Agree with the guys above, Surgical is a really bad card to SB in vs fair decks, it's something I see so often and it's a hard one to explain to someone after it's 'worked'. But so often it just 0-for-1s you and loses you two life.
Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual
Did you mean my evil twin 'Jarvus Yu'?
RE all of that, I was bored, and asked Friedman to assemble a Grixis list for me on Saturday night at 9pm, because I was watching Worlds coverage at my house and decided I wanted to drive down to Richmond Sunday morning to battle, and I find that switching decks often keeps you sharper.
R1: 2-1 over Goblins (Forced a Tarfire in game 3 so i could land a jitte hit with a flipped delver)
R2: 2-1 over ANT (Squeaked out a close one in g3 when I was at 16 and he emptied with storm count 7. I force pitching a blue card to go to 15 and let him only have 14 goblins and manage to deathrite him out before I die)
R3: 2-1 over Jund (Angler and TNN as well as Snapcaster 'flashbacking' an Abrupt Decay were crucial here).
R4: 2-1 over Lossett playing Miracles (Got him to 1 g1, didn't draw 1 of my 3 maindeck Decays so I lost. G2 was a slaughter in my favor, and g3 he apparently tapped out when he had Spell Snare in hand, but I snapcastered ponder that turn, and managed to pull enough ahead).
R5: 2-1 over Baltimore guy playing Miracles (lost g2 to a Blood Moon.)
R6/7: draw.
R1 of T8: Lost 1-2 to Colorless Eldrazi. Oblivion Sower in game 1 gave him enough lands to eye up a reality smasher the turn before I killed him with TNN.
RE: Surgical Extraction. I only brought it in vs ANT, and I generally hate bringing it in most 'fair' matchups. Clearly I'd bring it in vs Lands.... (lol).
I believe that mtgo username is literally Friedman's roommate.Another user 5-0d a league with the same 75 as Jarvis. These beefy Delver decks seem to be doing well.
Has anyone piloted this list? Is 15 threats, five of them+ drops, as clunky as it appears? Does Delver flip reliably with 26 spells? This configuration certainly seems powerful and resilient ... if you can cast the cards.
I agree, Jaytron, four Surgicals feels like overkill.
Any thoughts on the list overall, Jarvis?
It was good but not like super insane. I haven't seriously played a Delver deck since 2012, but I feel like it's riding a bike. Just play Magic and win most of your matches 2-1 :p
I tried the 4c Delver list that Jarvis ran today at a weekly. Went 3-1, beating Grixis, DnT, and Maverick. Lost to Miracles.
- I didn't like was the 4 surgicals. I'd be fine going down a surgical and putting in a Forked bolt or something.
- I didn't like the higher density of creatures/lands and lower density of spells. Losing to miracles was because a Delver didn't flip for four turns.
- I did like 3 decays main
- I did like 3 spell pierce main
Last edited by Jaytron; 09-12-2016 at 11:36 AM.
Had a bit of a disaster at MKM London this weekend. I still think the deck is great, just things didnt swing my way and likely played a little loose.
R1 vs Sneak and Show. G1 I kept a hand of some removal, a pierce, daze and a goyf. Since I didnt have any real pressure he just cantripped into land drops then played a Sneak Attack around all the soft countermagic. G2 I mulled to 6 and kept Volc, Volc, Pyroblast, Pyroblast, Needle, Wasteland and scryed a DRS to the bottom. I think this keep is reasonable, but maybe I should have tried to find a T1 Delver or DRS? Would like peoples thoughts here. He again played slowly as I didnt have pressure and let a first Show and Tell be countered then forced my second my second blast. This is usually a good matchup so it was a depressing first round loss.
R2 vs Turbo Angler Delver. I think this is a pretty bad matchup, Angler trumps everything but TNN. G1 he drew 3 wastelands and I drew 2 but had a crucial stifle for one of them and got ahead and a Delver got there. G2 he had two anglers out by T3 around my force and Flusterstorm and I couldnt find anything to deal with them. G3 I mulled no landers to 5 and kept Fetch, Delver, Pyroblast, Bolt and Brainstorm. Scryed a nonland to the bottem. Delver got bolted, Volc got wasted and Brainstorm got dazed. Ouch!
R3 vs Storm. Both games were similar, had some early pressure and was able to counter everything.
R4 vs Team America. This was a bit of a slaughter, were just so much more efficient with lightning bolt and I had solid draws.
R5 vs Lands. G1 I conceded on my turn 2 thanks to Fetch for Forest > Mox discarding Grove > Mox discarding Wasteland> Exploration > Loam. I would never get above a single land. G2 was a slugfest, I Surgicalled Fires, caught Loam with Invasive Surgery with Delirium but he was copying Wasteland with Stages and was close to wasting all my lands anyway with Ports and Tabernacle making life a bit of a misery. I just had a single Shaman with both Seas gone, but attacks for one and a bolt finally got there. He naturally drew the combo but I had a Diabolic Edict for it. G3 I had a solid hand but two brainstorms with fresh 3 cards gave me no lands.
R6 vs Lands (yay!). This went a bit better and I managed to tempo my way to wins both games, G1 a Ponder finding a crucial Bolt the turn before I die to Marit Lage. G2 a turn 1 Delver and t3 Goyf went the distance without much opposition thanks to soft countermagic and a surgical on Wasteland. His draws werent as good as R5 though.
So ended up 3-3.
Decklist
4 Delver
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Tarmogoyf
1 Gurmag Angler
2 True-Name Nemesis
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Pierce
3 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Wasteland
2 Trop
2 Sea
2 Volc
9 Fetch
SB
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Dread of Night
2 Pyroblast
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Winter Orb
2 Surgical Extraction
I Dissection,
some thoughts:
- G2 vs Sneak: imho the keep is good. You have all to defend ourself. Pyroblast for Show, Pithing for Sneak, Wasteland for Boseiju. I don't know how lose this game ^^
- G3 vs Turbo Angler: meh.
- G3 vs Lands: meh.
Imho you don't have more lucky in this specific rounds.
Anyway if you think that Lands is a bad matchup for us, win 3/5 rounds is not bad eh
I have been following the move from traditional Grixis Delver to the 4c Delver Strategies popularized by Ben Friedman and Jarvis Yu. I seem to like those lists more than the traditional lists. The Abrupt decays feel extremely strong MD. You have spell pierce MD for combo matches. The SB allows you to really go hard on strong hate spells and Snapcaster mage creates a high density of those spells. I haven't seen a huge issue with mana and the different colors needed. I think this is ultimately what Delver will become.
Yeah, the list feels extremely powerful. I've had trouble with Delvers flipping naturally, have you?
it's approximately 26/60 compared to RUG's 30/60.
43.33% vs 50%. That's definitely noticeable, but imho not huge.
I don't have this problem.
This deck have not a killer flip like RUG but similar to Team America.
Anyway good %.
My problem was flipping them post board in matches where needle/jitte comes in and the spell density seems to drop a bunch.
Played today in a 3k, went 3-4 with Jarvis/Friedman's list -1 Surgical +1 Murderous Cut
R1- Grixis Delver- OTD
Mull to 5 g1, keep a crap hand with 2x force and no lands. Never drew a land.
G2- Win with TNN?
G3- I draw a ton of removal, but he's able to keep drawing threats.
0-1
R2- Sneak/Show- OTP
G1- SnT T2, I left a force on top with ponder to flip my delver, because I put him on miracles when he played flooded strand into island ponder.
G2- Don't really remember much, but he didn't do a whole lot and I got him with 2 delvers
G3- He cantrips a lot and manages to stick a defense grid. I have a flipped delver and a TNN, and can't cast any counterspells. Luckily he doesn't draw any action and dies to the fast clock with me having bolts in hand
1-1
R3- Tezz OTD
G1- Delver doesn't flip for a while again. He basically kill s himself with ancient tomb trying to resolve planeswalkers that I'm able to decay. He also lands an Ensnaring bridge that gets decayed. He eventually hardcasts a batterskull with me having TNN and unflipped delver on the board. He's at 6, and my delver finally flips off a decay and I swing in for lethal.
G2- He has a fast start that empties his hand fairly fast. I'm able to stick a T2 TNN. He plays a notion thief out EOT (not sure why he didn't want to wait longer). Resolves a Tezzeret, finds chalice with tezzeret and plays chalice on one, while I stare at a hand of Needle, Bolt, Ponder, Brainstorm, land. I felt pretty bad... until I ripped a decay off the top. I decay his chalice, needle tezzeret, and proceed with TNN beats.
2-1
R4- DnT OTD
G1/2 just get crushed. Games are completely one sided. Delver doesn't flip for 5+ turns G2.. Bringing in Jitte/Needles and just drawing them instead of having my delver flip felt terrible.
2-2
R5- Lands OTD
G1- He goes T1 Mox Port.. and I get really sad. I play T1 DRS only to get it punishing fired EOT. I'm fairly certain I'm going to lose this, but I somehow make it to 3 mana despite him having loam active. I'm able to cast TNN followed up by a Gurmag. He plays a Tabernacle, but I'm able to pay and waste it. Without exploration he's unable to really tabby lock me out of the game before I've already done a ton of damage.
G2- I T1 fetch ponder. I see a 2 lands and another card and decide to keep. I pass and he plays T1 Grove, Exploration and WL's my land. I surgical his WL end of turn and see his hand of 2x Crop rotation exploration. I run a needle out naming stage. I get a Gurmag online fairly quickly (t3/4?) and a DRS active. He eventually gambles for a P-fire as I've managed to counter his crop rotations. Gamble hits p-fire and he tries to return with grove, and I surgical in resp. He concedes shortly after.
3-2 (2-0 vs lands! highlight of the day!)
R6- BUG Nic Fit
G1- Got Rhino'd. After color screwing him a bit, he's able to fight out of it. He lands a rhino when I've already exhausted my removal and I can't find an angler. TNN doesn't do much despite being resolved late-ish. My hand was slow and he was able to build up.
G2- He has a much more explosive start and I get run over by rhino.
3-3 (This was the only MU where MD Decay made me very sad)
R7- Pox
G1- We both mull to 5 but he's able to kill me with 2 factories and I'm only able to find 1 wasteland.
G2- I land an early angler and Delver. Delver, once again, doesn't flip for a while. I die to 3x Bloodghast beats
3-4
Things I liked:
- MD Decays
- Jitte
- MD TNN
- Beating Lands 2-0 thanks to 3x Surgicals
Things I didn't like:
- Snapcasters didn't feel like they did much work
- Post board, delvers seem to never flip
- CFB not having air conditioning and it basically being 100 degrees in the damn room
- Delvers not flipping
Maybe when playing the post board games that spell density drops a bunch, Delver isn't that great to keep in? Unsure...
Hi,
I went 5-1 in a local (casual) tournament with this list. I came more or less to the same conclusions as Jaytron.
Changes to the list:
MD:
-2 Spell Pierce
+1 Spell Snare
+1 Counterspell
SB:
-1 Surgical
-1 Jitte
+1 Golgari Charm
+1 Murderous Cut
Props:
1) TNN main deck
2) 3 Decays main deck
Slops:
1) Delvers not flipping
2) Snapcasters were used to pay for FoWs 99% of the time
3) Murderous Cut did not cut it
Going forward:
-2 Snapcasters
+1 Spell Pierce
+1 Spell Snare
Rework sideboard as well.
Jaytron: I think Death and Taxes is a very bad matchup for all the deck now. Imho the new prints (Prelate, Jailer, Recruiter, Kambal) are no sense. All the Delver deck suffer this deck and, if you flip Delver fast (as me) anyway he can't survivor at 4 plow, 3 path, 4 Fliker by Vial or Cavern.
Imho you have bad luck, obv, 5 turns without flips is not right...but anyway the matchup are VERY bad.
Nicfit and Pox are 2 semi-randomic deck and our Delver have difficulty, particularly if our Delver do not flip.
I don't think you can discourage for loss this 2 game (how many Nic of Pox we can find in a tournament?) or for unflip of our best beater (is the best creature of the deck, in some common situation he can win alone).
Believe in Delver, he is the core of Delver.deck ah ah
Death and Taxes, instead, is a real bad problem.
A competitive deck who we can find in tournament.
I hope for something to help us in this matchup in future prints.
Crush: I don't like Snapcaster in this deck because is too mana intensive but many very good player play it. Why you can try with Stifle like me?
@ the DnT topic...I had no problems in the past months beating DnT. The 2 MD TNN in my list are super strong vs them and Golgari Charm out of the SB is also huge. That´s one reason I dont jump on the Angler train, he´s good vs non-plow decks but vs DnT TNN is just straigt better.
The fact that they play more cc3 creatures in they´re deck is also good for us because they are slower now and Daze becomes much stronger. If you really want to hate them you can add 1 or 2 Dread of Night to the SB or play a 2nd Forked Bolt/Grim Lavamancer...
It´s still not an easy MU but really managable if you build your deck correctly vs them.
My current list Looks like that:
14 Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tarmogoyf
2 True-Name Nemesis
1 Gurmag Angler
27 Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay
19 Lands
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland
Sideboard:
3 Thoughtseize
2 Painful Truths
2 Golgari Charm
2 Dismember
1 Forked Bolt
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
Currently playing
Sure, i think your words are correct but the last 3 prints (Recruiter, Prelate and Kambal), adds a lot of power to Death and Taxes. Obv True Name is our jewel in this matchup, can close the game or block the Batterskull without give life, but a resolved Prelate, give us a lot of problems because we need to make a choose for targeting Abrupt Decay.
Imho today, Death and Taxes is better then in the last months (particularly) and now is a bad matchup for us (in my experience, obv).
The very good solution vs Death and Taxes imho is Rough / Tumble, but we can't play it because destroy Deathrite and Nemesis. I search for a sweeper like Rough with a non expansive CC, that i can use in 2/3 matchup, not only for Death and Taxes, because I don't like to reserve lots in sideboard for cards dedicated at only one archetype...
I like to play, in my 15, versatile cards for 2/3 matchup each.
Very solid list, as always, mate.
We play the same creatures but, currently, i play 4 Tarmo.
I want to test 3 Tarmo + 1 Gurmag this days, because Gurmag ignore Abrupt Decay.
Next week i have a tournament in my Country, and all this days became test for:
- 3 Stifle (yes / no)
- 4 Tarmo / 3 Tarmo + 1 Gurmag
- best sideboard card to beat Eldrazi, Shardless and Taxes
Thoughts?
It's not like I do not like Stifles, all the contrary, it is my favorite spell.. but with this deck I kinda want to be more proactive and Stifle has not proven itself since I cut our dear old Mongeese.
I am trying a build with less creatures and Stifles, but this threat dense version is most probably better.
As for the DnT matchup, I usually keep some number of FoWs in for their removal and try to race them. Prioritize saving DRS and killing MoMs and Vials on sight.
2 Golgari Charms in the board are quite a blessing.
Edit: sideboard vs DnT, Shadeless and Eldrazi = Winter Orb. I will definitely play 2 Orbs in the SB instead of the P.Thruths.
Lost in the finals of the Black Lotus event at Squabbles (Baltimore, MD), playing the exact same 75.
r1: 2-1 win over miracles
r2: 2-1 win over (??????)
r3: 2-0 win over grixis thought scour angler delver (friedman also invented this version, afaict)
r4: 2-1 win over white (splash FTK) eldrazi taxes
r5: 2-0 win over 4 color loam
r6-7 draw
r1 of t8, split with ben friedman (73 card mirror, and he left)
r2 of t8, 2-0 win over burn
r3 of t8, 1-2 loss to 4 color loam
Deck still feels incredibly well-positioned (I switched to this deck to begin with because Maryland is notorious for hating on Lands, given the Green-Red version was invented here).
Congratulations,
How efective has been SCM for you? How do you usually use him - e.g. do you cycle a brainstorm in the gy at the first oportunity or do you hold until really needed?
Personally I seldom cast him, since I am usually stuck on 3 mana and with a limited gy. They are usually dead till really late in the game, but even then they failed to overperform (i.e. bring me back when I was behind).
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