[Deck] Grixis Tempo

[Luca Grease]

I think the problem Luca Grease has is not that these decks are playing 4 colors but the fact that they're running a buttload of cards mainboard that are bad against combo and have almost no cards to bring in against those decks.

You could play 4c and be better against combo by playing more discard etc., rely more on Leovold to lock out the game fast vs. storm and griselbrand, it's not so much about the colors but about the sort of cards they run that make for man 35-65 matchups where with another deck building they could play a pile that's 50-50 against most.
Just take the most recent "4c-control" list on mtgtop8 I could find as an example:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=15412&d=293810&f=LE

This deck already runs 6 creatures (!) that you ideally want to board out vs. combo, not to speak of the 4 other cards that do nothing against combo g1, the 2 Kolaghan's Commands that are slow as hell and the bolt. Oh yeah, and as icing on the cake there's 3 planeswalkers, have fun getting those online when you rely heavily on keeping open countermagic vs. combo.

That's a total of up to 16 cards that I woud consider bad against combo. But what is in the sideboard? 4 more removal spells, a Loam in case things are not durdly enough and an additional Leovold because what this deck desperately needs seems to be card advantage. But hey look, there's a total of 8 cards against Storm and Show&Tell in the sideboard!

Am I tilted about this? Of course I am! I want to play matches as many matches as possible where every side has a decent chance of winning in a bo3 and that aren't determined by who plays which deck.

Bingo. It's not about the colours: they could play five for all I care. It's about them playing an unbalanced piece of shit that happens to be tailor made to beat the deck I love playing most. I own sneak and how, storm and reanimator in paper magic, but I just prefer the playstyle of delver. However, I might be forced to griselbrand some fools if they don't wisen up and start building their decks with some sense...

[Wendiger_Mungo]

If you manage to cut their mana it´s not that bad in my (limited) experience. So if we aren´t able to cut their mana and punish their greed who else? They dont play that much basics, most of the time they play 0/1 or 2. and if they have to fetch for these they aren´t able to play most of the spells. Ofc they can grind/durdle pretty well, but thats not the game we want to play. I just go after their mana as aggressive as possible, Stifle; waste, daze and pierce are all pretty good. Ideally DRS goes after their yard so they can´t flashback stuff. From the board you get answers as well.

I do not think the deck is imbalanced at all, just look at storm and what its capable of doing xD

the czech pile just throws together some good cards and flashes them back. it lacks to close out games (some lists just play 4 tnn/strix a leovold/tnn and some jaces), often struggles with the mana (even without getting wasted). The life they are paying to dismember/fetch/painful truths is relevant too.. you could go fancy and punish that by bringing 1-2 price of progress or just more burn like chain lightning or vortex- not sure though^^

I board sth along these lines:

-1 tnn (since they bring REBs), -1 dismember, - 2 fow

+2 pyroblast, +1 flusterstorm, + 1 forked bolt

I would keep 1 or 2 fows as catch all answers even otplay since there are some cards we have to counter like a deluge/covenant that kills our board and bcs there are things we just cant answer elsewhere such as nonblue planeswalkers if they keep them in.

Have you guys tried discard vs them? I am still pretty unsure if its good to skip a turn to let em discard since all their cards adress similar things from a different angle (removal/counter)

[Raticate_Tail]

I do not think the deck is imbalanced at all, just look at storm and what its capable of doing xD

I don't think he meant imbalanced from the perspective of doing busted, powerful things. I think he meant that all of the czech piles are imbalanced from a matchup spread perspective. The deck is about as fair as can be, but the matchups against the fair decks are like 75-25 with combo matchups being far worse. They build their maindecks to be incredibly good against fair decks, and then devote a disproportionately large part of their sideboards to beating fair decks.

[Luca Grease]

I don't think he meant imbalanced from the perspective of doing busted, powerful things. I think he meant that all of the czech piles are imbalanced from a matchup spread perspective. The deck is about as fair as can be, but the matchups against the fair decks are like 75-25 with combo matchups being far worse. They build their maindecks to be incredibly good against fair decks, and then devote a disproportionately large part of their sideboards to beating fair decks.

Again, this.

And by the way, I do not think the match-up is unwinnable or even very unfavorable, we can certainly get there with our good draws, but if they're able to weather the early storm and do their thing, they will probably grind us out more often than not.

Still, most of our creatures can cause them problems if things line up favorably for us: active DRS against Snapcaster, Gurmag Angler when they don't have/can't protect a Baleful Strix and have padding against Edict, Young Pyromancer generating 3+ tokens before it's removed (a lot of their removal and blockers don't line up well against Elemental tokens), and so on.

To be honest, I think I've won more then I've lost when playing against this deck on cockatrice, but part of that can be attributed to subpar plays and sideboarding decisions on my opponents' part, no doubt. I can't count the number of times I've been thoughseized after landing a turn 1 Delver, or that someone whined about topdecking two Hymns when they desperately needed to answer my board in a game they started on the draw...

The selling point of Czech Pile decks was that they were slightly favored against Delver, while at the same time boasting a better-than-Delver matchup against Miracles (I'd hesitate to call it favorable, though). However, with Miracles gone, the slight advantage they retain over fair decks is not nearly enough to compensate for how bad they are against the rampaging combo decks, imho.

[Wendiger_Mungo]

The selling point of Czech Pile decks was that they were slightly favored against Delver, while at the same time boasting a better-than-Delver matchup against Miracles (I'd hesitate to call it favorable, though). However, with Miracles gone, the slight advantage they retain over fair decks is not nearly enough to compensate for how bad they are against the rampaging combo decks, imho.

I am still not sure if their combo-matchup is that bad with the solid mix of fow/pierce/tseize/IOK and the possibility to flash these back. On top of that they have leovold which shuts down cantrips/griselbrand draw7 etc. But tbh I do not care if other control decks have a good or bad matchup vs other decks - I am just interested in beating them by punishing their greedy manabase - but i expect it to be a small part of the meta from now on and I want to prepared.

I do agree though that the performance/5-0 finishes of the deck is going down since the top-ban. But I am pretty sure there will be a reliable control deck in the near future may it be esper or some sort of grixis list that start 5-0ing lately

[RhoxWarMonk]

So i decided to pick this deck up and just getting practice in now before i bring it to our local lgs legacy night. Ive noticed some decks are running therapy main and others only in the side with stifle main. I assume this is a meta choice but I'm struggling which to go with.

My lgs usually consists of reanimator, elves, storm, grixis, dnt, eldrazi and SnS so its pretty wide open here. Also, im unsure what the few miracles pilots will be running going forward but my guess is ill see some bug/Leovold type decks spring up as well.

Any suggestions on how to tailor my MD flex slots? Right now its 1 spell pierce, 1 dismember and 2 therapies but really do like stifle, so wondering if thats the better approach. Any tips appreciated :)

[Ephemeron]

So i decided to pick this deck up and just getting practice in now before i bring it to our local lgs legacy night. Ive noticed some decks are running therapy main and others only in the side with stifle main. I assume this is a meta choice but I'm struggling which to go with.

My lgs usually consists of reanimator, elves, storm, grixis, dnt, eldrazi and SnS so its pretty wide open here. Also, im unsure what the few miracles pilots will be running going forward but my guess is ill see some bug/Leovold type decks spring up as well.

Any suggestions on how to tailor my MD flex slots? Right now its 1 spell pierce, 1 dismember and 2 therapies but really do like stifle, so wondering if thats the better approach. Any tips appreciated :)

In that meta I would play Therapy maindeck and forget about Stifle. It's a mix of decks where Therapy is actively good and something you would board into (all the combo decks, D&T) and decks where Stifle is actively bad (Elves, Eldrazi, D&T).

[RhoxWarMonk]

In that meta I would play Therapy maindeck and forget about Stifle. It's a mix of decks where Therapy is actively good and something you would board into (all the combo decks, D&T) and decks where Stifle is actively bad (Elves, Eldrazi, D&T).

Thank you for your input, kind of where i was leaning myself. I figure therapy is much better against combo than stifle, for starters... Though stifle seems good against elves, no?

What about the flex slots? Spell pierce seems like an obvious one of but I'm not so sure about dismember. Great against eldrazi and opposing anglers but totally useless against any sort of combo... Is there something better i should be using instead?

Very excited to give this deck a try and wanted to thank all the contributors here who have added so much good information to this thread. Extremely helpful for a player picking this deck up for the first time.

[Poron]

Dismember against combo has given me joy on Griselbrand and Syre of Insanity

[Ephemeron]

What about the flex slots? Spell pierce seems like an obvious one of but I'm not so sure about dismember. Great against eldrazi and opposing anglers but totally useless against any sort of combo... Is there something better i should be using instead?

Yeah, I like the spell pierce. Dismember is a meh card but kinda necessary in certain metas, especially if you plan on going up against a lot of Eldrazi and Gurmag Anglers. Other options are fatal push if you want less painful removal at the risk of being weaker to the aforementioned big mana creatures, or Forked Bolt, which gains a little utility because you can always point it at your combo opponents head, whereas something like Push and to a lesser extent Dismember (can be situationally ok as Poron pointed out) is mostly gonna rot in your hand.

[Hanni]

For those not on the Stifle plan... if one of the most powerful things this deck can do is Probe+Therapy+Pyromancer, why do people only play 2 Therapy and 2-3 Pyromancer maindeck? Wouldn't maxing out on them increase the consistency of combining them together?

Aside from the fact that I do like the aggressive mana denial plan with Stifle, I'm at a loss for what matchups Therapy is not good against. Turn 1 Probe+Therapy hitting 2 cards in the opponent's hand wins alot of games...

I guess the Lands matchup? Therapy might be less good in the mirror when you're behind on board, but the same can be said for FoW/Daze/Pierce/Stifle/etc...

[RhoxWarMonk]

Ops i misread, thanks for the advice ill give it a go!

[AdventuresWithTarmo]

Got theory crafting/strategy question, real quick.

Delver mirrors (drs ones. Not Canadian lol)

Assuming I'm on the draw, Im trying to think, what the best 7 im looking for?

Wasteland is worse on the draw, right? So. Would I prefer a hand with bolt x2, drs, fetch, fetch, fow, blue card? Their waste is superior, so I'm thinking, when on the draw, I want stability, because they have the tempo advantage. Thoughts?

[Baum]

I'd prefer a cantrip over the 2nd Bolt. But I usually keep most hands with at least 2 lands.

[TheManWithaPlan]

Got theory crafting/strategy question, real quick.

Delver mirrors (drs ones. Not Canadian lol)

Assuming I'm on the draw, Im trying to think, what the best 7 im looking for?

Wasteland is worse on the draw, right? So. Would I prefer a hand with bolt x2, drs, fetch, fetch, fow, blue card? Their waste is superior, so I'm thinking, when on the draw, I want stability, because they have the tempo advantage. Thoughts?

I have had the frustrating experience of when my opponent in the mirror match kept a hand with 4 lands. Keeping a hand with a lot of lands will allow you to cast your spells through a lot of mana denial.

Baum and you make a good point, but if their draw is full of action and not many lands you could get blown out by wastelands and stifles.

[AdventuresWithTarmo]

Yeah, I get you. To a degree, you can't just ship decent hands back, opting for perfect ones. Hands on the play, like drs, waste, fetch, bolt daze and like, some other action are snap keeps for sure. Its hands on the draw where I get caught up in the question, "what's the best ubiquitous strategy, barring particular situations." But I guess I'm reading too far into it. I wanna next level my opponent, really

[theMonster]

Hey, y'all, I'd love some feedback on a list I started testing this week.

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 True-Name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Tombstalker

3 Lightning Bolt
1 Fatal Push
1 Dismember
1 Kolaghan's Command

2 Thoughtseize
3 Daze
1 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
1 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
1 Night’s Whisper

4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Wasteland

// sideboard //

1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Hydroblast
2 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Arc Trail
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Marsh Casualties

The idea is to basically play a midrange deck that can do a lot of the things that Czech Pile does in the mid/late game but also play the tempo game and put a clock on combo decks. In many ways it's similar to the 4C Friedman lists from last year, but the mana is better because there is no green.

Some comments about my choices:

- 1 Island, 1 Swamp: With the uptick in Blood Moon effects (especially now that DnT is adopting Magus of the Moon again) and UR Delver with Price of Progress, I wanted insurance against those cards. I've played Lands twice in testing so far, going 4-0 in games. The basics won me both matches, as I was able to blank Wasteland and keep my threats alive through Tabernacle. Against Delver you can fetch Swamp -> Deathrite and then fetch Island -> 3-drop. There are, of course, situations where the two basics punish you, but I'd rather lose occasional games that way than auto-scoop to Blood Moon decks (and even Sneak and Show post-board).

- 3 Daze, 1 Counterspell: Since I'm playing six 3-drops (including Snapcaster), I figure I don't want to put myself behind on mana as often as most Delver lists but also want access to free countermagic. This also improves my topdecks, as Counterspell is far superior to Daze in that regard. So far I've like how it's felt, but Counterspell may be too slow.

- 3 Ponder, 1 Night's Whisper: I'm playing 16 "real" lands, so I make land drops more naturally than most other Delver strategies. Night's Whisper (especially with Snapcaster) gives me a way to generate real card advantage in fair matchups, whereas Ponder provides selection. Night's Whisper is definitely a liability against Burn, UR Delver, and fast combo like BR Reanimator, but you can just board it out when it's bad.

1 Grim Lavamancer, 2 Snapcaster Mage, 2 True-Name Nemesis, 1 Vendilion Clique, 1 Tombstalker: This is the aspect of the deck I'm least certain about. In a Deathrite meta, having Lavamancer means I present another must-answer threat on turn 1 and makes my Delvers more likely to live. The rest of the cards are pretty slow, but their advantages don't need to be listed here. This is the biggest concession compared to normal Grixis lists with Pyromancer. I have a better long game, but I run the risk of getting run over in the mid-game. I'm very open to suggestions on a threat suite.

// sideboard //

- 2 Arc Trail: Forked Bolt is a great card, but, in my experience, I've found that it trades 1-for-1 more often than I'd like. In a Snapcaster deck, I want a card like Forked Bolt to always trade 2-for-1, which is why I've been trying its beefy cousin, Arc Trail. So far I've killed Nettle Sentinel + Dryad Arbor, Thalia + Mirran Crusader, Deathrite + unflipped Delver, and Baleful Strix + 2 to the face (which mattered in the game, as I Bolted for exact later). It's a little clunky, sure, but so far it's been pretty good. Maybe one of them should be another sweeper alongside my E.E. and Marsh Casualties - Sudden Demise? Fire Covenant? Electrickery? - but I like that Arc Trail is more versatile and better against Delver decks. I'd never side in Fire Covenant against Delver, for example.

Again, this is a major work in progress and perhaps not better than Pyro Grixis. This pile has higher percentages in matchups that are traditionally tougher for Pyro Grixis, but maybe it's just not fast enough. I dunno, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

[apistat_commander]

I've recently been playing Magic again after a long hiatus, and put together Grixis Delver and ANT. So far I've been enjoying testing Grixis online on Cockatrice. I play a Stifle based list, because I appreciate playing a countermagic based deck and I'm familiar with the playstyle from RUG. Plus Stifle + Wasteland just wins you some games. Fairly boring list below, but I've had decent success with it online (for what that's worth).

The only thing I'm not happy with is Young Pyromancer: it simply doesn't do anything in a lot of games where you end up top decking. I wonder if True Name Nemesis would be a better fit. The sideboard is a mess, but I'm still figuring out what is relevant in the new metagame. Any suggestions are appreciated. I'm particularly wondering what artifact removal people are running. Ancient Grudge is not easy with our mana, but By Force seems like a pretty good option.

Creatures(13):
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Gurmag Angler

Instants (18):
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Dismember
4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Spell Pierce

Sorceries (7):
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe

Lands(18):
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Spell Pierce
2 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Dread of Night
2 Fatal Push
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
2 Invasive Surgery
1 Forked Bolt

[Sibelius]

pow22 gives us his ideas for how to approach the Grixis Mirror. Some unconventional ideas here but certainly worth your time exploring his in depth thoughts.

https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com...irror-breaker/

I hope you enjoy it!

Sib

[mike1987]

Hi i am new to grixis delver and have been playing a stock list with therapy in the main and with the sb below:

1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Fatal Push
2 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Grafdigger's cage
1 Dread of Night
1 Pithing Needle

Appreciate it if you guys can point me in the right direction of boarding against these decks as this is how i currently board:

RUG Delver/Mirror (On the play)
Out: 4 FOW, 1 Probe, In: 2 flusterstorm, 1 Fatal Push, 2 Pyroblast

RUG Delver/Mirror (on the draw)
Out: 2 Daze, 2 FOW, 1 Probe, In: 2 flusterstorm, 1 fatal push, 2 Pyroblast

Elves (highly unsure if this is correct)
Out: 4 Daze, 1 Spell Pierce , 1 TNN and 1 Gurmug Angler, In: 1 cabal therapy, 1 cage, 2 flusterstorm,1 fatal push, 1 Izzet Statiscaster, 1 Invasive Surgery

How to board against aluren and food chain would be greatly appreciated as well