[Deck] Grixis Tempo

[tescrin]

I have moved to 4 stifles and more counterspells, I looove Stifle-ing fetch lands.

I think stifle is in a good spot right now. I'm running it in my brews and realized it's sort of like DRS 5-8 when it works (due to putting you a turn ahead) I try to fake like I held mana for removal and git'em.

When it doesn't work you just didn't do anything, so you should still play DRS/Delver first unless you get a good read on your opp or they started on like.. 4-5 cards.

[apistat_commander]

Agreed, I really like Stifle but I always have. It might not always be great card but it is very rarely a dead draw. Delver loves having little angles of attack to help you get there when they are a turn or two away from stabilizing. I also think that Stifle pushes the build in a different direction, which is closer to what I'm comfortable playing.

I'm still very mixed on how I feel about Probe. I have to feel like I'm missing something if literally every list that gets anywhere is running 3-4 copies. I'm assuming that I'm viewing it in the wrong way: you are making the deck more dense, so having one less Pierce/Stifle/Etc. isn't a big deal because Probe will always cycle away for info. I'll throw some in my list to try it out, as long as I don't have to cut my Stifles!

[chaosjace]

I have never had probe do me any favors, save for the card draw, and in my meta, I am always stuck with a YP in hand trying to get rid of it. Therapy has netted me a few batterskulls, but from my experience, never relevant enough otherwise. Stifle on the other hand has bought me numerous turns against a variety of decks and now that I am off YP-Probe-therapy, there is much more room to react.

[LewisCBR]

Ironclad (the owner of this thread) has asked me to help out with updating the primer, specifically the sideboard section. I sent him a write-up of about 8 popular matches, that hopefully will be posted up later today. Please keep an eye out for the yupdate and then take a look at what i whipped up and see if you like the formatting or if i'm missing something completely obvious!

Thanks!

[Ghiwo]

That's a good point. Young peezy is probably the reason to play grixis delver, next to angler I suppose.

I think its hard to really find "sacred cows" for this deck, or any other, save can trips and counters. With that being said, if we expect a lot of combo it might just be better to play the classic therapy version. But play to your strengths too. Thoughtseize (when thinking of a peezy-less version) really doesn't compare, although it's slightly easier to play.

Then you must consider the mirror match, that's the biggest reason to play LewisCBRs list.

It could pretty much go either way. I just know that there's times when I do the therapy trick with peezy when facing storm, and I'm like, "I cannot lose"

Then, I un tap with a flipped delver/drs facing an un cracked fetch or something (fair mu) and I feel the same way.

you could play with therapy in the board, but your configuration is less supportive for them, 2 peezy, 3 probe and 2tnn.

Go figure.

You can make Peezy, Stifle, Probe and Therapy live in the same deck without too many problems in my opinion. I wouldn't play Therapies main deck because, as you said, they're only great against combo decks, and you can put them in your sideboard. Maindeck I prefer to go straightforward with Stifles that are good against almost every deck and if worst comes to worst they can pitch to FoW.

I struggle to figure out why LewisCBR's list should be better in the mirror: it has 2 TNN than in my opinion is your worst creature in tempo mirrors. 3 mana for a removal-proof, infinite-chumpblocking Delver of Secrets is not where I want to be when you and your opponent are wastelanding each other every turn. Peezy is much more difficult to handle if you can't answer immediately or don't already have your own. Yes, Lewis has Pierce over the 4th Probe, which is nice in the mirror, but that's it. Without diminishing Lewis' list, obviously!!

[LewisCBR]

I struggle to figure out why LewisCBR's list should be better in the mirror: it has 2 TNN than in my opinion is your worst creature in tempo mirrors.

I sort of believe the opposite. Yes, the mirror can sometimes turn out to be a Stifle/Wasteland fest, but not really all the time. In those cases, TNN is there to pitch to Force, which i still leave some number of Forces in post board. I just finished up a mirror match online, 3 minutes ago, where games 1 and 2 were both decided by who stuck a TNN while the rest of the board was gummed up with YP's, DRS's, and Anglers.

Side note, i just won that match because he brought in Fiery Covenant, tried to fire it off for 5 in game 3, but i countered it. Dont bring in that card against the mirror or other counter-heavy decks. You know how bad it feels to get your Dismember countered? FC getting countered feels even worse. I've actually cut that card altogether, for now, because im not seeing as much Maverick or Elves as i thought i would. And against Elves, having one main deck Forked Bolt and one side Forked Bolt has been good enough.

[Ghiwo]

I sort of believe the opposite. Yes, the mirror can sometimes turn out to be a Stifle/Wasteland fest, but not really all the time. In those cases, TNN is there to pitch to Force, which i still leave some number of Forces in post board. I just finished up a mirror match online, 3 minutes ago, where games 1 and 2 were both decided by who stuck a TNN while the rest of the board was gummed up with YP's, DRS's, and Anglers.

TNN is not been too much of a problem for me when my opponent dropped it in a mirror match. Obviously when both you and the opponent have everything it's clearly good at breaking the stall. But if I have a Peezy and you haven't then my board seems better, same if I have one more DRS than you.
Maybe I'm driven by my experience but I've always hated TNN when I played it. Some guys even board in Pyroblasts..!

[Madmankevinx]

I'm not impressed with probe lately. I'm wondering, and of course opinions here would be valued highly, but has anyone tried something like:
-4 probe
-2 therapy

+3 thoughtseize
+3 stifle

Seems like it might be a decent starting point if probe doesn't perform for someone?

[TheManWithaPlan]

Playing the Pyroless build of Stifle Grixis Delver, I am playing Probe as mostly a filler card. It has never done anything truely impressive, however it has not been a card I actively don't want in my deck. As someone mentioned earlier (can't find the post right now), Probe really allows you to use you Stifles and Wastelands more effectively which gives the card a lot of power in this deck. Really, I don't love Probe but I don't hate it, so I am quite neutral on Probe.

@Ghiwo, I strongly agree with your point that you can make Grixis Delver with Probe/Therapy and Stifle in the 75 work. In my opinion, if you are playing LewisCBR's version of Stifle Grixis Delver, it is a very good idea to play Cabal Therapy in the sideboard because of its incredible synergy with Young Pyromancer and Gitaxian Probe.

[LewisCBR]

I really like Probe and am in the camp that it is a busted Magic card. I wish i could find room in the list i like for the 4th, to be honest. To be able to plan your attack is huge for such an aggressive/mana denial deck. Getting Probed is one of the most tilting things in Legacy, lol, i just feel naked, with no surprises. I think Probe will get banned at some point.

[Quasim0ff]

Not playing gitaxian probe is probably the dumbest thing you can do [in this type of format].

Probe, and ancient tomb, are probably the two strongest cards in the format currently.

Probe does EVERYTHING you want in this deck. It's not like RUG, where you can play a well crafted game where you can just protect a mongoose and stop w/e the opponent is doing; This deck actually plays to the board, and probe lets you do that in a much smoother way than any other card that you could potentially play in it's place.

[ironclad8690]

Hey guys, updated the primer with some sideboarding notes from LewisCBR.

[Stevestamopz]

Took Team Australia to the semi-finals of the Australian Eternal Weekend. 90ish players. 5-0-2 through the swiss (double id in the last 2 rounds), lost 1-2 to ANT in the semis Will write a proper report soon.

[Plague Sliver]

Took Team Australia to the semi-finals of the Australian Eternal Weekend. 90ish players. 5-0-2 through the swiss (double id in the last 2 rounds), lost 1-2 to ANT in the semis Will write a proper report soon.

Look forward to it.

I started playing your exact maindeck list with -1 Counterspell +1 Spell Pierce. It's been an amazing engine of destruction. It also doesn't hurt that Tombstalker is my favorite card in the whole wide world not named Plague Sliver.

I grinded about 10 games vs. a capable opponent running Young Pyromancer Grixis, both pre- and post-board. Team Australia performed admirably against it. There's just too much stiflin' and evadin' goodness.

Tangent: shout out to SDEMatt for convincing me to buy an FBB Badlands for $100 so, so long ago. Glad I can finally put it to good use here, and not have to use any white-bordered cards.

---

A few observations from VERY limited tournament play and testing:
- Submerge doesn't seem incredible when Fatal Push gets 'er done for 1 CC *and* deck runs DRS acceleration. I could see myself playing Push #3 or 4 in the board instead of Submerge.
- The deck can be threat-light to the point where I usually don't keep hands without a creature. Is this a proper way to think about it?
- I personally like having a 3rd Pyroblast effect in the board. You can't let 'em land True Name, and Marsh Casualties is pretty limited in application.
- Thoughtseize in the board vs. combo. Love it. That's exactly the right place for it.

Playing the Pyroless build of Stifle Grixis Delver, I am playing Probe as mostly a filler card. It has never done anything truely impressive, however it has not been a card I actively don't want in my deck. As someone mentioned earlier (can't find the post right now), Probe really allows you to use you Stifles and Wastelands more effectively which gives the card a lot of power in this deck. Really, I don't love Probe but I don't hate it, so I am quite neutral on Probe.

- Gitaxian Probe, even without Young Pyro, is good. I'm considering making room for 2-3 in the main even without the synergistic combo.

[apistat_commander]

I struggled with two things for a while with Grixis Delver: not wanting to run 14 creatures and wanting to run Gitaxian Probe. After reading advice in this thread and doing more extensive playtesting I can say that running 14 threats and Probe is the right thing for the deck. I really, really wanted to play the deck like Canadian Threshold but it just doesn't. I wanted to take the numbers and spells I liked from that deck and jam them in here. You need the extra threats to close the game out and Probe is so good in this deck that it is worth shaving your extra copies of Stifle/Spell Pierce to fit in. The information it gives you is so incredibly useful, I can totally understand why this has become a staple in the deck. The other thing I'd point to are tournament results: go look at MTGTop8 and you'll see that every deck runs Probe and at least 14 creatures. The deck plays much more smoothly for me with those inclusions, even though I resisted them for a long time.

[Stevestamopz]

As promised, my tournament report: https://thesaltminesite.com/2017/06/...ernal-masters/

Feedback as always, is appreciated.

[ironclad8690]

Nice report Steve. Cool to see your take on the deck!

[keys]

If you're playing double black for Tombstalker, what about Hymn (and maybe Liliana)?

[Mzfroste]

If you're playing double black for Tombstalker, what about Hymn (and maybe Liliana)?

Hymn and LotV are primarily midrange / control cards. Even though they are powerful, they are not good tempo / aggro threats, and that playstlye is what makes Grixis the deck it is.

[AdventuresWithTarmo]

Took stifle delver to a 10-5 finish at GP Vegas.
My list 3 peezy and 1 tnn, 3 stifle and my flex slots were 1 pierce and 1 forked bolt. My side was:
2 pyroblast
3 cabal therapy
1 pithing needle
1 grafdiggers cage
1 dismember
1 fire covenant (this got me a win against elves when they had a jitte with counters on it)
1 forked bolt
1 surgical extraction
1 flusterstorm
1 sulfuric vortex
1 ancient grudge
1 Dread of night

Overall, stifle did work in the delver mirrors, especially protecting against wasteland, but personally, I'm not feeling stifle. I picked this version because I felt my newness couldn't properly support the therapy version. But this deck really wants to drop the peezy on 2. Granted, the consensus is to play 2 peezy... but I felt that between wasteland and playing against and with daze, 1 tnn was enough for me. The therapy version just doesn't really have cards that argue with eachother, and therefore was very consistent.

As Quasim0ff mentioned earlier in the thread, this deck "plays to the board". The grixis advantage is peezy, and therapy runs in line with that. Unload with pyro tokens. Your lines of play in that version are also more flexible, as stifle can become dead pretty quickly.
I probably play very different (or, admittedly, just wrong) from the successful stifle players, but that's just my take on the whole thing.

Edit:

Forgot to mention one thing. I'm sold on grim lavamancer. My previous opinion, "creatures need to die in legacy, sometimes the turn they hit the board" okay, fine. But there's plenty of instants and sorceries that fulfill that role.

Many times in the GP, opponent plays a DRS on one, and the next turn drops a lavamancer. Whenever I was faced with the option of which one to remove, only having 1 removal spell, that's when I realized just how good it was in the mirror. It holds priority over DRS (barring corner cases).