For whatever reason, I've never commented on this deck or subbed to it. I consistently try to find it but generally no luck. I either have to find you, Epoch, or Fluffy (who can fetch an Epoch) to find the deck. Anyway, the deck looks fairly strong. I do find Spell Pierce to be consistently stronger than Dispel. For example, I cast Roast on your Tasi. Or your Angler. What about a Maelstrom Pulse? What if I am about Splinter Twin for the win? Or enchant my Bogle? Dispel can't do enough.

But on turn 5 when they topdeck Path to Exile to remove your Tasigur, Spell Pierce is worthless. Or if they topdeck Terminate. Or Kolaghan's Command to burn you Delver and make you discard, or something else. After about turn 4, Pierce becomes worthless, while Dispel retains value. Plus, in delver, the cards you care about countering are the ones that are killing your creatures, which are almost exclusively instants. The sorcery removal spells are 1-ofs and sideboard cards, so they're not really relevant. It's really a toss up, that's dependent on the meta, matchups, and really just personal preference. In the bogles scenario, pierce is better, but in the twin scenario, twin will always wait until they can cast Twin with countermagic up. (Most) twin players aren't stupid enough to fall into the countermagic trap. Although in all honesty, I run Spell Pierce in my deck XD.

TheFoilAjani Dispel hits what I want it to hit more often. I don't worry about Maelstrom Pulse since I don't play BGx often, and against Splinter Twin, I can Terminate or Cut their dude, or just Mana Leak whatever I need to in that case.

I personally believe that Dispel is the best 1 mana counterspell in the format right now, but if the meta changes, I could see a possible Spell Pierce or Spell Snare.

So I am new to modern, and have been looking for a good place to start for a couple of months now. I decided that the strategy that I wanted to play was Grixis Delver. I found your deck and really liked it since you do not run snaps (I don't have that type of money) and you found a unique card for the deck, Abbot of Keral Keep. I plan on building a deck similar to this in the near future. I was wondering what are the good/bad matchups for the deck and other strategies that this deck may have?

Featured as I've already voted on this beauty!

I like the new direction! Painful Truths is a bonkers card. Have fun with it! I'd play 2, honestly.

I liked the story for each card. Really like the deck and gave me insight on why cards are good and should be played. +1

@Atrax That's all I could hope for.

Cards looking all up spicy in OTG. Here are some winners;

Wanderig Fumerole is a god man-land. 1/4 on defense, 4/1 on offense, it looks really, really strong.

Stormchaser Mage is the Swiftspear you needed. Has evasion, dodges Bolt with one prowess trigger, and is only 2 mana.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet looks really powerful. Provides good bodies, buffs quickly, helps against Melira combo. I think it's a very strong creature.

That's all the new things I think would work, if you don't want to try for colourless cards.

I'm going to echo what TheFoilAjani just said but with my own opinion, just to give you more opinions on those cards.

I don't recommend Fumerole, actually. Not as good as Creeping Tar Pit, mostly because of the activation cost. 5 mana (4 to activate 1 for the manland to swing) is just too much. Being able to block is nice, but probably too late in the game to matter.

Stormchaser could be a thing. It's pretty aggressive, but I think it could rock in here. It's no more aggressive than Delver, which is an all-star in here. I highly recommend running it when Oath comes out.

Kalitas is awesome. I'm going to play him in my deck. Might be too big and slow for in here, but it's sideboard for sure at worst. It is great against Burn and BGx in particular, but fun against really any aggro and it's only bad matchup is Tron, but that's because it's a 4-drop creature, which is always bad vs Tron.

@TheFoilAjani ToolmasterOfBrainerd I kinda thought about stormchaser, and as good as he is, I can't see jamming another 2 drop dude in the deck.

I really like Wandering Fumarole and intend on adding a copy over some land.

Kalitas sideboard sounds sounds pretty good. Against burn, its wrong to side it in, since you should be siding out every expensive casting cost card. But BGx might start to tear up.

But if you really want to make them cry, shove a new Chandra in ur sideboard. Too fat for my deck, but she can get dumb quick, especially as lingering souls removal or delve fuel, and six to their face is challenging. If u need a sideboard card that imitates the impact of big Elspeth, bring that in.

Eh, Chandra's cmc is too high and it really only makes my good matchups better, which is not what I need. Also, mana cost.

Kalitas is great vs burn. I've tested it. A little slow, but you're deck that's capable of stalling. The biggest thing grixis struggles with (which coincidentally is also burn's biggest weakness) is consistent or repeatable life gain. Kalitas is exactly that. If they can burn you to death the turn after you play him, then you've screwed up, but with enough disruption he is exactly the bomb grixis needs to beat burn, which is probably our worst matchup. Perhaps Tron and Living End are worse, but I doubt it.

I need some explanation to why Fumarole would be played over Creeping Tar Pit. I can't think of any realistic scenario where I wouldn't prefer Tar Pit.

When you need it to, Fumarole can block largish creatures, or can trade up. It can ping away, or slam in. It is generally super versatile. We do live in an age of Rhinos and Goyfs, so maybe Fumarole is too small, but I think it requires testing.

@ToolmasterOfBrainerd because u want an izzet land that does stuff and doesn't die to lightning bolt and is less money?

If Stormchaser turns out to be amazing, I might swap the deck up a tad. Only chance for him. But he does look sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

I think Kalitas will die too quickly against burn players who know what they're doing. But whatever, the cards still nuts.

Yeah. I'm not sure if you want Kalitas or not. Perfect for my deck but possibly less so in here.

As for Fumarole, I guess budget is a legitimate excuse. I also guess that UR is better than UB in here, but I'd personally rather have the better manland. By the time Fumarole is online, you likely will not have anything to block, which makes me not really appreciate it's 1/4 blocking ability. As for bolt, who in their right mind would bolt a land, unless it was your main (only) source of damage against them. Also, this land does die to bolt. If they want to bolt it, it's super easy to do. When you put switching its power and toughness on the stack (to make it a 4/1), they can respond with bolt going on the stack above it. No matter how many times you change it's P/T in response, eventually bolt will resolve and then the last P/T switch will resolve, guaranteeing its death. So the bolt argument is invalid, unless you consider pinging for 1 a good use of 5 mana and a reliable way to end the game.

I think Stormchaser Mage will be quite the hit in here. Test it out and see how it works now before it's released so you'll already know if you should pick them up when Oath comes out. You can use the alter I mage Stormchaser Chimera to have it in the deck in the meantime. You really can't tell if it belongs until you play with it.

[[Stormchaser Chimera *A=3701*]]

Good luck!

@ToolmasterOfBrainerdI don't know about Stormchaser Mage. There's literally 0 room for it, since I can't cut a noncreature and my creatures are all better than it. I'm still going to pick up 4-5 copies of it anyways in case I can find room (like a snapcaster ban or something ridiculous) for it, but there's not a open slot.

Also, is Sinkhole a bad card? Then why would being able to sinkhole for only on a card that's attacking you and that they've put mana into be bad in ANY world? It's a gigantic tempo swing in your favor.

Well, sinkhole comes down turn 2 reliably whereas you can't bolt Fumarole until turn 5 at the earliest when popping a single land means almost nothing.....

@ToolmasterOfBrainerd I mean more like on tar pit...

And even then, you can still have a medium to large impact in the game with just a single bolt

Want to find out for good if it's a good card? Proxy it up and play with it! That's the only way you'll be able to tell if it's going to be a good edition for the deck.

Yes, bolt is good. Bolting a manland is a tempo swing, but bad for value and virtual card advantage. At this point you have to face the fact that your deck is just as much value and card advantage as it is tempo, so ignoring those principles will worsen your deck.

So Summer Bloom bit the bullet, as did Splinter Twin. Get ready for BGX, RG Tron, and B/W Eldrazi.

@TheFoilAjani @ToolmasterOfBrainerd I'm gonna bite the bullet and probably buy a painter's servant, since it shuts down all of their eldrazi lands.

If I add another land, do you think Cryptic Command would be playable?

How does Painter's Servant shut down the lands?