[Deck] Grixis Tempo

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Delvis

Well, all I can tell you is my experience, and my experience has been the exact opposite of theirs. I hold Stifles for Storm triggers very often and I haven't dropped a match to Storm with Stifles in my deck. I don't know if that's because I'm doing other things better or just because I know where to place my countermagic very effectively, but when I sit down across from Storm I breathe a big sigh of relief.

---

On Stifle, I think it's similar to Mindbreak Trap. As another guy who has played against Storm in a variety of decks I can say that when I tried Mindbreak; it was garbage sometimes; but occasionally I could hide it or bluff it because it's *not* amazing. Then they walk into it because they didn't have discard to check and it's GG.

Basically, Stifle is a hard counter that they will only call on Therapy if you've given it away or they have multiple discard. I'd not be shy about stifling a Fetch I guess, but I'm firmly in the camp that "more interaction is better than less interaction."


It's a false dichotomy IMO to say "Flusterstorm vs. Stifle", as one is a mainboard slot and the other is a sideboard slot. If you have Fluster in the board, have both in the deck. Cut a threat (depending how many you run) or Waste #4 IMO



EDIT: Do remember that the Storm players are speaking from a victory-bias perspective; remembering the times they just called stifle and blew out the other guy. They DO get hands where they lack discard and you're going to kill them, so they just go for it.

Any thoughts on general SB strategy for the typical sb build? I find myself struggling with when to bring in cabal therapy in the less obvious matchups such as delver and shardless, which I've heard about people doing from time to time. Also been running 2 decay in the SB for a while and trying to figure out if I want to keep doing that given having only one trop in the deck.

I updated my sideboard and added Virtue's Ruin instead of Dread of Night:

1x Pithing Needle
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Invasive Surgery
1x Pyroblast
1x Hydroblast
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Krosan Grip
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Tropical Island

Reason for that is actually Monastery Mentor mostly: I just still lose to a mentor on an empty board pretty quickly, even after investing a sideboard card, also it leaves me open to a 2-for-1 for the Miracles side with Wear/Tear on it and Pithing Needle, that just sucks!
So what I'm pretty much giving up is a card that I can't eventually cast in Death and Taxes when there's Rishadan Port/Thalia out and I don't have enough lands. Given that even there it can also be better at times because it just kills of Serra Avengers, active Stoneforges etc. I really think I like that choice.
It also seems like an actually boardable card against 4c-Loam now (they have KotR and board in Thalia most of the times) and Maverick, it also destroys Angels from Miracles.

I remember seeing this card in Grixis Delver lists at least half a year ago and thinking "this guy propably doesn't know that Dread of Night" exists, but now I'm actually now that sure. Both accomplish the main mission of killing Thalia and Mother of Runes, the downside of the higher mana cost seems ok with an additional land in the board plus DRS.

Has anybody Experience with Virtue's Ruin's against Death & Taxes? That's mostly what I'm concerned about. And yes I tried Fire Covenant and while it's nice and the lifeloss would be ok because it only comes in against slow decks anyways it doesn't accomplish killing Mother of Runes which is a goal I wanted to have for this sideboard slot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Agrippa91

I updated my sideboard and added Virtue's Ruin instead of Dread of Night:

1x Pithing Needle
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Invasive Surgery
1x Pyroblast
1x Hydroblast
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Krosan Grip
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Tropical Island

Reason for that is actually Monastery Mentor mostly: I just still lose to a mentor on an empty board pretty quickly, even after investing a sideboard card, also it leaves me open to a 2-for-1 for the Miracles side with Wear/Tear on it and Pithing Needle, that just sucks!
So what I'm pretty much giving up is a card that I can't eventually cast in Death and Taxes when there's Rishadan Port/Thalia out and I don't have enough lands. Given that even there it can also be better at times because it just kills of Serra Avengers, active Stoneforges etc. I really think I like that choice.
It also seems like an actually boardable card against 4c-Loam now (they have KotR and board in Thalia most of the times) and Maverick, it also destroys Angels from Miracles.

I remember seeing this card in Grixis Delver lists at least half a year ago and thinking "this guy propably doesn't know that Dread of Night" exists, but now I'm actually now that sure. Both accomplish the main mission of killing Thalia and Mother of Runes, the downside of the higher mana cost seems ok with an additional land in the board plus DRS.

Has anybody Experience with Virtue's Ruin's against Death & Taxes? That's mostly what I'm concerned about. And yes I tried Fire Covenant and while it's nice and the lifeloss would be ok because it only comes in against slow decks anyways it doesn't accomplish killing Mother of Runes which is a goal I wanted to have for this sideboard slot.

---

Virtue's Ruin is obviously good since you sweep one side of the board. But as you said you proberly need to pay up 4 mana becouse of Thalia and you won't hit the Germ token carrying the Batterskull.
Also getting hit by their other land hate will give you a hard time actually casting it. It's a good sweep but you need to be aware that it's clunky. The moment you fall behind you proberly won't be able to cast it.
I used the card for a bit to hit on both Meaveric and D&T. Swapped it over to Perish, that later turned into the second Submerge. But this is more of a local meta thing I guess since there is not much D&T around here where I play, and more big scary green things running around.

Why is there a Hydroblast on the side? I tried one for a little while but didn't like it. It doesn't seem to hit anything major apart from Sneak Attack and a bit of burn/goblins.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ltj999

Any thoughts on general SB strategy for the typical sb build? I find myself struggling with when to bring in cabal therapy in the less obvious matchups such as delver and shardless, which I've heard about people doing from time to time. Also been running 2 decay in the SB for a while and trying to figure out if I want to keep doing that given having only one trop in the deck.

---

The reason why I have the additional Tropical in my build is because while Abrupt Decay is a great card our mana just doesn't allow it really to be sideboarded against decks like Delver and other Goyf decks which is just a big upside you can get. Tarmogoyf is a problem for this deck since it's like the only creature that stops Young Pyro that can't be bolted, often forcing us to chump-block, not being able to accumulate an army. Also the extra land is really nice against mana denial decks like Delver-, Trinisphere- and Thalia-Decks.

In general I only bring Cabal Therapy in against Combo (also Elves) or slow midrange decks (Shardless, Jund, Goblins). Hitting with it in a delver-mirror is nice, but too often it's a dead card there. Stifle is just a better card there imo, vs BUG "Hymn" Delver it also serves the purpose of keeping the opponent off BB for Hymn to Tourach.
I tested against the Eldrazi deck a fair share and I figured they're pumping out their cards too quickly so you'd rather have actual Removal and Cantrips there, concerning yourself with the board because often times the plan is to manascrew them.

Here are some examples for sideboarding with my sideboard:

1x Surgical Extraction
1x Pithing Needle
1x Invasive Surgery
1x Pyroblast
1x Hydroblast
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Krosan Grip
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Tropical Island

Note that in almost all remotely fair matchups I'm boarding out forces so that I have more spells to make YP worthwhile, you really want as many cards as possible when you cast him.

Delver-matchups:

UR-Delver (POP-Burn-version):
-4 Gitaxian Probe
-2 Force of Will (other than in the other Delver versions I'd rather have more tempo and less lifeloss, thus cutting all Probes instead of all Forces)
-1 Volcanic Island
+1 Invasive Surgery (Forked Bolt can be a real blowout)
+1 Pyroblast
+1 Hydroblast
+3 Abrupt Decay (since they're playing PoP they very likely don't play Wasteland, so no Tropical here. Even if I still have Shamans).
+1 Tropical Island (some variations run Wasteland and PoP and some run also Stifle, I just never can be sure here so I'd rather have 2 of each Dual. Also lifegain via DRS can be important).
I'm leaving in the Wastelands because with Stifle he often times has to fetch for Duals to get all his colors anyways.

RUG-Delver:
-4 Force of Will
-3 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Invasive Surgery (Forked Bolts and Rough/Tumble are blowouts)
+1 Pyroblast
+1 Hydroblast (see Invasive Surgery)
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Tropical Island

BURG-Delver:
- They're very similar to BUG and I don't have specific YP-hate besides Hydroblast, so it's the same thing like RUG-Delver

BUG "Stifle" Delver:
-4x Force of Will
-1x Gitaxian Probe
+1 Pyroblast
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Tropical Island
Imo the inferior deck vs us compared to Hymn-Delver, we just execute the stifle-plan better with more efficient removal. Since they're not that aggressive I can actually afford to leave in 3 Probes, it's not like they're gonna bolt us to death.

BUG "Hymn" Delver:
-4 Force of Will
-2 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Invasive Surgery
+1 Pyroblast
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Tropical Island
The one Invasive Surgery might seem narrow, but it actually allows us to stick to our reactive plan of stifling and keeping him off BB when we also have a card against his discard. Plus when you're ahead lategame countering a ponder can be gamewinning.


non-combo-Decks that are not falling into the Stifle-trap against us that easily:

Burn:
-4 Wasteland
-4 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Stifle (it can be decent stifling lands and Rift Bolts while pitching to FoW, but it's definitely the worst card in the deck still)
+1 Invasive Surgery (really just getting any spell 1:1 counts, Burn is all about massing up spells)
+1 Hydroblast (MVP ;D)
+4 Cabal Therapy (see below)
+3 Abrupt Decay (yeah it's clunky, but removal is removal)
Definitely the wackiest post-sideboard deck I play with, I just bring in a bunch of cards, given that Burn isn't that good against us anyways that's decent though. Cutting the probes but putting in Therapies might seem weird, but you really don't want to waste 2 life or mana at any point. PoP or Fireblast are pretty safe bets though while their hand doesn't change via brainstorm so that's nice.

Eldrazi:
-2 Gitaxian probe (information is nice, but not necessary)
-3 Stifle (you can cycle [Thought-Knot-Seer, Matter Reshaper, Wasteland] them or pitch them to FoW preboard, but that's really not where you want to be
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Krosan Grip
+1 Tropical Island (with Taxing effects and the lack of Stifle for Wasteland you really want an extra land postboard)
I've been unimpressed by this deck so far, besides the big Eldrazi can often times still be dazed even if they have 2 sol lands out already. Out-tempoed them most of the time.

Merfolk:
-3 Stifle (does nothing besides preventing Silvergill adept triggers and Vial)
-4 FoW (not necessary, bad against Cavern. Also lower bluecount postboard)
-3 Daze (ok-ish card, I'd leave them in if we didn't have so many better cards that are sure to get something)
+1 Pithing Needle (Vial, Mutavault, Jitte)
+1 Pyroblast
+4 Cabal Therapy (nice because they don't have Brainstorm and Silvergill Adept reveals cards! Otherwise you just name True-Name every time)
+3 Abrupt Decay (doesn't matter if they have postboard Chalice of the Void)
+1 Krosan Grip (they just don't play around this card with Vial against a Grixis deck)

Death & Taxes:
-4 FoW
-4 Daze (with a bit of luck they play around it, otherwise it's too bad after the first few turns)
-3 Stifle (it's nice to stifle a Wasteland and it can be nice to stifle RiP or Batterskull in game 1k, but it's generally just not worth a card + mana to keep it up th)
+1 Pithing Needle (Mother, Vial, Port, sometimes Equipment)
+4 Cabal Therapy (blind name Thalia or get Equipment after Stoneforge, the rest is ez)
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Krosan Grip (same as Merfolk, they don't see it coming)
+1 Virtue's Ruin
+1 Tropical Island (nice against Taxing effects)

Elves:
-4 Daze
-3 Stifle
-1 FoW (hitting their engine cards can be key, we make up the card disadvantage by forcing trades with Angler and tokens).
+1 Invasive Surgery
+4 Cabal Therapy (note that they're often times boarding out GSZ and Natural order, so rather name Wirewood Symbiote blind)
+3 Abrupt Decay (more removal)

Miracles (non-legendary):
-4 Wasteland (Since we don't execute our Stifle-plan and they have tons of basics, it's basically a dead card more often than not)
-4 Daze
-2 FoW
-1 Bolt (Mentor, Clique and Staticaster as well as these last points of damage)
-1 Forked Bolt
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Invasive Surgery
+1 Pyroblast
+4 Cabal Therapy
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Krosan Grip
+1 Virtue's Ruin
Well, it's 12 cards against Miracles. It's not that I really wanted that much cards (besides Decay) but rather that there's just a lot to hate (lockpieces, white creatures, blue spells, full hands). Ok I admit it, I hate Miracles and want them gone from this world.

4c-Loam:
-4 Daze
-4 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Surgical Extraction (our deck is quite bad against Punishing Fire)
+1 Invasive Surgery (Life from the loam)
+3x Abrupt Decay
+1x Krosan Grip
+1x Virtue's Ruin (KotR, postboard Thalia)
+1x Tropical Island (good since they want to cut us off mana)
Stifle is just really good against 4c-loam because it slows down their Waste-Engine and messes with Lili, KotR and Fire). Therapy on the other hand doesn't have any targets to mess with once the game goes into topdeck-mode (which is rather quick). Plus they play a lot of lands you can't mess with. Speaking of which:

Lands:
-4 Daze
-2 Probe (it's nice to know wether they have tricks, e.g. tranquil thicket or crop rotation)
-2 Bolts (last points of damage)
-1 F-Bolt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Hydroblast
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Krosan Grip
1 Tropical Island
Our worst matchup, but winnable if we get lucky.

Jund:
-4 FoW
-4 Daze
-1 Stifle
-1 Volcanic Island
+1 Surgical Extraction
+1 Invasive Surgery
+4 Cabal Therapy
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Tropical Island I'd rather have 2 Trop 2 Volc instead of 3-1 even though they play a max of 3 Wastes and no cantrips.
Edit: Because we have to waste grove very actively, Stifle tends to be weaker than e.g. against BUG where we can dedicate to cut them off BB.

Shardless BUG:
-4 Force of Will
-4 Daze
-1 Volcanic Island (they normally only play 2 Wastelands)
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Pyroblast
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tropical Island
Compared to Jund Stifle is better vs. BUG because of Ancestral Visions besides the Cascade triggers and Planeswalkers. Also we can concentrate on specific lands with Wasteland, making it easier to color-screw them with Stifle compared to Jund.

Edit: The reason for Hydroblast is more:
1. Having a counter for Past in Flames often times makes my Stifles better vs. Storm
2. Pyroclasm, Forked Bolt and Rough/Tumble are cards that x-for-1 me a lot
3. I don't have any specific other hate against opposing YPs
4. Countering a timely punishing fire (which is also really good against this deck) can be the key to eating it with DRS. It's also nice against Gamble in Lands
5. I consider my deck suboptimal against Burn, so this is a nice addition
6. Untapping with a YP is awesome. I could play a Dispel to also hit Swords, but against White decks I already bring in a lot against Stoneforge etc., besides Dispel doesn't have all these other nice applications

@Agrippa91 how has Invasive Surgery been in testing? Is the Delirium hard to turn on? Is the Envelop effect enough on its own?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Delvis

@Agrippa91 how has Invasive Surgery been in testing? Is the Delirium hard to turn on? Is the Envelop effect enough on its own?

---

Against Life from the Loam decks it's life pretty quickly as far as I can tell. I mean we generally have a threat online pretty early and the only way they get rid of it is via removal that kills, so creatures are in our graveyard pretty often. The matches get pretty grindy anyways, so it's online after a few back-and-forth-turns normally. Thing with my style is that I cut probes against LftL-decks, but it hasn't been a huge problem so far to get Sorceries down given some time. I guess they can play crop-rotation in response, on the other side we still play 4x Force of Will and 4x Stifle so there's that. It's almost better than surgical since they don't get their cards. Both can be "countered" with Crop Rotation for Bojuka Bog/Tranquil Thicket, but we have 8 outs to Bojuka Bog in 4 FoW 4 Stifle instead of 4 in only 4 Stifles to stop the cycling

Against all the other decks it's just a Envelop really, which isn't a bad thing since I kinda merged a Pyroblast-slot and a Surgical Extration-Slot. Against combo you pretty much never have the combo but that's totally fine since the effect is not mandatory. It's just a really solid card against combo, no matter if it's storm, show&tell or elves.
Also it kills mass removal (besides those pesky -1/-1 effects) and general card advantage engines (Visions, P-Truths, Hymn).

Note that against Miracles it's pretty much never with the extraction-effect since they put your creatures on the bottom or exile them, so it's only online when they ambushed you with a Flash creature (which generally is bad).

Edit: Sry for the many repetitions, it's kinda late here and I don't want to rephrase everything.

Thanks for that SB Breakdown!

Has everyone been boarding out WL's vs Miracles? I've never dropped lands vs Miracles, but I'd be willing to try if that seems to be the better route

4 is rather drastic, but when you want your stifles to hit Miracle triggers and not lands while the Miracle player has like at least 6 Basics to fetch Wasteland gets a dead draw a lot of times. Might be different in the legendary Miracles list with Cavern and Karakas (I'd propably want to keep in all 4 bolts there and shave all 4 forces), but in paper I play against the more spell-heavy list.

Other people tend to board out 2 and I'm sure that would be fine, it's just that due to my green splash I have a lot of cards to bring in against them hence the full four.

Agrippa91

Silly question probably but why not just change your main mana base -1 fetchland, +1 tropical island?

You seem to bring it in for 75-80% of matchups. It would then free up a sideboard slot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Agrippa91

4 is rather drastic, but when you want your stifles to hit Miracle triggers and not lands while the Miracle player has like at least 6 Basics to fetch Wasteland gets a dead draw a lot of times. Might be different in the legendary Miracles list with Cavern and Karakas (I'd propably want to keep in all 4 bolts there and shave all 4 forces), but in paper I play against the more spell-heavy list.

Other people tend to board out 2 and I'm sure that would be fine, it's just that due to my green splash I have a lot of cards to bring in against them hence the full four.

---

Interesting, thanks for the insight, I may have to give that a try. I played against legendary miracles and had a hard time a few weeks ago.

Thinking of changing my manabase to 2/2/2 duals instead of the standard 3/2/1

I know most of my opponents, locally, boards out at least two wasteland. They are usually dead in the matchup, anyhow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by and3h

Agrippa91

Silly question probably but why not just change your main mana base -1 fetchland, +1 tropical island?

You seem to bring it in for 75-80% of matchups. It would then free up a sideboard slot.

---

That's because I adressed the "hard" matchups here and those are the ones I want to bring in Abrupt Decay. Against Combo I don't want the additional Tropical just for Deathrite, nor against control. In "fair" matchups I often times just switch the mana base -1 volcanic +1 tropical because of decay because my mana shifts and I'm more green-heavy.
So far this land-flex-slot really felt good. And I really want all 3 Volcanics against Wasteland-heavy decks, the additional land also doesn't hurt there.

Edit:

7 Fetches:
I definitely want 8 Fetches for Brainstorm, not hitting a Fetch blind with Brainstorm is always suboptimal.

19 lands:
So if I were to squeeze in a 19th land in the maindeck like many 4c-Delver lists do that would mean I'd have less action which seems awful to me, especially since I technically play more than 18 lands since Gitaxian Probes result in lands sometimes.
Against fair decks where I exchange the Trop for the Volc it's even more necessary that I have as much action as possible, so going for 19 landsin the maindeck is just not viable imo.

18 with a 2-2-2 split:
Not good because
1. your mana gets really awkward when preboard and vs combo all you can do with your Tropical is playing and activating your DRS's non-aggressive ability. Tropical against Combo can already be awkward at times.
2. 3 Volcs are really necessary with 4 YP and 4 Bolts, especially against Wasteland decks and when you want to play YP and Bolt something for a Token.
3. I want the Decays in the sideboard because while I also bring them in a lot of times they're not necessary preboard when my "fair" opponent has most of the times nothing to answer my YP-madness. And of course they're just straight dead vs. combo.

18 with 8 fetches, but only 5 blue lands:
Don't try it, it only leads into bad mulligans because you can't cast your 1-land Ponder, your opponent wastes you off blue or you can't daze/doubledaze. You really need 14 blue sources.

Here are some examples of decks where I'm happy to not bring in the 2nd Tropical. All in all I'm just really happy to have 1 sideboard slot to have pretty much perfect mana for all matchups (though I had thought about a Bayou, but it's pretty much only better against D&T while against mana restraining decks I actually want the Tropical).

ANT:
-4 Lightning Bolt (no reasonable Storm player brings in Xantid Swarm against the discard-deck with Lightning Bolt)
-2 Gurmag Angler
-1 Forked Bolt
+1 Invasive Surgery
+1 Pyroblast
+1 Hydroblast
+4 Cabal Therapy

Show & Tell:
-4 Lightning Bolt
-1 Forked Bolt
-2 Gurmag Angler
-1 Stifle (you'd rather fight on a single big turn to make your Dazes better and not fight against lands. It's still a decent card)
-1 Wasteland (too many good SB-cards. Also Basics)
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Invasive Surgery
+1 Pyroblast
+1 Hydroblast
+4 Cabal Therapy
+1 Krosan Grip

Infect:
-2 FoW (they're capable of fast combo-ish kills, but thanks to our removal we should be fine more often than not. We're going down on our blue count though)
-2 Daze (bad with Hierarch who you don't want to really waste removal on)
-3 Stifle (you want your wastes for Inkmoths, also kill creatures on your turn, so holding it up just isn't worth it)
-2 Gurmag Angler (it's not like they have tons of removal so we can cut down. Deathrite for mana, Delver for speed and YP for Therapy are just better)
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Pyroblast
+3 Cabal Therapy
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Krosan Grip (Blinkmoth Nexus, sometimes defense grid/spellskite)

Feel free to ask questions and give recommendations, I picked up Grixis Delver again relatively short ago (played it a ton in the past though), so I might make some mistakes or have unrealistic goals post-sideboard.

Edit: Changed sideboarding because I cut down to 3 Stifles in exchange for a Forked Bolt.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Agrippa91

The reason why I have the additional Tropical in my build is because while Abrupt Decay is a great card our mana just doesn't allow it really to be sideboarded against decks like Delver and other Goyf decks which is just a big upside you can get. Tarmogoyf is a problem for this deck since it's like the only creature that stops Young Pyro that can't be bolted, often forcing us to chump-block, not being able to accumulate an army. Also the extra land is really nice against mana denial decks like Delver-, Trinisphere- and Thalia-Decks.

In general I only bring Cabal Therapy in against Combo (also Elves) or slow midrange decks (Shardless, Jund, Goblins). Hitting with it in a delver-mirror is nice, but too often it's a dead card there. Stifle is just a better card there imo, vs BUG "Hymn" Delver it also serves the purpose of keeping the opponent off BB for Hymn to Tourach.
I tested against the Eldrazi deck a fair share and I figured they're pumping out their cards too quickly so you'd rather have actual Removal and Cantrips there, concerning yourself with the board because often times the plan is to manascrew them.

Here are some examples for sideboarding with my sideboard:

1x Surgical Extraction
1x Pithing Needle
1x Invasive Surgery
1x Pyroblast
1x Hydroblast
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Krosan Grip
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Tropical Island

Note that in almost all remotely fair matchups I'm boarding out forces so that I have more spells to make YP worthwhile, you really want as many cards as possible when you cast him.

Delver-matchups:

UR-Delver (POP-Burn-version):
-4 Gitaxian Probe
-2 Force of Will (other than in the other Delver versions I'd rather have more tempo and less lifeloss, thus cutting all Probes instead of all Forces)
-1 Volcanic Island
+1 Invasive Surgery (Forked Bolt can be a real blowout)
+1 Pyroblast
+1 Hydroblast
+3 Abrupt Decay (since they're playing PoP they very likely don't play Wasteland, so no Tropical here. Even if I still have Shamans).
+1 Tropical Island (some variations run Wasteland and PoP and some run also Stifle, I just never can be sure here so I'd rather have 2 of each Dual. Also lifegain via DRS can be important).
I'm leaving in the Wastelands because with Stifle he often times has to fetch for Duals to get all his colors anyways.

RUG-Delver:
-4 Force of Will
-3 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Invasive Surgery (Forked Bolts and Rough/Tumble are blowouts)
+1 Pyroblast
+1 Hydroblast (see Invasive Surgery)
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Tropical Island

BURG-Delver:
- They're very similar to BUG and I don't have specific YP-hate besides Hydroblast, so it's the same thing like RUG-Delver

BUG "Stifle" Delver:
-4x Force of Will
-1x Gitaxian Probe
+1 Pyroblast
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Tropical Island
Imo the inferior deck vs us compared to Hymn-Delver, we just execute the stifle-plan better with more efficient removal. Since they're not that aggressive I can actually afford to leave in 3 Probes, it's not like they're gonna bolt us to death.

BUG "Hymn" Delver:
-4 Force of Will
-2 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Invasive Surgery
+1 Pyroblast
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Tropical Island
The one Invasive Surgery might seem narrow, but it actually allows us to stick to our reactive plan of stifling and keeping him off BB when we also have a card against his discard. Plus when you're ahead lategame countering a ponder can be gamewinning.


non-combo-Decks that are not falling into the Stifle-trap against us that easily:

Burn:
-4 Wasteland
-4 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Stifle (it can be decent stifling lands and Rift Bolts while pitching to FoW, but it's definitely the worst card in the deck still)
+1 Invasive Surgery (really just getting any spell 1:1 counts, Burn is all about massing up spells)
+1 Hydroblast (MVP ;D)
+4 Cabal Therapy (see below)
+3 Abrupt Decay (yeah it's clunky, but removal is removal)
Definitely the wackiest post-sideboard deck I play with, I just bring in a bunch of cards, given that Burn isn't that good against us anyways that's decent though. Cutting the probes but putting in Therapies might seem weird, but you really don't want to waste 2 life or mana at any point. PoP or Fireblast are pretty safe bets though while their hand doesn't change via brainstorm so that's nice.

Eldrazi:
-3 Gitaxian probe (information is nice, but not necessary)
-4 Stifle (you can cycle [Thought-Knot-Seer, Matter Reshaper, Wasteland] them or pitch them to FoW preboard, but that's really not where you want to be
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Krosan Grip
+1 Tropical Island (with Taxing effects and the lack of Stifle for Wasteland you really want an extra land postboard)
I've been unimpressed by this deck so far, besides the big Eldrazi can often times still be dazed even if they have 2 sol lands out already. Out-tempoed them most of the time.

Merfolk:
-4 Stifle (does nothing besides preventing Silvergill adept triggers and Vial)
-4 FoW (not necessary, bad against Cavern. Also lower bluecount postboard)
-2 Daze (ok-ish card, I'd leave them in if we didn't have so many better cards that are sure to get something)
+1 Pithing Needle (Vial, Mutavault, Jitte)
+1 Pyroblast
+4 Cabal Therapy (nice because they don't have Brainstorm and Silvergill Adept reveals cards! Otherwise you just name True-Name every time)
+3 Abrupt Decay (doesn't matter if they have postboard Chalice of the Void)
+1 Krosan Grip (they just don't play around this card with Vial against a Grixis deck)

Death & Taxes:
-4 FoW
-4 Daze (with a bit of luck they play around it, otherwise it's too bad after the first few turns)
-3 Stifle (it's nice to stifle a Wasteland and it can be nice to stifle RiP or Batterskull so having 1 is ok, otherwise it's just not worth a card)
+1 Pithing Needle (Mother, Vial, Port, sometimes Equipment)
+4 Cabal Therapy (blind name Thalia or get Equipment after Stoneforge, the rest is ez)
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Krosan Grip (same as Merfolk, they don't see it coming)
+1 Virtue's Ruin
+1 Tropical Island (nice against Taxing effects)

Elves:
-4 Daze
-4 Stifle
+1 Invasive Surgery
+4 Cabal Therapy (note that they're often times boarding out GSZ and Natural order, so rather name Wirewood Symbiote blind)
+3 Abrupt Decay (more removal)

Miracles:
-4 Wasteland
-4 Daze
-2 FoW
-2 Bolt
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Invasive Surgery
+1 Pyroblast
+4 Cabal Therapy
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Krosan Grip
+1 Virtue's Ruin
Well, it's 12 cards against Miracles. It's not that I really wanted that much cards (besides Decay) but rather that there's just a lot to hate (lockpieces, white creatures, blue spells, full hands). Ok I admit it, I hate Miracles and want them gone from this world.

4c-Loam:
-4 Daze
-4 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Surgical Extraction (our deck is quite bad against Punishing Fire)
+1 Invasive Surgery (Life from the loam)
+3x Abrupt Decay
+1x Krosan Grip
+1x Virtue's Ruin (KotR, postboard Thalia)
+1x Tropical Island (good since they want to cut us off mana)
Stifle is just really good against 4c-loam because it slows down their Waste-Engine and messes with Lili, KotR and Fire). Therapy on the other hand doesn't have any targets to mess with once the game goes into topdeck-mode (which is rather quick). Plus they play a lot of lands you can't mess with. Speaking of which:

Lands:
-4 Daze
-4 Probe
-1 Bolt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Hydroblast
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Krosan Grip
1 Tropical Island
Our worst matchup, but winnable if we get lucky.

Jund:
-4 FoW
-4 Daze
-1 Volcanic Island
+1 Surgical Extraction
+1 Invasive Surgery
+3 Cabal Therapy
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Tropical Island I'd rather have 2 Trop 2 Volc instead of 3-1 even though they play a max of 3 Wastes and no cantrips.
Edit: I guess the plan should be to color-screw them instead of leaning on Dazes that can be dead to maximize the impact of our cards in the midgame.

Shardless BUG:
-4 Force of Will
-4 Daze
-1 Volcanic Island (they normally only play 2 Wastelands)
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Pyroblast
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tropical Island
Compared to Jund Stifle seems even better vs. BUG because of Ancestral Visions besides the Cascade triggers and Planeswalkers.

I must damit that I'm still not sure about the exact number of Therapy, Daze and Stifle vs. Shardless and Jund, both are rather bad matchups.
Generally I can say that in many matchups you have to decide between Therapy and Stifle. Therapy and Stifle give this deck a really good chance though against fair decks that don't rely on a fetch-mana-base so you nor want Stifle nor Force of Will.

Edit: The reason for Hydroblast is more:
1. Having a counter for Past in Flames often times makes my Stifles better vs. Storm
2. Pyroclasm, Forked Bolt and Rough/Tumble are cards that x-for-1 me a lot
3. I don't have any specific other hate against opposing YPs
4. Countering a timely punishing fire (which is also really good against this deck) can be the key to eating it with DRS. It's also nice against Gamble in Lands
5. I consider my deck suboptimal against Burn, so this is a nice addition
6. Untapping with a YP is awesome. I could play a Dispel to also hit Swords, but against White decks I already bring in a lot against Stoneforge etc., besides Dispel doesn't have all these other nice applications

---

Very detailed post! Mind if I add this to the matchups section of the primer?

Oh, sure, I'd be honored. After testing against Jund yesterday though I'd go up to 4 Cabal Therapies and down to 3 Stifles. Stifle just doesn't do as much as against Shardless while the manadenial plan often times comes second after going for Groves. It's still a decent card though...

Looks like Noah Walker is the only 9-0 this weekend in Philly after day 1. Safe to assume that he's on Grixis Delver? I'd be interested to see the day 2 breakdown. I wonder how well Eldrazi is doing and if we really need to be scared of this "eldrazi menace"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jaytron

Looks like Noah Walker is the only 9-0 this weekend in Philly after day 1. Safe to assume that he's on Grixis Delver? I'd be interested to see the day 2 breakdown. I wonder how well Eldrazi is doing and if we really need to be scared of this "eldrazi menace"

---

As long as you have enough sb-cards for stifle it should be fine :wink:
Seriously though, unlike Modern Eldrazi is just really bad against BUG (Delver and Shardless), Dredge, turn-1-kills and has an only slightly more than even matchups against other Delver decks and Burn. It's good against Miracles and Storm though, so not that bad in the current metagame. Unlike Modern though it's not that it can't be beaten.

I've added my (standard) list so far so to put out 1 Stifle for a Forked Bolt. That has three main reasons:
1. A turn 1 mana dork (who am I kidding, it's DRS) really shatters my plan of mana-denial, be it wasting or stifling. I tend to look at it as an additional removal that just complements the deck's mana denial strategy. With DRS-decks making 30% of the meta and me not having huge problems against non-DRS decks (besides lands) I think this could be a really good approach.
2. I almost have too many sideboard-cards for combo. So by playing F-Bolt I have one more thing to switch out for counters and discard.
3. I just tested a fair share of "fair" matches and it's just fact that if your opponent has a Mother, Thalia, Bob, Young Pyro or any other threats they escalate quickly once your opponent untaps with them. Now this is nothing new, more like a principle of "fair" Legacy decks, but I kinda thought that with the additional information and draw from Gitaxian Probe I'd have 5-ish Bolts in my hand when I need them. Turns out I don't as often as I'd like. Given that RUG often times plays 6 removals, I think 5 1/15 due to Gitaxian Probe might be the perfect number for me.

I know that some people tend to cut down on YP or Probe, but while can be a dead card, nor YP nor Gitaxian Probe generally are. Also I really don't like to water down the YP/Probe/Therapy-combo against combo. And the horrible 2-3 times Probes in the opening hand I get once in a while are super fine, it's not like a 2-3 spell pierce hand would be awesome against many decks either, at least I can keep them at a risk of drawing lands when I have Brainstorm, too.

@ironclad: That would mean that I'd have to slightly adjust my sideboard-posts. Do you want to link them somewhere at the start? That would be propably easier than you having to change stuff.

Just curious but why are people cutting down to 3 young peezys? It seems like threat density is a problem in general with delver decks.