[Deck] Grixis Tempo

In my experience in order to win against 4c-control without playing it yourself you nowadays have to either:
- play a combo deck fast enough that their lacks of Daze and their clunky snapcasters bite them.
- play a midrange/control deck greedy enough to outvalue them.
- play a delver deck efficient enough to get them.

I've tested the last 2 options because they fit my playstyle the most.
Long story short it's almost impossible to play the value game with them. I'd have to play a lot of cards that would simply be too clunky against combo and delver strategies to even have a shot. You end up playing the exact game they want, it's like trying to outvalue Miracles back in the days after they shifted to Predict.

Having tested those variants I honestly prefer a hyper efficient delver deck full of 1-mana answers. Especially 2 Spell Snares and 2 Spell Pierces mainboard are a beating against them in my experience. Angler costing 1 instead of 2 is also good because you can generally cast him a turn earlier and never lose tempo, even against STP decks. Postboard you also have effective answers against everything that could stand in his way.

Especially stifle really shines because they can't just board into mono-removal spells like vs. the therapy version, they also have to commit to low-resource counterwars which delver excels at. I've had several games where their entire hand is full of removal and snapcasters, but I had them stuck on lands unable to cast their stuff on time.

I have to second that. Czech Pile style decks are the main reason why I've made the move to the Stifle version of Grixis Delver, and I haven't looked back since. So far, I've gone 3-0 against them on cockatrice (5-0 if we also lump Grixis Control in there), by following a very clear gameplan:

1) Deathrite Shaman must die. Leave in all your burn and bring in additional 1-mana removal from the board. On the draw, don't hesitate to force it on turn 0 if you don't have a removal spell in hand.
2) Leave all of your dazes in, even on the draw. Keep all of your Stifles and Wastelands, of course. Side out all fows on the play, leave a couple in on the draw.
3) If they manage to weather your mana denial storm and start playing their game, your best bet is usually to dig for a True Name Nemesis and try to ride it to victory.

Since their manabase is greedy as hell and relies so heavily on Deathrite Shaman, 1+2 will get you plenty of wins, while 3 will steal some games here and there. Combined together, they've granted me a very reasonable success rate so far, enough that I don't consider 4c midrange decks to be on top of my list of problematic matchups at the moment.

I have to second that. Czech Pile style decks are the main reason why I've made the move to the Stifle version of Grixis Delver, and I haven't looked back since. So far, I've gone 3-0 against them on cockatrice (5-0 if we also lump Grixis Control in there), by following a very clear gameplan:

1) Deathrite Shaman must die. Leave in all your burn and bring in additional 1-mana removal from the board. On the draw, don't hesitate to force it on turn 0 if you don't have a removal spell in hand.
2) Leave all of your dazes in, even on the draw. Keep all of your Stifles and Wastelands, of course. Side out all fows on the play, leave a couple in on the draw.
3) If they manage to weather your mana denial storm and start playing their game, your best bet is usually to dig for a True Name Nemesis and try to ride it to victory.

Since their manabase is greedy as hell and relies so heavily on Deathrite Shaman, 1+2 will get you plenty of wins, while 3 will steal some games here and there. Combined together, they seem to be doing a pretty fine job so far...

I played a testing match against the Pile and nutted on it and still lost. Triple waste, double stifle backed up by t1 DRS, T2 Delver, bolt your DRS and I still lost convincingly. Snared a strix, countered a k.command and still lost, even after landing a true-name alongside my flipped delver.

It was so awful I've switched to that deck now haha.

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Originally Posted by Agrippa91

In my experience in order to win against 4c-control without playing it yourself you nowadays have to either:
- play a combo deck fast enough that their lacks of Daze and their clunky snapcasters bite them.
- play a midrange/control deck greedy enough to outvalue them.
- play a delver deck efficient enough to get them.

I've tested the last 2 options because they fit my playstyle the most.
Long story short it's almost impossible to play the value game with them. I'd have to play a lot of cards that would simply be too clunky against combo and delver strategies to even have a shot. You end up playing the exact game they want, it's like trying to outvalue Miracles back in the days after they shifted to Predict.

Having tested those variants I honestly prefer a hyper efficient delver deck full of 1-mana answers. Especially 2 Spell Snares and 2 Spell Pierces mainboard are a beating against them in my experience. Angler costing 1 instead of 2 is also good because you can generally cast him a turn earlier and never lose tempo, even against STP decks. Postboard you also have effective answers against everything that could stand in his way.

Especially stifle really shines because they can't just board into mono-removal spells like vs. the therapy version, they also have to commit to low-resource counterwars which delver excels at. I've had several games where their entire hand is full of removal and snapcasters, but I had them stuck on lands unable to cast their stuff on time.

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Worth noting that if you really want to beat Pile, RG Lands eats it for breakfast. Obviously it's not an auto-win because you can lose to some timely Surgical Extractions, and Leovold can sometimes be a pain, but it's probably the most unfavorable matchup for Czech Pile overall.

Shardless BUG, which most people consider a dead archetype at this point, also has a great Pile matchup, so I'm wondering if we'll start to see that pop up again at some point. Maybe people will be tempted to try it after seeing Mengucci's recent 5-0 video.

Also, FWIW, I don't think Grixis has as bad of a Pile matchup as you guys are making it seem...sure they are naturally favored, but no deck in Legacy can really beat Grixis Delver's best draws, and sometimes they just don't have the answers they need to slow you down in the early game. I've played this matchup a decent amount, I feel like it's no worse than 40-60 from the Delver side. That's not bad enough IMO to start making drastic changes to the deck.

Hey everyone!

I'm posting a small report of the French National's legacy side event which took place this week end near paris. There was 72 legacy players, and I top-8ed the event playing Lewis CBR's grixis delver build.
I lost in the quarterfinals, but another grixis delver made it to the finals, and lost to bug delver.

Here are the decks I faced:

R1: Dragon Tribal
Game 1 he is on the play and starts with a mountain and bolt me. I immediately put him on burn, but he does basically nothing for the whole game, just putting lands and bolting creatures. The last turn, he plays a Dragon shaman (don't remember the name, a 1/3 for 2 making your dragons cost 1 less) which tells me he's not on burn but some kind of dragon stompy deck (with no chalice as he plays bolt)

Game 2 I play a deatrite and counter a blood moon with spell pierce. I make a grave mistake of force of willing when he tries to kill my deatrite: I had no pressure and I knew his hand was 2 dragons that I saw with a probe some turns before: thunderbeak regent and Thundermaw hellkite. What I didn't know is he drew another removal and I end up losing to the dragons.

Game 3 I get early pressure, but he manages to resolve a Tundermaw hellkite and we race for a few turns. I am winning the race but he gets me with a price of progress for 6 on my lethal attack step.

0-1

R2 against Burn: I quickly win 2-0 both games having early pressure and enough counterspells to stay alive

1-1
R3 Infect
I win game 1. Game 2 I feel great with an early Grim Lavamancer but he has a spellskite and I'm unable to find other removal spells. I die to incremental poison damage. I win G3, the MU feels very favourable if you draw properly.

2-1
R4 Death and Taxes
I keep a risky hand with Wasteland and Volcanic as my only lands, a brainstorm and a Young pyro. I play volc and pass, he goes mother of Runes. On turn 2 I have the choice of playing BS and hoping for land+bolt or playing the young pyro and hoping it goes well. I choose the second line and get destroyed by a stoneforge mystic searching a Jitte.

I win G2 and 3, I don't really remember but just had a lot of pressure and enough removal spells for his dudes

3-1
R5 Elves. This is a very bad MU, but I have good opening hands in games 1 and 2 including double delver. They don't flip immediately but I quickly get a fast clock and counter his natural orders. I win 2-0 with 2 very similar games

4-1
R6 BR reanimator
Game 1 he has a chancellor and I mull to 5 on the draw. I'm unable to cast a single spell before facing a Griselbrand and concede. Game 2 and 3 play out more like it's supposed to: I counter some reanimation spells, draw my sideboard cards and win.

5-1
R7 due to my bad tie breakers (R1 lost) I am paired down against someone at 13 points. I know he's on burn and we can't ID.
Game 1 he chooses to play a more controlling game by getting rid of my shamans and delvers on sight. I counter a few spells and we end up both topdecking. I play a TNN, but he's still at 20. Fortunately I get lucky enough for me to draw some counters and wastelands to minimize POP and him drawing mostly lands.
Game 2 he also opts for this more controlling route, but I play a Gurmag and end up winning. He had Ensnaring Bridge which could have gotten me but he didn't draw it fortunately

6-1, I end up 2nd after the round and I am on the play in the top 8.

1/4 finals against modern affinity. Every player was given a foil promo Inkmoth Nexus, and he told me after the game that he just wanted this card so he took his modern deck and played in the event.

Game 1 I don't know what he's playing. I open a borderline hand with 2 stifles 3 lands and I think a force. I play land and pass, hoping to get a free win by manascrew him. But he empties his hand on turn 1 and plays a cranial plating which I have to fow. So he has an empty hand but an inkmoth and I have irrelevant cards. I can't draw anything and end up loosing to the inkmoth

Game 2 I win: counter key spells, get a gurmag into play. He resolves a champion and then another one, but I play True Name which can finish him.

Game 3 I have a good hnd with ancient grudge and removals but no pressure. I keep it and destroy his threats. Unfortunately I draw only lands then a shaman who starts draining him but it's really slow. At this point his board is just random artifacts like ornithopters and citadels. I think I drew lands for 5-6 turns in a row and lose to a ravager + Vault skirge when any removal spells or earlier creature would have won me the game.

It is a bit frustrating as the MU feels really good but sometimes you loose like this.


The deck felt great during this event, though the wins were really on tight margins and I felt if I had make minor mistakes I could have lost basically all of the matches I won. I was also a bit frustrated when flooding out, and was not really convinced by stifle in the MU I played, as it felt a bit awkward. I may test the cabal therapy version in the future,

Cheers :)

What do you guys think of Bob Huang's recent list that passes on both cabal therapy and stifle main to play extra spell pierce and 15 creatures? http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16824&f=LE

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Originally Posted by Demitro13

What do you guys think of Bob Huang's recent list that passes on both cabal therapy and stifle main to play extra spell pierce and 15 creatures? http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16824&f=LE

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Stifle isn't always necessary since we run Wastelands for mana denial. It's kind of a high variance card; either going 0% or 100%. Seems like player preference. I run my cabals in the sideboard too. I feel like you only want them in certain match-ups where attacking the hand is more useful than hitting the board with removal.

Now something that comes up very often for me is this scenario:

Turn 1 on the play, you have no idea what your opponent is playing. You have a Delver, Deathrite, a land or two and 2-3 other cards. Do you fetch, delver or fetch, deathrite? By going delver you can play the aggressive, get the potential flip and start beating face. Going deathrite you have a little insurance from being denied on mana. That's usually enough for me to go for turn 1 deathrite more often than not. What do you guys think? Small plays like this can be so complex which is why I love this game/format.

As a rule of thumbs you should always play drs on t1. There's often this "applying pressure" argument but actually DRS is as much damage as damage deals on average after 1 turn: 2. The upside of untapping with DRS is huge: You have enough mana to sculpt your hand, keep open mana, play a wasteland, play a threat, remove one of their creatures...

I agree on the DRS play turn 1, and it's also the opinion of bob huang: https://www.channelfireball.com/arti...ure-of-legacy/

What iterests me in bob's list is the 15th creature and the sideboard PoP. Isn't 15 a bit too much? I have been unimpressed with young pyros in lots of MUs where they feel a bit slow.

I guess the price is for the lands MU, but isn't it a better alternative, I don't really understand the rationale.


I also have a more general question: is there a MU where you would consider siding out the deathrites? In some games, against decks like Sneak and Show, I've felt that deathrite is a bit lackluster. The mana acceleration is nice, but the clock is really slow and you really need to apply fast pressure + counterspells. Drawing too much creatures like deathrite who doesnt put on a huge clock can mean you die
I've also seen people sideboard out gurmags in combo MU, but I don't really agree: they put on a really fast clock and don't get killed by pyroblast/grim lavamancer/pyroclasm or any sideboard cards coming from SnS player.

Imo there isn't a single matchup where you should board out DRS, even in matchups where on paper he looks lackluster:
Sure he won't get many spells vs. D&T, but the mana he provides helps fighting their mana denial.
Against Red Stompy decks his mana ability can be the saving Grave.
Against Eldrazi he can provide essential life gain and acceleration to quickly power out threats while not falling behind on lands when dazing.
DRS is probably worst against Elves, but only if they have one, too. Otherwise he can block their whole team which is super important in a grindy game.

I actually think DRS is better against combo than Delver is.
Sure, his clock is lower, but against Storm he provides important gy-interaction.
Against Sneak and Show he allows you to catch up on mana while keeping your opponent off balance with wastelands and dazes. Later on he lets you play around their soft counters very nicely by keeping open his abilities. You can activate those eot if you don't need the mana to pay for counters or cast your own counterspells.
Combo decks always provide enough spells in the gy, so the clock of drs is very reliable.

I agree that Angler isn't the worst against combo and I'd rather play him than a lightning bolt. However the 1-drops and pyromancer are just better, at worst angler is stuck in your hand because your opponent plays draw-go too long and you're stuck with a bunch of reactive spells in your hand, not able to provide pressure.
Especially Young Pyromancer really excels vs. combo, providing the fastest clock (and of course the therapy synergy).
And since combo decks barely play removal you simply don't need more than 10-12 threats, otherwise you'll draw too many of them and die to the combo since combo is always faster than aggro.

The last reason why I'd never lead with delver instead of DRS vs. combo is that I'm always glad to pitch a delver to a FoW in this matchup because it means that my other blue card is either a counterspell or a cantrip to find more of those.

Deathrite is the best creature in legacy, you should never side it out

Greetings All!

Another week, another Legacy locals in the books. I again ran the same list (starting to lean towards tuning the sideboard). I ended 3-1 in matches losing a close match to Burn.

Round 1 - Burn - (1-2) This was traditional Burn. I got game 1. In games 2 and 3 a Goblin Guide got me 6 times between the two games giving me no lands even in tandem with my library manipulation. I think that I cast either 5 or 6 Ponders and Brainstorms between these games. It is possible in game 3 I was supposed to block with a flipped Delver earlier in the game to preserve my life total. This felt wrong during the match but it hindsight might have been right. He kind of bricked off toward the end of the game and an early block would have saved a lot of life and made his closing draws, not close the game. Thoughts?

Round 2 - BR Reanimator - (2-1) He has the nuts in game 1, on the play, Chancellor, and Dark Ritual, Entomb, Exhume. Games 2 and 3, I was able to gain control with Deathrites and Extractions. In game 3, I mulliganned to 4 (an all lander, into no lander, into Wasteland only, none of which had Surgical or FoW). I kept, DRS, Wasteland, Fetch, Ponder with a Flusterstorm on top. He kept a slower one land hand. I was able to first turn Wasteland and then begin to draw out of the mulligan. It was a wild game. When I killed him he has a single Tidespout Tyrant left as a creature to Reanimate in his library.

Round 1 - Mono Blue Jank Stasis - (2-0) I think this was a Chronatog and Stasis deck. It was pretty rough and never really got off the ground. My deck did what it was supposed to do.

Round 1 - BUG Midrange/Control - (2-1) This match up seems pretty even. I edge him out in game 1 and he stabilizes in game 2. Game 3 was pretty sweet. I got to Probe on my turn 1 on the play and then followed up with a DRS. His had was 4 lands (there were 1 or 2 fetches), Brainstorm, Divert, and an Abrupt Decay. On two I get to Therapy, he fetches and Brainstorms in response, I get to Pyroblast the Brainstorm and resolve the Therapy taking the Decay. He is kind of stuck with conditional removal/counterspell. I get a way ahead before he draws into anything to begin to stabilize.

The BUG player was the only undefeated player going into the final round. So we intentionally drew as we are friends and the payouts were flat for me between 2nd and 4th (and my breakers were poor due to a first round loss to a player who did middling). Again the deck feels great. Burn feels slightly unfavorable. I have been considering an addition of a Invasive Surgery as it is reasonably broad in its application dealing with loads of combo pieces (Life from the Loam, Reanimate, Exhume, Show and Tell, Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor to name a few; I have been seeing 1-2 BR Reanimators, 1-2 Storm variants and 1-2 Lands decks in my meta each week). It is also reasonably decent against Burn. It counters Lava Spike and Rift Bolt; this is not great, but okay. I have also been considering moving to a Pithing Needle over the Null Rod in my sideboard. This loses ground in the DnT and Storm match ups; while improving the Lands match up. Any thoughts on these changes? As always, thanks for the read and let me know if you have any thoughts or comments!

Just a little something those frustrated about the 4c match-up might wanna try: [CARD]Bitterblossom[/CARD] . I was scanning a tournament report in the Czech pile threat and the author mentioned being cold to it when someone brought it in against him. The trend in these 4c lists has been to trim decays in favor of more K-Commands or maindeck edict effects, to the point where a lot of lists only play 1 now. Most of them don't even have a good answer for it post board. Their best bet is finding their singleton (or 2 of at most) Marsh Casualties or Toxic Deluge, but even then that only buys some time...

That could indeed be a pretty good card against them. Probably a bit better than Winter Orb since it doesn't get hit by K-Command.

Problem is that it's really only good against this deck, against most other decks the fact that it's slow and costs life hurts quite a bit.
It could be decent in the mirror since post-board it's either a fast race or a long grind fest.
I can see it as a 1-of in the sb, but only if your meta has enough czech pile to justify it. I think that online with all the 4c and Grixis (Delver) running around it might be worth a shot.

Not that anyone's playing that deck anymore, but it should also be pretty good against Miracles, and against other fringe decks like Pox, Stax, etc. Regardless, it looks like 4c control is quickly becoming the new Miracles if we look at tournament results, so having a couple of slots dedicated (mostly) to them could eventually become a popular decision. Bitterblossom might not be a permanent solution, since they could just increase the number of decays or include cards like Izzet Staticaster in the board, but right now, while they are focused on fighting True-Name Nemesis (as they should be), they are leaving a huge opening for it.

As for it being decent in the mirror, that's something I've thought about too. The potential to backfire is obviously much higher there (one of the reasons I like it against 4c is that they are so poorly equipped to try and race it, since most of their creatures can't profitably attack through the freshly generated token), but I guess that taking 1 per turn is not so bad when you are stalling their Gurmag Angler and clocking back with Delver, or something... I guess only testing could settle that one.

Angler, TNN and Bitterblossom all require different answers which could be the path to victory against 4c (deluge is often times pretty shitty against Angler).
Against Miracles it was way tougher since any enchantment left you open to a 2-for-1 from wear/tear (you had to have a pithing needle/null rod anyways).
Also any creature could be "killed" by terminus.

On another note Hydroblast is currently insane when you play on mtgo. These past leagues I ran into sooo much Stompy, Burn, TES and Grixis it's ridiculous!
Sadly I haven't played against 4c in the past 3 leagues, I'd really like some practice against that deck to determine whether I need Bitterblossom or not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Demitro13

What do you guys think of Bob Huang's recent list that passes on both cabal therapy and stifle main to play extra spell pierce and 15 creatures? http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16824&f=LE

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I'm actually testing it myself. With. the meta being fair right now, its an alternative to playing stifle.

It makes sense to me, since DRS just makes stifle a little worse. Spell pierce has a little more usage in the late game too, against k command, jace, etc
Its. even nice to have against fatal push.


Another thing, its good against Snapcaster in a roundabout way sometimes, since 4c commits minimum 3 Mana to flashing back a spell

Has anyone here tried Abrade? I am considering it in place of the second Ancient Grudge as part of a sideboard tweaking since I want to retain a second artifact destruction effect that can also double as an extra removal spell, especially in the delver mirrors. I know Kolaghan's Command generates CA for 1 more mana, but I find that CMC3 is A LOT more than CMC2 in this deck, especially in delver mirrors or against Death and Taxes. While grudge is clearly better against artifact-heavy decks such as Big Eldrazi, Mud or Tezzerator, the flexibility of Abrade might actually make it a comparably good card in matchups like DnT, Stoneblade, or Dragon Stompy, where you sometimes draw too many of your artifact destruction spells when you really need a removal spell instead (it's worth noting that Abrade is another out to Sanctum Prelate set on 1).

I am actually fairly confident that this card is not significantly worse than a second Ancient Grudge in matchups where you need artifact destruction, the big question is whether it is good enough in matchups where you bring it in purely as an extra removal spell. Is 2 mana to kill a DRS/Delver/Young Pyro just too inefficient? I am inclined to think it isn't, since Diabolic Edict has become a staple of Grixis Delver sideboards by performing a similar, twofold role: specialized answer to a few problematic cards that also doubles as less-efficient, but still serviceable removal in a pinch. It might be that drawing both of these effects while battling 1-mana threats slows your tempo down too much, but slightly clunkier removal is still better than no removal in matchups that are often decided by who can stick the last threat...

I've played another 2-mana removal in Fire/Ice when I started playing delver and the 2 mana really really hurt, especially in the mirror.
Edict's upside is that it can kill Gurmag and TNN, Abrade just stays a bad fiery impulse.

I don't see how you can have too few cards for the mirror given that sideboards play flusterstorms, pyroblasts and some other form of removal anyways. Besides you should leave in like 2 Forces, there are some situations in the mirror where you just have to counter something like an Angler or Pyromancer, otherwise you're dead.