[Deck] Grixis Tempo

It's hard to get the exact value of the deck, but pretty much everything besides duals, fetches and forces is like 5$ max, sometimes even only a few cents.
I'm European so I have access to magiccardmarket.eu which is like the best place to buy cards from private people and way cheaper than buying them from official sites (I don't know about the American equivalents, but I'm sure somebody can help out). When buying from private vendors I like to look at their total collection of cards they own, if it's like only nm rare cards and they don't have a lot of sells I'd shy away since both signal me that this guy might sell chinese counterfeits. Getting a jeweler's lupe for like 5-10 bucks can also help immensly identifying those, but is only required when buying from private vendors.

So here're the prices (in €). I won't care about the language, but keep in mind that cards that are too damaged aren't allowed in tournament play.
3x Volcanic Island (revised) ~ 540€
2x Underground Sea (revised) ~ 550€
1x Tropical Island (revised) ~120€

note that duals have spiked because everybody panicked about a lot of new players in legacy with eternal masters and the finite amount of duals that will never be reprinted, personally I'm not too sure people want to get into a format just because they happen to open a Force of Will. I predict them going down a bit once the initial panic has settled.

Force of Will (alliances) ~ 200€

It's already going down, but shouldn't really go below 40 imo, it's not a bottleneck card though like Tarmogoyf was in Modern, so the reprint should free up some supply (I e.g. want to sell my old ones for some new art).

4x Polluted Delta (Khans) ~ 68€
4x Flooded Strand (Khans) ~ 60€

Fetches are currently going down because they're dropping out of standard, so it's a good investment to pick them up in the next months, they'll certainly rise again a bit since Modern and Legacy have a demand for them.

Other stuff ~100 € (estimate)

Please note that this doesn't include shipping costs, this might be up to 5€ per shipment. So you should look at spending approx 1800€ with the current prices, but as I said it's a bad times to pick up duals, given they're dropping you might be able to save a couple hundred bucks if you pick them up later.

This is a high price and a reason why you should try to build up your deck slowly, make deals and trade for cards whenever possible. This can save you a lof of money compared to when you want the deck immediately and just buy all the cards at once from an official vendor (the deck might be well over 2k from them).

Personally I built my deck slowly over the last 2 years and am still missing a Volcanic, I have a friend though who lends me his when we go to a tournament and might eventually sell it to me. I found that most Legacy communities are very generous about lending out cards, they all know it's a high cost barrier to enter the format and everybody wants people to play with.
If I was you I'd get all the small stuff and as much big stuff as possible for as cheap as possible and try to borrow the rest for the time being.

To the deck itself: The reason why I like this deck is that you have chances against pretty much every matchup, even lands (though it might be only 30% if your sideboard is bad. The new card invasive surgery will propably help a lot though). It highly depends on your knowledge of the deck and matchup as well as your sideboard plans. I always find it funny how much people discuss about maindecks, but not sideboards even though you play most of your matches against every deck sideboarded.

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Originally Posted by Figurative

Hey guys,
I currently have legacy merfolk. It's a fine starter deck, but I would like to upgrade eventually because I'm not sure how good it is and it really isn't that special of a deck to me though I do enjoy it. Thinking of getting into grixis delver, after I playtested with my friend yesterday and fell in love with the deck. A couple questions:

1. How good is grixis delver for someone newish to legacy? I know a decent amount about the meta but I haven't played too much.
2. How cheap can it be built? Got the forces, the khans fetches a single wasteland, the delvers, and some other cards sometimes run (playset of true name, one vendillion clique) but I would have to buy/trade for the rest which would push my budget a bit.
3. What are it's good bad mus? This confuses me a bit as I've heard it's bad against fair decks, bad against aggro (i.e. burn, merfolk), and really only good against combo. This doesn't sound like the makeup for a tier 1 deck though I could be wrong.

Thanks!

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First of all, welcome to the best format in Magic.

1. Grixis Delver is a skill-intensive deck. By that, I don't mean that you have to be a pro to play it, but you may experience an early lack of success as you adjust to playing the deck. It's capable of playing a multitude of roles, and identifying your role is the most difficult thing to do. As you gain experience in the metagame, though, you will get better at doing this. One thing I would suggest, if you do pick up the deck, is try new lines all the time. See what works, and what doesn't. If you settle for a line that wins the game 50% of the time, you may miss out on a line that wins you the game 75% of the time. Rather than trying to optimize your results immediately, use the first few tournaments with the deck as an opportunity to learn as much as possible. You'll have better long-term success this way.
2. You have a lot of the expensive stuff, but you will need the duals. The deck sort of rides the lines of the metagame as it is, playing with razor-thin margins in some matchups. Playing shocklands instead is going to make it an outright poor choice.
3. What you've shared is pretty typical of the outside perspective on the deck. People who have never played it look at a list and make declarations as to its good and bad matchups, or they play against a bad player once and decide the whole deck is bad. But it's a tempo deck. The cards are designed to work together, not be independently powerful. Just look at what practice and skill can do with this deck: Noah Walker has taken down two separate SCG Opens in the last year with this deck, both before and after the Dig Through Time ban. The combo matchup is very solid, and you're going to be strong against the wide swath of random decks you'll see at a bigger event. Lands is a very difficult matchup - but with a little luck and good mulligan decisions, you can definitely win that matchup. I've beaten it a lot over my time playing this deck, including a 2-0 win on camera against an excellent player.

Ultimately what it comes down to is, the combination of mana denial and counterspells give you a high floor for performance - you will probably win some games in some bad matchups purely based off of your mana denial destroying their land-light draw, or your Force of Wills punishing their mulligans. You're also very consistent, thanks to high counts of fetches and cantrips. This deck showcases the skill and experience of its pilot more than other decks, and your success with it will depend somewhat on those factors. But damn, it's fun to play.

What do you guys think of "The Thing in the ice" in a grixis delver Shell? What would you cut for and how would a build look like?

I believe in this card, but not necessarily for this deck. It comes down to whether you think you get more value off of this or Young Pyromancer and I think YP is the clear winner there. We are usually the aggro deck and an 0/4 isn't really where we want to be.

A more controlling Grixis variant could definitely use it, though. Cabal Therapy in particular is a cool card with it.

I agree. Pyromancer is already an unexciting topdeck in the lategame, topdecking this thing is basically a blank.
A control shell dedicated to a lot of spells though with YP and the thing in the ice could work, you should look at the grixis control primer for this though.
The thing that could hold the card back might be the non-invasion, there's also hardly a deck out there that doesn't have an answer to this (bolt it when it's blocking, stifle the bounce trigger when it flips and chump block it with yp tokens, swords, decay etc.)

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Originally Posted by Manipulato

What do you guys think of "The Thing in the ice" in a grixis delver Shell? What would you cut for and how would a build look like?

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Like others have said, I don't think it belongs in the deck. 2 drop that does nothing for a while. Drawing this t5 or something would be horrible

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Originally Posted by maharis

I believe in this card, but not necessarily for this deck. It comes down to whether you think you get more value off of this or Young Pyromancer and I think YP is the clear winner there. We are usually the aggro deck and an 0/4 isn't really where we want to be.

A more controlling Grixis variant could definitely use it, though. Cabal Therapy in particular is a cool card with it.

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For me, the question comes down to what I would have to cut for this. I'm not cutting Pyromancers, Delvers or DRS, so that leaves maybe the two of Gurmag Angler, but Angler is just SO much better as a top deck. Thing in the Ice is doing something powerful, but I don't see it really quite making the cut because there are just too many scenarios where the card ends up doing very little.

Its easy to see the best case scenario and want that raw power, but I think the average case scenario is a lot worse.

Also, hi, I'm the new guy around here and I play this deck. Looking forward to chatting about it with you all.

Hi malakili and welcome!
Do you mind sharing your deck list? We'd be propably most interested in your sideboard and your plans against the popular decks.

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Originally Posted by Manipulato

What do you guys think of "The Thing in the ice" in a grixis delver Shell? What would you cut for and how would a build look like?

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This card is getting a lot of hype. I don't like it at all.

I suppose it's in the realm of "warrants testing," but I'd personally rather not, if possible. I intensely dislike this card.

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Originally Posted by Manipulato

What do you guys think of "The Thing in the ice" in a grixis delver Shell? What would you cut for and how would a build look like?

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I think it is counter productive in a delver shell to be honest. If you have Young Pizzy out then you lose all your tokens that you created when you flip it. Also, it is a terrible top deck.

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Originally Posted by maharis

I tested a new list last night against a friend running Eldrazi and Doomsday.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Gurmag Angler
1 Tombstalker
1 Vendilion Clique

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
1 Fire / Ice
1 Dismember

4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands

I was better than 50/50 in our games, with Doomsday being a better matchup than Eldrazi. Basically came down to whether or not he drew Reality Smasher. Doomsday (and I'm assuming other combo deck) has a lot of trouble dealing with counters and discard and a fast clock.

I really liked it though. You basically get a little of everything. I felt that this was slightly higher velocity than YP lists since you were pretty much always dropping T1 threat, disrupting on turn 2, then dropping a huge dude to finish them off at the end. Needs more testing but I think this might be a viable build.

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I really like the list. I'm not sure if a combination of both Hymn and Stifle is good though. Think you're better off with 4 Hymn and an extra Pierce and some random extra (like Thoughtseize, or 2 Seize/3 Hymn, perhaps?) instead of the 3 Stifle if you want to take the Hymn way. Feels like that will give more consistency.

I feel like trying this build :D. I guess the downside is that you'll need either Tropical or Beyou in the side for Shaman activations.

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Originally Posted by Ryu

I think it is counter productive in a delver shell to be honest. If you have Young Pizzy out then you lose all your tokens that you created when you flip it. Also, it is a terrible top deck.

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It also returns your flipped Delvers and Delved Gurmag Anglers.

I guess there's the argument of, "Who cares? You have a 7/8 and they have no blockers." But you'll care when they Maze it, or Swords it, or Decay it.

The card is a trap and the people saying it's broken are getting drawn into the new-card hype. What happens when you have a Force of Will in hand and one counter on your Thing and your opponent plays something not normally worth Forcing - do you cast the Force to flip your Thing? What if you're playing in a matchup where your burn is much better as removal than as damage to the head - do you burn to the face just to flip the Thing?

It draws you into making less-powerful use of your other cards. It's the same problem with Prowess creatures. Grixis really wants to be playing reactively, and this card wants to be in a proactive deck. It's a better fit in a straight UR Delver shell, where they don't have access to Angler or Goyf for fat and want to be more proactive, but I still don't like it there. It's too vulnerable to removal.

I'm not saying it's a must play but IF someone wants to play him in this deck then it should replace YP because both together are antisynergetic (Is this a real word? :laugh:)
The argument that he's a bad topdeck in the lategame is not really viable because same is true for YP...

We will see, but maybe he suits better in UR Delver or a more controlish Grixis list.

Was just curious what you guys think of him...

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Originally Posted by Manipulato

I'm not saying it's a must play but IF someone wants to play him in this deck then it should replace YP because both together are antisynergetic (Is this a real word? :laugh:)
The argument that he's a bad topdeck in the lategame is not really viable because same is true for YP...

We will see, but maybe he suits better in UR Delver or a more controlish Grixis list.

Was just curious what you guys think of him...

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The thing is, YP can swing for 2 the next turn.

TITI would do nothing for X turns except block, which is not really what we want to be doing in a tempo deck.

I think there could be a TITI deck out there, but I don't think it's a tempo deck. More of a control shell perhaps.

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Originally Posted by Jaytron

The thing is, YP can swing for 2 the next turn.

TITI would do nothing for X turns except block, which is not really what we want to be doing in a tempo deck.

I think there could be a TITI deck out there, but I don't think it's a tempo deck. More of a control shell perhaps.

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I second this. Yp hits for 2 AND an additional 1 whenever you rip your next instant or sorcery, even if it's just a lightning bolt. thin in ice just does nothing for the next few turns.

I also disagree with the statement of antisynergy, why would you say that? I agree that both are 2-drops and traditionally you can't play more than 4 in a delver shell, but both feed on cheap cantrips as the best way to get value out of them. Something like Delver and Boros Elite or YP and something with Exalted would be "antisynergistic", but as stated I could see thing in ice seeing game in a very cantrip-heavy midrange version of grixis control. Not saying it's gonna be good there, but definitely better than in delver.

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Originally Posted by Agrippa91

I second this. Yp hits for 2 AND an additional 1 whenever you rip your next instant or sorcery, even if it's just a lightning bolt. thin in ice just does nothing for the next few turns.

I also disagree with the statement of antisynergy, why would you say that? I agree that both are 2-drops and traditionally you can't play more than 4 in a delver shell, but both feed on cheap cantrips as the best way to get value out of them. Something like Delver and Boros Elite or YP and something with Exalted would be "antisynergistic", but as stated I could see thing in ice seeing game in a very cantrip-heavy midrange version of grixis control. Not saying it's gonna be good there, but definitely better than in delver.

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It's antisynergetic because YP puts down the token you worked for & TITI sweeps them from the board, not a good tactic by any means my friend.

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Originally Posted by Agrippa91

I also disagree with the statement of antisynergy, why would you say that?

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I'm snipping the rest to focus on this specific question.

Young Pyromancer generates value by building up board position with every instant/sorcery cast. It goes wide.

Thing in the Ice amasses value with the same type of trigger, but it goes big instead of wide.

The trouble is in the bounce trigger. If you have both creatures on the field at the same time, you're going to lose all the value you gained from your Young Pyromancer when the Thing flips. That's not insignificant. Also consider that your entire board bounces when it flips, not just YP tokens; Insectile Aberrations and Gurmag Anglers will return, too. So that's a giant pile of negative tempo. In a tempo deck.

Ah, sorry guys, I misread the card. I actually thought it would only bounce cards opponents control (because that's how boring cards are normally designed these days).
That said I wouldn't even play "my" version of the card. Sry for the misunderstanding.

So I just won a 36 player win a dual on grixis delver. I've been strictly a rug and sometimes bug delver player but finally decided to give grixis a shot. When I get home from work I'll write tournament report and all of my matchups along with my list and specific card choices.

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Originally Posted by eyeownyu

So I just won a 36 player win a dual on grixis delver. I've been strictly a rug and sometimes bug delver player but finally decided to give grixis a shot. When I get home from work I'll write tournament report and all of my matchups along with my list and specific card choices.

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Can't wait to read it!