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By: olaw, Oliver Law
Mar 26 2015 12:00pm
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File:Tasigur, the Golden Fang.jpg

Hello!

Welcome to another Becoming A Modern Man!  In this article I take a look at one of Fate Reforged's biggest gifts to Modern, Tasigur, the Golden Fang.  Tasigur has had a pretty exciting impact on Modern in various decks but in this article I will be looking at a Grixis Delver deck that uses The Golden Fang.

So let's take at the list shall we:

Grixis Delver
Richard Nguyen (21st Place at StarCityGames Modern Open 28/02/2015)
Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Young Pyromancer
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
14 cards

Other Spells
3 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mana Leak
2 Murderous Cut
2 Remand
2 Spell Snare
1 Terminate
3 Thought Scour
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
28 cards
Lands
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Blood Crypt
1 Darkslick Shores
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
18 cards

Snapcaster Mage

As you can see the deck takes the fairly standard UR Delver shell and adds a splash of black for Tasigur, as well as removal in the form of Terminate and Murderous Cut.

DECK TECH

Creatures

Delver of SecretsInsectile AberrationSnapcaster MageYoung Pyromancer
Delver of Secrets/Snapcaster Mage/Young Pyromancer
This was the original trifecta of creatures you would find in UR Delver decks prior to the arrival of Treasure Cruise.  All of them fit very well in a spell heavy deck and are just very powerful and cheap creatures, which plays perfectly into the decks strategy.  Snapcaster Mage took a bit of a tumble thanks to Treasure Cruise, usually falling in favour of Monastery Swiftspear, but with Cruise banned normalcy has resumed.

Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
One of the biggest cards to come out of Fate Reforged for Modern was Tasigur.  The Legendary creature can be an incredibly cheap 4/5 body and also has a very powerful ability in the long-term that allows you to rebuy nonland cards from your graveyard.  In Modern you can drop Tasigur as early as Turn 2 given the right hand which feels pretty awesome.
The Delve also allows you to exile cards from your graveyard which you can use to weaken opposing Tarmogoyfs amongst other things.

Spells

Gitaxian ProbeSerum VisionsThought Scour
Gitaxian Probe/Serum Visions/Thought Scour
These are our one-mana draw spells.  Gitaxian Probe gets us a look at their hand which can give us valuable information, it can also be cast for the fantastic price of 2 life, dig us deeper, filling our graveyard and activating Young PyromancerSerum Visions is probably the most powerful of our draw spells, giving us an immediate draw and manipulating our future draws.  Visions also works excellently with Delver of Secrets as you can set up a flip on your next upkeep.  Thought Scour is very powerful here as it does a fantastic job at discounting your Murderous Cuts and Tasigur.  A Thought Scour and a fetchland means you can cast a Turn 2 Tasigur which is pretty awesome.

Spell SnareMana LeakRemand
Spell Snare/Mana Leak/Remand
Here is our counterspell suite.  Spell Snare is a very powerful one-mana counterspell that cheaply deals with the various powerful two-mana spells in the format.  Leak and Remand are pretty much the best countermagic that 2-mana can buy in Modern.

TerminateMurderous Cut
Terminate/Murderous Cut
Playing Black gives us access to some very powerful unconditional removal spells, which are great for dealing with the bigger threats in the format such as Tarmogoyf, Tasigur and Siege Rhino.  As the deck throws a lot of cards into the graveyard Murderous Cut can usually be cast for one or two mana, which makes it very efficiently costed.

Electrolyze
Electrolyze
Electrolyze is a card that seems to fall in and out of favour in Delver decks.  Richard's list runs 3 copies which I feel might be slightly too many in the current environment.  Electrolyze is always a good value card but I just don't feel it does a ton against the current popular decks.  I guess it's primary use in the current metagame is killing Lingering Souls tokens, which is certainly good if you are expecting a lot of Souls decks.

Lands
The lands are fairly unexciting.  The most interesting thing is probably the fact that we are running only 18 lands in the deck.  That is very land light but with 11 one-mana draw spells and several other cantrips in the deck it isn't too much of a problem.  The low land count helps us to keep drawing gas and makes Delver flips more likely, however, it can be a little frustrating in a three-colour deck.  The other thing to note is the number of non-basic lands which are used with Blood Moon in the sideboard.  Blood Moon in a three-colour deck is a bit ambitious but it can work.

SIDEBOARD
There are plenty of sideboard options for this deck.  I made some changes from Richard's sideboard due to my personal card availability but let's take at his choices:

Dragon's ClawEngineered ExplosivesBlood MoonDispelFlashfreezeShatterstormVandalblast

  • Dragon's Claw is used almost exclusively against Burn.  Clearly if you are expecting a burn heavy metagame Dragon's Claw can be a useful sideboard option.
  • Engineered Explosives is a powerful mass removal spell.  It's useful against Splinter Twin decks when set at 3 mana, Infect/Bogles at 1 mana and Tokens at 0.  The card is quite expensive and I don't currently own any but it's a card worth investing in.
  • Blood Moon is the sideboard deck that our manabase rather stretches for.  I'm not a big fan of Blood Moon in three-colour decks but it can be very powerful and might be worth that extra stretch.
  • Dispel is a powerful counterspell.  It's useful in numerous situations, including countering Infects pump spells, combo pieces, opposing counterspells and instant-speed removal.
  • Flashfreeze seems like an odd choice in the sideboard.  It does cover a wide range of spells but is oddly specific.  I think I substituted these for Spell Pierce in my sideboard, which is cheaper and I feel more useful.
  • Shatterstorm and Vandalblast are artifact hate spells and powerful ones at that.  I think 5 artifact hate spells in the sideboard seems very extreme unless you are expecting a particularly Affinity heavy field.

One of the cards I've seen used in other sideboards recently is (Izzet Staticaster).  Staticaster is great at killing 1-toughness guys, which is exciting against Infect (which is quite popular), Lingering Souls and other token producers and the various 1-toughness guys in Modern, be it Young Pyromancer, Snapcaster Mage or Dark Confidant.  Worth considering.

GAMEPLAY
I had quite a bit of trouble getting gameplay footage thanks to casting Electrolyze apparently bugging out replays, which is quite bizarre.  I've also had a few internet issues which has made the whole process of making these videos more painful than usual.  So, I apologise if these videos aren't quite up to scratch.


Our first matchup is against a Nykthos Wave deck.  This was an interesting matchup.  We don't really have much of a sideboard plan for this deck so we primarily have to rely on our main deck.  We certain have enough disruption and powerful creatures to win through but once they get going they can be difficult to stop.  Remand really shines in this matchup as a way of delaying their big spells but this matchup is surprisingly tough.


Our second matchup is against a UG Infect deck.  This deck has been popularised by CFB's Team Pantheon at the last Pro Tour and sees a decent amount of play.  I feel like this matchup is fairly good for us, we have a lot of answer to their threats in the form of removal and burn as well as counterspells for their pump spells.  Infect can be very explosive but in general this seems like a matchup we should be winning.


Our third and final matchup is against Temur Twin.  This was quite a long, involved and complex matchup.  I feel like we have the tools to beat Temur Twin, we've got a lot of powerful removal to deal with their big creatures and powerful creatures of our own.  This matchup was tough and Vedalken Shackles proved to be a real problem but it was certainly close.

CONCLUSIONS
Grixis Delver is certainly a powerful deck but somehow it doesn't feel like it's quite there.  I think like UR Delver, post-Treasure Cruise ban, it sits as a powerful fringe deck but lacks that push to get into the Top Tier.  Tasigur and Murderous Cut are exciting new additions to the deck and fit nicely into what the deck is already doing.  However, I think Tasigur is a lot like Tarmogoyf in that people are experimenting with splashing it in various decks to see how it works.  The question of whether you are diluting the existing deck or adding something more powerful isn't always easy to answer.

I feel like Tasigur does add significantly to the deck.  He provides a big early threat and also helps give the deck a more powerful late game by allowing you to get back cards out of your graveyard.  I also like the spot removal which helps against decks that can outrace you with bigger creatures.  Delving into a third colour does hurt our consistency a little though and makes us more vulnerable to cards like Blood Moon, though this deck tries to minimise that as much as possible.

Overall, I like this deck and I enjoy the angle it has taken on UR Delver.  Unfortunately I think there is something that is just a little lacking which prevents this from being a top deck in the format.

Thanks for reading,

Oliver Law (olaw on MTGO)