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Thread: Pitch Delver

  1. #21
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Cascading into Brainstorm isn't bad. Brainstorm and Ponder are just good cards. They help filter cards, smooth out land drops, reduce variance, and enable Delver.

    I cut Crashing Footfalls because we don't have as many ways to enable it as RUG Waterfalls, so more than 4 suspend cards seems bad.


    //Creatures: 11
    4 Delver of Secrets
    4 Death's Shadow
    3 Shardless Agent

    //Spells: 30
    4 Ancestral Vision
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Thoughtseize
    3 Abrupt Decay
    3 Force of Negation
    1 Dismember
    3 Snuff Out
    4 Force of Will

    //Enchantments: 1
    1 Sylvan Library

    //Lands: 18
    4 Polluted Delta
    3 Misty Rainforest
    2 Verdant Catacombs
    2 Watery Grave
    1 Breeding Pool
    1 Overgrown Tomb
    1 Underground Sea
    1 Tropical Island
    1 Bayou
    1 Island
    1 Swamp

    //Sideboard:
    2 Unmask
    2 Force of Despair
    3 Surgical Extraction
    2 Assassin's Trophy
    1 Pithing Needle
    1 Grafdigger's Cage
    1 Sylvan Library
    1 Submerge
    1 Flusterstorm
    1 Toxic Deluge

  2. #22
    bruizar
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Do you think you can go down to 16 lands or less and use prismatic vista+fetch and basics to insulate u from wastelands? You curve out on two with abrupt decay, because the rest pof your spells shouldnt be cast for their normal costs. The fewer lands you have, the fewer you draw into which is important because you cannot pitch them to spells

    I agree with ancestral visions, that looks like the closest thing to meditate we have.

  3. #23
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Quote Originally Posted by bruizar View Post
    Do you think you can go down to 16 lands or less and use prismatic vista+fetch and basics to insulate u from wastelands? You curve out on two with abrupt decay, because the rest pof your spells shouldnt be cast for their normal costs. The fewer lands you have, the fewer you draw into which is important because you cannot pitch them to spells

    I agree with ancestral visions, that looks like the closest thing to meditate we have.
    I had 16 lands before, with a list that curved out on 2. With Shardless Agent (3 mana), is 16 too few? That's why I went to 18.

  4. #24
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    The only reason to run more than 15-16 lands is to run Shardless. My issue - is that shardless into ponder/BS doesn't help that much in terms of providing pitch fuel. How have you been finding it? Listen, I'm not going to dispute the power of BS/Ponder, nor the need to run 1 mana spells to do stuff in between pitching, etc, but just in testing I really want Visions all the time everytime. Just trying to think of methods on how to increase shardlessing into visions.

    Edit - although I have never played Death's Shadow before, I'm liking it a lot. I am enjoying how this deck is morphing into a weird combination of three decks (delver, shardless and Death's shadow).

  5. #25
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    Listen, I'm not going to dispute the power of BS/Ponder, nor the need to run 1 mana spells to do stuff in between pitching, etc, but just in testing I really want Visions all the time everytime. Just trying to think of methods on how to increase shardlessing into visions.
    Have you never played Shardless BUG or RUG Waterfalls?

    You EOT Brainstorm putting the useless Ancestral Vision in your hand 2nd from the top, draw the other card, then Shardless Agent into a guaranteed draw 3. Or you cast Ponder to arrange your top cards. Sylvan Library helps too. Library manipulation plays very well with cascade. Instead of just trying to increase the odds of hitting a random Visions blind, you actually get to know and control what you're cascading into.

  6. #26
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Have you never played Shardless BUG or RUG Waterfalls?

    You EOT Brainstorm putting the useless Ancestral Vision in your hand 2nd from the top, draw the other card, then Shardless Agent into a guaranteed draw 3. Or you cast Ponder to arrange your top cards. Sylvan Library helps too. Library manipulation plays very well with cascade. Instead of just trying to increase the odds of hitting a random Visions blind, you actually get to know and control what you're cascading into.
    No, not really, I'm quite inexperienced with the two of the three decks that we are merging into the delver concept. That's actually a good point and I've done that in testing but was unclear how much better it was than building your deck to just increase odds. Again, thanks for your help, and i'm finding this deck really cool because it's also letting me explore concepts and play styles that I have not been familiar with before.

  7. #27
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Arguably Ponder could be cut or at least have copies reduced (Ponder + Shardless is a 4-mana play, something this deck won't do). Those decks don't always use Ponder. But every competitive Shardless Agent-Visions deck I've ever seen runs 4 Brainstorm. Brainstorm putting Visions on top is the most reliable way to set it up. You have higher odds of having a Visions wind up in your hand than you do of cascading into it blindly, even if the curve is skewed upwards.

    Sylvan Library has better synergy with the deck than Ponder. It checks top cards for 0 mana that turn & provides controlled life loss, so maybe it should be 2-3 copies main. It also helps refill your hand after pitching cards.

  8. #28
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    I'll take your list and do -4 Ponder, +2 Sylvan Library, +2 Mystery Open Spots for testing for now and see how I like it and report back. I feel library has good synergy with Cascade and with Death's Shadow. Wish we could up the green count in general for Force of Vigor in the side.

  9. #29
    bruizar
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    The only reason to run more than 15-16 lands is to run Shardless. My issue - is that shardless into ponder/BS doesn't help that much in terms of providing pitch fuel. How have you been finding it? Listen, I'm not going to dispute the power of BS/Ponder, nor the need to run 1 mana spells to do stuff in between pitching, etc, but just in testing I really want Visions all the time everytime. Just trying to think of methods on how to increase shardlessing into visions.

    Edit - although I have never played Death's Shadow before, I'm liking it a lot. I am enjoying how this deck is morphing into a weird combination of three decks (delver, shardless and Death's shadow).
    You want card quantity, not card quality if you're playing so many pithc cards. This is why cantrips are less important than draw spells, and ancestral visions is the best you can find in terms of mana-to-card ratio.

    I wouldn't go for any cascade shenanigans, I mean even if you would want to cheat your Suspend spells I'd rather play As Foretold. It's mono-colored, immediately allows you to play Ancestral Visions, when it is in your hand, so you dont have to tuck it away with a brainstorm like with Shardless Agent, and you can increase the counters so that eventually you will be playing your Force of Wills with As Foretold, without pitching.

    Sylvan Library is a great card for this deck because you can squeeze card quality AND card quantity / fuel for pitching.


    The last card worth mentioning is Standstill. It could work with delver and deaths shadow
    Last edited by bruizar; 07-24-2019 at 12:39 AM.

  10. #30
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    I totally agree with card quantity > card quality. The issue is how to regularly cast visions. Cascade seemed better to me - but I am unfamiliar with both shardless strategy (before testing this deck) and As Foretold so i'm not sure. Standstill is also an interesting concept, especially given with how reactive this deck is. Any way to run both Visions and Standstill? Can we cram Still deck concepts into this already mixed deck?

  11. #31
    bruizar
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Ok, so I think standstill and daze are the two cards you want to ride out if you play a one drop threat to victory. This also means you are competing heavily with delver decks. Daze is arguably the best pitch free spell for tempo decks.

    If you want to be more controlling (which is more my style), you go for ancestral visions, planeswalkers and commandeer. You could still go for standstill, but it isnt necessary i think (you will end up disadvantaged with 7 cards because pitching them means you essentially have.3 or 4 spells to play compared to your opponents 7. You want planeswalkers for their repeatable draw, which is what will help fuel your pitch cards. Narset and teferi (only 1 draw..) and jace tms are the usual pw targets, but teferi is in white which sucks.. The problem with jtms is that he is 4cc, which is a lot. This means, we need to rely on narset imo. Narset also protects against having to crack your own standstill, if you choose to run it, which happens sometimes.

    You want commandeer so u can steal a planeswalker. More than 40 planeswalkers entered the format, so they are everywhere. If you steal a blue walker, you get your card advantage back with one of the draw abilities so it offsets the cost.

    Im not sure if there are bug walkers that we need to include. Maybe war of the spark tamiyo or something.

    That’s all i got for now.

  12. #32
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Quick update, really liking FTW's last list with -4 Ponder, +2 Sylvan Library, +2 Mystery Open Spots. So far visions with shardless is really useful in refueling me. The same issues exist just a little less now. Not sure if this deck is an improvement over the three decks it smushed together but pitches are really fun and the deck plays in a fun way.

    RE: bruizar. Speaking of standstill is that a route that we can take as well? Why not combine it with Shardless/Visions?Going to test FTW's list with Standstills in the Mystery Spot. And, speaking of Shardless, don't see the advantage of As Foretold unless we're running lots of 0 mana spells?

  13. #33
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    What are you playing in the Mystery Open Slots? More pitch cards? More threats?

  14. #34
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    What are you playing in the Mystery Open Slots? More pitch cards? More threats?
    Fooling around with Standstill at the moment and am really liking it. The threats are all 1 CMC so casting one, then following up with standstill and then holding pitch cards to react has proven helpful. I feel that they have to be some type of card advantage, the deck doesn't need more threats or answers it just needs fuel.

  15. #35
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    How about something like this:

    4x Delver
    2x Hogaak
    4x Bloodghast
    4x Rootwalla (14)

    3x Coll. Brutality
    4x Daze
    4x FoW
    2x Foil
    4x BS
    3x Chart a Course
    4x Ponder
    1x Darkblast
    2x Entomb
    1x Bridge from Below (or yard effect like Pharaoh/Phoenix/etc..) (28)

    4x Delta
    4x Vista
    1x Island
    1x Swamp
    1x USea
    1x Trop
    1x Bayou
    1x Forest
    2x Verdant Cat.
    +2 more lands, probably duals. (18)

    SB:
    3x Veil of Summer
    3x Decay/Trophy mix
    2x Plague Engineer
    2x Surgical
    2x Hydroblast
    2x Back to Nature
    1x 3-drop PW

  16. #36
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    @ Fox, not sure I understand your list, do you mind explaining? Additionally, why foil over FON? And is Daze better than Creature Kill Pitches?

  17. #37
    bruizar
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    @ Fox, not sure I understand your list, do you mind explaining? Additionally, why foil over FON? And is Daze better than Creature Kill Pitches?
    I think it is to discard bridge, ghast and hoogaal.

  18. #38
    bruizar
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    Fooling around with Standstill at the moment and am really liking it. The threats are all 1 CMC so casting one, then following up with standstill and then holding pitch cards to react has proven helpful. I feel that they have to be some type of card advantage, the deck doesn't need more threats or answers it just needs fuel.
    Yes, standstill and visions are really the most efficient card advantage engines. Basically u want to ride out ur win con while pitching stuff for free until visions cracks or standstill is broken. I would suggest Misdirectio / Commandeer though. Being able to redirect a hymn to tourach or removal spell can be game ending and stealing a planeswalker is I think the best thing you could realistically do with a pitch spell that isn’t blazing shoal. Commandeer Narset, draw 2 cards from the top to refill. Commandeer Jace, Brainstorm every then, Commandeer a Grindstone, no welder shenanigans, commandeer a Teferi, bounce/draw a card and keep teferi around to turn everything in a hardcounter. Also pay attention to the new commander set because new morph cards mean that standstill may potentially be getting tools.

    Also street wraith makes a lot of sense if u play force of despair because if u need the black card u have it, if u need a blue card u cycle wraith, and if u need an emergency creature u can cast it

  19. #39
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    Re: Pitch Delver

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    @ Fox, not sure I understand your list, do you mind explaining? Additionally, why foil over FON? And is Daze better than Creature Kill Pitches?
    I think you could just as easily turn 2 Foil into 2x Therapy, but the thread title is "Pitch Delver" and pitch targets include the ones @bruizar listed + Rootwalla and in fringe cases Darkblast (to ramp up delve mana while milling towards Hogaak and Ghast and Bridge). The list also plays Daze without Wasteland, so Foil is trying to recoup some value from this structural instability (i.e. Daze back Island, to turn on Foil pitch).

    The rest of the deck is pretty self-explanatory I think, and Rootwalla/Ghast are turning on Hogaak while allowing pitch lines.

    Edit: I do think a pitch list should generally be built to favor Foil over FoN.

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