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A couple weeks ago I wrote about the the prospect of Tasigur, the Golden Fang revitalizing Modern Delver decks. The premise was largely that Tasigur was a threat that made the deck more resilient to Abrupt Decay and Lingering Souls and that black removal spells made the deck stronger against things like big dumb elephants.
This weekend Richard Nguyen placed 21st at the Baltimore SCG Open with his own take on the deck.
Modern Grixis Delver
Richard seems to have reached the same conclusions that I have about the black spells to play in this deck, which is evidenced by the omission of Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek anywhere in the 75. This deck looks to play the battlefield and the stack with a bevy of flexible answers while beating down with efficient threats.
Three copies of Electrolyze seems to be the standard fare for... modern Modern Delver decks, with three copies also being in Calvin Kim's Premier IQ winning deck from LA.
I really like the split of Murderous Cut and Exterminate! here. Cut gets around Spell Snare while also being able to kill any Kor Firewalkers or Master of Waves that you might encounter. It's also great to have a one mana answer to Splinter Twin combo. The lone Exterminate! is nice to have as it alleviates some of the pressure on your graveyard to enable a lot of delve as well as being more often castable on turns two and three.
Historically, The Rock has been Delver's worst matchup in Modern, but this build looks to have what it takes to beat current iterations of Abzan. If you're a fan of one mana 3/2 fliers, I definitely recommend giving this build a try.
The problem with the deck is you are featuring Banana man, but you will never take advantage of his ability. He’s basically a 4/5 for B. It’s just easier to run Tarmogoyf or Hooting Mandrills (or dare I say Gurmag Angler!). 18 lands + 4 mana activated ability means nombo combo. Also, it’s not doing anything unfair, or anything particularly explosive.
Black is a much stronger splash color than green, as Terminate and Murderous Cut solve a good number of Izzet’s problems. Tarmogoyf can be a more efficient Tasigur, but as I state in this piece what Tasigur does for you is help beat Abrupt Decay.
This deck actively looks to set up Snapcaster Mana Leak on a lot of turns, so saying that you don’t take advantage of Tasigur is a little silly. You have few lands, but you have a fistful of cantrips that will inevitably hit your land drops. You won’t be able to activate him as much as other decks, but you will absolutely be activating him.
Gurmag Angler is a consideration of mine, with it not playing as well with Snapcaster Mage and the fact that Tasigur’s ability does matter being relevant factors. I could see trying a 2-1 split with Tasigur and Angler.
It’s absolutely true that the deck isn’t doing anything unfair. It’s a metagame deck. If you have good matchups across the board, why does it matter if you’re not explosive or unfair?
I would also like an example of a Modern deck without problems. I certainly haven’t seen one.