to cast than it seems at first. Sometimes it's annoying having to wait to fill up your graveyard for Mandrills, and Serpent isn't even fueled by wastes or fetches.

It could be okay but I think you would need to play some copies of Probe or Thought Scour, and its consistent large size isn't much better than Tarmo (it also gets blanked by RIP). As we mentioned a few pages ago pitching to force is a plus for Serpent but this also means it dies to Pyroblast.

[MrFrowny_]

Hey guys, I've been playing RUG Delver for the past few months with this list and I'm absolutely sold on Spell Snare. It counters all the big problems for this deck; Rest in Peace, Thalia, Stoneforge, Jitte, Baleful Strix, etc.

Creatures - 11
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Tarmogoyf

Spells - 31
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Stifle
1 Preordain
1 Chain Lightning
1 Forked Bolt
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare

Lands - 18
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Flusterstorm
1 Winter Orb
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Null Rod
2 True-Name Nemisis
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Sylvan Library
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Submerge

[JackaBo]

5/6 is better than 6/5, but the main reason why I think this card is not good is that it's just way harder to cast than it seems at first. Sometimes it's annoying having to wait to fill up your graveyard for Mandrills, and Serpent isn't even fueled by wastes or fetches.

It could be okay but I think you would need to play some copies of Probe or Thought Scour, and its consistent large size isn't much better than Tarmo (it also gets blanked by RIP). As we mentioned a few pages ago pitching to force is a plus for Serpent but this also means it dies to Pyroblast.

Serpent dying to REB is also a big downside

[rlesko]

Serpent is absolutely unplayable in this deck, regardless of what it dies to. It could have shroud and be uncounterable it would still be unplayable. It isn't doing anything that synergizes with what "Canadian Thresh" is doing.

[wcm8]

It could have shroud and be uncounterable it would still be unplayable.

Eh, let's not get crazy here -- obviously it's a moot point since it's neither of those, but I would *absolutely* play Serpent in Delver decks (and possibly other deck types as well) if it had the additions of Hexproof and Uncounterable. At that point you could probably drop Tarmogoyf and/or Mongoose in place of it and maybe consider running some Thoughtscour to help rush it out earlier. A 6/5 for essentially just UU that has hexproof and uncounterable is *insane*, and achieving 5 spells in the graveyard is easy given the deck's configuration. Players have had some success running Bedlam Reveler without having to entirely retool the basic structure of a Delver deck, so this really would be no different.

I also disagree with the comment that a 5/6 is better than a 6/5. This is true in creature matchups where there's 5/5's involved, e.g. Eldrazi. But given the ubiquity of self-inflicted life loss in Legacy (via Force, fetches, Probe, Ancient Tomb, Dismember, etc.), very often an opponent will be at 18 or less life by the time you start attacking them. In this scenario, a 6/5 presents a 3-turn clock versus the 4-turn clock of 5/6. Just worth noting in case a playable 6-power creature is introduced to the Legacy card-pool.

Anyways, I agree with the general sentiment about running Seal of Fire in lists running 3-4 copies of Tarmogoyf. Goyf is still a monstrous clock, and he's excellent in a metagame full of Eldrazi and Grixis Delver. However if you expect to face more 4C control, it's arguable that Hooting Mandrills may be the better threat since it dodges Fatal Push and can push damage through their blockers.

I also agree with running some copies of Spell Snare in RUG -- back when I was playing this deck almost exclusively, I ran the full playset and it hardly ever got sided out except against Sneak and Show and a few other random decks without many/any valid targets. It's just so good at mitigating the disadvantage of being on the draw, and it tends to be cards costing 2 that most frequently present the biggest problems for RUG, e.g. Chalice on 1, Thalia, Strix, opposing Goyfs, Stoneforge Mystic, Counterbalance etc. it's also excellent having a hard counter as the game goes on. Often you'll be able to deal with cards costing 3+ thanks to your soft counters and mana denial strategy; it really seems like Snare is patching up a weaker "blind spot" for the deck.

Aside from Honden, has there been any new tech singletons in the sideboard? Has anyone liked the versatility of Abrade, or is Ancient Grudge still just way better for RUG? And lastly, any comments on Chart a Course in RUG?

[rlesko]

Eh, let's not get crazy here -- obviously it's a moot point since it's neither of those, but I would *absolutely* play Serpent in Delver decks (and possibly other deck types as well) if it had the additions of Hexproof and Uncounterable. At that point you could probably drop Tarmogoyf and/or Mongoose in place of it and maybe consider running some Thoughtscour to help rush it out earlier. A 6/5 for essentially just UU that has hexproof and uncounterable is *insane*, and achieving 5 spells in the graveyard is easy given the deck's configuration. Players have had some success running Bedlam Reveler without having to entirely retool the basic structure of a Delver deck, so this really would be no different.

Hyperbole aside, I do think the restriction of instant / sorcery (as opposed to delving) is absolutely prohibitive in playing the card, regardless of the potential upside. But not worth discussing hypotheticals even further.

I also disagree with the comment that a 5/6 is better than a 6/5. This is true in creature matchups where there's 5/5's involved, e.g. Eldrazi. But given the ubiquity of self-inflicted life loss in Legacy (via Force, fetches, Probe, Ancient Tomb, Dismember, etc.), very often an opponent will be at 18 or less life by the time you start attacking them. In this scenario, a 6/5 presents a 3-turn clock versus the 4-turn clock of 5/6. Just worth noting in case a playable 6-power creature is introduced to the Legacy card-pool.

You're spot on here. Not sure who said 5/6 > 6/5 or how far back, but I 100% agree with this logic. Actually I have played weird games against miracles in the past where my goyf was a 6/7 and they were >15 life but <19 (for the exact reasons you've provided - fetches / forces) and able to win with short amount of time left

I also agree with running some copies of Spell Snare in RUG -- back when I was playing this deck almost exclusively, I ran the full playset and it hardly ever got sided out except against Sneak and Show and a few other random decks without many/any valid targets. It's just so good at mitigating the disadvantage of being on the draw, and it tends to be cards costing 2 that most frequently present the biggest problems for RUG, e.g. Chalice on 1, Thalia, Strix, opposing Goyfs, Stoneforge Mystic, Counterbalance etc. it's also excellent having a hard counter as the game goes on. Often you'll be able to deal with cards costing 3+ thanks to your soft counters and mana denial strategy; it really seems like Snare is patching up a weaker "blind spot" for the deck.

Are people cutting snares from their lists now? This is absolutely crazy to me. I only play 2 but would love to play more. The card is so insane in this deck. Theres no worse feeling than forcing a snapcaster mage or bolting a baleful strix.

Aside from Honden, has there been any new tech singletons in the sideboard? Has anyone liked the versatility of Abrade, or is Ancient Grudge still just way better for RUG? And lastly, any comments on Chart a Course in RUG?

I tested abrade in the sideboard a little bit, I wished it was a grudge every. single. damn. time. It is my opinion that it is a main deck card in delver that doesn't want to be totally cold to resolved artifacts. Its a sideboard card in combo decks where you can consolidate being able to kill hatebears / ensnaring bridges / chalices with the same card. If the card could deal 3 damage to a player I would probably play it main deck though.

When Chart was spoiled I was convinced this card would make its way into RUG delver. After thinking about it , tapping 2 mana sorcery speed is just not really what we want to be doing most of the time, especially if we just attacked with a creature. If we are attacking, we want to use our mana to disrupt our opponent / protect our own things. And while drawing cards is nice, I don't think this card quite makes the cut.

[wcm8]

I did a fair bit of testing with running 3 copies of Chart a Course in RUG. I actually think the card is fantastic. In the early game you won't be casting it, instead holding up mana for counterspells, killing threats and deploying your own creatures. But then once you're just about empty, Chart gives you an effective way of pulling ahead. And even if you don't have a creature to attack with, frequently you'll be able to afford dumping an extra land or other irrelevant card.

I've always been a fan of Sylvan Library in RUG, and perhaps 1 still warrants a slot in the SB, but Chart fills a similar function but with several very relevant advantages: flips Delver, is Blue for Force, builds up the yard for Mongoose (or Mandrills if you're running them), doesn't cost life to draw cards, immediately replaces itself and draws an extra card, and is more useful in multiples.

I think anyone who is dubious about Chart's power in RUG really ought to give it a fair shake and test out 2-3 copies. I think you'll very quickly find that in practice it's a really powerful card and a welcome addition to a deck that's severely lacking in forms of card advantage. Yes there are plenty of theoretical reasons why it might seem mediocre or weak, but seriously, just test it. It feels somewhat akin to the Treasure Cruise/Dig Through Time era -- and in a sense it's a bit like a hybrid toned-down (but still powerful) version of those two cards.

Perhaps needless to say, Chart's also good in other Delver decks. I'm sure it's similarly powerful in other creature decks playing Blue, e.g. infect. And perhaps it may also find a place in Modern.

You heard it here first folks: I'm making the prediction that Chart a Course will catch on in Legacy Delver decks in a very serious way in the not-so-distant future. It's already been showing up in successful UR Delver lists and a few spotting here and there in RUG lists. Give it a little time and it'll probably be near ubiquitous.

[Ralf]

I did a fair bit of testing with running 3 copies of Chart a Course in RUG.

Well could you please elaborate a bit more ?

Because 2 or 3 slots is not an easy thing to include, especially in RUG where the list is already pretty tight.

Cheers,

Ralf

[wcm8]

The list I tested, which could be further modified per local meta considerations:

8 fetch
3 Volcanic
3 tropical
4 Wasteland

4 Delver
4 mongoose
4 goyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Chart a course

4 force of will
4 daze
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell pierce

4 L Bolt
2 seal of fire

As previously mentioned, Seal is there as a way to make Goyf a fairly reliable 5/6. I tested a bunch of times against Grixis Delver and a few other tier decks and felt quite favored. Chart is a huge help. Note that I cut stifle completely as I feel it is not an essential card for RUG's success, but actually given how common RUG plays stifle you often get the advantage of opponents still playing around it.

[Jsang]

The list I tested, which could be further modified per local meta considerations:

8 fetch
3 Volcanic
3 tropical
4 Wasteland

4 Delver
4 mongoose
4 goyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Chart a course

4 force of will
4 daze
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell pierce

4 L Bolt
2 seal of fire

As previously mentioned, Seal is there as a way to make Goyf a fairly reliable 5/6. I tested a bunch of times against Grixis Delver and a few other tier decks and felt quite favored. Chart is a huge help. Note that I cut stifle completely as I feel it is not an essential card for RUG's success, but actually given how common RUG plays stifle you often get the advantage of opponents still playing around it.

This list looks sweet. I think it is a right direction in a fair meta. The pure tempo route is increasingly difficult to get the job done with more effecient answers like push and decay printed in recent year.

Seal of fire is good, but one drawback is unable to flip a delver. Would a tarfire to split them 1:1 an option?

[wcm8]

Seal of fire is good, but one drawback is unable to flip a delver. Would a tarfire to split them 1:1 an option?

Yeah, I suppose if you wanted to you could do a 1/1 split. And occasionally you'll be glad to have your Delver flip and very rarely have both cards in the yard to support 6/7 Goyfs. But statistically speaking, it's rare that either scenario would occur enough to make a huge difference... but what *does* seem quite relevant now is 1) having a card that can't be touched by unanswered Deathrite Shamans, and 2) occasionally being able to generate a kind of tempo by pre-emptively casting a removal spell in advance of a threat for it to answer, thus opening up mana later.

It's also worth noting how good Seal can be against a deck like D&T. You don't know for sure whether they'll be casting an Aether Vial or Mother of Runes on Turn 1 (if anything), so you'll still be able to deploy Seal to eventually answer a creature regardless of their early play. It's also particularly helpful against Thalia since you'll sidestep the issue of needing to pay an extra :1:.

[TheManWithaPlan]

For those of you playing Tarmogoyf, how much worse it the Czech Pile matchup with Goyf as opposed than more difficult to answer threats? I have been playing with 4 Delver, 4 Goose, 2 Mandrills, 1 TNN for a little bit now and am wondering if playing Goyfs to improve the Grixis Delver matchup is worth sacrificing your pile matchup by however much adding Goyf makes the Pile matchup worse. So my question is really how is the Czech Pile matchup with Goyf? Are we favoured, unfavoured or is it even?

[JackaBo]

For those of you playing Tarmogoyf, how much worse it the Czech Pile matchup with Goyf as opposed than more difficult to answer threats? I have been playing with 4 Delver, 4 Goose, 2 Mandrills, 1 TNN for a little bit now and am wondering if playing Goyfs to improve the Grixis Delver matchup is worth sacrificing your pile matchup by however much adding Goyf makes the Pile matchup worse. So my question is really how is the Czech Pile matchup with Goyf? Are we favoured, unfavoured or is it even?

Most pile players at my LGS play bolt instead of push. Maybe one push, one edict main. Dont know if that's common out there.. but I have had good results versus pile.
I go delverless versus them since goyf is hard to deal with as is. If they played 4 push i would rather keep the delvers (for the busted double delver start) and board out goyfs.

[MTB]

For those of you playing Tarmogoyf, how much worse it the Czech Pile matchup with Goyf as opposed than more difficult to answer threats? I have been playing with 4 Delver, 4 Goose, 2 Mandrills, 1 TNN for a little bit now and am wondering if playing Goyfs to improve the Grixis Delver matchup is worth sacrificing your pile matchup by however much adding Goyf makes the Pile matchup worse. So my question is really how is the Czech Pile matchup with Goyf? Are we favoured, unfavoured or is it even?

I wouldn't say that Goyf helps the Grixis Matchup that much as I feel the Apes are similar good. Some Grixis lists run 1-2 pushes between main and side and edict handles Goyfs and Monkys alike. Besides that Mandrills are much better against Pyromancer as they cant be chump blocked and against Angler both feel lackluster (except you play tarfire/seal of fire ofc). What is in your sideboard? You could change the TNN for 1 Goyf which feels fine in a very Red-based meta (especially burn -.-).

Regards
Marius

[ChemicalBurns]

Long time no talk y'all. I am just back from Japan, Top 8ing a small event with this list: http://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/k/kD40032S/
Nimble Obstructionists are actually Mongoose, of course. Some notes:
- I hated Chain Lightning and wanted an instant-speed piece of removal (another Dead or Dismember) every time. I feel more and more I've tried to angle the deck to be as end step orientated as possible, but the sorcery-speed Bolts don't really help with that.
- Sideboard Predict is SICCCCKK. With Library and eight cantrips post-board to set it up it, in addition to Loam, provides a non-permanent based way to accrue card advantage. Again, instant-speed also means you can hold up countermagic during your Predict turn as well. I have yet to live the dream of Submerging something and then Predicting it away.
- I was impressed with the sideboard counterspell as a skeleton key card against midrange and combo alike. In someways it is like a less efficient Snare in its role.
- The main deck True-Name bailed me out of a lot of situations but the list feels a little threat-heavy now and could see it being swapped with the Counterspell or Predict in the sideboard.

A list very similar to mine also came 9th in the recent Classic:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=118101

Happy RUG life!

[rlesko]

Long time no talk y'all. I am just back from Japan, Top 8ing a small event with this list: http://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/k/kD40032S/
Nimble Obstructionists are actually Mongoose, of course. Some notes:
- I hated Chain Lightning and wanted an instant-speed piece of removal (another Dead or Dismember) every time. I feel more and more I've tried to angle the deck to be as end step orientated as possible, but the sorcery-speed Bolts don't really help with that.
- Sideboard Predict is SICCCCKK. With Library and eight cantrips post-board to set it up it, in addition to Loam, provides a non-permanent based way to accrue card advantage. Again, instant-speed also means you can hold up countermagic during your Predict turn as well. I have yet to live the dream of Submerging something and then Predicting it away.
- I was impressed with the sideboard counterspell as a skeleton key card against midrange and combo alike. In someways it is like a less efficient Snare in its role.
- The main deck True-Name bailed me out of a lot of situations but the list feels a little threat-heavy now and could see it being swapped with the Counterspell or Predict in the sideboard.

A list very similar to mine also came 9th in the recent Classic:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=118101

Happy RUG life!

Interesting that you don't like chain lightning. This could be a play style thing but I find that a lot of my removal is played sorcery speed, so its uncommon for the sorcery speed to matter muchin my experiences.

Single counterspell is great, I've played with it main sometimes. Sideboard is a great spot for it.

Predict is a card that I've always felt is too hard to set up, and actually was probably in a better spot when top was legal . I would love to hear about how predict played out for you

[ChemicalBurns]

Interesting that you don't like chain lightning. This could be a play style thing but I find that a lot of my removal is played sorcery speed, so its uncommon for the sorcery speed to matter muchin my experiences.

Single counterspell is great, I've played with it main sometimes. Sideboard is a great spot for it.

Predict is a card that I've always felt is too hard to set up, and actually was probably in a better spot when top was legal . I would love to hear about how predict played out for you

I think the sorcery speed matters a lot when you are wanting to hold up Snare/Pierce/Blast/Bolt to use at EoT potentially. I think more relevant is the additional reach that Chain Lightning gives, which I do feel is worthwhile. Again, maybe just a play style thing. It's not awful.

Predict I actually am very high on. I've never found it hard to setup (in all the times I've cast it, I've actually always gotten full value,which says something), since eventually you will definitely hit a cantrip in long games where you are bringing it in. I also found it really useful to clear a Brainstorm lock and it can be nicely cast off a Wasteland too! I also tend to bring it in against combo when I have room, since in the early game it can be pitch food to Force, but in the midgame it is a card that can be setup at instant-speed (so shields aren't down) to refuel. I found it strong vs. Storm post-board where they often tear your hand apart with discard and Brainstorm tricks etc. are very pertinent. I think the only knock against it is that unlike Loam or Library it can get snagged by opposing Pyroblasts.

[kombatkiwi]

I think the only knock against it is that unlike Loam or Library it can get snagged by opposing Pyroblasts.

-1 Predict
+1 Think Twice

kappa

[rlesko]

This is going to be a tough question to answer - but do you have any idea how many turns on average you had to wait to set up predict?

[Turboninja]

Hi guys, I've been playing Canadian Thresh for some time, but never at a bigger event. With SCG Worcester on its way, I'd like to present my current list for your opinions:

RUG 50 (no goyf) 2 Hooting Mandrills, 2 Gitaxian Probe, 2 Snare, 2 Pierce, 1 Forked Bolt, 1 Dead // Gone

Essentially, I've replaced Goyf with Mandrills and probes, and the rest is fairly stock.

SB:
3 Pyroblast
2 Abrade
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Submerge
1 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Dismember
1 Dead // Gone
1 Rough // Tumble

I've been doing pretty good in my own local meta, losing to Nic Fit and occasionally to Jund and Eldrazi. I don't get many games in against Lands, which is a shame as that matchup seems hard.

All in all, I feel that having fewer threats (10) is rarely an issue. I tried having a True-Name Nemesis as an 11th creature, but I did not like having a three drop in the deck. I much rather leave mana up every single turn. I've been loving what the Mandrills can do, be it to selectively reduce Goyf or neuter their DRS from using my Graveyard (if DRS actually survives).

The probes have been doing great work, as a way to fill my yard for my two yard dependent threats and also to make sure I know when to keep U open or play a threat.

The Dead // Gones are a great card, but I mostly use them to kill DRS and I've been wondering if a second Submerge SB might be better there, also as insurance against Marit Lage. Goyf seems to be coming back also, so maybe that'd be a good call.

SO, for an SCGO, how would you shape up your Canadian Thresh? Am I awfully wrong on some aspects? I'll post SB strategies soon after.

Thanks!

[JackaBo]

I think you need to dedicate slots to fight control. Yes, you're better positioned (compared to grixis and bug) thanks to Goose. But im not sure it's enough. I used to run sylvan, winter orb and 2x TNN in the board. Sometimes i even ran loam. Mandrills is good versus push and decay but actually worse than goyf vs swords to plowshares.

[kombatkiwi]

I think you need to dedicate slots to fight control. Yes, you're better positioned (compared to grixis and bug) thanks to Goose. But im not sure it's enough. I used to run sylvan, winter orb and 2x TNN in the board. Sometimes i even ran loam. Mandrills is good versus push and decay but actually worse than goyf vs swords to plowshares.

They both get bopped by swords, this is not really an important consideration.

I agree that no anti-control cards seems rough (and with only mongoose as shroud creatures this will make the lands matchup harder)
I don't like Submerge as an answer for Marit Lage because good opponents will always play around it as much as possible by not playing Forests (e.g. I think the GB Turbo lists are playing Blooming Marsh specifically for this reason)
I think if you aren't playing Goyf (so you don't care about different card types and therefore aren't interested in Seal of Fire or Tarfire) then Dead/Gone is a good card, it's better at answering DRS than Submerge (I don't mind boarding in 1 Forked Bolt vs DRS decks even though I expect it to be Sorcery Shock a lot of the time).

Also props to 'TBR87' on modo for going 5-0 with the Honden tech

Creature (11)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Tarmogoyf
Sorcery (4)
4 Ponder
Instant (25)
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
Enchantment (1)
1 Seal of Fire
Land (18)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
Tribal instant (1)
1 Tarfire
60 Cards

Sideboard (15)
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Dismember
2 Flusterstorm
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ground Seal
1 Honden of Infinite Rage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroblast
1 Rough // Tumble
1 Surgical Extraction
1 True-Name Nemesis

[JackaBo]

Honden is nice as it's a hard to remove threat versus control and a repeating removal. I like ground seal in the board too. Nice

[FiliusIcari]

RUG Delver tournament report:

Hey everyone, went to the Geek Fortress 1k today with RUG and ended up going 4-2 and missing top 8 by breakers. Figured I’d write up a tournament report both for my own memory and in the hopes that someone else will find it interesting. I’m realizing now that I didn’t take nearly good enough notes for my memory, so I apologize for not being quite as detailed as I’d like to be. First, the list:

18 Land
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

11 Creature
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 Hooting Mandrills
1 True-Name Nemesis

31 Instant and Sorcery
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
1 Forked Bolt
1 Life from the Loam

Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
2 Flusterstorm
2 Abrade
2 Submerge
1 Rough // Tumble
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Sylvan Library
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Barbarian Ring

Round 1: 2-0 against Elves

I win the die roll, and keep a hand with Volc, Delver, Wasteland, and other stuff. He keeps a 6 with a lot of hesitation. I then go Volcanic Island, Delver, pass, which he follows with Bayou, Nettle Sentinel. I proceed to wasteland him, to which he promptly scoops. On to game 2!

Game 2 I keep a hand with delver, force and fodder, and a lot of removal. He starts with fetch, grab bayou, pass? I play a delver and pass. He then groans, doesn’t play a land, and plays a nettle sentinel. Delver flips, swings, and then I bolt the nettle sentinel. Next turn he plays a DRS, still missing his land drops. I dismember the DRS, swing, and then ponder into a wasteland. I waste him and he scoops.

Round 2: 2-0 against Elves

Game 1 is very close, and it seems like my opponent drew all of his value stuff and not really any of the combo stuff, which I'm totally fine with when my threat is a Delver and not anything on the ground. I use a stifle to stop a visionary from drawing later on, and on his final turn I spell pierced his glimpse after his land drop when he only had two mana to work with, saving me from whatever shenanigans he was up to. My threats were a turn 1 mongoose which finally got blocked when he was at 7, and then a delver that took forever to flip(hit him all the way down to 3) before finally flipping and killing him.

Game 2 was much less close. He started with a turn 1 GSZ into dryad arbor, which I bolted on my turn. He did stone cold nothing for almost the rest of the game, where I drop a Delver into Mongoose and then Hooting Mandrills, 8ing him from 16 to dead very quickly.

Round 3: 2-0 against Miracles

Game 1 I had absolutely no business winning. My threats keep getting removed, but usually stick long enough to get 3-6 damage in before something happens to them. My opponent manages to stabilize at 4 with a Jace on the field and no threats on my side of the field. In hand I have Delver, Mongoose, Bolt, Daze, Daze. I cast a Mongoose, which my opponent counters. I then cast Delver, to which my opponent activates Azcanta to dig for answers. He finds Terminus. He then Counterspells. He now has 1 untapped dual and a fetch. I Daze once, which he pays for. I Daze against, to which he thinks for a moment and then actives his fetch, going to 3. I respond by Bolting him, for which he has no answer. No idea what he was doing, but I take the win. He seems pretty upset at himself over this, but is a nice guy and isn’t salty or anything.

Game 2 goes fairly similarly, but he stabilizes just a bit late and can’t seem to find the Terminus for my Mongoose. Midway through the game he plays a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, which sits and makes 2/2s for the rest of the game. This blocks 1 Mongoose indefinitely, but I find a second one to keep swinging. The game winning play is when I hold a Wasteland until the end of my main 2 after playing some spells, which he fights over with numerous Brainstorms. This leaves him with not enough mana to activate Azcanta on my turn, so I play Wasteland and Brainstorm lock him. I wasn’t actually expecting to be able to leave him without an Azcanta activation on my turn, but I figured I should just hold onto the Wasteland just in case and got rewarded for it. Realistically, he was incredibly unlucky not to find a Terminus, but regardless I think I played well to capitalize on it.

Round 4: 0-2 against Food Chain

Games 1 and 2 go fairly similarly, so I’ll just go over them together. I played out a delver early in both games and rode it a couple turns, but overall was powerless to keep myself from just getting killed by food chain on turn 4-5. I wasn’t sure exactly how to play the matchup, because it felt like if I just focused my counter magic on his combo then he played out Baleful Strix which I couldn’t deal with, and if I used it early he could just combo off on me later. If anyone is familiar with the matchup, please give me some tips.

Round 5: 1-2 against Stoneblade

Game 1 I lose after a long battle by just getting killed by True-Name Nemesis. I don’t remember this game particularly well, I just got grinded out of the course of many turns.

Game 2 I win by playing delver turn 1 and just protecting it until he hits 9. I have 2 bolts in hand and know I have one on top of my library. He blood moons me in his main, and then I bolt him on his end step, putting him to 6. Then, during my upkeep he Pyroblasts my Delver. This resolves, I draw, and then I double bolt him, holding up a Pyroblast. in case he has counter magic. I feel pretty blessed to have drawn triple Bolt so late into the game, but I take it.

Game 3 I make a play that I feel like is very questionable, but potentially correct. If anyone has input it’s super appreciated.

A few turns into the game, he stoneforges. I stifle the trigger, and then bolt the stone forge. The next turn he plays another one, grabs a batterskull, and passes. I have no more removal, so I hold up mana for abrade and pass back. He simply draws and passes. I draw, play a fetch, and the board state is then a stoneforge and 3 untapped land for him, and 3 lands and a Nimble Mongoose with 3 cards in the graveyard for me. I’m holding a Mongoose, Abrade, Spell Snare, Pyroblast. I decide to swing, because A. If he drops the Batterskull to block with to try to gain life, I’m confident I can abrade it and counter any response of his. and B. if he just blocks it, it helps fill my graveyard which I had no real belief would be hitting threshold anytime soon for my second Mongoose, and unlike against Miracles I can’t really win the long game.

Regardless, he blocks with stoneforge and then drops batterskull end step, which I abrade. I drop the second Mongoose my next turn, and the turn after that he chumps with a Stoneforge. He then follows up on his turn with a True-Name Nemesis. We sit and stare at each other for a while, as I’m technically ahead on life, and he feels no pressure to put himself at risk to close the game out. After I draw garbage 3 turns in a row, he plays a Blood Moon. At this point, I look at the clock and see that there’s 10 minutes left. While I still don’t have any board presence, being 3-1 I recognize that my out to get into top 8 is drawing this game and winning the next one. I continue to just sit there and do nothing, as does he. Eventually he finds an Engineered Explosives, blows up my mongoose, and then just starts swinging. At this point, I finally scoop as I actually cannot cast anything and there’s no way I can not lose for 5 more minutes.

Round 6: 2-1 against UR Delver

I win Game 1 by playing pretty hard control before finally just landing a Mongoose and killing him with it. I removed a number of his threats, and his burn got me down to 5 but wasn’t enough to finish it. I misplayed ridiculously hard by literally forgetting to attack one turn while I was closing the game out, which caused him to start to come back into the game but didn’t find enough gas to kill me in one turn and not die on the crackback.

Game 2 I play a more aggressive hand, but it turns out the deck with 8 bolt effects is really good at removing your delvers. I get pretty thoroughly beaten this game, and it isn’t particularly close.

Game 3 goes a lot better, and was the most fun game I played all day. He plays out an Eidolon very early on a board where I have a flipped delver. He then tries to remove my delver, forcing me to cast a spell trying to remove it. Over the course of the game I hit him in increments of 3 while taking a total of 12 damage to the Eidolon protecting my Delver and removing his other threats. I didn’t want to remove the Eidolon because he was taking just as much damage to it, and I had a bolt in my hand as well as a Daze and a Spell Pierce, so I figured that when we both got low I could win the final blowout on the stack. The game ended when he cast Price while I was at 7, which would have dealt 4. This puts him down to 3 to cast. I Pierce, putting me to 5. He Dazes the Pierce, going down to 1. I respond by bolting him, which he cannot answer.

After this, I’m 4-2 before the break to top 8. Because of the way the bracket worked out, one 4-2 makes top 8 in addition to the 5-1s and the 4-1-1s. I end up in 10th place, missing out on top 8 but winning $30 in store credit.

Closing thoughts:

I really didn’t like Life from the Loam all day, although looking at my matchups it was never any of the matchups I really wanted it in. My opponents were on basic heavy decks all day or the games were supposed to be over sooner. I would have loved to see it against something like Grixis delver or Pile. The most value I got out of it was casting it with no targets to meet threshold, which is pretty garbage. I’m not going to give up on it yet, it’s been good for me other times, but I’m certainly going to be looking at this as I prepare for GP Seattle.

The Barbarian Ring in the sideboard was in a similar spot to Loam, not really finding its ideal matchup. I really enjoy seeing it in the D&T matchup, but I didn’t play it today at all.

The Hooting Mandrills vs goyf thing didn’t come up at all today, there was no time I saw Mandrills where I wished it was goyf, nor was there any time that I was glad it wasn’t goyf. Against elves it should have been relevant, but the board was totally empty and my clock didn’t change at all.

Overall, I felt like RUG was a good choice for the event, and Mongoose was the standout star of all my matchups. Very frequently what threat I had didn’t matter, but when it did matter I wanted it to be goose every time. In addition, I faced down exactly 1 Deathrite Shaman all day, which felt nice.

All of that aside, let me know if you think there's anything I was doing wrong, or if I seem to have the wrong ideas about a matchup. I'm admittedly not the best RUG player, and I still have a lot to learn.

[kombatkiwi]

Game 2 I keep a hand with delver, force and fodder, and a lot of removal. He starts with fetch, grab bayou, pass? I play a delver and pass. He then groans, doesn’t play a land, and plays a nettle sentinel. Delver flips, swings, and then I bolt the nettle sentinel. Next turn he plays a DRS, still missing his land drops. I dismember the DRS, swing, and then ponder into a wasteland. I waste him and he scoops.
This seems like an obvious punt from your opp, not fetching basic forest, also why did he not play a spell on turn 1? Are you sure you're remembering this correctly?


Game 1 I had absolutely no business winning. My threats keep getting removed, but usually stick long enough to get 3-6 damage in before something happens to them. My opponent manages to stabilize at 4 with a Jace on the field and no threats on my side of the field. In hand I have Delver, Mongoose, Bolt, Daze, Daze. I cast a Mongoose, which my opponent counters. I then cast Delver, to which my opponent activates Azcanta to dig for answers. He finds Terminus. He then Counterspells. He now has 1 untapped dual and a fetch. I Daze once, which he pays for. I Daze against, to which he thinks for a moment and then actives his fetch, going to 3. I respond by Bolting him, for which he has no answer. No idea what he was doing, but I take the win. He seems pretty upset at himself over this, but is a nice guy and isn’t salty or anything.
Generally if your opponent is so close to dying I would lead with the Delver there because it basically still demands an immediate answer and if their only available response is a counter or Terminus then your opp is left with fewer outs for your Mongoose (although if your opponent has active Azcanta this might be different, you want to kill the opponent ASAP so it might be better to deploy the more resilient threat first to force damage quickly)


Game 3 I make a play that I feel like is very questionable, but potentially correct. If anyone has input it’s super appreciated.

A few turns into the game, he stoneforges. I stifle the trigger, and then bolt the stone forge. The next turn he plays another one, grabs a batterskull, and passes. I have no more removal, so I hold up mana for abrade and pass back. He simply draws and passes. I draw, play a fetch, and the board state is then a stoneforge and 3 untapped land for him, and 3 lands and a Nimble Mongoose with 3 cards in the graveyard for me. I’m holding a Mongoose, Abrade, Spell Snare, Pyroblast. I decide to swing, because A. If he drops the Batterskull to block with to try to gain life, I’m confident I can abrade it and counter any response of his. and B. if he just blocks it, it helps fill my graveyard which I had no real belief would be hitting threshold anytime soon for my second Mongoose, and unlike against Miracles I can’t really win the long game.

Regardless, he blocks with stoneforge and then drops batterskull end step, which I abrade. I drop the second Mongoose my next turn, and the turn after that he chumps with a Stoneforge. He then follows up on his turn with a True-Name Nemesis. We sit and stare at each other for a while, as I’m technically ahead on life, and he feels no pressure to put himself at risk to close the game out. After I draw garbage 3 turns in a row, he plays a Blood Moon. At this point, I look at the clock and see that there’s 10 minutes left. While I still don’t have any board presence, being 3-1 I recognize that my out to get into top 8 is drawing this game and winning the next one. I continue to just sit there and do nothing, as does he. Eventually he finds an Engineered Explosives, blows up my mongoose, and then just starts swinging. At this point, I finally scoop as I actually cannot cast anything and there’s no way I can not lose for 5 more minutes.


I'm not totally sure which is the part you think is questionable but personally there are a couple of things I think are wrong
1. Stifling and then Bolting SFM. It seems like you have abrade in your hand at the time (unless you drew it the turn after) so why do you need to stop both the ETB trigger and kill the SFM? You can just Stifle the ETB and then wait for any equipment if they have it, or don't Stifle the ETB and Abrade whatever they find, but after both of these situations the SFM itself isn't threatening so why bolt it? You can see this after he plays the second SFM and you Abrade the Batterskull, the SFM does nothing else until it chump blocks your mongoose.
2. Chump attacking your Mongoose into a SFM. Your hand has so much interaction that the only way you don't get cards in the graveyard is if your opponent doesn't play anything, but if they don't play anything then you don't care because you're currently under no pressure. Why do you think you can't win the 'long' game? (Please tell me you didn't use the Pyroblast on a land just to make Mongoose 3/3)

Playing for a draw is fine in this situation but as you found out if you're literally not doing anything each turn it's very hard not to lose unless you're stalling


Closing thoughts:

I really didn’t like Life from the Loam all day, although looking at my matchups it was never any of the matchups I really wanted it in. My opponents were on basic heavy decks all day or the games were supposed to be over sooner. I would have loved to see it against something like Grixis delver or Pile. The most value I got out of it was casting it with no targets to meet threshold, which is pretty garbage. I’m not going to give up on it yet, it’s been good for me other times, but I’m certainly going to be looking at this as I prepare for GP Seattle.
I hate this card maindeck because it's very slow to have an impact and it doesn't help you when you're behind. In the SB I think it's good because your overall gameplan in most interactive matchups is to become more grindy so this drawback is less of an issue, and the combo with Barbarian Ring is really good. I would board it in vs Elves and Miracles and probably Stoneblade, but not UR


The Hooting Mandrills vs goyf thing didn’t come up at all today, there was no time I saw Mandrills where I wished it was goyf, nor was there any time that I was glad it wasn’t goyf. Against elves it should have been relevant, but the board was totally empty and my clock didn’t change at all.
Personally I like Tarmogoyf better than Mandrills but you will see that Mandrills improves your % against Elves if you play enough games (although having a whopping 6 removal spells in your SB definitely makes trample less relevant)

[themtgzealot]

Got a 5-0 last night with the below it's pretty much Chemical Burns list.

Life from the loam and dead/gone over performed.

Abrade is sick in the sideboard.


https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/27983523_10155304376955754_3670243664225950895_o.jpg?oh=c6757901308e7436bad2703963b2a814&oe=5B07399D

https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/27971573_10155304377070754_6311283599218896227_n.jpg?oh=56583d38c5204806d2ef4ec805cb98cb&oe=5B166EAF

[kombatkiwi]

Got a 5-0 last night with the below it's pretty much Chemical Burns list.

Life from the loam and dead/gone over performed.

Abrade is sick in the sideboard.

Can I get a summary of matchups, and spots where dead/gone was good

[Turboninja]

Considering my Mandrills RUG list (with probes) and looking for additional ways to hedge against control matchups, I feel like Sylvan Library and Honden are both lackluster as techs (mostly so since I do not play Goyf). I also do not like TNN since they cost 3. Would Young Pyro be a good addition to the SB (2 of) in that regard? How about Search for Azcanta?

How do you guys play the Lands matchup?

Thanks, so far your comments have been very enlightening.

[FiliusIcari]

This seems like an obvious punt from your opp, not fetching basic forest, also why did he not play a spell on turn 1? Are you sure you're remembering this correctly?

Yes, my round 1 opponent was just terrible. Apparently his friends had to convince him to be playing more than 2 GSZ, and he wanted to cut them again. I distinctly remember this match because I was astounded at how terribly my opp played.


Generally if your opponent is so close to dying I would lead with the Delver there because it basically still demands an immediate answer and if their only available response is a counter or Terminus then your opp is left with fewer outs for your Mongoose (although if your opponent has active Azcanta this might be different, you want to kill the opponent ASAP so it might be better to deploy the more resilient threat first to force damage quickly)

I'll be entirely honest, I don't remember why I did it in this order but I suspect it was wrong



1. Stifling and then Bolting SFM. It seems like you have abrade in your hand at the time (unless you drew it the turn after)

I drew it later, I at the time had no answer to a batterskull


2. Chump attacking your Mongoose into a SFM. Your hand has so much interaction that the only way you don't get cards in the graveyard is if your opponent doesn't play anything, but if they don't play anything then you don't care because you're currently under no pressure. Why do you think you can't win the 'long' game? (Please tell me you didn't use the Pyroblast on a land just to make Mongoose 3/3)

I for sure did not throw pyroblast away. I'm not that bad haha. I'll explain my thinking here. Between Blood Moon, a bunch of removal, TNN, Stoneforge, EE, and all their counterspells, I didn't think I had the ability to be doing nothing because I just can't do things like putting a SoFI on a True-Name. My graveyard only had 3 cards in it, so I would have just been sitting there for a while hoping they didn't do anything I couldn't interact with.

That being said, I recognize that you're totally correct. I had Abrade for equipment and Pyroblast for TNN, and if they didn't do anything that lets me draw into things that let me actually fight over stuff. I think I was already anxious from the event and just got a bit panicky.


Playing for a draw is fine in this situation but as you found out if you're literally not doing anything each turn it's very hard not to lose unless you're stalling
I was actually being conscious not to slow play, he just wasn't doing anything. We got to the point where we each had a full grip and were discarding each turn. I think the clock got to about 5 minutes. Sure, it was hopeless, but once the EE came down I just scooped because I don't need to make him swing 5 turns.


I hate this card maindeck because it's very slow to have an impact and it doesn't help you when you're behind. In the SB I think it's good because your overall gameplan in most interactive matchups is to become more grindy so this drawback is less of an issue, and the combo with Barbarian Ring is really good. I would board it in vs Elves and Miracles and probably Stoneblade, but not UR
I've been feeling like I agree, but it's just won me games out of the blue too often to want to get rid of. I might end up just sideboarding it though, it might be too cute in the main. What do you think I should be taking out for a Barbarian Ring when I want that package?


Personally I like Tarmogoyf better than Mandrills but you will see that Mandrills improves your % against Elves if you play enough games (although having a whopping 6 removal spells in your SB definitely makes trample less relevant)

I think that at least where I'm playing Mandrills is better, as there's a lot of elves and a lot of copies of Young Pyromancer. At the very least, I've liked it better, but I'm definitely open to testing with Tarmogoyf more as I know there's a reason other people prefer it.




EDIT: As I don't want to double post, yesterday I saw someone playing Sulfuric Vortex in their RUG sideboard. It did some serious work for them, and I believe they top 8'd. Any thoughts on it? Card seems sweet if not a little hard to cast, but I can't imagine it's bad against quite a few of the slower decks in the format. Jace lines up horrendously against a resolved Vortex, for example.

[kombatkiwi]

Considering my Mandrills RUG list (with probes) and looking for additional ways to hedge against control matchups, I feel like Sylvan Library and Honden are both lackluster as techs (mostly so since I do not play Goyf). I also do not like TNN since they cost 3. Would Young Pyro be a good addition to the SB (2 of) in that regard? How about Search for Azcanta?

How do you guys play the Lands matchup?

Thanks, so far your comments have been very enlightening.
1. What does Sylvan or Honden have to do with Goyf?
2. Why do you dislike Sylvan Library but are interested in Azcanta?
3. Azcanta is still 'effectively' a 3 drop, like TNN, because you need 3 other lands in play to activate it
4. What does young Pyro do that you are interested in, what matchup do you want it for?

[TheManWithaPlan]

Considering my Mandrills RUG list (with probes) and looking for additional ways to hedge against control matchups, I feel like Sylvan Library and Honden are both lackluster as techs (mostly so since I do not play Goyf). I also do not like TNN since they cost 3. Would Young Pyro be a good addition to the SB (2 of) in that regard? How about Search for Azcanta?

How do you guys play the Lands matchup?

Thanks, so far your comments have been very enlightening.
Sylvan Library is insane in grindy matchups in general. The long term filtering eventually will turn into virtual card advantage very much like what Sensei's Divining Top did for Counter Top Miracles, and that is just the minimum that Sylvan Library does. Sylvan Library can just draw you extra cards over the course of a game, given it is at a little pricey, but the extra cards can net you a massive advantage. That said, I strongly suggest playing Sylvan Library in the sideboard.

Also side note, I may be playing some higher level events soon with Canadian Threshold, so I might write a report if anyone wants to hear my experiences with the Mandrills build.

[ronin87]

They both get bopped by swords, this is not really an important consideration.

I agree that no anti-control cards seems rough (and with only mongoose as shroud creatures this will make the lands matchup harder)
I don't like Submerge as an answer for Marit Lage because good opponents will always play around it as much as possible by not playing Forests (e.g. I think the GB Turbo lists are playing Blooming Marsh specifically for this reason)
I think if you aren't playing Goyf (so you don't care about different card types and therefore aren't interested in Seal of Fire or Tarfire) then Dead/Gone is a good card, it's better at answering DRS than Submerge (I don't mind boarding in 1 Forked Bolt vs DRS decks even though I expect it to be Sorcery Shock a lot of the time).

Also props to 'TBR87' on modo for going 5-0 with the Honden tech

Creature (11)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Tarmogoyf
Sorcery (4)
4 Ponder
Instant (25)
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
Enchantment (1)
1 Seal of Fire
Land (18)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
Tribal instant (1)
1 Tarfire
60 Cards

Sideboard (15)
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Dismember
2 Flusterstorm
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ground Seal
1 Honden of Infinite Rage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroblast
1 Rough // Tumble
1 Surgical Extraction
1 True-Name Nemesis

Hi all, tbr87 here. I managed to get another 5-0 with the exact same list yesterday. I play occasionally but I usually get 2-4 wins per league. I would like to share my thoughts after my recent success and see how else I can improve the deck, especially the sideboard. My matchups for both 5-0s are as follows:

DNT
UW Stoneblade with Back to basics
Omni-show
Grixis Delver
Grixis Delver

Eldrazi Post
Jund
Eldrazi Stompy (Eldrazi Mimic & Matter Reshaper) with Cloudpost
RB Reanimator (with Young Pyromancer/Stronghold Gambit in Sideboard)
Aluren

Here are my thoughts on specific cards in my main deck. Please feel free to post your opinions:

Tarmogoyf is overall a better main deck card than Mandrils with the inclusion of Seal of Fire/Tarfire removal package. Being able to outgrow opposing Gurmag Anglers and Reality Smashers is quite relevant against popular decks like Grixis and Eldrazi. Against other random matchups like Burn/Prison it is an efficient beat stick with a fast clock (countering artifacts/enchantments is common enough for Goyf to grow to a 5/6 or 6/7 versus random decks). While I recognize the strength of Mandrils against Abrupt Decay and Fatal Push, there isn't a large number of these cards in the current meta and Delver of Secrets already dies to those cards. Nimble Mongoose shines in those match-ups and the Goyfs can be sideboarded out for TNN/removal. Also I find the anti-synergy of Mandrils + Mongoose rather distasteful, especially since I view Nimble Mongoose as the MVP card against removal-heavy decks.

I like the Tarfire/Seal of Fire mix because I am playing 3 Pierce so the sorcery speed removal hurts.

I also like the idea of Dead/Gone in the main deck against opposing Dark Depths decks but I still prefer the "Grow Goyf" removal package overall.

Spell Snare is amazing in this meta and should definitely not be cut. It is also great against Edict effects post-board.

I dislike Gitaxian Probe because the life loss is relevant against Grixis and your general game plan against all decks is always the same: Use your soft counters to prevent your opponents from developing the board, stick a threat and use your burn spells for reach/ creature removal. You don't have synergistic cards like Young Pyromancer or Cabal Therapy in your deck to generate additional value.

The meta I face on MTGO is quite varied. I see Storm, Burn, Midrange, Delver, Reanimator, Dredge, Merfolk, DnT, Elves, Miracles, Lands etc in the leagues. This makes me reluctant to add Dismember to the main deck.



Here are my thoughts on specific cards in my sideboard. I am still looking to optimize my sideboard so please feel free to post your opinions:

Ground Seal is great. It stops the late game value of snapcaster mage, deathrite shaman, life from the loam, kolaghan's command AND it draws you a card. It's also difficult to counter and remove other than Abrupt Decay. I am always glad to board it in against any grindy decks to stop them from out-valuing you. It also comes in against Reanimator.

Honden of Infinite Rage is tech taken from kombatkiwi. It is supposed to ping Baleful Strix and other small creatures and is also an alternate win-con that plays around creature removal. But it is quite a slow card and has not been very relevant in the 10 matches I played. I still like it though so I'll continue testing it out.

Grafdigger's Cage/ Surgical Extraction: Currently 2/1 split instead of 1/2 split because I respect Dredge decks. Cage is still good against GSZ & ANT as well.

2 Flusterstorm: Because even with 2 Cage and 3 Pierce I find myself disadvantaged against the good Storm pilots

Rough/Tumble is still a great one-sided wrath even though it hits your own TNN but it doesn't kill theirs:mad: I would love to find a way to squeeze in another one of these.

TNN is great I would love another one but he's currently 70 tix on MTGO :frown:

Pithing Needle is a great catch-all card especially against Lands, BG depths, DnT and the card attacks from a different angle.

Ancient Grudge/ Destructive Revelry: Playing a 1/1 split to deal with pesky enchantments like Counterbalance/Carpet of Flowers/Blood Moon. I am unsure if I should increase the count of artifact removal due to limited Sideboard space. Also, I don't see how Abrade is better than Ancient Grudge. What kind of match-ups are good where the flexibility of Abrade is better? Stoneforge decks? I guess it could replace Dismember but I still find it useful against Gurmag Anglers/Eldrazi.

Life from the Loam/Sylvan Library/Chart a Course/Predict: My experience with these cards is that they take a long time to generate value and do not provide an immediate impact on the board, which is generally what I am look for in my sideboard cards. Additional card draw in RUG is not as powerful compared to other decks as our cards are less powerful and we do not need that many lands to cast our spells. Drawing additional dazes/stifles/lands doesn't feel very good. I prefer boarding in cards that are a must-answer for the opponent once deployed. Loam is probably good against other Wasteland decks but I still find it clunky in actual games.

I would love to somehow fit in a bounce spell in the sideboard against Marit Lange decks. Seems like Vapor Snag, Perilous Voyage and Dead/Gone are the better choices out there currently.



I would love hear more feedback and alternative card choices to optimize RUG delver. I recognize that Grixis Delver is the deck with more raw power, but I enjoy the sleek efficiency of RUG and playing with Stifle & Nimble Mongoose.

[kombatkiwi]

I like the idea of Ground Seal but I dislike that it turns off my own LftL
I think that LftL provides a different angle to something like predict because continuously recurring wasteland can be a legit wincon in certain matchups and I like the combo with Barbarian Ring.
I don't really like Rough/Tumble either but apart from that I agree with pretty much everything you say.

I thought I found the nut answer for Dark Depths: Fog Bank, except the GB Turbo version still has Sejiri Steppe to attack past it (and against RG they can obviously Punishing Fire it). And then how do you win if your opponent just leaves Marit Lage in play? Wait to draw TNN? What a stupid idea

If you want a dedicated anti-Lage card I think Dead/Gone is the best option I have seen, obviously Vapor Snag is better against exactly Lage but Shock is playable in other matchups

[wcm8]

Yeah Fog Bank is terrible; perhaps worth considering at :1::u: though is Gilded Drake as it can also be brought in against Reanimator and Emrakul decks. If you wanted a Fog effect, I'd suggest instead running Constant Mists or perhaps Moment's Peace. Unlikely, but maybe even Dawnstrider.

I *love* how amazing Ground Seal is against 4C-Control. And it even cantrips! Definitely a card I hadn't considered playing for awhile. I would still backup your GY hate with a few copies of Grafdigger's Cage and/or Surgical Extraction.

Honden of Infinite Rage has been nice as a slower Sulfuric Vortex that also pings X/1 critters. Especially useful against Baleful Strix, and against DnT or Elves. I've had plenty of games where it comes down to just needing a few extra points of damage, where Honden is able to close out.

[Turboninja]

1. What does Sylvan or Honden have to do with Goyf?
2. Why do you dislike Sylvan Library but are interested in Azcanta?
3. Azcanta is still 'effectively' a 3 drop, like TNN, because you need 3 other lands in play to activate it
4. What does young Pyro do that you are interested in, what matchup do you want it for?

1. If they are countered, they grow Goyf. Might be irrelevant.
2. Sylvan hurts with Probes and Dismember, and Search for Azcanta fills my graveyard with its scry.
3. No need to flip it right away, I feel like it can help you filter your draws until eventually you flip it.
4. Against Miracles, Czech and Grixis. Any deck with plenty of removal.

Overall, I feel like Search for Azcanta might fill a similar role to Sylvan, while being more appropriate with Probe and Mandrills.

[FiliusIcari]

4. Against Miracles, Czech and Grixis. Any deck with plenty of removal.

I believe this is Mongoose's role in our deck, and after that TNN if you want it. I don't think the current build really needs more of it, because Pyromancer still has all the current problems that Goose does(board wipes, blockers). You could probably try a recent Grixis Delver style build of RUG where you play actual 15 threats with like 4/4/3/2/2 of Delver, Goose, Goyf, Pyromancer, TNN. I can't imagine it'll be any better than current builds, but it would be a pain in the ass for people to deal with.

[Mr. Safety]

I like the idea of Ground Seal but I dislike that it turns off my own LftL
I think that LftL provides a different angle to something like predict because continuously recurring wasteland can be a legit wincon in certain matchups and I like the combo with Barbarian Ring.
I don't really like Rough/Tumble either but apart from that I agree with pretty much everything you say.

I thought I found the nut answer for Dark Depths: Fog Bank, except the GB Turbo version still has Sejiri Steppe to attack past it (and against RG they can obviously Punishing Fire it). And then how do you win if your opponent just leaves Marit Lage in play? Wait to draw TNN? What a stupid idea

If you want a dedicated anti-Lage card I think Dead/Gone is the best option I have seen, obviously Vapor Snag is better against exactly Lage but Shock is playable in other matchups

Repeal? U, draw a card, kill target Marit Lage. Paying 1U isn't out of the question for 1-drops either. Not sure the draw is more important than the Dead/Gone potential, but it is more mana efficient for Depths specifically.

[kombatkiwi]

I believe this is Mongoose's role in our deck, and after that TNN if you want it. I don't think the current build really needs more of it, because Pyromancer still has all the current problems that Goose does(board wipes, blockers).

^ This

Repeal is a good catch compared to Vapor Snag but I think the versatility of Dead/Gone might still be better for the general metagame.

In the matchups where you want Sylvan Library but the lifeloss is relevant your opponent will be playing Wasteland which negates Azcanta anyway.
Saying that 'you don't have to flip it right away and can just let it filter your draws' is technically true, but this is a really underwhelming payoff for committing 1 card and 2 mana.
Then in matchups where your manabase and life total aren't being pressured Azcanta could be good, but this is the exact situation where Sylvan Library is great.
I haven't tested Azcanta much (in this deck) so I could be wrong but this is my initial impression.

[themtgzealot]

Can I get a summary of matchups, and spots where dead/gone was good

Only just saw this can't remember too many details but I played against

D&T x2, Turbo Depths, Aluren, Sneak and Show and Czech Pile.

Dead was very good as it can kill all the problem creatures like Thalia, Deathrite etc, but gone was very useful highlights were bouncing marit lage, griselbrand and also Gurmag anglers.

[Turboninja]

^ This

Repeal is a good catch compared to Vapor Snag but I think the versatility of Dead/Gone might still be better for the general metagame.

In the matchups where you want Sylvan Library but the lifeloss is relevant your opponent will be playing Wasteland which negates Azcanta anyway.
Saying that 'you don't have to flip it right away and can just let it filter your draws' is technically true, but this is a really underwhelming payoff for committing 1 card and 2 mana.
Then in matchups where your manabase and life total aren't being pressured Azcanta could be good, but this is the exact situation where Sylvan Library is great.
I haven't tested Azcanta much (in this deck) so I could be wrong but this is my initial impression.

Ok you make fair points. How about this sideboard for my Hooting Mandrills list:

SB:
2 Pyroblast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ground Seal
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Sylvan Library
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Submerge
1 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Dismember
1 Dead // Gone
2 Rough // Tumble

Edit: I really want to keep one dismember for Eldrazi, Gurmag and Goyf matchups. Maybe 2 Pyroblasts is too few against TNN decks. Since I went down one Abrade to fit another Rough // Tumble, I changed the other Abrade for Ancient Grudge to keep my artifact removal count up.

[Grizzly_Bear]

Ground Seal is great. It stops the late game value of snapcaster mage, deathrite shaman, life from the loam, kolaghan's command AND it draws you a card. It's also difficult to counter and remove other than Abrupt Decay. I am always glad to board it in against any grindy decks to stop them from out-valuing you. It also comes in against Reanimator.

My bolding.

Is this really true?
I am not a rules expert, but I did not consider Loam to be the "target" of any effect when dredgeing. Therefore I would assume that Ground Seal doesn't interact with Loam at all.
Anyone with more insight may feel free to explain to me exactly how this work, if it works. Thanks.