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Personally, my friend and I have been running Sulfur's in the main. They're more relevant than they seem for dodging counterspells, killing D&T, getting around Counterbalance/trumping Mentor, and killing Planeswalkers with psuedo-haste (EoT casting.)
We've kept running it since it hasn't screwed us; although normally it's just an odd beater instead of a game-changer.
Decklist is a few posts up for reference :)Quote:
Originally Posted by fluuu
Running the same list with the exeption of Skeletal over Painful and a Disfigure over the Ghaslty in board, due to not wanting to rely on graveyardsize while playing Skeletal.
Can you post your current 75 please?Quote:
Originally Posted by JosephK
I've been playing around with grixis control for the past 6 months or so (absolutely love young pyromancer and cabal therapy), but I've found I've had issues with basically running out of gas with the deck. I decided to take a page out of Philipp Schönegger's book after his post about show and tell with stone blade last month. I've had pretty good results in playtesting on MTGO and at local tournaments with this deck and was wondering if you guys had any thoughts.
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Griselbrand
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Counterspell
1 Spell Pierce
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Show and Tell
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
Sideboard:
1 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroblast
1 Spell Pierce
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Null Rod
2 Pyroclasm
2 Blood Moon
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Murderous Cut
The manabase is suboptimal because I do not own Scalding Tarns at the moment and I'm not solid on the sideboard yet.
hello there! longtime grixis/rug delver player here. id been playing grixis delver a lot recently, and have been having a pretty high level of success with that deck, which led me to want to try slightly new things. this deck has peaked my interest, due to its vastly improved matchup against lands due to the inclusion of the blood moons in the sideboard. i took a non-optimal list due my lgs a few weeks ago and ended with a 2-2 record.
this saturday, i took a what i consider complete list to the lgs and went 3-1. the list was very similar to the finnish masters (?) winner:
2x underground sea
2x volcanic island
2x tropical island
1x badland
4x polluted delta
4x flooded strand (should be steam vents, but i dont have them; in my 8 rounds of tournament play it hasnt mattered once)
2x bloodstained mire
1x island
1 x swap
4x young pyromancer
2x snapcaster mage
1x true-name nemesis
1x tasigur
4x deathrite shaman
4x ponder
4x brainstorm
3x cabal therapy
3x gitaxian probe
1x spell snare
4x force of will
4x lightning bolt
2x abrupt decay
2x painful truths
2x JTMS
SB:
1x pyroblast
1x REB
1x engineered explosives
1x diabloic edict
1x murderous cut
1x rakdos charm
1x pithing needle
1x null rod
2x blood moon
2x surgical extraction
1x flusterstorm
1x envelop
1x ob nixilis
R1- affinitty (with tezz) 2-1 [1-0]
Game one, im able to destroy his manabase with double abrupt decay and win pretty easily after. I think he also mulliganed. Game two was close, he pulls way ahead early. I stabilize and start to come back on low life with an active deathrite. He pulls a tezz and has just the right amount of artifacts (4) to get me even with a deathrite activation that turn. Game three, I get a YP going early and draw two cabal therapies before he can completely dump his hand and its game. I didnt side in blood moon game 2, but I think that was a mistake and they came in game 3 (though i didnt draw them).
R2- charbelcher 0-2 [1-1]
I dont know what hes on, and i draw a hand without force of will. He wins the die roll and goes off with belcher turn one. Game two I draw a pithing needle, Fow, envelop, and cabal therapy, so Im feeling pretty good. I open turn one with needle on belcher. His hand was amazing (which I see because he land grants). He had the perfect mana to keep me from disrupting his combo with a fow because he was holding pyroblast. He ends up with 16 goblin tokens, and i cant come back.
R3- burn 2-0 [2-1]
He comes out quickly and gets me low before he is hellbent and i stabilize. A deathrite shaman gains me 6-8 life over the course of this game and I win it at 1 life. He definitely should have killed the deathrite, and he made a couple other bad plays (i remember he searing blazed by deathrite for one when he had a steam vents in play). We ran out of creatures in the gy, but the turn before i can kill him i draw a jace and fateseal a bloodstained mire to the top of his library. It was a long one wherein we both drew a bunch of lands.
Game two
I get an early yp and draw a couple cabal therapies and wrap it up fairly quickly. Dont remember much about this one.
R4- Lands with EE main [3-1]
He draws two EEs and keeps my creatures off board for a bit. He makes a mistake and sets one of the EEs at 3 preemptively. I draw a YP and get 4-5 tokens which start beating him up. He has a punishing fire going, but it cant keep up with my YP who gets replaced, and his PF gets countered at least once. He was moving back into control of the game, but I snagged it before he could get rid of the YP tokens.
Game two, painful truths draws me into double FOW and surgical when he is about to go crazy with double loam. He goes hellbent with his loams removed and nothing that meaningful on board. I think some combination of YP and deathrite shaman finish him off relatively quickly after.
I wrote this without my notes, so I apologize for lack of detail/ any inaccuracy (if my opponents are reading this). hopefully ill have another one of these next week.
overall thoughts: painful truths did a lot of work for me this time around. it was even really good against affinity one of the games. i ran kolghans command the first tourney and liked the deck better without it. tasigur is neat in theory, but he was never activated in either tourney; i think i might sub him out for an angler or a strix. everything else felt pretty good. ob nixilis never did anything, but ive yet to play miracles, so i may keep him in the board. i think the deck is definitely weaker than the delver variants, as delver helps you steal a lot of games early, but the midrange/control build def has its advantages. JTMS, blood moon, and painful truths all make the grindier games much more advantageous.
I am playing a deverless delver list currently and would like some opinions. Have had pretty good success online, 50/50 Miracles and Shardless Matchup, Great delver/stoneblade matchup, no testing against Death and Taxes, horrible Lands Matchup, very little testing with Combo, but currently not looking very good haha!!! Any advice is very appreciated.
Creatures:
4x Young Pyromancer
4x Snapcaster Mage
2x True-Name Nemesis
1x Gurmag Angler
1x Baleful Strix
Spells:
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Gitaxian Probe
1x Painful Truths
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
1x Counterspell
4x Force of Will
1x Kolaghan's Command
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Spell Snare
2x Terminate
Lands:
1x Badlands
2x Volcanic Island
2x Underground Sea
3x Island
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Polluted Delta
1x Ghost Quarter/Wasteland
Sideboard:
2x Grim Lavamancer
1x Izzet Staticaster
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Flusterstorm
1x Rakdos Charm
1x Surgical Extraction
2x Pyroblast
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Pithing Needle
2x Blood Moon
I would consider running a Jace, the Mind Scuptor or two. Its a great threat that can easily help you stabilize a bunch of board states. If you're having trouble with storm, I'd consider trying to working in an increased number of spell pierce, flusterstorm, and/or surgical extraction into your list. You should be able to easy land a single threat and then sit back with counter magic and therapies while your storm opponent fails to assemble a combo.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...15191ea40d.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...f48f794428.jpg
This is my latest list, considering this for GP Columbus and E weekend, thoughts?
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What’s the card under the Jaces?
UndermineQuote:
Originally Posted by now
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Looks solid to me, but I have a few questions. How much better is Undermine than Countersquall from your testing? Is MD Pyroblast worth it? And what's your plan against Counterbalance? Has the 1-of Explosives out of the been enough alongside your counters?
I played 4-5 games tonight against a local miracles player looking to get better, won all except 1. Best card in the deck was Painful Truths. Probably want a 2nd card in the SB to beat CB.
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That's good to hear, and it looks like you've got a solid plan against everything else. Painful Truths has been great in every UBx control deck where I've tried it except BUG, and I think that's mostly due to me not having enough 1-mana removal in those colors. Is the Unearth just there as a value play?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon
How did you like my Unearth Tech?
I always like Unearth, it may be better as a reanimate but meh. Also need to put moons in the bosrd.
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I am considering buying into this deck and I was wondering how the Eldrazi match up goes? How is Blood Moon do in the SB?
Thanks guys!
Young Pyros matter a lot. Dismembers are game changers. Daze is pretty alright. Gurmag Angler is quite good here.Quote:
Originally Posted by deaded
I main a couple Kolaghan's to deal with Artifacts now myself, but someone may have a better solution. It's also decent against Shardless to undo their CA since you can nuke two obnoxious (non goyf) dudes in a go.
That's basically what it boils down to. You can add things like Liliana in the side to help grind, though Hymn may be better since their draws are terrible.
I generally drift between decks, but I noticed that Gerry Thompson got 16th at GP Columbus with a Grixis control deck. I'm sure that wasn't the result he was going for, but (to my mind) variance plays a role, Gerry T has more than enough of a reputation to get a punter like myself to netdeck his decks, and it isn't (after all) a shabby finish.
I worked on Grixis Control a lot during the DTT era, but wasn't able to get it working. Somehow, Miracles always remained a tough matchup... so obviously I must have been doing something wrong. I figured that if I couldn't win with this thing when it was powered with DTT and had tier 1 status, I couldn't possibly win with it now.
I sleeved it up, and feeling it was quite strong, took it to a local tournament with no practice at all. Went 3-0, ID'ed 2 rounds, and promptly misplayed myself into oblivion in the semifinals: having Angler vs. Goyf superiority 4/5 vs. 5/5, I Pyroblasted my opponent's Baleful Strix, putting his Goyf over the edge before suffering a Force on my Lightning Bolt when I attempted to block and kill it. Having Painful Truths in hand, and my opponent out of gas except for the Force (which I'd seen from a Therapy a few turns before)... there were numerous plays I could have made that would not have resulted in my losing the game.
It is a hard deck to play well, but I feel that the value is definitely there, with Pyromancer + Therapy walking me through many matchups. I don't know how this list seems to have escaped notice to a large extent because it takes a pretty special pile of cards to get a scrub like me shaking hands and slinging Modern into the top 8. I wish I could thank Gerry directly for releasing this sweet stack of expensive cardboard: it's a little like Shardless but with zero hoops to jump through for the value.
After all, what would you rather have for three mana, Shardless Agent into Hymn to Tourach or Young Pyromancer + Cabal Therapy.
EDIT BELOW
Well, it's been some time now and with school out for the summer (I'm a teacher), I've had time a jam a bunch of games against all kinds of folks. The deck is the real deal, and the top 8 was not a fluke at all. I have begun to personalize the deck in a way that might make it worse overall, as I'm no Gerry Thompson planning for a GP, but which may be better for my particular metagame.
Here's Gerry's original decklist: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/430174#online
...how anyone can look at that 75 and not be overcome with the desire to play it is beyond me.
Here's what's happened so far. I tried the singleton Daze, I really did. I played having no real clue what it was for, and I was not able to figure out what it was for during the course of play (unless it was just blue count, which can be an issue). As I'm trying to play Jace in this deck, the Daze came up as a candidate for removal.
Speaking of Jace, well, I love the guy and even won a few games with his ultimate (and of course plenty with his Brainstorm). I have enjoyed Unsummon on a stick as well, and I've pitched a few to Force of Will (with a sigh, of course). However, with Wasteland and the Daze, and of course no basic lands at all, I have sometimes struggled to get him into play at all. Against other tempo decks, he's been an all-star (winning more games than he got Dazed). Against Miracles, he's been nice but it's hard to keep him alive against a stream of Pyroblasts. Against Nic Fit, he's been hilariously overpowered, but who cares about that MU? I think it's a pretty mixed bag.
I am also of the opinion that 4 Wasteland in this deck may be a tad greedy, since it is running walkers and 3 mana sorceries. Savvy opponents aim for the black mana, and I have been threatened with being cut off the color a couple of times (one time actually cut off the color).
The first round of adjustments to the deck I've made are:
-1 Daze
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-1 Wasteland
+1 Cabal Therapy (freeing a SB slot)
+2 Liliana of the Veil
+1 Creeping Tar Pit
SB: +1 Garruk Relentless
My local meta has a lot of Miracles, DnT, and BUG Delver. The combo decks are Sneaky Show (mostly) and ANT (rarely).
A lot of people who don't know me very well see a few cards from this deck and assume that it's Grixis Delver and I just didn't draw my Delver yet. This causes them to play around Daze: so why should I bother to actually have the card that they're playing around? On the other hand, Cabal Therapy as a 4-of means I can freely fire the first one whenever I want, even T1 with Young Pyromancer in hand. While I'm no Gerry T, my Therapies usually do hit. Young Pyromancer and 1 Therapy (and no Probe) is going to take a key card, maybe 2 at the outside. Young Pyromancer and 2 Therapies, on the other hand, is a straight Mind Twist, I have yet to encounter a hand that has survived with anything relevant after I have done this to it. Furthermore, there's a ton of DnT in my meta, and Therapy can really take the wind out of their sails. I've beaten Mother of Runes draws via Shaman drains and Elemental army swings, the little white guys aren't so tough without their toys. The card was in the board anyway and already a 3-of in the deck, so I don't think this change it too extreme.
The exchange of Jace for Liliana, on the other hand, is more radical. Really, it was a mana cost issue as well as a Miracles issue. My meta is simply infested with Miracles, and they can deal with a Jace easily (especially if they have a Countertop active). She's far from dead against tempo as well, in which matchups she's arguably better. She can kill Eldrazi too, though I haven't had the pleasure of doing this yet. I think T2 Liliana is more backbreaking than T3 Jace, and I really didn't relish those hard choices of Wasteland or keep hitting land drops to play Jace.
The problem is that a lot of the deck's sideboard cards are very strong, reactive cards and Liliana's +1 is awkward. A hand of Pyroblast, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman is not a comfortable tick up against a Miracles player with lands, no hand, and a Top: but do you not want to threaten the ultimate and wipe out that frightening Entreat the Angels manabase? On the other hand, most other decks give plenty of -2 opportunities that can be used to stockpile a useless land or other card for the tick ups... and with Elemental tokens as well as Baleful Strix providing such great defense against tempo creatures (especially BUG) while Liliana ticks away, I still think she's worth it despite the pain.
The Garruk Relentless is a testament to just how many Miracles players I have to deal with on a daily basis, and this guy has won games all by himself against Top, Counterbalance, Blood Moon, and an active Jace (against an opponent with 5 life, but I digress). I'd always wanted to play this guy, and almost played Xenagos the Reveler instead, and received final inspiration from the Brainstorm Show's Shardless BUG episode: their Shardless list features a Garruk Relentless, and the episode explains all the matchups it's good in. It should probably not be here, and it's doubtful that a sideboard slot is warranted on such a ridiculous walker castable only off of the 1-of Trop. However, as I've yet to lose with him in play, and as he actively draws consternation from my endless series of Miracles opponents, he passes testing session 2.
Any advice or assistance on this deck would be highly appreciated. This thing is great!
I, too, was inspired by Gerry's list and took a modified version of it to my FNM last night and 3-0d despite making potentially game-losing mistakes in each match - the deck bailed me out. I'll get to my list in a second, but I had questions for Lormador.
- This deck wants to cantrip and Cabal Therapy its way to victory with Young Pyromancer and/or beat down with Gurmag Angler. The Pyro kill requires a critical mass of spells in hand, so do you find that Liliana hinders your ability to hang onto resources to crank out Elementals? If you like Liliana - and I can definitely understand why - I might try shaving one Angler and running perhaps two Snapcaster Mages, especially with 20 lands. With Snapcaster you can run more fun-ofs, too.
- I've considered going down to 3 Wastelands as well. Do you find yourself activating Creeping Tar Pit very often? Even 20 lands with 3 Wastelands seems light to run a land that requires so much investment. Plus this deck has some tempo plays like T1 Shaman-into-T2 Pyro/Probe/Therapy, so an ETB-tapped land could severely hamper those openers. But if the juice is worth the squeeze, I'm all ears.
- I also thought about running Garruk Relentless. In which other matchups do you bring it in? I can imagine it being good against Shardless BUG, for example; it kills their non-Goyf threats, and you can sacrifice Wolves to find Gurmag Angler (or True-Name Nemesis, if you run it).
- Is Invasive Surgery worth it? Against Miracles, they're exiling or bottom-decking all your threats, so you'll rarely have creatures in the graveyard. With Lili, though, it's certainly easier to enable Delirium.
Anyways, here's what I ran last night to beat Death and Taxes, DeathBlade, and Eldrazi:
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix
3 Young Pyromancer
1 True-Name Nemesis
2 Gurmag Angler
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
1 Painful Truths
1 Spell Snare
1 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
4 Wasteland
// sideboard //
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Pyroblast
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Some thoughts:
- TNN was an absolute all-star last night. It single-handedly won me three games, including a game where my opponent landed his own Merfolk Rogue before me. And it makes for an easy one-for-one sideboard swap with Vendilion Clique against combo.
- 19 lands felt good, even when I boarded in the second Jace against DeathBlade; however, if I were to play the second Jace maindeck as well as the second Painful Truths, I'd run the 20th land.
- 13 threats in the maindeck (including Jace) also seemed solid. If I were to add one more, it would most likely be the fourth Pyromancer even though it's a poor topdeck. But I don't think it's necessary.
- The Spell Pierce was the 60th card and unimpressive in these (admittedly fair) matches. That's my flex slot right now. I'm open to all kinds of suggestions for it.
- Izzet Staticaster almost singe-handedly won me game 3 against Death and Taxes. I waffled over whether that should be a Fire Covenant, but, for now, the recursive pinger gets the nod. The sideboard in general was extremely powerful against last night's lineup, notably Ancient Grudge.
I'm considering a deeper green splash so I can run two Abrupt Decays maindeck instead of the 1/1 split. It did a lot of work for me yesterday, destroying everything from pesky creatures to Umezawa's Jitte to Chalice of the Void (and Endless One!). If so, I would make these changes:
-1 Wasteland, -1 Dismember (to sideboard), -1 Spell Pierce
+1 Tropical Island, +1 Abrupt Decay (from sideboard), +1 Sylvan Library
Losing a Wasteland makes Deathrite and Angler slightly worse, but the tradeoff would be opening up more green cards like Lormador's suggested Garruk Relentless. What do you guys think of that?
Thanks for reading!
EDIT: After some testing, the two Tropical Island/two maindeck Abrupt Decay plan is too greedy, so I'm going to return to my 1/1 split with one Trop. I will indeed shave a Wasteland, though, and replace it with a ninth fetchland.
Gerry talks a little about his list on his podcast, The GAM Podcast. It's episode 4.
Edit: listened again, he doesn't say much. He basically says that the 1 daze is wrong, and that he probably should have just played another deck.