I can see why you would want to just concede the Dredge matchup, however, I personally don’t like not having at least a decent chance against all tier 1 decks, and of courses Surgical Extraction is decent to great against a variety of other decks as well.
As for Dreadbore vs. Hero’s Downfall, I have found that the one mana discount is a major improvement in most matchups. Keep in mind that although Nahiri is the reason the card is in the deck, I also will draw it against lots of faster decks so I would like it to be playable there, where a 1 turn delay could mean the game. I also have found that double black is a lot harder than red black. I concede that Hero’s Downfall is better against Jeskai, but since it’s maindeck I’d rather run the more flexible choice. Just playing an extra Terminate is always an option too, I suppose.
That particular sideboard was a little messy for sure. Blood Moon does seem better to me than Ghost Quarter, and my main reason for including it was to have better game against Bant Eldrazi, which continues to pick up in popularity. Do you think that matchup is good? I’ve struggled to beat any Cavern of Souls draw, which I suppose could be Ghost Quartered but Blood Moon is obviously better in that matchup, while also wrecking midrange and land based strategies.I agree that Rough//Tumble isn’t that strong and that Countersquall is one of my best options. Do you not like Shatterstorm because you think Affinity is already a good matchup? As for Bitterblossom, I’ve been playing with a singleton copy in my sideboard for forever and it has always been great, I think I’ll leave that one alone 🙂

My plan for Dredge is to either pack four Leylines or to let the field do the work. Two cards that are just for Dredge are low percentage enough with the matchup being bad enough that I don’t think they’re worth it. Just don’t get paired against the deck with your tournament life on the line. 😉

Your maindeck is fine. I haven’t been impressed with the second K Command with Grixis mirrors not being very popular currently, but it plays. I don’t like Dreadbore as I both plan to counter Nahiri and would rather have Hero’s Downfall against a resolved one as it can also hit Collonade.

For the sideboard, I don’t care for Blood Moon in general, and I think Blood Moon plus Ghost Quarter is oversideboarding for that sort of effect. In particular, you’re shy on Countersqualls, which may be the best card in the sideboard. Rough//Tumble doesn’t seem worth a slot at all, as you can beat Elves by just casting one for ones and Snapcasting them. I like spells over Lavamancer, Shatterstorm is slow and unnecessary, and while I get Bitterblossom I think one copy is just kind of weird. Would rather play more generic stuff.

The maindeck is constructed in a way that tries to force interactive games of Magic, which most Modern opponents won’t be ready for. Blood Moon is a gotcha card, and doesn’t fit here. I don’t endorse it, but others play with them. I think it is both narrow and an odd fit.

That makes sense, thanks! I was also wondering what your current Dredge sideboard plan is? I’ve been testing 2x Surgical Extraction in the side to complement the playset of Snapcasters, and I wanted to make sure I got the numbers right, so I created a computer program to crunch the numbers for me. After 40,000 tests, this is what I concluded, with a keepable hand defined as one with at least one land, one Snapcaster, and one Surgical Extraction (obviously there are lots of hands keepable beyond this, but the ability to cast Extraction twice is usually game-winning against Dredge, as it shuts down either their Grave-Trolls and Stinkweed Imps, their discard outlets, or their creatures that return from the grave, depending on the state of the game any of those can crush them.) This is what I found:
1x Surgical Extraction results in about 15.5% keepable hands,
2x Surgical Extraction results in about 28.5% keepable hands,
3x Surgical Extraction results in about 38.0% keepable hands, and
4x Surgical Extraction results in about 45.5% keepable hands.
As you can see, the biggest impact copy is the second, which almost doubles your percentage chance. There’s still an argument for the third copy, but given the premium put on sideboard slots I wouldn’t add it, not to mention the barely noticeable effect of the fourth copy. I think I’m comfortable staying with the two copies, as having 30% of your hands post-board absolutely wreck your opponent seems strong. Keep in mind that out of the other 70%, there is still a decent percentage that can beat Dredge, say with a single Extraction, and a few that just have enough pressure and disruption to beat a slow Dredge draw. Any thoughts on my current Grixis Delver list?
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Gurmag Angler
4 Serum Visions
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Thought Scour
2 Kolaghan’s Command
4 Mana Leak
2 Terminate
1 Dreadbore
1 Dismember
1 Electrolyze
2 Remand
4 Spell Snare
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Darkslick Shores

2 Ghost Quarter
1 Dispel
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Magma Spray
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Countersquall
1 Rough // Tumble
1 Bitterblossom
2 Blood Moon
1 Painful Truths
1 Shatterstorm

I guess I’ve been rambling for a while now. I’ll stop 🙂

I disagree that Grixis Delver is about trading aggressively, and I find most of my losses have been because I didn’t display enough patience with my interactive spells. More often than not, I find myself two or more cards up on cards in hand over my opponent, and I believe that to be the deck’s primary strength, so I neither understand where you’re coming from or why you would move the deck in the other direction. If your shell is working for you, that’s awesome, though from how I play and understand the deck, I would not be interested in Shoals.

So far in my own testing I’ve found that in Grixis, as generally opposed to the Temur Delver Shoal list that Jordan Boisvert has been developing, I’m much more comfortable playing my deck’s best spells proactively (Bolt, Terminate, KCommand)) and emptying my hand trading cards with the opponent, which plays well with Reveler’s requirements.

I understand the hesitation to move away from the established Grixis Delve shell that has done well, but trading out Tasigurs and Anglers for maindeck Revelers and a few Vendilion Cliques has done very well for me when I also play Disrupting Shoal. This shift comes with a few different moves that I find are also relevant. Trading Thought Scour for Gitaxian Probe is important, as another free spell to get to your Revelers faster. Shoal also helps with this, and while there are certainly strong arguments against 2 for 1’ing yourself, filling the yard with more instants/sorceries for free and either retaking tempo or definitively stopping your opponent from gaining tempo has made Shoal a key roleplayer for me and substantially mitigated the situations where I need to pitch relevant cards when Reveler etbs.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this kind of configuration, and I’d be happy to post the decklist I’ve been working with or talk more in depth here or via PM.

Given the volume of content sites out there now, this sort of thing is bound to happen. Never heard of that one. Not to mention that if I wanted the title to be “Bedlam Reveler Sucks”.

http://www.5colorcombo.com/emn/2016/07/22/bedlam-reveler.html

I’m still very against Young Pyromancer, and Gitaxian Probe in particular out of a three-color non-combo deck in Modern does not inspire confidence from me. I think the counterspells are just too important and the Pyromancer and Probes do just too little. Maybe if Reality Smasher didn’t trample.

This would be an easier discussion to have in person than over text, though I’ll start by admitting that I haven’t seen quite this angle before. It’s an interesting take, and among the better Reveler lists that I’ve seen. I would not play Shivan Reef, and at most one Sulfur Falls, but that’s minor. My major concern with the deck is that, on its face, it looks like a worse Infect. The deck appears less focused, though arguably comparably explosive and better at interacting. I like that Reveler helps you compete with grindy decks, though I’m not seeing why I would necessarily want that over having Inkmoth Nexus as part of my threat base. I might play with this list, because I will admit that it is intriguing, though I’m not fully convinced at a glance.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/what-thing-in-the-ice/

I’ve been brewing with reveler since it got spoiled, and this is where i actually got him to work and win games consistently.

You mentioned that UR tempo lists have trouble dealing with midrange threats outside of Mana Leaking them. This deck addresses that by going bigger with Thing in the Ice and bouncing their board.

also note that both Thing and reveler are horrors, so reveler will stay through flips.

The gameplan is turn 1-2 cantrip and/or threat (Thing and Swiftspear). Then Dump your hand of cantrips, bolts and pumps on them to generate value and damage. By turn 4 you have 6 instants/sorceries in your graveyard almost every game (or simply enough to cast reveler), and you reload, leaving you with 3 cards in hand and a powerful board.

When reading articles on Reveler on here, i was wondering when people were going to explore his possible synergy with Thing in the Ice (which is obvious, imo), but it kinda never happened 🙂

I’ve done a very simple statistic on my wins/losses with the deck against a number of other decks and am currently winning 2 out of every 3 matches overall (best-of-3s). There have been some insane turn 3 kills in there, and, if left unchecked, turn 4 wins occur pretty frequently. On the other side, I’ve beat jund and grixis midrange with Revelers card advantage more than once.

I’d love to hear your thoughts (and others) on the idea.

One last thing. Ive been considering going Temur for possibly Traverse the Ulvenwald enabling me to drop the Reveler count to 2 and always having access to him, and maybe even Tarmogoyf.

Shoot me a comment, comment on the deck, whatever, I would love to hear your opinion on this.

kind regards

Seems reasonable there. Minimally I like it as a sideboard option for them against Jund, as Jund is quite good at running them out of cards.

2-of in U/R Pyromancer Thing? That’s a weird deck, but it made top 8 in Guangzhou