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

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.

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Originally Posted by rlesko

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by rlesko

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.

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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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rlesko

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by kombatkiwi

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.

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Originally Posted by JackaBo

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.

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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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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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"

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...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

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by TheManWithaPlan

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.

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

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?

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).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 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?

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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

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 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

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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.

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:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 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:

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

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 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:

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by koten

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

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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.

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by now

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

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It's not exactly a new idea
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...er-Primer.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kombatkiwi

It's not exactly a new idea
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...er-Primer.html

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

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.

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

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Originally Posted by 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

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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.

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.

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.