It could be a sizable difference in experience.
Are you making sure to steer it into the tempo pittrap or is it just treading carefully around what you threaten to have in hand?
It could be a sizable difference in experience.
Are you making sure to steer it into the tempo pittrap or is it just treading carefully around what you threaten to have in hand?
I prolly don't know how to play this deck very well. Basically, the Zoo deck is fairly straightforward, play creatures and attack. And so the way I play against Zoo is that I try to use the counter/burn and Sprites/Snapcasters/Cliques to get ride of the creatures that are swing a chunk of my life every turn and then stabilize and go on the offensive. Works once we started playing where I pre-sideboard.
Ah, seems that your Gruul deck is just a tad bit suited to tank FaerieDelver.
I'd think Pyromancer Delver might be a better build, the token spam could buy you a few turns since your Gruul's built heavy on the creature side (which, by the way, makes Spell Pierce dead. Plus your Electrolyzes are kinda meh and the Swords of Light and Shadow don't really do anything in this particular matchup). You just ram Young Pyromancer and a few Gitaxian Probes and... well, something should happen.
But then you lose the charm of instant speed trickery that FaerieDelver has.
You should be quite aware of Gruul Zoo's slightly better resilience to burn removal compared to most other attempted weenie strategies, so the best I can suggest is to try and keep it from resolving the big beats, or bloodrushing Rampager.
Also if G/R as a whole seems to be problematic (meaning more than just Gruul is ruining your day), consider Flashfreeze.
Another Topic: what do you think the minimal landcount looks like? I play 22 and get flooded quite often. Thought about 20, but not sure what to add afterwards. Serum Visions to help Delver and smothing draws?
Another Topic: what do you think the minimal landcount looks like? I play 22 and get flooded quite often. Thought about 20, but not sure what to add afterwards. Serum Visions to help Delver and smothing draws?
Jet over Visions all day unless you're running Goyf.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
My only match loss of the night was to RG Zoo where I mulled to five in game one and didn't draw into my removal spells in game two. Ended up beating UB Tezzeret Control after fighting through a turn two Defense Grid on game two, RDW, Jund Zombies, and UWR Wafo-Tapa.
Highlight of the night was doing 16 damage between my opponent's end step and my turn when my Jund opponent decided to get aggressive. He had swung with all his things to put me down to 4 and played a couple of blockers post combat. I had a Pyromancer out with four elemental tokens. EOT I Bolt his face, get a token, play a Snapcaster and flashback the Bolt, get a token, Vapor Snag one of his blockers, and swing in for the kill. He was not a happy person.
I really like this deck. The Runechanter's Pikes really helped me play the control role a lot more effectively as I could just resolve to draw into one late game against aggro decks and just get there. If you're going the Pyromancer route I highly suggest them.
Another Topic: what do you think the minimal landcount looks like? I play 22 and get flooded quite often. Thought about 20, but not sure what to add afterwards. Serum Visions to help Delver and smothing draws?
I play 18 lands. You can also run 2 colorless lands over 2 island without problems. I don't because I have 24 cards that cost 1 and I want to use all of my mana in the early turns.
I love running 12 1-mana cantrips especially in a young pyromancer version, if you get a pyromancer turn 2 then probe gives you immediate value and if you get to untap with it you can just chain cantrips and get a massive board. But in all versions I think they need at least serum visions since it can setup delver, I also think sleight of hand is really useful. Personally I want all 12.
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If MTG is a part of your life, the formats are like relationships:
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
I have found that turn one Probe offers a lot more long term value than slamming Pyromancer and Probing for a token, especially when the deck plays Vapor Snag to protect it. I just really think knowing what your opponent has and how to play around it is huge.
I have found that turn one Probe offers a lot more long term value than slamming Pyromancer and Probing for a token, especially when the deck plays Vapor Snag to protect it. I just really think knowing what your opponent has and how to play around it is huge.
Well sure but if you have pyromancer in hand, why not just wait a turn, see one more card, and get extra value?
But honestly if I wasn't playing disrupting shoal, I would probe turn 1 just to see if pyromancer would survive.
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If MTG is a part of your life, the formats are like relationships:
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
I tend to play a more controlling playstyle. If my opponent is packing removal, why run out a turn one Delver or turn two Pyromancer just to get stoned? If I hold him for turn three with Spell Pierce or Vapor Snag in hand I have guaranteed value and I get to keep my guy. Your play is a lot more loose, especially considering that if you would have probed beforehand you may have seen something worth countering the following turn, making you feel kind of stupid for running out Pyromamcer just to get a dinky token.
It's plays like that that I feel gave Pyromancer a bad rap early in this thread. People wrote him off because they were playing him like you do. That's a blatant misplay.
I tend to play a more controlling playstyle. If my opponent is packing removal, why run out a turn one Delver or turn two Pyromancer just to get stoned? If I hold him for turn three with Spell Pierce or Vapor Snag in hand I have guaranteed value and I get to keep my guy. Your play is a lot more loose, especially considering that if you would have probed beforehand you may have seen something worth countering the following turn, making you feel kind of stupid for running out Pyromamcer just to get a dinky token.
It's plays like that that I feel gave Pyromancer a bad rap early in this thread. People wrote him off because they were playing him like you do. That's a blatant misplay.
Like I said before, I'd do it if I had disrupting shoal for protection. That's not a misplay. That's why disrupting shoal is a card that should be run as a 4-of in these lists, it allows you to play threats without worrying about having counter magic up.
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If MTG is a part of your life, the formats are like relationships:
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
To go along with the current topic of Disrupting Shoal, would Izzet Charm be a good addition to our deck? It is Faithless Looting, Shock, and Spell Pierce three-in-one
To go along with the current topic of Disrupting Shoal, would Izzet Charm be a good addition to our deck? It is Faithless Looting, Shock, and Spell Pierce three-in-one
Disrupting Shoal is terrible in the deck unless you're playing Young Pyromancer, in which case it's a little less than terrible. Mana Leak is almost always going to be better. If you want to play Disrupting Shoal, play the Ninja Bear Delver deck.
Izzet Charm is awful for any deck that isn't combo.
Disrupting Shoal is terrible in the deck unless you're playing Young Pyromancer, in which case it's a little less than terrible. Mana Leak is almost always going to be better. If you want to play Disrupting Shoal, play the Ninja Bear Delver deck.
Izzet Charm is awful for any deck that isn't combo.
Disrupting Shoal is terrible in the deck unless you're playing Young Pyromancer, in which case it's a little less than terrible. Mana Leak is almost always going to be better. If you want to play Disrupting Shoal, play the Ninja Bear Delver deck.
Izzet Charm is awful for any deck that isn't combo.
You obviously haven't played with it yet.
Say it's turn 5 and you have an empty board, you play delver with mana leak up to protect it. You opponent untaps plays their 6th land and bolts delver. That's why mana leak is terrible.
With disrupting shoal on the other hand you can hard counter that lightning bolt for 3 mana or you can cast it on your opponent's first turn while on the draw just by exiling a blue card. You can stop turn 1 aether vial, amulet of vigor, deathrite shaman, birds of paradise, etc.. while on the play for free. You can tap out for a threat and protect it for free. Disrupting shoal is ridiculously powerful, not as good as FOW but it's still way more powerful than most counters we have access to.
I completely agree with you on izzet charm, sure it does 3 things, but it doesn't do any of them well.
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If MTG is a part of your life, the formats are like relationships:
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
You obviously haven't played with it yet.
Say it's turn 5 and you have an empty board, you play delver with mana leak up to protect it. You opponent untaps plays their 6th land and bolts delver. That's why mana leak is terrible.
With disrupting shoal on the other hand you can hard counter that lightning bolt for 3 mana or you can cast it on your opponent's first turn while on the draw just by exiling a blue card. You can stop turn 1 aether vial, amulet of vigor, deathrite shaman, birds of paradise, etc.. while on the play for free. You can tap out for a threat and protect it for free. Disrupting shoal is ridiculously powerful, not as good as FOW but it's still way more powerful than most counters we have access to.
I completely agree with you on izzet charm, sure it does 3 things, but it doesn't do any of them well.
Let's say it's turn 3 and your opponent plays Liliana of the Veil. And you've Disrupting Shoal instead of Mana Leak. Game.
A dead Delver is fine, we can draw into new ones or get a Sword of Light and Shadow or just Mutavault beats for the game. We just don't want their key spells to resolve early, that's the fastest way to lose a game.
Mana Leak is almost never a dead card, even against control match ups. It's not good, but it's the best we have. UR Delver doesn't have a way to reliably recover lost cards, that's why we would do everything we can to NOT 2 for 1 ourselves.
So I posted this deck a few pages back but didn't get much of a response. Since then I've played in 5 mtgo dailies going 4-0 once, 3-1 three times and 2-2 once (only losing the second match there to misclicking a cryptic command >.<).
It's a U/R Delver variant that is heavily influenced by NBD. Still not really sure what the last SB slot should be. I've tried a handful of things but haven't really liked any of them.
Just curious if anybody has tried something similar with decent results. I would also urge anyone playing NBD or another UR delver deck to give this one a shot.
Carlos Moral just made top 4 in GP Prague with UR Delver beating Junk. Looks like he's running something very similar to my list except with Grim Lavamancer instead of Runechanter's Pike.
Interesting, that he chooses to play more creatures/less instants/sorceries than most other lists. Looks quite nice, and I have to admit that the Young Pyromancer seems to be much stronger than I thought it is. Maybe I should consider testing it instead of Fae..
Interesting, that he chooses to play more creatures/less instants/sorceries than most other lists. Looks quite nice, and I have to admit that the Young Pyromancer seems to be much stronger than I thought it is. Maybe I should consider testing it instead of Fae..
it's a high variance card
if you chain gitaxian probes it's pretty good, if you have the correct spells to interact with your opponent it's insane
if you don't have that, you're drawing mopy creatures, or you have a spell pierce for that tarmogoyf, or you have a bolt in hand with no opponent creatures to target
also i believe he lost one of the games in the top 8 since he took too much damage from probe
if you chain gitaxian probes it's pretty good, if you have the correct spells to interact with your opponent it's insane
if you don't have that, you're drawing mopy creatures, or you have a spell pierce for that tarmogoyf, or you have a bolt in hand with no opponent creatures to target
also i believe he lost one of the games in the top 8 since he took too much damage from probe
Any spell in the deck is good with it out, you don't need to be "chaining probes" for young pyro to get out of control. Having spell pierce when they cast goyf is annoying but it means they aren't gonna be able to cast lilianna, terminate, pulse, or whatever other removal spell they have so you can protect your young pyro and keep them from attacking with goyf. Having a bolt with no creature to target is perfectly fine, this deck doesn't mind burning your opponent in the face, especially if you get an extra guy for doing so. He did use his probes very aggressively but just because you CAN cast it for two life does not mean you need to.
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Are you making sure to steer it into the tempo pittrap or is it just treading carefully around what you threaten to have in hand?
I prolly don't know how to play this deck very well. Basically, the Zoo deck is fairly straightforward, play creatures and attack. And so the way I play against Zoo is that I try to use the counter/burn and Sprites/Snapcasters/Cliques to get ride of the creatures that are swing a chunk of my life every turn and then stabilize and go on the offensive. Works once we started playing where I pre-sideboard.
Care to point me towards the list you're playing?
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Burst Lightning
2 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Leak
4 Remand
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
2 Pillar of Flame
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Mountain
4 Mutavault
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Magma Spray
2 Dismember
2 Negate
4 Stone Rain
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Turn // Burn
2 Pyroclasm
Zoo list:
4 Vexing Devil
4 Kird Ape
4 Experiment One
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Goblin Guide
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Molten Rain
2 Pillar of Flame
4 Copperline George
4 Stomping Grounds
6 Forest
6 Mounatins
4 Destructive Revelry
2 Dismember
2 Magma Spray
2 Torpor Orb
4 Vines of Vastwood
1 Scavenging Ooze
I'd think Pyromancer Delver might be a better build, the token spam could buy you a few turns since your Gruul's built heavy on the creature side (which, by the way, makes Spell Pierce dead. Plus your Electrolyzes are kinda meh and the Swords of Light and Shadow don't really do anything in this particular matchup). You just ram Young Pyromancer and a few Gitaxian Probes and... well, something should happen.
But then you lose the charm of instant speed trickery that FaerieDelver has.
You should be quite aware of Gruul Zoo's slightly better resilience to burn removal compared to most other attempted weenie strategies, so the best I can suggest is to try and keep it from resolving the big beats, or bloodrushing Rampager.
Also if G/R as a whole seems to be problematic (meaning more than just Gruul is ruining your day), consider Flashfreeze.
Jet over Visions all day unless you're running Goyf.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Snapcaster Mage
Spells (30)
4 Serum Visions
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Vapor Snag
2 Spell Pierce
4 Magma Jet
4 Remand
3 Mana Leak
2 Runechanter's Pike
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
2 Mountain
6 Island
2 Dispel
2 Pillar of Flame
1 Vandalblast
1 Shattering Blow
2 Combust
3 Hibernation
2 Electrolyze
2 Counterflux
My only match loss of the night was to RG Zoo where I mulled to five in game one and didn't draw into my removal spells in game two. Ended up beating UB Tezzeret Control after fighting through a turn two Defense Grid on game two, RDW, Jund Zombies, and UWR Wafo-Tapa.
Highlight of the night was doing 16 damage between my opponent's end step and my turn when my Jund opponent decided to get aggressive. He had swung with all his things to put me down to 4 and played a couple of blockers post combat. I had a Pyromancer out with four elemental tokens. EOT I Bolt his face, get a token, play a Snapcaster and flashback the Bolt, get a token, Vapor Snag one of his blockers, and swing in for the kill. He was not a happy person.
I really like this deck. The Runechanter's Pikes really helped me play the control role a lot more effectively as I could just resolve to draw into one late game against aggro decks and just get there. If you're going the Pyromancer route I highly suggest them.
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
6 Island
1 Mountain
Creatures: 12
4 Delver
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Vapor Snag
4 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
4 Disrupting Shoal
2 Spell Pierce
3 Steel Sabotage
2 Echoing Truth
2 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Hibernation
I play 18 lands. You can also run 2 colorless lands over 2 island without problems. I don't because I have 24 cards that cost 1 and I want to use all of my mana in the early turns.
I love running 12 1-mana cantrips especially in a young pyromancer version, if you get a pyromancer turn 2 then probe gives you immediate value and if you get to untap with it you can just chain cantrips and get a massive board. But in all versions I think they need at least serum visions since it can setup delver, I also think sleight of hand is really useful. Personally I want all 12.
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
Well sure but if you have pyromancer in hand, why not just wait a turn, see one more card, and get extra value?
But honestly if I wasn't playing disrupting shoal, I would probe turn 1 just to see if pyromancer would survive.
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
It's plays like that that I feel gave Pyromancer a bad rap early in this thread. People wrote him off because they were playing him like you do. That's a blatant misplay.
Like I said before, I'd do it if I had disrupting shoal for protection. That's not a misplay. That's why disrupting shoal is a card that should be run as a 4-of in these lists, it allows you to play threats without worrying about having counter magic up.
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
Disrupting Shoal is terrible in the deck unless you're playing Young Pyromancer, in which case it's a little less than terrible. Mana Leak is almost always going to be better. If you want to play Disrupting Shoal, play the Ninja Bear Delver deck.
Izzet Charm is awful for any deck that isn't combo.
Cool, thanks. And I don't know if this has been discussed yet, but what is the consensus on Batterskull vs Sword of Light and Shadow and Stone Rain vs Spreading Seas?
You obviously haven't played with it yet.
Say it's turn 5 and you have an empty board, you play delver with mana leak up to protect it. You opponent untaps plays their 6th land and bolts delver. That's why mana leak is terrible.
With disrupting shoal on the other hand you can hard counter that lightning bolt for 3 mana or you can cast it on your opponent's first turn while on the draw just by exiling a blue card. You can stop turn 1 aether vial, amulet of vigor, deathrite shaman, birds of paradise, etc.. while on the play for free. You can tap out for a threat and protect it for free. Disrupting shoal is ridiculously powerful, not as good as FOW but it's still way more powerful than most counters we have access to.
I completely agree with you on izzet charm, sure it does 3 things, but it doesn't do any of them well.
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
Let's say it's turn 3 and your opponent plays Liliana of the Veil. And you've Disrupting Shoal instead of Mana Leak. Game.
A dead Delver is fine, we can draw into new ones or get a Sword of Light and Shadow or just Mutavault beats for the game. We just don't want their key spells to resolve early, that's the fastest way to lose a game.
Mana Leak is almost never a dead card, even against control match ups. It's not good, but it's the best we have. UR Delver doesn't have a way to reliably recover lost cards, that's why we would do everything we can to NOT 2 for 1 ourselves.
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Phantasmal Bear
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
Spells - 23
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Vapor Snag
4 Remand
2 Electrolyze
4 Cryptic Command
2 Disrupting Shoal
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Mutavault
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
6 Island
2 Combust
1 Pillar of Flame
1 Flame Slash
3 Vedalken Shackles
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Hibernation
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Negate
1 ??
It's a U/R Delver variant that is heavily influenced by NBD. Still not really sure what the last SB slot should be. I've tried a handful of things but haven't really liked any of them.
Just curious if anybody has tried something similar with decent results. I would also urge anyone playing NBD or another UR delver deck to give this one a shot.
Anyone?
One Delver deck T8's GP Prague, nice. Interested in seeing his decklist, although it's certain that he plays the Pyromancer version.
it's a high variance card
if you chain gitaxian probes it's pretty good, if you have the correct spells to interact with your opponent it's insane
if you don't have that, you're drawing mopy creatures, or you have a spell pierce for that tarmogoyf, or you have a bolt in hand with no opponent creatures to target
also i believe he lost one of the games in the top 8 since he took too much damage from probe
Any spell in the deck is good with it out, you don't need to be "chaining probes" for young pyro to get out of control. Having spell pierce when they cast goyf is annoying but it means they aren't gonna be able to cast lilianna, terminate, pulse, or whatever other removal spell they have so you can protect your young pyro and keep them from attacking with goyf. Having a bolt with no creature to target is perfectly fine, this deck doesn't mind burning your opponent in the face, especially if you get an extra guy for doing so. He did use his probes very aggressively but just because you CAN cast it for two life does not mean you need to.