How have you found Chandra? I'd like to hear your opinion on her. As for me I just don't think you want a clunky 4 mana threat in your deck much less in your hand. It's just that it can be very hard to cast.Originally Posted by acores88
As for Winter Orb it is insane against Miracles and can be quite good against Lands and Aggro Loam. You can argue for it against Shardless but I don't really like it there. I would insist that every Grixis Delver should run at least 1.
______________________________________
The patient Brainstormer always wins.
well i only made 3 leagues i 4-1 2 of those leagues and 3-2 the other; i only sideboard chandra vs miracles(and played them twice) and only drew chandra twice, once he was at 2 life and i won due to chandra plus and the other i was with 2 underground sea 1 volc and one wasteland, was not able to play it(but maybe i could had fetch better that game) but it def. looked like a clunky 4 drop in my sideboard specialy because 80% of my mu were vs delver decks(were 4 mana would be very hard to get) maybe i should make some changes to my deck, i still am trying to understand the sideboard , for exemple cabal therapy always sounds so great i end up side them him in almost every mu, i think i need maybe more elves hate despite only playing vs them once
Thanks for the reply and congrats on the finish. I always mess around with the sideboard plan. Might have to try the thoughtseize.
For the elves matchup I usually bring in ee, forked bolt, fire covenant, and an extra therapy. It could be wrong though. Thoughts?
You could definetely try Sudden Demise against Elves. It is also excellent against Death&Taxes. I see it as an improvement over Sulfur Elemental due to its wider range of application. But that is up to you and how much you think you need for the Death&Taxes matchup. Something that I have been running a lot more than Sudden Demise lately is Izzet Staticaster which is also very good in the mirror.
______________________________________
The patient Brainstormer always wins.
hmm sounds good, but i never played against death and taxes and played only once vs elves, maybe i should study the sideboard plan more as i think i need something against knight of the reliquery, opposing anglers, eldrazis, bassacly i get steam rolled sometimes by bigger creatures. is ancient grudge a good card for sideboard? and what you guys think about the murderous cut? how much delve is too much delve?
Ancient Grudge is a must one-off in the sideboard. You should also play one-off dismemver in the mainboard to kill opposing anglers and possible smaller knights.
I've been playing the following list for a while in local tourneys and in cockatrice (win-% something like 62%) and one GP with a 10-5 finish.
2x Flooded Strand
2x Polluted Delta
2z Scalding Tarn
2x Misty Rainforest
4x Wasteland
3x Volcanic Island
2x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Deathrite Shaman
3x Young Pyromancer
2x Gurmag Angler
1 True-Name Nemesis
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
3x Gitaxian Probe
2x Abrupt Decay
1x Dismember
1x Spell Pierce
SIDEBOARD
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Grim Lavamancer
1x Winter Orb
1x Life from the Loam
1x Pyroblast
1x Flusterstorm
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Baleful Strix
1x Dread of Night / Sulfur Elemental
3x Cabal Therapy
1x Null Rod
1x Puthing Needle
Decay has been great against Miracles, Shrdless and Death and Taxes, Chalice Decks. The fourtj color hasn't really been a problem with the deck because of DRS.
Also the sideboard Life From the Loam is nuts with young PC in matchups like Loam, 12-post, Eldrazi and Lands.
As promised, here's a quick TR from last week's 1k in Worcester, MA. There were 61 Players, 6 rounds, cut to top 8.
As posted last week, this is the decklist I went with:
18 Lands
8x blue fetch
3x volcanic island
2x underground sea
1x tropical island
4x wasteland
14 Creatures
4x deathrite shaman
4x delver of secrets
2x young pyromancer
2x true name nemesis
2x gurmag angler
28 Spells
4x brainstorm
4x ponder
4x force of will
4x daze
3x stifle
3x gitaxian probe
1x spell pierce
1x dismember
4x lightning bolt
15 Sideboard
3x pyroblast
2x cabal therapy
1x surgical extraction
1x grafdigger's cage
1x flusterstorm
1x forked bolt
1x pithing needle
1x sulfuric vortex
1x umezawa's jitte
1x ancient grudge
1x dread of night
1x diabolic edict
Round 1 vs UR Prowess: 1-2 Loss (0-1)
So my first round I ended up against a UR prowess deck. I believe the list played delvers but he never landed one against me in any of the three games. The combination of price of progress, quick burn and prowess creatures was too much for me to keep up with my removal. Even when I landed a True-Name Nemesis, I was on my back foot and my opponent had inevitability. I did not see my Deathrites in the matchup which could have helped greatly with some life gain. I sideboarded in Jitte for lifegain but it proved to be too slow.
Round 2 vs White Eldrazi 2-1 Win (1-1)
My opponent was on an eldrazi deck with lotus petals and other white sources to play an early Thalia and Eldrazi. I play agaisnt a fair amount of decks with Sol Lands and Eldrazi at my local shop so I took pretty strong lines in this matchup and played aggressively. I sideboarded into some cabal therapies after game 1 as well as the ancient grudge. I don't remember a ton of the details except that I was able to wasteland my opponent off of white mana in game 2 for an easy win, and then was able to land a True-Name in game 3 for inevitability.
Round 3 vs 4 color Stoneblade 2-0 Win (2-1)
This matchup was pretty easy, I had a pairdown as my opponent was currently 0-1-1. His body language suggested he felt like his day was over. His deck was a bit mana intensive and required many colors of mana, so my stifle/wasteland plan kept him from ever getting going. This game was textbook. After game 1 I added some cabal therapies and a few red blasts to deal with Leovold, cantrips and counters. This matchup felt easy as my deck was lean and efficient while his was a bit slower/clunkier.
This matchup gave me a thought on Leovold - are we overrating him? My opponent made a 3 mana investment into Leovold. I can answer this with a 1 mana answer of Pyroblast (even on the stack) or a Lightning Bolt. My opponent will draw a replacement card, sure. But at the end of the day, they played a 3 mana cantrip and took a bolt or pyroblast out of my hand, and I only lost 1 mana. It doesn't seem like the worst trade in the world to me, but granted I haven't figured out all of the math. Leovold seems like a great card, but I wonder if the real metashift is just that Leovold plus Fatal Push have just provided a lot more reasons for people to play their abrupt decay/deathrite shaman decks.
Round 4 vs UB Reanimator: 2-0 Win (3-1)
This felt like the easiest matchup of the tournament. Game 1 I attacked his mana pretty significantly while I held up countermagic and applied pressure. The mana denial plan worked extremely well, as well as deathrite shaman eating the reanimation targets. I boarded a total of 9 cards for the matchup and felt I had way more answers than he had threats. Game 2 I was able to land a Grafdigger's Cage while I applied early pressure that he was unable to recover from.
Round 5 vs Turbo Depths: 1-2 Loss (3-2)
I was now in a spot where if I won I could ID in round 6 to make top 8. My opponent was on a turbo depths deck that I had very little experience against and I definitely believe I made a few misplays on the timing of my wastelands. This matchup felt incredibly brutal though. I lost the die roll and my opponent made a Marit Lage token on turn 3 of game 1 which was something I couldn't handle in my maindeck. I was glad that this list runs Stifle because that gave me some outs if he went for the Vampire Hexmage line, but he went with Thespian Stage game 1. I didn't show him Stifle game 1 so I was hoping it would help me out in game 2. I don't remember exactly how I sideboarded except that I brought in Pithing Needle, Surgical Extraction and Diabolic Edict. I cut Dismember for sure, and probably Daze though I'm not sure. Game 2 I was able to apply pressure and draw wastelands to slow my opponent down, though I should have just left them on the battlefield to save in response to a thespian stage activation. I had two stifles in hand though and stifled the thespian stage on the last two turns of the game so that he wasn't able to make a token. Game 3 he was on the play and made a marit lage token on Turn 2, and I did not have a stifle. I had a probe in hand and one out - the diabolic edict, but was unable to get it.
At this point I'm most likely dead for top 8 but I was still alive for a prize for top 16 (and more importantly a 4-2 record which would have felt better).
Round 6 vs Mono Red: 0-2 Loss (3-3)
Round 6 starts out pretty casual as my opponent and I make some small talk. He wins the die roll and is on burn, which I'm not excited about seeing. Turn 1 he plays a Goblin Guide and with no removal in hand I quickly FOW. This might be a mistake, but that Goblin Guide was going to represent a considerable amount of damage over the next few turns if I did not draw a bolt. I played a Delver on my turn, and passed. The game went back and forth, and on my turn I said "draw" and went to draw a card but then remembered my Delver trigger. My opponent calls a judge and I'm not able to flip my Delver, which was frustrating. Lesson to myself to play slower even against a fast opponent. This was probably the difference for a win this game. Either way, the two games are pretty tough for me as I don't have enough responses and pressure, and price of progress eventually beats me. Again, the Jitte was too slow to matter.
Closing Thoughts
Overall I ended up in 23 place, which is a bit disappointing. I'm sticking with the deck as configured, though after chatting with an elves player and seeing how elves was represented (and with thoughts about the Death & Taxes matchup) I'm going to cut the Umezawa's Jitte for either a Fire Covenant, Engineered Explosives or a Sudden Demise. I think that Fire Covenant will end up being the card I pick, since it is instant speed and has the broadest applications - though I'm curious what others think. I think Jitte has the most upside in a vacuum but I want to be extremely mana efficient and hold up mana to threaten stifle and spell pierce. I was very impressed by stifle all day, and it definitely had considerable surprise factor and altered how my opponents were playing. Angler felt like the best card in the deck, and a card that was pretty much unanswerable for most of my opponents. True-Name was great, and I didn't feel like I missed the 2nd Pyromancer, but I know that there were situations where he would have been great.
I'm going to keep running the deck a bit on magic online and see how it goes - it still seem powerful and I have more to learn. Thanks for reading.
Tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.
Here's couple of points from experience:
I'm a huge fan of Grim Lavamancer in the DnT matchup, because it won't be taxed by thalia and DnT will have hard killing it if they don't find a StoP.The con is that in can be revoked.
Fire Covenant might be bad in the DnT matchup if they get ahead of you in the board with asteland+thalia or revoker on drs+thalia or waste/port. It really shines better in the elves matchup.
TNN equipped with jitte is nuts. If you olay 2x TNN you should play the one-off Jitte in the SB.
I've noticed more and more stifles main over cabal therapies. Is this a meta call or is it just better? I noticed bob switched over recently as well. Can anyone offer their thoughts? I still main 2 therapies.
The move to Stifle has been a definite meta call. With all the grindy BUG decks running around Stifle is a great way to hedge against them. Stifle + Wasteland is really punishing for them because of their greedy manabases. The reason the Cabal Therapy version of the deck is not as good in this meta is that the Cabal Therapy version is more equipped to grind and trade resources. However against the BUG decks they have much more card advantage outclassing your 1 for 1 game and they generally have just better cards than you making your grind plan less effective. The Stifle plan preys on the weakness of their greedy manabase allowing you to have time to get under them and not allow their grindy game plan to come into effect by stunting their mana development.
______________________________________
The patient Brainstormer always wins.
I typed out my current board and board plans to help me visualize the matchups. I'm not 100% sure these are correct, but its what ive been doing and its been working pretty well for me. I know I sideboard kind of strange and usually always keep in 2 Forces, since we are the tempo/aggressive deck, and they have definitely come in handy. When you can play a turn 2 YP, Probe, and then have Force and Daze backup, you'll appreciate not taking out all your Forces in matches like the mirror. I'm also a big fan of shaving cards, as opposed to taking them all out, to give me options. I almost always cut the TNN's in combo matchups, though, as YP, Delver, and Angler are just faster and dont tap you out completely. Other than that, though, i usually never cut a threat.
Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing
Main deck for reference: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/593834#online
Top is killing me lately, so i added a Null Rod (along with Needle) in the board to help, so this sideboard is a little different than all the 5-0's i have on Goldfish. Whenever i lose to Miracles, it is definitely due to Top, the card is absurd.
I was able to fire off a Sudden Demise against an Elf player the other day and it didnt even do all that much since they can bounce an Elf and/or a Dryad Arbor, then quickly rebuild. I'm not sure what to do about that matchup, its miserable, and nothing helps. I probably need to replace Demise with something, maybe just a Fatal Push and not have a 'sweeper' in my 75, i dont know. Jitte is awesome, but usually is a win more, i hardly find myself losing when i resolve a TNN, he doesnt need a Jitte.
My Loam and Lands plans are kinda janky. I dont see the matchup all that much and it usually comes down to a little tempo and Bolts/Vortex to finish it off. Vortex stops P Fire recursion, which is a big deal.
Anyways, been thinking a lot about board plans lately, trying to improve my mapping (thanks to the Brainstorm show's last podcast)
Anytime i play, all i want to do is dodge Miracles and Elves, but last night i was wrecked by an Elf guy that MODO matched us up 3 times in a row! Super tilting.
EDIT: After reading Bob's latest article on CFB, i may need to re-test Winter Orb, he seems very high on it against Miracles, as most people are. It seems like whenever i slapped one down, my Miracles opponent simply ignored it, continued to make land drops, and Path my guys until i ran out of threats and they got to untap more lands. Under my own Orb, im unable to can trip into more threats faster than they can simply Swords them and i end up playing out WAY more lands than i would normally want to. Even a Brainstorm/Terminus, for them, is not mana intensive. For Orb to be good, you need a threat, the Orb itself, and 2 or 3 'free' counterspells. All that coming together seemed far and few between, maybe i'm wrong, but those are my issues with Winter Orb, it seems good in theory, it shuts down Top, but all their shit costs 1, so it ends up doing a lot of nothing.
Last edited by LewisCBR; 03-17-2017 at 01:48 PM.
The first time I dropped a Winter Orb, I fell in love with it. I swear that I have magical powers or something, because my 1 Winter Orb always shows up for me when my Miracles opponent is tapped low and has no counter magic and I rarely don't see it when I play against Miracles. But me being a lucky bastard is beside the point.
I am going to side with Bob here and say that Winter Orb is the best card you can board against Miracles. That isn't to say that you can just jam a Winter Orb and be okay. You do have to drop it in a situation where your opponent has tapped several of their lands. I have found success luring the Miracles player into tapping low by picking fights over random replaceable threats trying to provoke a response and then getting them with a Winter Orb. Generally you want to drop a Winter Orb in the aftermath of a fight, it should resolve then and be highly effective.
My theory on Winter Orb is that you just operate faster and thus more efficiently under a Winter Orb than Miracles. If you have a threat they have to spend mana spinning Top, casting Brainstorm, or casting Ponder to find an answer, then they won't have that mana on their next turn. You can just play draw, attack, go until they answer your threat. Through this you can also start to stockpile counterspells and mana until you have to use it. I recommend that you only cantrip to find a counterspell to keep you safe from a Counterbalance being randomly relevant and the only other reason you should cantrip under a Winter Orb is to find a replacement threat for threats that have been answered.
I hope my ranting on Winter Orb is helpful.
______________________________________
The patient Brainstormer always wins.
I'm willing to try the card again, because non-Mentor Miracles for me lately is like 80/20 in their favor, it feels like, and i think i can make the side slots for a few Orbs to test it.
I'm feeling great about Stifle Grixis Delver, in general, and my list, but when you hit a pocket of Elves and Miracles in a League its the most awful thing.
Miracles is extremely OP and i wish something could be done about it, but the player base doesnt care, or they dont realize they are losing very badly to a one mana artifact that is unremovable.
@LewisCBR I don't know the card name off the top of my head but it's a blue enchantment card that prevents both you and your opponent from casting more than one spell of the same color. The couple of times it's been played against me it has been really good. (I play Elves). It was played in one of the Grixis Delver 5-0 lists a little while back if you are unable to come up with the card.
Arcane Laboratory. I've tried it out. Powerful but clunky and can be garbage if it just eats Decay eot and you're tapped low/out.
I think he means Mana Maze, quite an interesting card. Not sure it's what the deck wants to fight elves though. Would be interested in hearing your experience if you try it though.
I'll add to the Winter Orb discussion, it's by far the best card you can SB against Miracles (I've had the lovely experiences of being on both ends of it quite often). It sounds like you've just had some rough games with it Lewis. It's not an auto win obviously, but the power of Miracles is seeing so many cards, Worb shuts this off to an extent. It's a gameplan though, so I'd leave in all Dazes and Pierces etc too.
Lewis, thank you for your advice on sideboarding. On the topic of winter orb, I love that card. It has won me multiple games against miracles. I usually tend to hold it until they tap low or tap out. It hinders their ability to top efficiently. I agree that stifle is really good in the current meta but I think I'll stick with therapy out of bias towards it. Therapy can do work against elves. Stripping glimpse or order can be back breaking. I've played this deck for a year now and I'm in love with it. I went 5-4 at Louisville and learned alot. Thanks again for everyone's input. Ever since I started playing legacy it's the only format I truly love.
Shit guys, I just realised I did not move you over last month. I am really sorry. If that happens again please do message me.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
Move us over? Is G. Delver a deck to beat now?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote