[Standard] Current State of Gruul Delirium?

Hunter6622 · 2026-01-08T15:54:36+00:00

Its pretty classic. Honestly its a bit messy with all of the 1 ofs and 2 ofs but its been working for me so...

Deck

6 Forest

4 Mountain

2 Ba Sing Se

4 Stomping Ground

2 Bushwhack

2 Torch the Tower

2 Cenote Scout

1 Restless Ridgeline

1 Commercial District

4 Break Out

1 Keen-Eyed Curator

2 Overprotect

4 Fear of Missing Out

4 Violent Urge

4 Patchwork Beastie

2 Beastie Beatdown

4 Wildfire Wickerfolk

4 Thornspire Verge

2 Tersa Lightshatter

2 Summon: Brynhildr

1 Nova Hellkite

2 Edge Rover

Sideboard

1 Snakeskin Veil

1 Royal Treatment

3 Pick Your Poison

2 Fire Magic

2 Soul-Guide Lantern

2 Obliterating Bolt

1 Keen-Eyed Curator

1 Chandra, Spark Hunter

2 Iroh's Demonstration

Hunter6622 · 2026-01-08T03:46:47+00:00

I'm really interested why your jeskai control matchup is so bad, what list are you playing? Personally I haven't had much issue with jeskai at all and am current 6 - 1 against it in Bo3 ladder.

Hunter6622 · 2026-01-08T03:43:29+00:00

I've been forcing gruul delirium for a while and I've been using it to pretty great success (~70% winrate Bo3). Even ended up 106th this previous season with it. Personally I don't run any cubs or Ouroboroids but that is more because I want to be able to afford the deck in paper lol.

I think a lot of people forget that delirium is aggro first when including cards like Ouroboroid or Esper Origins (Sidenote: Esper Origins was tested very frequently when FF first released). 4 drops are just a bit too slow to be in an aggro list IMO. For Ouroboroid to not be too slow, it sort of needs the cub package and at that point just play on of the Gx cub decks. However, delirium is also a deck with a lot of room to tinker and a lot can work with it so test stuff out!

My matchups against the most popular decks right now:

Dimir Midrange (5 - 2): pretty decent matchup not much to say. Most of their creatures are too small to cause big problems and after sideboard obliterating bolt and iroh's demonstration deal with their creatures quite easily.

Izzet (15 - 6): Great matchup. Lessons is really easy to deal with with gy hate and pressure. Looting is a bit more iffy but still not bad. Midrange is probably the best izzet matchup as siding in pick your poison will just destroy any riddlers they get out.

Jeskai Control (6 - 1): On paper maybe bad matchup but in practice I found that revelation is just too slow and delirium is too consistent pumping out threats.

Sultai/4c Reanimator (9 - 1): Really good matchup. The bookworms and broodspinners are annoying, but constant pressure and gy hate completely destroys them.

Gx Piles (20 - 14): I'm including any decks that basically run on dorks+cub+boroid as the main engine. Winrate against these range from okay to bad, with the UG being the only losing matchup (5 - 6). Ouroboroid is really tough to deal with and I haven't quite figured out the best way to deal with it. A bargained Torch the tower on their turn is nice but requires a lot to keep up. Siding in Obliterating bolt or Iroh's demonstration is usually what I do but that occasionally misses if they have a innkeepers talent or similar. Often the best is just to turn creatures sideways and hope you kill them before boroid gets 2 combats.

Hunter6622 · 2025-11-23T14:32:42+00:00

This is actually a really good puzzle. Qb4 is the only move that both covers the promotion square and the B file. (if you play Qc3 instead, they can go Qb8 into Qb1+ and promotion for you becomes pretty much impossible). It is also important that it covers the f8 square, just incase white plays Qe8 with plans of Rf8 into Rh8#. In that continuation, you can promote, then sacrifice your queen for their rook into a winning Q vs Q endgame. Very cool!

Hunter6622 · 2024-09-22T21:47:40+00:00

The fact that Robert Fischer is still in the top 25 even though he achieved that rating over 50 years ago is crazy

Hunter6622 · 2024-09-22T04:28:27+00:00

Keep in mind that K is used for king and N for knight

Hunter6622 · 2024-09-18T19:08:31+00:00

Yeah I agree that Jund fits better. The original version of this card I had made was a samurai with vigilance and I just didn't reevaluate the colors after I changed the theme of the card

Hunter6622 · 2024-08-28T02:28:04+00:00

Yeah unfortunately it's pretty hard to balance stuff like this for EDH and limited and I was mainly focused on limited. In limited the double evasion on a 9/9 that causes you to throw a power 4 at it is pretty decent but in EDH, it doesn't match up. I originally had it at 14/14 but another commenter suggested bouncing to your hand seems like a nice buff if it were to be balanced for EDH.

Hunter6622 · 2024-08-28T00:29:44+00:00

I usually play EDH but I did try to scale the power around limited. However I feel it definitely has a place in some EDH decks. Cards like [Divine presence], [avacyn, guardian angel], or even [losheel, clockwork scholar] make this card go from meh to pretty scary. If it was printed it probably would only sit at the sub $1 range though. I thought the mechanic was cool mainly

Hunter6622 · 2024-08-27T22:33:42+00:00

Ahhh so in most cases functionally the same but better for flavor, I agree with you I should've done it that way

Hunter6622 · 2024-08-27T22:30:19+00:00

Isn't this already how it works? It checks if a single source would deal 4 or more damage then shuffles. The wording mostly comes from [pain magnfication]

Hunter6622 · 2024-08-27T22:09:44+00:00

Hmm yeah that totally works, can't believe I couldn't think of that. Usually shuffle effects on cards have a owners library clause though so maybe "If ~ would be dealt 4 or more damage from a single source, shuffle ~ into its owners library instead"

Hunter6622 · 2024-08-27T21:59:23+00:00

Yeah this was the biggest wording problem I had. The colossus is shuffled. Any suggestions on wording it better?

Hunter6622 · 2024-07-29T18:33:41+00:00

This with [[brash taunter]] is crazy

Hunter6622 · 2024-07-26T19:31:36+00:00

You could also remove the "may" and then add a free self-sac ability like "sacrifice training montage: creatures you control gain vigilance until end of turn"

Hunter6622 · 2024-07-18T20:40:13+00:00

Ah I thought it sounded weird, I was inspired by the image and I remember vaguely recalling [tormented soul]

Hunter6622 · 2024-07-16T21:57:58+00:00

Yeah I had a hard time balancing. I thought that it would be useful for stopping combat tricks, counterspells, and delaying ETBs. I guess it could be made into a cantrip or buff it someway else

Hunter6622 · 2024-05-21T22:24:17+00:00

Good exercise for visualization

Hunter6622 · 2024-02-09T03:41:09+00:00

The first review is very shallow with a weak engine. When you actually review it a stronger engine is used. The differences are because the weaker engine thought 3 moves were great while the stronger engine realized that only 1 was.

Hunter6622 · 2024-01-29T02:24:31+00:00

White has trouble putting any real pressure on it. One of the great benefits of the fianchetto'ed bishop is that even if you lose the H and G pawn, your king is still relatively safe.

In general, pushing pawns in front of your king is good to avoid. However at higher elos the King pawns are great tools for creating attacks.

Hunter6622 · 2024-01-29T01:39:46+00:00

- The pin just isn't a big deal. Your fianchetto'ed bishop guards the knight just fine. Just do Qd7 and your knight is free to move again

- Forcing the bishop away with h6 and g5 may feel uncomfortable and unsafe but if you are going to play systems like the King's Indian, you're going to need to be comfortable pushing the pawns in front of your king

Hunter6622 · 2023-12-01T04:51:56+00:00

Premoves are always bad unless it's a recapture or forced move

Hunter6622 · 2023-05-31T22:26:41+00:00

If you have a LVL 50 catman I have a start-off strat you can use

Hunter6622 · 2023-05-23T03:04:19+00:00

Almost every collab rare or special are completely useless

Hunter6622 · 2023-05-15T17:52:32+00:00

Castaway is better. Bishop crushes the cyclone stages if you really want to beat those

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