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I have very fond memories of my first PTQ Top 8.
I was in college, Extended was still a format, and I was extremely confident in my ability to brew. It wouldn't be the first or last time I was adamant about jamming Sygg, River Cutthroat.
Aggro Jund
spells
3 Anathemancer
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
1 Chameleon Colossus
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Putrid Leech
2 Sygg, River Cutthroat
4 Blightning
1 Jund Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sign in Blood
2 Terminate
lands
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Graven Cairns
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Raging Ravine
2 Reflecting Pool
4 Savage Lands
1 Swamp
4 Twilight Mire
sideboard
2 Bituminous Blast
3 Deglamer
1 Jund Charm
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Obstinate Baloth
1 Slave of Bolas
2 Terminate
1 Wurmcoil Engine
I'd like to say that this is an article about how I broke Sygg in Modern, but unfortunately I'm writing today without Sygg (still) in any of my decks.
However, this deck was awesome because I never, for one second, felt like there was a deck in the room that I couldn't conceivably beat. I didn't drop a match until I mulliganed to five in the deciding game of the quarterfinals, and, even there, I made it look close. Months later I won the next PTQ I played in with a Grixis brew, once again feeling like I had the best deck in the room, Stoneforge Mystic be damned.
I didn't feel like I had any such stranglehold on the room during my recent Modern Top 8. I played against favorable matchups all through the swiss, and then in Top 8 I played against a known tough matchup, ran pretty poorly and lost.
The bad luck doesn't bother me too much, but for some reason I can't get over the fact that I was playing a deck with a known bad matchup.
I know, I know, first world problems. You can't beat everything these days in Magic. I knew what sort of metagame to expect. I knew that, in the known metagame, I felt favored against everything except Scapeshift and GBx Rock decks. Three decks I had identified as problem matchups Top 8'd, and I lost. Couldn't have expected things to go much better. Still though, something about that loss stung.
My next PTQ opportunity will be the Sunday following a Modern 5K the day before. This has me thinking that I have a golden opportunity to try a new deck, as if I play it and just tank the 5K, I'll have Izzet Delver as a standby for the PTQ. So I sat down with my thoughts on the format and got to brewing.
Major Premise 1: Snapcaster Mage is the Best Card in Modern
This isn't an open and shut debate, but I'm far from alone in having this opinion. Snapcaster Mage adds insane redundancy to blue decks and gives any deck a good burn plan simply by including Lightning Bolt.
This is not to say that Snapcaster Mage should be in every good deck, but merely an observation of the potential of a singular card.
Major Premise 2: Almost Everybody is Playing Good Removal
Lightning Bolt, Abrupt Decay and Path to Exile are out in force. A heavy saturation of removal is what makes The Rock such a tough matchup for Delver. It's relatively easy for them to just kill all of your threats, with Liliana of the Veil making it difficult to play the long game. This makes me think that a deck that doesn't lean so heavily on fragile creatures could be a good way to go.
Major Premise 3: The Rock Might Be the Best Deck
I've said to more than one person that it's possible GBx midrange is just what people should be doing in Modern. There are a lot of back-and-forth creature matchups, and The Rock has both some of the more resilient creature and Liliana as a difficult to answer way of closing things out.
Putting the Pieces Together
With these premises in mind, I got to work trying concocting a way to take advantage of the status quo. Embarrassingly, I played a few matches with Storm to try and take advantage of a metagame crafted to beat creatures. That didn't go especially well.
I did like the idea of a deck with a combo win, though. After Storm I tried both Izzet and Grixis Splinter Twin decks. There's plenty of hate that beats Twin, too, but ultimately my problem with the deck was with drawing too many Splinter Twins- a risk that advocates of the deck have to accept, but one that I personally consider a major drawback.
One thing I learned from the handful of matches I played with Grixis Twin was that Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize are pretty underwhelming in Modern. The more fair, efficient and redundant decks get, the worse targeted discard becomes. And most Modern decks can be described as at least two of these things.
Alternatively, Dark Confidant is sweet.
Dark Confidant serves as a way to draw removal away from Deceiver Exarch or to win the game on its own.
Epiphany time. If the problem with Delver's Rock matchup is them killing all of my threats, could just playing more threats be the answer?
It's a tough question. Adding Bob to Izzet Delver means adding a third color as well as probably adding more lands and playing fewer spells. This makes Delver and Young Pyromancer weaker... but I think it's worth a shot. After a couple 8-mans, this is my current list:
Modern Grixis Delver
spells
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Dark Confidant
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
1 Dreadbore
4 Mana Leak
4 Spell Snare
1 Pillar of Flame
1 Electrolyze
4 Serum Visions
1 Remand
lands
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
1 Watery Grave
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Darkslick Shores
4 Misty Rainforest
sideboard
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Geth's Verdict
1 Go for the Throat
2 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Counterflux
2 Magma Spray
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Electrickery
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Spell Pierce
Fewer spells and an additional color are the big losses here, though it's worth mentioning that I did cut Gitaxian Probe.
This is a cost that becomes larger the less experience you have with the deck, though I'd probably play the Thoughtseizes and Inquisition of Kozileks that I've decided against  if you want this type of effect in Grixis. If you go this route, however, I would bear in mind that the matchups where these cards truly shine will often have Leyline of Sanctity in their sideboard. I'm not going to pretend that Thoughtseize is unplayable, but I have been significantly more satisfied with counterspells in Modern than discard spells.
Terminate is a significant upgrade over Vapor Snag, as it is more useful when you're behind. Being able to deal with a resolved Tarmogoyf is also big game. It's true that you can't Terminate your own creatures for value, but simply playing more creatures in the deck simulates access to this line. Dreadbore is a concession to Liliana, and could possibly be worse than a third Terminate.
Admittedly, the manabase for this deck can have problems with Blood Moon, which the abundance of fetchlands attempts to combat. The deck does have the upside of having very powerful creatures that can come down before Blood Moon, and I would say that, while this downside is noteworthy, it's hardly a deal breaker.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Blood Moon
Geth's Verdict is a pretty slick sideboard card- providing an out to Hexproof, Thrun, the Last Troll and Etched Champion. The random point of damage is also not completely irrelevant.
I've been waffling a bit on whether or not to play Creeping Tar Pit. I'm currently against it. This deck really doesn't like playing lands tapped--particularly blue mana sources. Delver of Secrets, Serum Visions and Spell Snare are all reasons to favor Darkslick Shores. I could ultimately see cutting one for a Tar Pit, though it would take more experience to make that call.
I've liked the deck so far, and early testing against Rock decks has felt better than the straight Izzet version. Further testing of this matchup and further assessing whether other matchups have become worse will ultimately decide if this brew is actually an improvement.
At this point in time, I'm very optimistic.
Speculating on Snapcaster Mage
I was ready to say that now would be a good time to at least make sure you have your own set of Snapcaster Mages, considering the Modern Pro Tour was removed. This is because the Modern PT was the biggest reason to ever update the Modern ban list. Without this pressure, I would have expected Snapcaster Mage to steadily mature in price.
However, with the Modern PT back, 17 copies of Snapcaster Mage in the Top 8 of the previous Pro Tour, and it being the de facto best card in the format, I don't think I'd be too bullish on Tiago. I will definitely be holding onto my set because I see it as a necessity to playing non-Rock Modern, but I will not be picking up additional copies.
Thanks for reading.
-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter
