Comments on: Putting Jeskai Delver to the Test

By: Nick Meyenburg

Nick Meyenburg — Sun, 13 Nov 2016 12:00:00 +0000

I have questions regarding the Grixis Delver Match Up. I played against a good friend of mine, who played your Grixis list and I found, just as you did, that the Match Up is unfavourable but not unwinable. Against the pyro version I would leave Electrolyze in but what about the non pyro list ? There I don’t like a 3 Mana Shock. I tried to play the controll deck and boarded out Delver, since they have enough removal and we don’t have many ways other than dispel to protect him. I know that they are the better controll deck but Gideon is such a haymaker. In the postboard Matches my gameplan was to get my Quellers countered on turn 3 and drop Gideon on turn 4. Other than Bolt Snap Bolt they then don’t have much of an option on how to deal with him. What do you think of this approach ? I honestly would also leave the Mana Leaks in, I like the helixes/bolt less because they also board out Delver.
If you have Gideon on the board, do you start clocking them for 5 a turn or do you just build an army with the tokens ?

Regarding Lightning Helix, I think the card is kinda weak, but it gives us range, which is what we want against decks like Tron, it improves the Burn match up by alot and is also good against Infect and creature decks in general. Do you honestly think that Helix does not deserve any slots, or are you abit biased because you did not play versus decks where it is good ?

Thanks alot for sharing your tournament results with us!

By: Ryan Overturf

Ryan Overturf — Sat, 12 Nov 2016 07:19:11 +0000

In reply to Matt M. I think that Opt would be a very significant upgrade over Serum Visions. The question is whether Opt is too good for Modern. I'm not holding my breath on it or a similar card entering the format.

By: Matt M

Matt M — Sat, 12 Nov 2016 00:15:45 +0000

Sweet stuff Ryan. So it appears Grixis Delver is an excellent deck but requires tighter play than many modern decks to do well consistently. That’s my theory of why Jund is consistently more popular as it is less punishing of mistakes(goyf doesn’t hurt but tasigur lines up well with it).

Obviously treasure cruise made delver(izzet/grixis) amazing but wotc thought it too good.

So my question. Could you design a card(likely a cantrip but any card) that would help return delver to it’s former top 3 deck status without making the deck busted?

I’ve been thinking and my mind naturally goes to cards like ponder and preordain(brainstorm should never ever enter modern). But as I thought about it, I thought that might make decks like ad nauseum too good.

So what card would you design or unban?

By: Ariel Crispino

Ariel Crispino — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 23:39:55 +0000

Hii. Your articles are great!!. I am playing a similar deck but with young pyromancer. I want to know for you, in which match ups a young pyro decklist has a better matchup than a list without young pyro. I think young pyro is good against jund and the match is very equal. Greetings!!