I don’t think it is worth it for a jund deck to play a leyline in the 75, first and foremost. It doesn’t win against delver and it doesn’t affect many other matchups in a significant way.

Delver beats leyline by playing through their deck normally, but being forced into your gameplan a little more. You also have one less card in hand that you can 1 for 1 them with. If jund is on the play, worse off entirely, less cards. If on the draw, better, but delver can still out tempo you if their hand is all gas that doesn’t care about a leyline.

Leyline unnecessary and risky against delver. There are much better sideboard cards against a deck that is an easier matchup anyway

One reason is that Negate is often used as part of your turn 3 – Tasigur/Angler hold up counterspell protection play. And having access to UBB on Turn 3 is difficult.

Also allows us with with 4 mana to Terminate and protect (again UBBR is a difficult colour combination to have open).

This may be fixed with manabase adjustments, but I like fetching Islands as soon as I can. As well as probably needing to fetch a Swamp once we have the Blood Moon plan active. Overall Negate is just more consistent.

Lingering Souls is certainly annoying, but i feel like the decklists that have the most trouble with that card are the ones not running enough Remand and Electrolyze. I like 2 of each in the maindeck, but these seem to be the first card s people cut for the odd one ofs, or to run Deprive.

The Young Pyro version of Grixis Delver is so tempo, i still think two Remands and 2 Electrolyze are a must.

I personally always run it as a 2 of. Helps as our catch all answer to tokens or any random deck you can run across.

Here’s an off-the-wall suggestion, though: how do you feel about Engineered Explosives? I like squeezing that into any deck with 3 colors that isn’t linear aggro, and I’m rarely disappointed with it. It can be phenomenal at clearing the way for a Tas or an Angler, and you can usually tune it to avoid whatever’s on the table for you at any given moment. Thoughts?

My concern with Olivia is that she doesn’t play nice with our Blood Moon plan (her control effect requires BB), granted her ping can get out of hand regardless so perhaps its good.

Untapping with Olivia does put you in a great spot – so I’m definitely not against playing her over Sower. In fact there’s a very good reason to do exactly that.

Then again – why not both?

(For reference though, I do prefer playing with 19 lands, and am coming round to playing ‘big’ Delver rather than PyroDelver – atm I’m sitting with MN’s hybrid creature base from the original article)

I personally love sulfur elemental as a 1 of in the board, helps fight through BW tokens, provides aggression against abzan and little kid decks, and not to mention soul sisters. I find him welcomed if you can provide backup with it against anthems.

Since you ask about these, I’m going to go through most of the grindy match cards with you.

Keranos represents both card advantage and damage, but with the maindeck being at least 2/3 spells, Keranos is much more likely to be a lightning bolt every turn than a card advantage engine. He fills a very controlling roll. If you think this is what Delver wants, Keranos is your choice.

Outpost siege can do two things: ping when something dies and draw you a sorcery. If you maindeck counterspells, this card isn’t all that spectacular. My rating for this in delver is poop/10. Not what delver wants. I can be wrong, just as much as person can be, but I think no on this one. I’d almost rather have chandra, pyromaster.

Jace. He seems good on the surface. Stops Exarch combo with the plus. Stops souls with the plus. Provides card advantage. Ultimate can be…useful…but not a game winner unless you decided to board it against Tron. He and Keranos are very different in playstyle, but if it’s cards you need to draw and 1/x’s you need to stop, he’s definitely your man.

Next, Batterskull. Not as necessary as he used to be now that Tasigur is in the deck, but he still grinds very well. If it comes down to it, you can even strap it to delver and smash for seven vigilance lifelink flying. Pretty good. Don’t forget the end of turn return it and replay it to get virtual card advantage through creatures. You can even board it against burn, it just needs counter backup so that they don’t burn you out turns 1-5+.

Last grinder I will state is Ashiok. Not a common one. He works in a fashion that slowly kills your opponent in the form of mill while subsequently giving incidental board presence. He works in any match you expect will go long, especially one with maindeck creatures. All abilities are relevant and he is difficult to destroy with most non-abrupt decay removal spells. Needs more testing than I have been able to do.

I think Countersqaull over negate, assuming you are running at least one u/b land in the flex slots. The extra damage can matter when we are a aggro-control deck.

I like the sewer idea, but is it better than olivia? Olivia’s cost vs sewer’s fragility. Olivia’s versatility vs Sewer’s speed. What do you think?

Also, what is your thoughts on Sulfur elemental? I’m more than half tempted to run one in the side for junk specifically, and coincedentally any soul sisters or d&t I might run into.

I’m also a big fan of Blood Moon, but with sideboard slots at a premium, along with the number of cantrips Delver runs, that it’s bad in multiples, our opponents are going to play around it in game 2 AND without a dedicated manabase – it’s not that much of a blow-out. I’m currently on 2 in my Twin deck and would run 2 in my Delver list as well.

(What I mean re the manabase is that you need a better base than 8 fetches of which only 6 fetch Islands and 6 fetch Swamps to run Blood Moon safely – on top of that you’ll likely be using the first fetch to find a red shock land)

I can’t agree more on Dispel, Flashfreeze and Negate – no blue deck should leave home without each on of those sleeved up in the sideboard.

If Abzan is getting you down – what about a singleton Sower of Temptation?