Is grim flayer a new budget tarmogoyf?
Modern forum
Posted on July 10, 2016, 12:04 a.m. by demonicgrizzly
It looks promising to me. A two drop trample that can be a 4/4 with a good ability that is easy to turn on with Liliana of the veil?
I am of course only speculating at this point, but Grim Flayer seems really good to me
And before people get all high-horse about goyf, I emphasize BUDGET. BUDGET. BUDGET.
Something important to note is that Delirium doesn't function like Tarmogoyf's ability. You need 4 different card types in your graveyard for it to work.
July 10, 2016 12:14 a.m.
demonicgrizzly says... #4
Right,and I know that, but in jund it's so easy to trigger delirium.
Turn one fetch,inquisition. Turn two land, bolt or kill spell. Turn three land, liliana, discard a creature.
In the yard on turn three: land, instant, sorcery, creature.
And again i emphasize BUDGET
Comes down about the same time as a goyf too.
July 10, 2016 12:20 a.m. Edited.
I think if you want to play GBx and are saving up for Goyfs hell do fine, but you'd want to replace them as you buy your Goyfs.
Biggest difference to me is Goyf is Bolt proof most of the time comin down on T2, I think getting 4 types to turn on Delirium in your graveyard is gonna be harder to do.
July 10, 2016 12:20 a.m.
He's the budget goyf we've been waiting for definitely. But it IS hard to enable delirium in modern, even with Abzan or Jund. I frequently have just 3 card types in my graveyard by T3 or T4 when playing proper GBx. Instants and Sorceries are fairly easy to achieve. Lands too. It's just getting that last one from either Creatures or Planeswalkers that's a bit trickier. It always feels like if you manage to get a creature in you dont get your sorceries. If you get your sorceries you dont find your instants etc. Lots of moving pieces and moving pieces cause inconsistency.
Having said that - yes I highly rate Grim Flayer as a budget goyf.
July 10, 2016 7:39 a.m.
Ohthenoises says... #7
Hey if you really wanted to you could run Nameless Inversion as removal to make it more reliable lol. You get tribal and instant as card types.
I'm testing that in my 8rack deck as a way to cast Hymn to Tourach in modern.
July 10, 2016 8:17 a.m.
demonicgrizzly says... #8
ChiefBell I know in a perfect world delirium is easy but this is not a perfect world. And in jund discarding a creature means you are discarding a potentially important piece of your starting strategy. Flayer might require a slightly different build, one that is perhaps a bit more creature heavy and one that maybe runs Courser of Kruphix to help sustain delirium. But it's not a bad budget option and is certainly better than most two drops we have available to us now.
Ohthenoises that is not a terrible idea, but running that in jund just feels bad when you have Lightning Bolt, Abrupt Decay, and Terminate
July 10, 2016 9:10 a.m.
Ohthenoises says... #9
I know, that's why I said "lol"
I mean in my deck it's not bad but tribal is an option.
July 10, 2016 11:59 a.m.
demonicgrizzly says... #10
It is an option and like I said maybe grim flayer will inspire a different build of jund or abzan that is viable and mix up the filed a bit
July 10, 2016 12:04 p.m.
Well. It does help smooth out draws. I'd be almost tempted to try it over Scavenging Ooze because having better card quality in hand is always a good thing.
July 10, 2016 1:49 p.m.
i don't play BGx much so i may be wrong here, but could it instead of goyf replace something like Scavenging Ooze? its in the same boat in terms of being a 2/2 that hopefully gets a bit bigger after a few turns. but it doesnt eat grave and it doesn't gain life. so i'm not sure if that's too much of a loss.
July 10, 2016 1:50 p.m.
The thing about Scooze is that it just shuts down so many mainstream strategies. For example it can eat Kitchen Finks from the graveyard to stop combos. It can eat Griselbrand to stop reanimator, and many other things. The other nice thing about Scavenging Ooze is that against fast creature aggro like Zoo the life gain, coupled with the fact that it acts as a solid blocker, is really, really good. Having a card in your maindeck that can shut down Dredge, Reanimator, Abzan Coco, Creature aggro and many others is just so, so good.
However, being able to make sure you draw the cards you need is also amazing.
July 10, 2016 1:53 p.m.
APPLE01DOJ says... #14
Worth running as a 1 of in BGx IMO simple for the deck manipulation.
July 11, 2016 12:23 a.m.
Answer to your question: No. No that card is not a new Tarmogoyf. Not even a budget one. If your deck needs goyf and you can't afford goyf then play another deck.
July 17, 2016 4:03 a.m.
It's always good to provide blanket negativity and discourage others from playing. That is precisely what we need in this community.
July 17, 2016 4:24 a.m.
The person asked a question and I answered. You let me know when there is something that does what Goyf does as efficiently as Goyf does and I'll be sure to recommend it.
As an aside, I'm not the kind of person that enjoys people spending lots of money and then regretting their decision a few weeks or months later at LGS when they are losing to T1 decks with skilled pilots. That's exactly the kind of situation that leads to disenfranchised players and diminished communities.
July 17, 2016 5:13 a.m.
It's a 4/4 for 2 where goyf is normally a 4/5. It has a relevant card filtering ability and a useful ability in trample.
It's a $10 card that does a good approximation of goyf for the money you pay. If it really were goyf it wouldn't be $10. When you're looking for budget replacements you have to accept setbacks and this certainly has some but in the mid to late game it's very close.
Goyfs power usually comes from being a 3/4 on turn 2 following discard. Obviously this isn't possible but neither is it a necessity for a deck that can jam turn 2 removal just as easily as it can turn 2 a threat.
There are plenty of ways to approximate BGx without spending all the money in the world and this is one of them. It won't be tier 1 but the original poster asked for budget and in the realms of budget this does it. Obviously you have to accept that if you're spending $400 on BGx instead of $2000 then your deck won't be as rounded out but that is not to say at all that it'll be a trash deck.
July 17, 2016 5:30 a.m.
demonicgrizzly says... #19
ChiefBell thanks for helping me keep the positivity alive
July 17, 2016 9:12 a.m.
also its possible to use this in a different style GBx deck to make it more consistent. if the deck had a bit more consistency putting together delirium then along with flayer you could have something like Moldgraf Scavenger as well which would also be a 3/4 for 2. which was talked about as a budget goyf in last set (but was ultimately judged to be too inconsistent and didn't have enough immediate impact to make it a good budget replacement). just some food for thought.
July 17, 2016 12:47 p.m.
Turn 1 IoK into turn 2 grisly salvage for delirium? Might be too much of a waste of turn 2 in GBx, but worth exploring for budget players?
July 18, 2016 3:09 p.m.
Better build for him is BUG Traverse. Self mill, Tasigur, Snapcaster, LoTV, Traverse the Ulvenwald, etc
July 18, 2016 7:47 p.m.
play Seal of Fire to help him in activating his delirium! even most jund decks play it to make goyf bigger nowadays
July 26, 2016 10:15 a.m.
To answer the title, yes. For a mere fraction of goyf's price you are getting a creature that survives bolt (with delirium), has pseudo evasion in trample, and can dig to whatever you need. Especially in decks that specifically want the filtering ability and to fill the graveyard.
Delirium can be made easier to achieve if we experiment with different cards in b/g/x decks. I have been quite satisfied with Grisly Salvage and Sinister Concoction thus far. Shoot, I'd love Drown in Filth if it wasn't a sorcery...
July 29, 2016 12:10 a.m.
APPLE01DOJ says... #25
July 29, 2016 1 a.m.
worth noting that proper jund is now playing grim flayer because he is great.
August 24, 2016 4:11 p.m.
Yeah. I saw it coming. I think it makes sense in Jund as a really slow grindy deck in which delirium is easy to enable. The loss of scooze hurts but I think his card filtering is great. Perhaps expect the price to rise?
August 25, 2016 7:33 a.m.
Did he replace Tarmogoyf or is he ran in conjunction with Goyf?
August 25, 2016 7:50 a.m.
When run it's always in conjunction with goyf. The cuts vary from deck to deck. Some cut a bit of discard, others cut 1 or 2 killspells, I've seen some cut Bob, and others Scavenging Ooze.
August 25, 2016 10:02 a.m.
I'd say Scavenging Ooze is the clearest cut in general but risky in this meta due to dredge.
August 25, 2016 10:03 a.m.
Ohthenoises says... #32
The easiest cuts to me would be 1 from each category you mentioned Bell. That way it balances out.
August 25, 2016 10:05 a.m.
So mtggoldfish is reporting 28% of Jund decks running a full playset of the card. Whether it sticks or goes - I don't know. But I certainly can see that his interaction with Dark Confidant is good (re stack top of deck to avoid life loss), and having access to 8 goyfs in the late game is nice.
demonicgrizzly says... #2
And I of course am speaking in terms of BGx decks
July 10, 2016 12:05 a.m.