Been playing this deck for the past 3 weeks at my weekly and went 3-1 each time while having a lot of fun, so thought I'd post the deck and didn't want to clog up the BUG Delver thread (and I didn't find an active UB Delver thread - even using search).
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Tombstalker
2 Liliana, The Last Hope
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
4 Fatal Push
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Spell Snare
1 Thoughtseize
1 Diabolic Edict
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2 Baleful Strix
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Echoing Truth
1 Flusterstorm
1 Null Rod
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
Notes-
-I don't think playing the 2 basics is too greedy as we're a 2 colour deck, and it's a nice to be able to play around blood moon // opposing wastelands.
-Tombstalker feels a lot stronger than Gurmag Angler especially with the uptick in True-Name. I don't want to play 2 as it doesn't play nice with our snapcaster, deathrites or even Liliana downticks. Getting BB or just the extra mana has never been a concern in any of my games.
-Liliana has been overperforming, obviously matchups where her +1 kills a ton of stuff she's insane but even in other matchups it's nice to uptick to clear a strix or blank an agent without having to waste a card to clear their creature that already got value. Versus control or midrange her -2 can grind (especially getting back strix or snapcaster) or get back a win condition (DRS or Tombstalker) and her ultimate will win the game vs control if they just let her sit there. Only matchups I haven't been liking her are combo (Ironic that Innistrad's last hope is garbage vs Griselbrand and Emrakul) where they don't care about her +1 obviously and they don't give you time nor really care if you start to grind for card advantage, but to be fair most planeswalkers are dumpster vs combo.
-Was tempted to play more discard main especially Hymns but I felt like it'd be too many cards that aren't 'action'
-I'm sure the list can use work. I'm a Maverick player at heart not much of a Delver player. Just thought I'd share a deck I've been having fun with and maybe give you guys an excuse to cast those Liliana, the last hope's sitting in your binder as I think she could stand to see more play <3.
The reason you won't find hardly any dedicated U/B deck is that if you're on these colors, you probably can't beat a resolved Counterbalance...so you add green for Decay. Your list is much closer to a U/B Standstill deck, but you're forgoing that namesake plan for a lower land count; here you should probably trim down to 18 (cut a Sea). There are some issues with color identity which are firstly demonstrated by Verdant Catacombs - you don't really have a good mono-black game, nor are thespells that good at reversing board advantage. You aren't running Verdant Catacombs unless you have a real plan for Fetch -> Basic Swamp starting out turn 1. You've got 13 black spells main and 11 non-blue spells in the board, but you're still going to want any Fetch to be able to grab a Basic Island right out of the gates.
Tombstalker is fine but can just as easily be Tasigur or Gurmag. New Lilly is a nice choice; a card like Darkblast helps unite this walker and the delve mechanic. The other cards are all good on their own, but when you start seeing Wasteland/Daze/Stifle (particularly Stifle) in the main one starts to wonder what was gained by moving away from powerful life manipulation effects (Death's Shadow) or a more combo-oriented approach with Dreadnoughts, and then why your current deck's direction is also a better choice than Standstill. When you start cutting a color off a Delver list but want to remain in that genre, the asymmetry of you being the only one with basic lands is at its best when you have a plan which goes beyond drawing U/B good stuff [which is also currently not wanting to play off Basic Swamp focus].
Good analysis of the identity problems of this deck.Originally Posted by Fox
The reason you won't find hardly any dedicated U/B deck is that if you're on these colors, you probably can't beat a resolved Counterbalance...so you add green for Decay. Your list is much closer to a U/B Standstill deck, but you're forgoing that namesake plan for a lower land count; here you should probably trim down to 18 (cut a Sea). There are some issues with color identity which are firstly demonstrated by Verdant Catacombs - you don't really have a good mono-black game, nor are the
Tombstalker is fine but can just as easily be Tasigur or Gurmag. New Lilly is a nice choice; a card like Darkblast helps unite this walker and the delve mechanic. The other cards are all good on their own, but when you start seeing Wasteland/Daze/Stifle (particularly Stifle) in the main one starts to wonder what was gained by moving away from powerful life manipulation effects (Death's Shadow) or a more combo-oriented approach with Dreadnoughts, and then why your current deck's direction is also a better choice than Standstill. When you start cutting a color off a Delver list but want to remain in that genre, the asymmetry of you being the only one with basic lands is at its best when you have a plan which goes beyond drawing U/B good stuff [which is also currently not wanting to play off Basic Swamp focus].
I have wondered if with the advent of Fatal Push and Collective Brutality, if something like Bump in the Night could make going to 2 colors worth it. Deck wouldn't look quite like this but you'd get some amount of reach with Brutality and Bump, as well as removal/disruption from Push/Brutality, in that you could sort of build your own "Delver-Bolt" deck without having to play red (and getting access to DRS and black sideboard cards a lot easier)
Some thoughts off the top of my head:
* mana base looks solid.
* Deathrite Shaman - you don't have enough 3 drops to frequently benefit from a turn two power play. Would cut him.
* 1 Tombstalker - good choice. Without DRS you can easily go up to two or 1/1 Angler.
* 2 Liliana, The Last Hope - looks interesting on paper
* Stifle - you may be able to gain tempo like that but you lack sufficient powerful creatures to seize that boost.
* 4 Daze - would make it 2 daze/2 pierce for funsies, so you can represent both at any given time.
* 1 Thoughtseize - seems too random.
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* 2 Baleful Strix - not really a SB card
* 1 Toxic Deluge - would up the count
* 2 Abrupt Decay - consider adding 1 to the MD
* 1 Hymn to Tourach - seems random
* Consider a SB Jitte as creature hate - one of the most underrated SB cards imo.
----
Ultimately you'll have to be able to come up with a reason to run this over UBG.
I disagree quite strongly. It's a great SB card against Delver and Eldrazi and has application in some other MUs aswell.* 2 Baleful Strix - not really a SB card
Grixis Delver, BUG Delver and 4c Delver play it in the SB. Which are basically all the other UBx Delver Decks. Shardless BUG also occasionally plays another one or two Strix in the SB.
(I play a Strix in my Esper Delver SB and it's been great so far. Would rather play a second one than cutting the first.)
Overall I agree though, that playing UB instead of BUG offers no real upside. I tried to make UB work (on paper), but in the end there's no real upside to it. You still want all your Duals instead of basic lands and fetching a basic to play around Wasteland actually makes Wasteland stronger against you most of the times. It is good against Blood Moon though, that's true, but if you had Decays in your list you'd have to worry less about Moon anyways. When playing Delver, splashing a third color is for free most of the times. Especially when you play DRS.
-With the mana base, remember that this isn't Shardless - crack Verdant into Basic Swamp (or Forest, obviously not in this list) isn't a desirable play.
-The deck wants to more closely resemble a Delver deck, meaning 8-4-2 [8x 1 drops, 4x 2 drops, 2x TNN or delve creature]; cutting DRS suggestion is ill-advised. The ability of DRS to ramp [as in casting a single spell 1 mana before you should be able to] is not that relevant to a deck like this - it's nice, but it's not why DRS made the list.
-Agree on the overall assessment of Stifle, but I think this deck is more about killing anything relevant with Fatal Push/recast rather than dropping a Goyf.
-As an 8x threat at cmc 1 deck, we're definitely in the market for tapped out interaction especially if it tags creatures or lets us get a threat on board while having more protection from Chalice.
-More slots on discard mainboard is a reasonable direction, but it's more concerning that Fetch -> Basic Swamp -> Thoughtseize isn't a great idea given the weak mono-black plan. This isn't the kind of deck where you want to go 1 land keep -> USea -> discard spell into enemy Wasteland. The 1x mainboard copy is functionally counterspell #10, it's no more out of place than a 1x Snare. That said the 10th counterspell slot could also be a singleton Leovold.
-Baleful Strix is fine, but it isn't enough to fix the 'loses to Chalice on one' hypothetical. Here the 2x Decay and 1x Echoing Truth help, but if that Chalice deck also has Reality Smasher, things might not turn out well. Strix is an all-star in fair grindfests, but is probably a little too much emphasis on the fair game given the 3x SCM + Fatal Push playset.
-U/B isn't really playable vs Counterbalance, but as you've hinted at with Jitte, this color combo is also quite lacking against artifacts. There is significant risk in playing U/B little fair guys given the prevalence of equipment. The best way to combat the threat of equipment is probably playing some of its own.
@Nicklas for the most part Fatal Push is a better card than Abrupt Decay, but therein lies the problem: better cards auto-lose to Counterbalance. When we look at a deck like this, vs BUG Delver, let's pretend that Counterbalance is banned - you'd be running Push before Decay, so the real difference is are you going green for Goyf or cutting down to 1x Trop to focus on a Snapcaster plan? A large part of what makes SCM viable is ensuring a 3 mana floor, which is why preferentially fetching the two basics is often how decks like these choose to operate.
What does Fatal Push have to do with anything I said?@Nicklas for the most part Fatal Push is a better card than Abrupt Decay, but therein lies the problem: better cards auto-lose to Counterbalance. When we look at a deck like this, vs BUG Delver, let's pretend that Counterbalance is banned - you'd be running Push before Decay, so the real difference is are you going green for Goyf or cutting down to 1x Trop to focus on a Snapcaster plan? A large part of what makes SCM viable is ensuring a 3 mana floor, which is why preferentially fetching the two basics is often how decks like these choose to operate.
I also don't see of what use it is to pretend Counterbalance is banned. It is not and even if it was banned: In a non-Threshold-list you'd still play more than zero Decays because of Chalice of the Void (and probably a few other cards such as Jitte). And even in Dark Threshold I believe it's correct to play probably 2 Decays. But that's another topic.
The most successful Delver decks (and delverless Delver decks) that play Snapcaster Mage right now are 4c and of course have a basic land count of 0.
The only Delver deck that plays basics is UR Delver and that's mainly because of Price of Progress and not because of Wastelands, Blood Moons or their own Snapcaster Mages (if they play them), although it's a nice sideeffect to dodge random non-basic land hate. I am not denying basics are inherently good against Wasteland and Blood Moon. Of course they are! :D
I am just saying the minimal upside is not worth it and trying to fetch basics to play around Wasteland with a deck with such a low land count often makes you weaker to Wasteland, especially if you only play one basic of each color, two in total AND you reliably need access to both BB and UU. That's of course much more true for 3c decks. In a two color deck it often works out well, but this deck does splash G already and I suggest to dive deeper into this splash color...
The basic Swamp is super awkward coupled with Ponder/Brainstorm/Stifle and especially Daze. BUG (Hymn) Delver with 2 Bayou needs to play those 2 Bayou to make their manabase work and they probably have the shittiest manabase of all 3c decks out there. 4c Delver plays 1 non-blue Dual, because otherwise their manabase would not work, but that's obviously just not a good thing. They have to make this concession. My Esper Delver list is actually 4c with the following duals: 2 Tundra, 2 USea, 2 Tropical, 1 Scrubland. Without the Scrubland my manabase would not function, but it is still by far the worst land, because keeping a hand with Scrubland as the only mana source is not recommended.
Non-blue lands in Delver decks are just horrid and they just see play because you HAVE TO play them to make your mana work. That is not true for this deck. The Swamp is no necessity.
Play Back to Basics in the SB and I agree you should have a Swamp! :D
Sultai can play 100% of your list while you can't play Abrupt Decay and Leovold.
It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Abrupt Decay necessitates multiple green duals; this is where the people turn on auto-pilot and think "I'm always going to fetch a dual." You're stacking up U/B vs BUG Delver; but when Decay isn't a card you're bending over backwards to cast, the difference between U/B and BUG is Snap/Push vs Goyf - in this scenario without Decay, but one where you need to maintain mid->late game access to 3 mana (Snap recast Push), prioritizing Basic fetching [especially early] is a best practice. Certainly BUG Delver can do Stifle main, but it's the non-Stifle builds putting up results - that's true of most Delver decks right now. I'm not a huge fan of Stifle in this UB list, but that plan makes it most ideologically similar* to RUG Delver (two non-Decay...sort of...Stifle/Delver lists).
*technically this deck is UB Standstill without Standstill, but in terms of staying on 18 lands Delver strategy, RUG Delver is quite similar.
The Basic Swamp in this list is quite important to have, but >4 Fetches (Delta) aimed at finding it is a build order error. That Swamp is a key part of makingbeing the requirement to refire a Fatal Push). You didn't say anything about Fatal Push, but getting to and maintaining this point is what this deck is all about. While the mono-black plan is weak, the green plan is virtually non-existent...the real danger in this deck is the 1 land opening hand with a Trop.
@Poron this deck cannot play many Decays (2 is about the max). It can also play at least one Leovold with its 5 ways to generate green mana. Since Counterbalance isn't banned, playing slower off of shakier mana-bases to get 3-4x Decay main is generically better in that you don't walk away from the table if a CB lands.
I disagree. Especially the part about fetching basics early on is just pretty often not good with a list/deck like this. This deck plays below 16 lands (Wasteland is a spell disguised as a land). Keeping a hand with USea+X seems like a pretty common thing. Or keeping a one-lander. If you keep the one-lander you're not going to fetch a basic, are you?
If you have USea+Basic you are weaker against a Wasteland than if you had two USeas, because your opponent can easily cut you off one color.
Just gave the example of 4c Delver playing Snapcaster Mage and you keep saying "U/B and BUG is Snap/Push vs Goyf". I don't get it.
In my opinion the mistake you make is arguing about card choices by strictly sticking to this flawed list. It's like responding to "I would splash red in Miracles to have access to Pyroblast in the SB" with "you have no red lands. Can't cast Pyroblast. BAD!"
A given hand and opponents' opening plays [and knowledge of their deck] will determine Fetch priority. When you don't have DRS or discard in the opener, it will generally be correct to grab Basic Island. The plan there is Delver, Ponder, or holding up instant speed interaction [generally Stifle]. You have to play decks like these to understand how their priorities are different than other Delver decks; things like avoiding use of Delta [if possible] to find anything besides Basic Swamp and preferentially tapping down duals before basics as you pass into an opponent's turn. Basic land practices like these are highly situational and knowing when and how best to apply them is where an expert picks up percentage points - this is a very different skillset not native to playing all-duals Delver lists. Your first question has too many factors to have a single answer, but in general T1 Fetch -> Basic Island is the correct play (this is after all a blue deck, with 5x proactive T1 black plays, 5x pieces of black removal, and 3x late game
If you look at your first reply to this thread, you spend your time comparing this list to BUG Delver. Now everything BUG Delver does with its mana base is bending over backwards to make Decay castable. The most competitive BUG Delver lists recognize what they're doing for Decay and hone in on a heavy black plan along the way (this is important when getting stuck on Bayou is a real possibility); the leftover blue plan is Delver, BS, Ponder, FoW, and Daze. Abrupt Decay is a decent card, but it's only seeing play over a more streamlined card like Fatal Push b/c it kills Counterbalance. So look at BUG Delver, pretend Counterbalance isn't forcing huge swaths of legacy to run it, and think about where it goes - are they really gonna stay on that Bayou plan for DRS and Goyf alone? The 2-drop threat is the most important distinction when comparing U/B to BUG Delver when you look past one deck running 3-4 Decay main.
4c Delver is an entirely new comparison you've just brought up, and frankly there's little point talking about the role of Basics from the point of a deck that will never be able to run them. Sure some 4c decks decks try to run Basics (Blade), but that discussion ends with it's not really done anymore and that's why Stifle/Delver lists will never make a serious run at tier 1. U/B lists aren't so much 'flawed' as they are a generally unplayable archetype because Counterbalance is legal. You can't build a competitive legacy deck around Snapcaster targeting Abrupt Decay, certainly not while also being a Delver deck. There is a significant difference between the implications of splash for Decay vs Pyroblast.
Wrong. They play the Bayous because of Hymn to Tourach (and Liliana to some extend). The former lists without Hymn played 0-1 Bayous.Now everything BUG Delver does with its mana base is bending over backwards to make Decay castable.
As I mentioned before: I brought up the 4c Delver example as a direct response to you saying ""U/B [aka basics MD] and BUG is Snap/Push vs Goyf". You said basics are important in a Snapcaster deck, when actually the most successful Delver+Snappy-Decks play the greediest mana base you could possibly think of.4c Delver is an entirely new comparison you've just brought up, and frankly there's little point talking about the role of Basics from the point of a deck that will never be able to run them.
This whole discussion reminds me of people back in the days saying splashing R to UG Threshold just for Lightning Bolt is totaly not worth it. Honestly I don't think there's a need to discuss the upsides of splashing a third color. The question should rather be: Why not?
Let's break down how BUG Delver got to Bayou: it starts with being a Delver deck, so you can pretty much count on seeing roughly 18 lands (usually 6 duals, 8 fetches, and 4 Wastelands) and FoW/BS/Ponder/Daze/Delver. You then identify your other 1cmc creature playset, then identify the 2cmc creature playset. So now we have Delver package, DRS, and Goyf - the next step is not finding a way to cast Hymn. The next task is figuring out what they're going to have to do to support Decay on top of those 46 known cards...and this is where going more black has proven to be a higher yield solution than reinvesting in blue (which would probably mean TNN, Clique, Stifle, and potentially a JTMS). Hymn is more of a discovered card (as in 'oh, I can support this') than a plan that drove BUG Delver into Bayou. The color de-localization, notably away from blue, caused by Decay is the reason BUG Delver looks like it does - this is a traceable reaction to Counterbalance.
BUG Delver's hands can often have pretty severe color demands (as does 4c Delver), but this U/B Delver doesn't experience this to near the same extent. The concept of fetching duals preferentially (even into known/potential mana denial) just to have access to as many colors as possible, at any given point, is a concern secondary to more the more deliberate effort of laying down a largely untouchable Basic landbase which supports the SCM/recast Push plan - a plan that will span multiple turns from the onset of a game. When UG splashed R to make RUG Delver, they weren't signing on for a removal spell that cost[Decay analogue] and pushed them into towards a gameplan of casting
spells [Hymn analogue] up to the point of running Taiga (in the same way BUG Delver runs Bayou).
Play the 3rd color (i.e. make it BUG Delver), and comparing the SCM plan to 4c Delver is very much rooted in only viewing it in a Counterbalance-warped meta. That's fine, it's the current reality after all, but Counterbalance means you don't see Blade or Standstill (vs Blade is a place where the Stifle plan really shines) and most everyone else is making deliberately worse [i.e. slower] decks so that they can incorporate Decay. If the question you want answered is "Why Not?" then the answer is: b/c I should be able to play U/B (of any competitive variety) without being all but forced to add in green for Decay. This deck is more a question of U/B Delver vs Standstill approach and SCM/Push vs Goyf; these are fine questions, even if only hypothetical with CB around. Ignoring the hypothetical though, I think we can get past the point of implying this deck will obey the same fetching habits as a tri-color Delver list.
That sounds nice in theory but is simply wrong. I don't know why you wanna argue about this. What you are saying is just not true and is easily disproven by just looking at the development of the deck.Let's break down how BUG Delver got to Bayou: [...]
Just take a look at the BUG Delver thread. Back in the days when Decay didn't exist and the only green card (at least in the MD) was Goyf they played 1-2 Bayous already. Because of Sinkhole/Hymn to Tourach (and Tombstalker). Without those cards they would just play Tropical Island. The Hymn-less lists often played multiple Trops instead.
Decay does not demand Bayou. USea+Tropical can easily cast Decay. What USea+Tropical can not cast is Hymn to Tourach. That's why they have to play 2 Bayous.BUG Delver's hands can often have pretty severe color demands (as does 4c Delver), but this U/B Delver doesn't experience this to near the same extent. [...]
Oh well, this is a forum for competitive Legacy decks. If you play just for fun and don't care about optimizing a deck you can of course do whatever you like. I rarely play "good" decks and even when I do I play suboptimal lists, because I prefer certain color combinations over others and have petcards I love to play.Play the 3rd color (i.e. make it BUG Delver), and comparing the SCM plan to 4c Delver is very much rooted in only viewing it in a Counterbalance-warped meta. [...]
But I don't see why you would post a deck list if you don't want input to optimize it...
Thanks for all the responses guys and sorry I've been quiet. I spent most of my weekend at GP Vancouver hanging out and playing in a couple of legacy side events with maverick (3-0-1 double prize so I got to pick up some of these cards =p!!) so most of my attention went there. I have yet to play against Miracles or death and taxes which are matchups I really want to test. I have beaten chalice (countering it mostly, liliana emblem'd this poor stax player 2 games in a row one match) and blood moon (opponent sided in moon and kept a turn 1 moon hand game 2 and I fetch island turn 1 after not showing it game 1).
You guys make a lot of good points about the list though and I find myself questioning some of the cards or if I should play more green cards (IE Decay) in the main, here's some things I felt odd about-
-Stifle is hit or miss. Sometimes opponents just jam lands then dudes and I'm holding a 'lol stifle in 2017 meme'. It's been great at times too though and I don't just mean at sniping fetches. Stifling something like a hexmage activation feels like I have a form of interaction where as otherwise in that situation I'd be tapping at my deck screaming 'edict one time!!!' It's also one of the good targets for snapcaster mage and I don't know what I'd cut for it.
-My thought process around playing the verdants was it would make it easier to play an abrupt decay turn 2 in my postboard games and it would also cast deathrite shaman turn 1, but I found myself just wanting sea (or trop if I needed to eat a creature) most of the times if I had a turn 1 deathrite because the rest of my hand would be blue cards.
-The one of thoughtseize main has felt odd as it means I'd get it late game where it's not as good and having it to snapcaster back isn't as gas as I thought it'd be, but I do like having some discard in the board. I'm thinking of cutting the one in the main for something like a second snare or a pierce. Not sure.
-Is 4 push too many, do I cut one for a maindeck decay? Do I put that push in the board then? - that feels weird.
On another note-
-The flying on Tombstalker has been really relevant and there's a lot of Karakas going around so he's my favourite out of the 3 black delve creatures (He's also the coolest). I'm tempted to play 2 because I find myself in games hoping to find my one and if I play 2 I won't see both of them together most games so the negative synergy won't happen too often (hopefully)
I'm talking about BUG Delver as a competitive deck right now, you don't go from the 20 [non-land] cards that compromise the Delver package, add in DRS and Goyf, and then say 'my next priority is to be a Hymn deck, so let's change around the mana.' The next card making it in is Abrupt Decay, and this is where you have the very real question of what the heck you're going to do with the last 10 slots when all your duals are tapping for blue [Trop plan] vs a Bayou plan. Competitively speaking, this is the fist time you're asking a contemporaneous BUG Delver deck "am I going to go for Hymn?" We can talk about historical
I have not said Decay determines Bayou use. I said it causes color de-localization away from blue, meaning it is creates an environment favorable to pursuing a deeper black plan. This is currently a more winning strategy than going to Decay and doubling back to blue with Trops. It is only because Decay gets us to this point that BUG Delver begins looking at a strategy which would seek to incorporate Bayou.
The point of this detour is that you're not seeing what is in plain sight with this U/B Delver deck; it is a blue deck with some black cards, which is very different from most every 3-4c Delver deck. Your interpretation of this deck has started from a point of thinking it operates with the same set of color-fixing rules as other Delver lists. That which you have skipped over is the question most worth asking: is there an overlooked competitive place for a Delver list with this much clustering around blue [largely driven by new implications of SCM]? Reverting to the lazy answer of run Decay [i.e. play BUG Delver] may turn out to be the the most winning direction, but not enough discussion/theorycrafting/testing has taken place to demonstrate that conclusion.
Fox can you please stop writing this nonsense and instead spend your time reading at least the last two pages of the BUG Delver thread? Just recently Whitefaces explained "I swear by the 4 Sea, 2 Bayou, 1 Trop manabase whenever Hymn is in the deck." and wmc8 even went so far to say "But the other factor to consider is whether you are playing other mana-hungry spells. If you cut Hymn to Tourach, you're leaving behind what I consider to be a major component of the deck. Hymn is a large part of the reason this deck even wants to play 20 lands, and without it you can probably just run some variant of 'BUG Thresh' that leans more heavily on Blue control elements (Stifle, Spell Pierce, etc.) and only runs 18-19 lands. However, I think Hymn is the major factor in what makes this deck competitive [...]" which is basically exactly the opposite of what you are claiming. If that still isn't clear enough here another quote:"[...] in tandem with a full playset of both Brainstorm and Ponder, was ideal in terms of hitting double-black on turn 2 [...]". BUG Delvers manabase is all about BB. They do not play Bayous for the Decays. If they wanna reliably cast Decay they just fetch USea+Tropical. What upside does USea+Bayou have for casting Decay? None.
You will see that everyone who posts a list without Hymn/Sinkhole gets the response to cut at least 1 Bayou and basically everyone agrees with that, including the dude who posted said list. Latest examples: Venomous72 and 10k.
That's the last I have to say about this as it seems you're trying your best to push 'alternative facts' (sorry, I couldn't resist^^) and there is nothing I can really do about it (plus I am afraid this drifts off into the evil offtopic realm). Your arguments are invalid and made out of thin air and by just going through BUG Delver lists of recent years, following the BUG Delver thread, reading the BUG Delver primer and understanding the very core of that deck you would come to the same conclusion.
edit: Most recent proof: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles...en-and-classic BUG Delver list without BB spells but 3 Decays playing 3 Tropical 3 Usea 0 Bayou.
No. What I was (and am) trying to say is: There is no real downside of splashing a color, especially compared to the immense upside of such a splash. I went further on to explain why I don't even think playing the basic swamp makes a lot of sense in this list, so there is absolutely no (competitive) reason to stay 2-color. The G splash is just the most obvious direction to take, but I could also see R for bolt.Your interpretation of this deck has started from a point of thinking it operates with the same set of color-fixing rules as other Delver lists.
In my opinion you can play basically any kind of Delver deck and still do good. As I mentioned more than once before, I do play Esper Delver and fare quite well with it. I top8ed a >200 player tournament in Europe end of 2016 with it (the last one I played). I am a big fan of brews and trying out new directions. That doesn't mean weak spots should not be pointed out and I was not even advocating for playing the playset Decay, adding the Goyf and just playing a stock BUG Delver list anyways...That which you have skipped over is the question most worth asking: is there an overlooked competitive place for a Delver list with this much clustering around blue [largely driven by new implications of SCM]?
Please take no offense. I am baffled by your posts and don't get how you can deny the facts, although they are easily accessable on this very forum, but I don't mean to sound aggressive or mean or whatever. I just fail at times to phrase it in a politer way. Blame me being not a native speaker.
Last edited by Nicklas; 02-22-2017 at 01:13 PM.
This isn't the BUG Delver thread. You guys can say whatever you want to over there about the BB spell you're running, but you have 50 solved slots and it's only in the last 10 that we see if the deck is reinvesting in blue or diving deeper into black. It's a bold statement [today in legacy] to go from 20 card Delver package + 8 other core creatures to saying a double off-color spell is what makes that list its most competitive. The reason BUG Delver can misconstrue the stand alone value of the BB spell is that Decay is the bridge to that point. It's fine to disagree with that conclusion, but I'll stand by the logic that if or when Abrupt Decay isn't a must-run card [and is therefor omitted], that letting "I want this deck to cast the BB spell" is probably not the highest yield priority to pursue while developing a competitive Delver deck. If CB ever gets the axe and BUG Delver pilots aren't forced to run Decay, then you really have to start asking why Delver is a better skeleton to run Hymn than Shardless (because these guys are still going to run Decay, as it's the least conditional purely reactive spell one can cascade into).
That's an ambitious hypothetical where we want to run Push before Decay - so we're in the realm of experimental where we're thinking about just how viable a deck can be that is heavily [and hyper-efficiently] pre-boarding against most creature-based decks and doubles down on that plan with SCM over the classical 2-drop Delver choice (Goyf vs Pyromancer). This isn't a 'green splash is free, just run it' scenario, because we're experimenting without Goyf as well. Past that single Trop to pick up points with DRS vs yard-based strats, this deck really doesn't have any interest in making green mana. Any 3rd color in this list would have to compete with the raw win %age that a single Trop provides a DRS deck - and they have to make that case with spell slots and the loss of Basic land asymmetry (i.e. loss of mana dominance in the mirror). There's not much question that this list would demolish a fellow Delver deck (especially one without Mongoose, as this list lacks profitable ways to trade 3 combat dmg vs shroud), but what about the rest of the field? We're talking about a highly-tuned Delver list that really wants to play the mirror; from that standpoint saying ruin your mana and submit a worse deck [in the context of the Delver mirror] isn't the most productive advice. Going heavier on green (without any interest in maindeck Goyf or Decay) or adding red for maindeck Bolt/sb Blast (still obligated by DRS to running a single Trop) also have significant drawbacks versus a more reliable mana base.
So again we're coming back to the question of whether or not a primarily blue Delver deck revolving around Fatal Push spamming is a generally winning strategy vs a field still warped by CB. As long as this list is on the old Stifle plan, we're asking if this is a better way of enacting that plan. Delver decks of any variety can win games by virtue of playing generically good cards they can reliably cast, but the current statistics point to Stifle being a suboptimal maindeck plan.
You seem to be fixating on BUG Delver and Bayou due to Hymn @Nicklas, but you're just not ever running Hymn if Decay became unnecessary today - at least, not without proving that the spell to replace Decay is also going to be at its most competitive alongside Goyf and the BB spell. It's not alternative facts, just different ways of assessing how a spell like Hymn becomes playable/competitive - finding out how to actually cast the spell (Bayou) is an afterthought. Most every Delver deck can be reduced to:
-starts with ~18 land package -> 20 card Delver package -> is my 1-drop Goose, DRS, Lavaman, or Swiftspear -> is my 2-drop Goyf, Pyro, or a specialized oddball (like Stormchaser) -> tertiary differentiation (mostly instant/sorc). If your first two choices were DRS and Goyf, your very next card [currently] is Decay. This is not a denial of facts, this is the step-wise guide to understanding what a Delver deck is. If we pose a hypothetical question in the Abrupt Decay position it potentially affects the directly preceding choice of Goyf vs specialized oddball (SCM). At this point the advantage of green as a 3rd color would then be called into question.
There needs to be a really good reason for not dipping into a tertiary color, because the advantages are so numerous and the cost is so low (due to the interaction of Fetch + Dual lands). One of the potential advantages of limiting yourself to only playing 2 colors is playing strong forms of non-basic hate. In Red, there's Blood Moon and Price of Progress. In Blue, there's Back to Basics. Black has access to Contamination, though it requires something like Bitterblossom to be reliable. Jund has access to Destructive Flow, which can be pretty absurd in the right build. Every deck can play Wasteland and Crucible of Worlds, but Green also gets Life from the Loam.
So to justify the loss of a 3rd color, this deck should probably be playing something like Back to Basics.
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