[Deck] U/R Delver

[supa_tim]

There doesn't seem to be a "best" list out there right now, but this seems likely because the deck is so metagame dependent. It can wreck super developed metas with price of progress, or it can own scrubby metas by running more burn/counters (depending on need). Very flexible. Has anyone tried a more targeted burn approach? While keeping the MD FoW?

I was thinking something like this:

18 Land
1 Island
2 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire (necessary?)
4 Mishra's Factory/Wasteland

13 Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Snapcaster Mage

14 Burn
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
3 Incinerate
3 Fire/Ice

7 Counters
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare

8 Dig
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

15 Sideboard
3 Submerge
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Red Elemental Blast

I haven't played this in a tournament yet, I'm just looking for ideas and suggestions.

I like the factories as additional beats, but I also recognize that wasteland is probably more useful. This could just be my Landstill past rearing its ugly head, wanting more threats.

I also like to take a more Sligh approach: burning blockers to let my guys go through. So no PoP or Fireblast. I really like fire/ice since it can hit two creatures, or tap something and draw me a card. It also pitches to FoW. I just don't see a downside.

Am I approaching this completely wrong?

[GranataGoblin]

How can you run wasteland + fire/ice and not daze??
You can keep the opponent low on lands with waste, and tap a land in his upkeep with the ice part of fire/ice.. His plays will be constantly threatened by our daze..
In addition, running 4 wasteland in a 18 land-deck seems a little risky, even if we run 8 digs (Canadian can do it because it plays stifle).
Personally, I'll cut 3 incinerate and:
1) add 2 daze and a land/fetch to your list;
2) run 3 wasteland in a 18-land shell, and add 2 daze + 1 fire/ice;
3) run 3 wasteland in a 18-land shell and add 3 daze.

[majikal]

So, no lie, Vapor Snag is actually really good in this deck. You don't know what ballin is until you've Vapor Snagged a Reanimated Jin-Gitaxias.

[millerd33]

So, no lie, Vapor Snag is actually really good in this deck. You don't know what ballin is until you've Vapor Snagged a Reanimated Jin-Gitaxias.

I played 2 Vapor Snag in a tourny last weekend and it was ok. I found the games I used it to bounce guys to get through with damage were the games I was already winning. I am testing the reanimator matchup tonight so I will see how game 1 goes and with the echoing truth's in the SB for 2 and 3.

[aznepyon7]

I played 2 Vapor Snag in a tourny last weekend and it was ok. I found the games I used it to bounce guys to get through with damage were the games I was already winning. I am testing the reanimator matchup tonight so I will see how game 1 goes and with the echoing truth's in the SB for 2 and 3.

Why would you consider Echoing truth over Vapor Snag and vice versa? I think Vapor Snag really helps slow opponents down and helps add in that extra bit of damage (which I know is minimal) but the 1 point matters more in tempo then it does in other decks. Just my opinion.

[millerd33]

Why would you consider Echoing truth over Vapor Snag and vice versa? I think Vapor Snag really helps slow opponents down and helps add in that extra bit of damage (which I know is minimal) but the 1 point matters more in tempo then it does in other decks. Just my opinion.

I like hitting all copies of a card. I will pay the 1 extra colorless to hit every goblin token, more then 1 cage, Leyline, knight. For 1 extra mana it can be a game changer. Also it hit's non-land permanent not just creatures.

[BigBopper]

I like hitting all copies of a card. I will pay the 1 extra colorless to hit every goblin token, more then 1 cage, Leyline, knight. For 1 extra mana it can be a game changer. Also it hit's non-land permanent not just creatures.

What would you cut vor vapor snap? Burn? Counter? Creatures? i think the deck is very tight right now independent which philosophy you put in there...

[Richard Cheese]

What would you cut vor vapor snap? Burn? Counter? Creatures? i think the deck is very tight right now independent which philosophy you put in there...

I believe the discussion of which bounce spell to use is purely related to sideboard options.

[millerd33]

What would you cut vor vapor snap? Burn? Counter? Creatures? i think the deck is very tight right now independent which philosophy you put in there...

I was not running force in the main deck (something after that tourny I fixed first)

The deck I ran with a report is post #184 of this thread (page 10)

If I were to try to free up 2 spots in most decks now the part that would prob hurt the least would be going down to 2 price of progress and cut to 3 spellsnare/daze.

On page 12 videogamer99 posted a list I like a whole lot. That is the list I plan on testing tonight. It packs all the goodies people seem to go back and forth on. The only change I would prob make would be to the sideboard because echoing truth has been just so good to me in my meta. I would prob take out the pyroblasts.

EDIT: @edward I tried 2 snags in the main deck in an attempt to force through extra points and i would say it was not good or bad. Easy card to side out. But the games I actually cast it were games I was winning hands down without them.

[BigBopper]

I was not running force in the main deck (something after that tourny I fixed first)

The deck I ran with a report is post #184 of this thread (page 10)

If I were to try to free up 2 spots in most decks now the part that would prob hurt the least would be going down to 2 price of progress and cut to 3 spellsnare/daze.

On page 12 videogamer99 posted a list I like a whole lot. That is the list I plan on testing tonight. It packs all the goodies people seem to go back and forth on. The only change I would prob make would be to the sideboard because echoing truth has been just so good to me in my meta. I would prob take out the pyroblasts.

EDIT: @edward I tried 2 snags in the main deck in an attempt to force through extra points and i would say it was not good or bad. Easy card to side out. But the games I actually cast it were games I was winning hands down without them.

I believe I could find 2 spots MD for something like Vapor Snag, especially since I still run a single Fire/Ice, which I'm not convinced of, but it nicely imprints in Force, which I play the whole playset. I also play 4 Grim lavamancer, which could be reduced to 3, but I also think Lavamancer is a better topdeck in lategame than vapor Snag, especially when you're out of cards and drawing for the win.
Another question is, which beater would you clear the way for? Goblin guide? Snapcaster? Usually delver has a free way or you blow up opposing flyers. And hindering a knight or goyf to attack is not the right play I think.
I'm also currently playing 2 PoP and sometimes I miss playing a 3rd one. I'm not sure if it would be nice to have one more, though...

[millerd33]

Are you playing fireblast? I think in most cases I would rather have that 3rd Price of Progress or 1 of 2 Fireblast vs Vapor snag.

I do think 3 lavamancer feels right in here. I moved the 4th to the board and did bring him for the maverick matchup. The decks this beats are just blowouts because of our speed. The decks that give us trouble I don't see the main deck bounce helping as much as more game ender spells (price and fireblast)

I am looking forward to testing this deck tonight. I really want to see what a deck running smaller numbers of all the goods comes out like.

3 Force of Will
3 Ponder
3 Price of Progress
3 Spell Snare
2 Daze
2 Fireblast


What does your list look like?

[BigBopper]

Are you playing fireblast? I think in most cases I would rather have that 3rd Price of Progress or 1 of 2 Fireblast vs Vapor snag.

Yes, as a 2 off finisher



3 Force of Will
3 Ponder
3 Price of Progress
3 Spell Snare
2 Daze
2 Fireblast

What does your list look like?

Somewhat similar to yours and also Shrout's:

Lands (18):
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Red Fetches
3x Blue Fetches
3x VI
2x Islands
3x Mountain

Creatures (14):
4x Delver
4x Goblin Guide
4x Grim Lavamancer
2x Snapcaster

Burn (12):
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Chain Lightning
1x Fire/Ice
2x Price of Progress
2x Fireblast

Counter (9):
2x Daze
3x Spell Snare
4x Force

Dig (7):
4x Brainstorm
3x Ponder

As I said, I'm not happy with Fire/Ice 'cause it rarely trades 2:1, even in the Maverick matchup they usually have a Mother and protect one creature. Best thing is to put it down with Force. That's the reason why I didn't cut it for a 3rd price or 4th Chain lightning yet.
Two Snapcaster are fine for me, since I only want them in lategame. Some goes for Fireblast. I'm unsure about the 4th Lavamancer, those are about the 2 spots I would change. The rest seems fine in my meta.
3 VI worked out very well in regards to wasteland and stuff but VI is always nice to sac with fireblast when targeted by a Wasteland. You wanna mana screw me, here is a bolt and there is a blast. Let's see if you can handle this.
Feel free to comment!

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

considering all the shuffle and peek effects this deck has, it may be more viable to run the majority of your business spells as 3-ofs only. We'll see when miller gets back from testing this version of the deck. I still wouldn't cut bolt or CB down to 3 though but I suck at magic so

Capitalization and punctuation are required. Please use them. -zilla

[millerd33]

So after testing roughly 30 games tonight with videogamer99's list. That list runs smooth like silk. It's a Aggro/Tempo/Control deck all in one. the 3 of's were amazing. I was able to ponder or brainstorm into any answer I needed at the right time all the while keeping the pressure on with our efficient beaters. With bs and ponder along side price and fireblast i was "topdecking" (dig find and natural) for the win all night long.
Reanimator needs to land an Iona or elish norn EARLY like turn 2/3 or it was a blow out. I have a feeling the Reanimator deck I played against was not the best that archtype could be based on how much trouble it had getting a guy into the yard/finding the reanimate spell/having counter backup very early. (they should have a giant dude out on turn 3 right?)

Back to the list itself. I found myself siding out the snapcasters and lavamaners for echoing truth and Surgical Extraction. I would drop my turn 1 guy and start the beats. Left the mana open to spell snare or bounce any threat he did manage to land. Free daze, force, surgical were all just bonus throwing instant burn at the head at end of turns.

I took his advise and went to 3 volcanic island and 3 basic island. Didn't really notice the 4th was gone. If they have wasteland i'm just gonna fetch basics. If they don't then 3 volcanic's to fetch is the exact number we want in play.

This is 100% the list I will be playing with.

Thoughts?

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

you can't argue with results. how many different decks would you say you went up against? Did you have to deal with any shrouded creatures your burn couldn't touch viz. nimble mongoose? and if so were you able to outrace the opponent if they were able to resolve one and reach threshold? I only ask because I've been seeing it pop up more and more often at my lgs and it becomes a big problem quickly if it resolves. Instead of wastelands has anyone considered running 1-2 maze of ith instead? A lot of the g/w/x decks tend to only have 1-2 creatures out and attacking at a time and this strategy hits a brick wall and accordions like a collapsed lung against maze. One weakness I definitely noticed with this deck is, because of the low volume of creatures you'll usually only have one on the board at any time attacking unless you've determined you'll have to race your foe and just overextend with a delver and guide. A single maze will shut down your delver and you'll be forced to sit on your hands waiting to draw a snapcaster or some other burn spell to torch off those last points of your opponent's life while they draw jace or whatever.

[ReinVos]

I think Ponder is better for the lists that play Force of Will but I'd play Magma Jet instead of Ponder when you're not playing Force of Will. The scry 2 is a good enough effect to make sure your Delver flips or that you draw sufficient gas. The damage part of the spell obviously fits the deck well.

Three Snapcasters and three PoP seems good. Gives the deck more powerful mid to late game plays. I also like two Fireblast as finishers.

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

oh man. i just played some dude with a belcher.dec and managed to burn him down to 1 life at the end of my turn. next turn he cracks LED and belches me for 43. damnit. if i had held that fireblast instead of torching his wall of tinder with it that game would have been mine. live and learn.

Use capitalization. Thanks. -zilla

[millerd33]

I only tested against reanimator last night. So this post is pure speculation.

Maze of Ith is a problem that I have been thinking about myself. So far my plan has been to keep KotR off the table and hope they don't draw it. Bloodmoon? Boom/Bust? Wasteland? Raze? Scorched Earth? They all seem to be the "best" choices even though I do not like any of them other then maybe scorched earth or bloodmoon now that our island count is up to 3.

The question is are we able to race the decks packing this without our creatures? Maverick is very popular right now and has the tools to use maze very well.

As for shroud creatures like the Mongoose and the big guys reanimator brings in. Against Mongoose I'm just going to trade blows with them throwing all the burn I can dig up to the dome. Against inkwell/empyrial archangel spell snare hits 7 of the 11 spells they have to get him into play preboard (if they are even maindecking him) out of the side our hate comes in and we just have to stay live to force the show and tell.

I'm not sure if this is the correct way to attack these problems it's just in a bubble the approach I would take.

I would love to see some matchup analysis and sideboard strategy others are using against the different decks out there.

As this deck evolves it's important we keep pointing out it's weaknesses in hopes of finally putting together an optimal list.

[catmint]

Is there a common agreement that a burn heavy list with snapcaster is the optimal route or are there still a lot of people playing around with stifle in a burn deck?

[dave8]

Has anyone tested Dismember in that deck to stop KotR, Goyf, Tombstalker, Jin-Gitaxias or big Ooze?

[millerd33]

Price of progress -4 life, 2 fetches -2 life, dismember -4 life. Maverick puts down threats just as fast as we do. Can we afford to lose that extra life?

With how popular Maverick has become and only getting more weapons with each set. What is our best plan of attack against them?

Has anyone tested against it? Any Brainstorming on possible cards to turn that matchup in our favor?

[BigBopper]

With how popular Maverick has become and only getting more weapons with each set. What is our best plan of attack against them?

Has anyone tested against it? Any Brainstorming on possible cards to turn that matchup in our favor?

I do test a lot vs. punishing maverick and see the MU around 50/50 maybe 60/40 in our favor, since you only have to watch out for their lifegain, but still need to hold a hand that's sets a clock. Lavamancer is pretty good, goblin guide in early game for damage, in late game for blocking. Delver is great, especially when you Snare Punishing Fire and Bolt Mindsensor or Sryb Ranger...
Usually Price of Progress is the finisher, even flashbacked with Snapcaster. Since they can't counter, there is no problem in tapping out. But in a situation where both are in topdeck mode we usually grap the faster solution.

The new ooze is pretty tough, though *indestructible* and growing every turn.

I can't see dismember in this deck. If I need 5 damage there is Lavamancer+Bolt or something like that and I can shoot that around opposing blockers. Knight need to be FoW or you have to be faster...

[millerd33]

Does this mean 3x Sulfuric Vortex is a must in our board at the moment?

Sideboard:
3 Echoing Truth
3 Submerge
3 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Smash to Smithereens
1 Force of Will

Because we are fast would Cage > Surgical Extraction as it will take them time to find the answer and go off? -3 SCM +3 Cage

EDIT: @catmint: The real strength of the deck IMO is it's able to play aggro/tempo/control depending on the match up. By adding stifle instead of say our bomb burn spells we are giving them an extra turn (taking away a land drop but adding a card drawn). I like being fast. This could be wrong and would love to hear people's throughts on a wasteland/stifle package.

I feel like i'm high jacking this thread but this is a deck that I enjoy playing and discussing.

[BigBopper]

Does this mean 3x Sulfuric Vortex is a must in our board at the moment?

I believe it is, maybe just as a 2 off, but I would also play 2 Flusterstorm SB!

I don't want a wasteland, best situation ever: my VI gets wasted I take the mana, sac 2 mountains into fireblast and cast Pop, without dealing damage to me and forcing my opponent to fetch and or get blown out by it.
Goblin guide syergyses with Pop, Wasteland does not.

[dave8]

Price of progress -4 life, 2 fetches -2 life, dismember -4 life. Maverick puts down threats just as fast as we do. Can we afford to lose that extra life?

With how popular Maverick has become and only getting more weapons with each set. What is our best plan of attack against them?

Has anyone tested against it? Any Brainstorming on possible cards to turn that matchup in our favor?

I usually have something about 18 life or more when they play a 4/4 or 5/5 KotR and my guide cannot attack anymore.
It is not a problem when they have less than 10 life already but if they don't I am in the defense mode.

It is not so easy to Fow a KotR when you are playing against Bant because they have Fow too. I would also always side Fow out for Maverick matchup to bring in submerges and artifact hate.

[BigBopper]

It is not so easy to Fow a KotR when you are playing against Bant because they have Fow too. I would also always side Fow out for Maverick matchup to bring in submerges and artifact hate.

If they force your force, they don't force your price. Vs Maverick I would side out daze and maybe a couple of goblin guides, to have access to smash to smitherens and submerge, but especially sulfuric vortex.

What about a single copy of Riptide Laboratory ? For reusing Snapcaster, instead of Vapor Snag.

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

I thought about a single riptide lab but, honestly a lot of the time I won't even play a snapcaster unless it's to flashback pop or to flash a bolt back to kill a creature. It's a great card but more often than not it turns into force food.

[John Cox]

Has anyone tested Dismember in that deck to stop KotR, Goyf, Tombstalker, Jin-Gitaxias or big Ooze?

I use Dismember in place of Chain Lightning, in game two and three against green opponents I bring in Submerge in its place. It works well and I would recommend it.

[DragoFireheart]

Is this the first time a U/R deck has been in the DTB list? Pretty impressive.

[lordofthepit]

Is this the first time a U/R deck has been in the DTB list? Pretty impressive.

Painted Stone

[millerd33]

I use Dismember in place of Chain Lightning, in game two and three against green opponents I bring in Submerge in its place. It works well and I would recommend it.

Are you running 3 or 4 Dismember? Should we start splashing black duels/swamp? Dark Confidant?

Edit: i may have been out of line to dismiss dismember so quickly. Replacing chains did not even cross my mind.

[dave8]

Are you running 3 or 4 Dismember? Should we start splashing black duels/swamp? Dark Confidant?

Edit: i may have been out of line to dismiss dismember so quickly. Replacing chains did not even cross my mind.

I' am currently running 2 Dismember and my list looks like that:
Lands [18]

4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Volcanic Island
3 Mountain
1 Island


Creatures [14]

4 Goblin Guide
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Snapcaster Mage


Spells [28]

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
2 Fire / Ice
2 Dismember
3 Price of Progress
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder



In my opinion leaving FOWs vs Maverick is nonsense. You want to counter every single card in that matchup so its better to kill creatures on board as Canadian do.

[SupREME-10]

I am running very close to what you have; but I have 2x Fireblast where you have the 2x Dismember; I am not sure which is better; but vs Aggro dismember certainly warrants merit.

Thanks for shaing.

[dave8]

I am running very close to what you have; but I have 2x Fireblast where you have the 2x Dismember; I am not sure which is better; but vs Aggro dismember certainly warrants merit.

Thanks for shaing.

I had 2 fireblasts instead of 2 dismembers before. Then I realized that I have to deal with KotR somehow.

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

grim lavamancer makes it pretty easy to burn down goyf and kotr. one good thing about dismember though is it's at least flashable with snapcaster like when you absolutely positively must take 4 dmg to destroy a terravore or some other double-digit power toughness creature.

[John Cox]

Are you running 3 or 4 Dismember? Should we start splashing black duels/swamp? Dark Confidant?

Edit: i may have been out of line to dismiss dismember so quickly. Replacing chains did not even cross my mind.

I have three Dismember, I trying Fire // Ice right now in the fourth slot. My rational is that it taps big things and is kills little thing so it works kind of like a dismember but is less damaging.

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

It feels wrong wasting a bolt to kill a hierarch.
the list i'm thinking of so far is

4 delver
4 goblin guide
3 lavamancer
3 snapcaster
4 brainstorm
2 daze
2 fire/ice
3 FoW
2 fireblast
3 bolt
3 pop
3 spell snare
3 chain lightning
3 ponder
2 arid mesa
2 island
3 misty rainforest
2 mountain
4 scalding tarn
4 volcanic island
1 wooded foothills

I want to work in maze of ith into this somewhere but there are a few arguments against it, namely I can't decide what to cut in its favor, and this deck could really suffer if you draw an opener with maze as the only land. sure, you can mull but this deck is really consistent and mulling is something I don't want to do on a regular basis. barring dumb luck(5 lands in my opener wtf)I don't have to mull too often because of the low curve.

[John Cox]

It feels wrong wasting a bolt to kill a hierarch.
the list i'm thinking of so far is

4 delver
4 goblin guide
3 lavamancer
3 snapcaster
4 brainstorm
2 daze
2 fire/ice
3 FoW
2 fireblast
3 bolt
3 pop
3 spell snare
3 chain lightning
3 ponder
2 arid mesa
2 island
3 misty rainforest
2 mountain
4 scalding tarn
4 volcanic island
1 wooded foothills

I want to work in maze of ith into this somewhere but there are a few arguments against it, namely I can't decide what to cut in its favor, and this deck could really suffer if you draw an opener with maze as the only land. sure, you can mull but this deck is really consistent and mulling is something I don't want to do on a regular basis. barring dumb luck(5 lands in my opener wtf)I don't have to mull too often because of the low curve.

Interesting list, I would run 4 bolts before the 3rd Chain Lightning.

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

I want very badly to run 4 of each but I compromised at 3 so I could make room for fire/ice.

[Kich867]

Took second at my local FNM tonight with U/R Delver:

//Creatures: 14
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Goblin Guide
3x Grim Lavamancer
3x Snapcaster Mage

//Instants: 18
3x Price of Progress
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Daze
3x Spell Pierce
4x Brainstorm

//Sorceries: 10
3x Ponder
3x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt

//Lands: 18
3x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Flooded Strand
2x Volcanic Island
3x Island
2x Mountain

//Sideboard:
3x Smash to Smithereens
3x Tormod's Crypt
3x Submerge
2x Fireblast
1x Grim Lavamancer
3x Pyroblast

Lands aren't perfect, but it was only relevant once in the games I played where I was low on red mana, I need arid mesa's or something stat.

Round 1: Pox
So this was Pox, with Bitterblossom and Jitte. Long story short, Jitte hit the board games one and three--conveniently the games that I lost because I happened to be tapped out and did NOT see Jitte coming from Pox. As a general statement, I have bad experiences with this deck vs Pox. We already run very few lands, and on your turn 3 when you wasteland my volc and then smallpox my island taking my creature with it.. it was just ridiculous.

Loss, 1-2 (0-1)

Round 2: U/W Blade Control
Game one I blew him out with delvers and had the daze for SFM on turn two. Game two I walked two goblin guides into Mishra's Factories intentionally, aiming to burn them after activation. He had counters every time so I lost my guides and he took over. Game three, he somehow got land-flooded while I had three unflipped delvers and a mancer on the table. Then the delver's flipped and swung him out for 11.

I was happy, as he was one of the best players that shows up regularly.

Win, 2-1 (1-1)

Round 3: U/W Tempo
Game one I blew him out with delver + daze on SFM. He scooped immediately with no answers in sight. Game two I had as ideal of a turn 1-2 as I can think of, t1 delver go, t2 delver flip, guide, one mana open for spell pierce with daze in hand swing for 5. I swung him for five and killed / countered everything that he could put Jitte on (it hit the board) until it was closed out.

I was ecstatic, since I'd say he's the best player there. Pretty sure he won GP Providence with NO FOW Bant last year. Luck was definitely on my side here and it was fun playing against someone who is very clearly better than I am at playing the game. For me this was the best game of the night. I don't think I made any drastic misplays and I was pretty focused the whole time, I mulliganed the right hands into what I wanted for the match up, everything went as planned.

Win, 2-0 (2-1)

Round 4: G/W Maverick
Forunately, this was another one of the best players there. Game one I just do what U/R Delver does--kill everything I see, burn him when it's appropriate, and punch through. He eventually got into a decent position after I had just killed I think his second Mom, but he was at 3 life and I had a Spike in hand. I was afraid he had a STP in his hand at the ready, as I knew that if I didn't kill him this turn, Jitte was going to get put on a dude and the game would be over. Luckily, he didn't, I spiked and he scooped.

Game two wasn't much of a game, he had an amazing opening hand but no green sources, and then he just never found one until he was at 7 life. He fetched down to 6, at the end of his turn I PoP'd him for 4 and Lavamancer'd him for the remainder and he scooped.

Win, 2-0 (3-1).

G/W Mav would go on to win first due to my horrible loss VS Pox, I came in second. But I was totally first in my head, I started the night off with a frustrating loss only to come back and beat three people back to back to back in convincing fashion. For my local meta, that was as hard of a comeback as you could get and it felt awesome. I made a single misplay against Pox that I'm convinced lost me the series (I burnt my Smash to Smithereens early, when I didn't need to, and Jitte hit the board the next turn, had that not happened I had enough board presence to race her), had it not been for that, I could have gone 4-0.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to invest anymore money into the deck as I was getting a little bored of it, but after that, I'm for sure fixing it up to being much much better. A very good friend of mine is willing to lend me his FOW's as he no longer runs his blue deck in tournament anymore which is going to be wonderful.

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

good job, dude. I gotta eat my words here and take back what I said about this deck underperforming without FoW.

[Floi]

There seems to be some consensus on running Snapcaster. Is there anybody else not playing that guy?

I went 3:3 with the following list today, but I didn't particularly feel that the losses were due to lack of Snapcasters (lost against Affinity, Zoo, and my own bad plays in general :D)...

Lands:
2 Mountain
1 Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Arid Mesa
4 Misty Rainforest

Creatures:
4 Goblin Guide
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Grim Lavamancer

Burn:
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
3 Rift Bolt
3 Price of Progress

Digging:
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder

Counters:
3 Daze
4 Spell Snare
3 Force of Will

Sideboard:
SB: 3 Smash to Smithereens
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Grim Lavamancer
SB: 4 Submerge

[Zilla]

@Kich: Your list looks pretty solid. My main complaint is the lack of Chain Lightning. It's almost strictly superior Lava Spike. I'm pretty sure you should run it as a 4-of before Lava Spike ever touches your decklist. I understand it has a drawback, but in my experience it can almost always be played around. Maybe in an extremely red heavy meta you could argue in favor of Lava Spike, but looking at your matchups I'm guessing that's not the case for you. Regardless, grats on your finish!



There seems to be some consensus on running Snapcaster. Is there anybody else not playing that guy?
I still don't. But I also play an extremely aggressive build that aims to win very early and never wants to see the late game. In my testing, I almost always wished Snapcaster Mage was a Bolt when I drew him, so that's what I replaced them with. In a more controlling build, running FoW MD, I think it's likely correct to run Snapcaster.

[Kich867]

@Kich: Your list looks pretty solid. My main complaint is the lack of Chain Lightning. It's almost strictly superior Lava Spike. I'm pretty sure you should run it as a 4-of before Lava Spike ever touches your decklist. I understand it has a drawback, but in my experience it can almost always be played around. Maybe in an extremely red heavy meta you could argue in favor of Lava Spike, but looking at your matchups I'm guessing that's not the case for you. Regardless, grats on your finish!


Chain lightning is definitely going to be added in place of spikes and a rift bolt, going to 4x bolt / 4x chain / 3x rift / 3x price. At the moment just waiting for the money to do it.

I'm questioning Spell Snare and whether I would rather have it over Spell Pierce. Pierce was an all-star today, countering removal and important shit all day. It fell off late game which was a problem, but early game it dominated.

And once again, price underperformed really hard. That was my biggest complaint actually. I sided it out in literally every matchup except G/W Maverick. Upon turn 1, people play around it hard. Granted, I didn't run into any 3 color decks here, but both U/W decks never had more than 1 non-basic. At one point one of the U/W decks had 4 islands and 2 plains out and a mishra's factory.

Also, I don't know why exactly I had this reaction, maybe because I know my deck has plenty of cheap threats, but when my opponent FoW's my turn 3 delver, I got really excited and knew I won. Every time I saw someone burn force on me, it felt really good and I knew I was in a great position, especially when they pitch brainstorms or snapcasters.

[Floi]

I still don't. But I also play an extremely aggressive build that aims to win very early and never wants to see the late game. In my testing, I almost always wished Snapcaster Mage was a Bolt when I drew him, so that's what I replaced them with. In a more controlling build, running FoW MD, I think it's likely correct to run Snapcaster.

I can see that argument even though I've been quite happy with the FoWs since I added them. Maybe It would have been correct for me to play Snapcasters then...
Mind sharing your latest list, zilla?

[rxavage]

Are you running 3 or 4 Dismember? Should we start splashing black duels/swamp? Dark Confidant?

Edit: i may have been out of line to dismiss dismember so quickly. Replacing chains did not even cross my mind.


I have a urb list I've been working on with bob, tombstalker, and ghastly demise(used to be thoughtseize). I also include 2 sdt to help dig, flip delver and prevent bob damage. So far it has tested nice but im still trying to find the optimal build.

[John Cox]

Good catch on SDT I've been trying it (and now jace) with good results.

[Zilla]

I can see that argument even though I've been quite happy with the FoWs since I added them. Maybe It would have been correct for me to play Snapcasters then...
Mind sharing your latest list, zilla?
Hasn't changed much from my post on page 3 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22676-DTB-U-R-Delver&p=607503&viewfull=1#post607503). I've been testing another fetch or basic in place of the fourth Volcanic, and sometimes I drop the fourth Price of Progress for a third Spell Snare, and the sideboard is in constant flux, but aside from that it doesn't change much.

I play my build extremely aggressively, rarely using my burn on creatures and just going straight to the dome. The countermagic in my build is there just to buy an extra turn or two to seal the deal.

When I'm in the mood to play a similar deck with more control capability, I reach for RUG Tempo, because I personally think it's better suited to that role than this deck is. Your mileage may vary.

[Kich867]

Hasn't changed much from my post on page 3 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22676-DTB-U-R-Delver&p=607503&viewfull=1#post607503). I've been testing another fetch or basic in place of the fourth Volcanic, and sometimes I drop the fourth Price of Progress for a third Spell Snare, and the sideboard is in constant flux, but aside from that it doesn't change much.

I play my build extremely aggressively, rarely using my burn on creatures and just going straight to the dome. The countermagic in my build is there just to buy an extra turn or two to seal the deal.

When I'm in the mood to play a similar deck with more control capability, I reach for RUG Tempo, because I personally think it's better suited to that role than this deck is. Your mileage may vary.

Honestly, I feel like this deck is somewhat of an evolution to RUG. I think what it comes down to is that at the end of the day, Tarmogoyf is a 2 mana big dumb creature, and that's it. And I think the moment Delver hit the Magic world, the need for Green in that deck for a hard hitting cheap beater was completely removed. Delver is your big dumb beater for cheap now. I think it came out as a movement where people were looking at RUG and realizing that they could have a more stable mana base and better removal package while packing the same punch just by dropping green--or at least that's how I ended up building my list.

I mean, even the little things like Goblin Guide telling you what they're going to draw. In the off-chance it's a land, that sucks, but I've actually swung games by seeing that card. I can't recall if I wrote it down in my write-up, but the third game against U/W control, I swung, he revealed Stoneforge Mystic with a clear board, the only land he had untapped was a fetch, I dazed it, he fetched. Never saw another creature and lost 2 turns later after I brainstormed into a full grip of 2x Delver 1x Lavamancer.

[Zilla]

Honestly, I feel like this deck is somewhat of an evolution to RUG. I think what it comes down to is that at the end of the day, Tarmogoyf is a 2 mana big dumb creature, and that's it. And I think the moment Delver hit the Magic world, the need for Green in that deck for a hard hitting cheap beater was completely removed. Delver is your big dumb beater for cheap now. I think it came out as a movement where people were looking at RUG and realizing that they could have a more stable mana base and better removal package while packing the same punch just by dropping green--or at least that's how I ended up building my list.

I mean, even the little things like Goblin Guide telling you what they're going to draw. In the off-chance it's a land, that sucks, but I've actually swung games by seeing that card. I can't recall if I wrote it down in my write-up, but the third game against U/W control, I swung, he revealed Stoneforge Mystic with a clear board, the only land he had untapped was a fetch, I dazed it, he fetched. Never saw another creature and lost 2 turns later after I brainstormed into a full grip of 2x Delver 1x Lavamancer.
I dig what you're saying, but Delver isn't really a replacement for Goyf, it's an addition to it. Both decks run Delver. U/R Delver runs Guide as its secondary beater because it's great in the early game. Guide pretty much sucks in the mid to late game though, where Tarmogoyf shines. That's really the foundation of my point: if you're going to go the more controlling route, you're going to want a stronger late game, and Goyf provides that.

Not saying this deck can't have a solid mid to late game, I just think RUG does it better. That said, RUG is much more reliant on creatures to win, which means it's a lot weaker to strategies that prey on creatures. UR Delver's strength is having the combo-like finish of burn, which in my experience is best suited to a more aggressive early game strategy.

Again though, this is all from my personal experience. I recognize that I play the deck in a very specific way, and that there are wildly different approaches to it, so if you're making it work as a more aggro-control style deck, more power to you.

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

This deck sits in kind of a weird position in between a lot of now popular archetypes in legacy. I like playing with it a lot.

[Kich867]

Probably going to friday night magic tomorrow, going to be subbing in Force of Wills where Spell Pierces are and see how it feels. Still using build listed previously.

+3 Force
-3 Spell Pierce

-- I haven't actually checked, I might need to add more blue in, but off the top of my head, I have brainstorm, ponder, snapcaster, daze, delver, and the forces themselves as blue cards.

21 blue cards should be fine actually..

[BigBopper]

Probably going to friday night magic tomorrow, going to be subbing in Force of Wills where Spell Pierces are and see how it feels. Still using build listed previously.

+3 Force
-3 Spell Pierce

-- I haven't actually checked, I might need to add more blue in, but off the top of my head, I have brainstorm, ponder, snapcaster, daze, delver, and the forces themselves as blue cards.

21 blue cards should be fine actually..

Still love to counter goyf, ooze, SFM and Jitte with Spell Snare, although I reduced them to 2. You should definetly try it over Spell Pierce!

[GranataGoblin]

FoW are useful to protect delver of secrets from removals too, spell pierce sucks from turn 3 to this and spell snare are obviously useless..
Also, they can protect your resolving snapcaster mage flashbacking a winning spell..

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

I've been farting around getting some good results with this list

1 sensei's divining top
4 delver of secrets
4 goblin guide
3 grim lavamancer
3 snapcaster mage
4 brainstorm
2 daze
1 fireblast
4 FoW
3 bolt
3 price
3 spell snare
3 chain lightning
4 ponder
2 arid mesa
3 island
1 mountain
4 scalding tarn
3 misty rainforest
4 volcanic island
1 wooded foothills

SDT has made a big impact on my ability to flip delver, get a FoW into my hand pronto, etc. I at first was going to run 3 FoW main and keep the 4th in the sideboard but I'm running so many blue cards I can pitch without thinking twice and still keep up my aggression and consistently use top to search for answers in an emergency/flip delver ASAP.

[markitus]

...
3 bolt
3 chain lightning
...


Why would you want to run the 3rd Chain Lightning over the 4th Lightning Bolt?

[Zilla]

Was wondering the exact same thing.

[Kich867]

Hey! So I've got some upgrades coming to my deck so that it won't feel so janky anymore. Woo!

New List:

//Creatures: 14
4x Goblin Guide
4x Delver of Secrets
3x Grim Lavamancer
3x Snapcaster Mage

//Spells: 28
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
3x Rift Bolt
3x Fireblast
4x Brainstorm
3x Ponder
4x Daze
3x Spell Pierce

//Lands: 18
3x Volcanic Island
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Arid Mesa
2x Mountain
1x Island

Sideboard is same as it's been, but I switched PoP from main deck to sideboard. Even against tier 1 decks, people are running too many basics and they play around POP too easily. Also, 2 color decks are becoming very common. So far, I've gotten way more use out of Fireblast, since putting it in I've been loving it main deck.

In an incredibly satisfying game, I got my opponent to 9, he blew my delver and whatever else up with something, I EOT Snapcaster on Brainstorm, draw into a bolt and a fireblast and put another bolt on top to draw into on my turn. I untap, swing for 2 burn for 10 and win.

^ That line of play for me has been increasingly common. If you guys aren't Snapcastering your brainstorms, start doing it. My rule of thumb at the moment (after, probably a solid 100+ games recently with the deck to test this theory out) is unless snapcaster targeting a bolt is going to either win you the game -right now- I will always hit brainstorm with it if I have a fetch in hand.

So, it's very much in this priority, Bolt (If it'll win) > Brainstorm > Ponder > Bolt > Counterspell whenever I cast snapcaster.

I've found that given the quantity of burn we (I?) run, unless that lightning bolt wins the game, you're better off brainstorming for more options. I often EOT SCM > Brainstorm and grab myself some awesome combination of Burn/Burn/Draw or Creature/Creature/Burn etc.

It keeps your momentum up when the momentum slips out of your hands, and ever since I started focusing on SCM'ing my cantrips over my burn, you find more burn than you were going to anyways and you ensure that your next draws are either A: Good, or B: Most likely not shit because you fetched your shit back into the library.

I am also still comfortable running spell pierce. It may just be my play style, but Spell Snare doesn't counter most relevant removal and force of will, while awesome, conflicts with my previous point: I'm of the belief you want to be SCM'ing your blue cards more than your red cards because your blue cards actually get you more red cards.

It hurts late game because it just stops countering stuff, and that sucks, but I can't express in words how amazing it feels to go: Turn 1 Delver with daze backup, no response? Turn 2 Delver flips, Goblin Guide, swing for 5 with Daze Backup and 1 blue open for Spell Pierce.

This may be because I'm looking to keep my dudes alive, spell pierce keeps them alive long enough to do the damage they need to do so that they either stay in the game for the win or they can stay alive long enough to put someone in burn range (which once my cards get in is going to be pretty easy to close that gap).

[pechunato]

A couple of days ago I went to a small tourney with a list based on 4eak's list (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22676-DTB-U-R-Delver&p=608301&viewfull=1#post608301). I lost against Bant Blade, won against Dredge, Sneak&Show and Green and Taxes; and finally lost in the semifinal against UW Blade (due to some missplays).

My changes were:
-4 Rift Bolt, -1 Daze, -1 Spell Snare, +1 Grim Lavamancer, +2 Dismember, +3 Spell Pierce
-2 Fetchs, +2 Volcanic Island

I'm quite happy with the result, but I noticed a few things:

Dismember: it was useful against mana dorks, or for killing creatures outside burn range. But, as Lavamancer+Bolt has a similar effect, I'm thinking about replacing them with something more flexible, like Fire/Ice.
Counters: Force of Will wasn't indeed that necessary, Spell Pierce was nice to counter early removal trying to stop my initial assault; but I would add the 4th Daze so that I can counter with just 1 tapped island more frequently.
Cantrips: I might replace Ponder with Preordain, so that I don't need to activate fetchlands in order to get rid of chaff, thus holding more cards in hand for Brainstorm.
Snapcaster Mage: I didn't really miss it, but I need more testing to be sure.

[ReinVos]

This may be a bad suggestion but what about Psionic Blast as a 2-of? It could potentially be good in lists that both want to have enough burn, but also want to be able to support Force of Will (which means you can maybe replace the Fireblasts with Psionic Blasts while being able to play Magma Jet instead of Ponder at the same time).

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

Why would you want to run the 3rd Chain Lightning over the 4th Lightning Bolt?
cool feedback. I've switched some of the counts around and upped some of the red sources and it's helped a lot with consistency.

Psionic Blast seems too expensive for what it does. Then again I've sometimes wished I was holding a counterspell or some sort of slightly more expensive hard counter during the mid/late game because daze can be so, so underwhelming.

[funyun45]

I might replace Ponder with Preordain, so that I don't need to activate fetchlands in order to get rid of chaff, thus holding more cards in hand for Brainstorm.

This deck wants to dig. The deeper the better. Combine that with the fact that Ponder can shuffle away chaff on top before cantripping, and I'm not sure a 1 card (and therefore 1 turn) shallower dig is worth the slightly greater flexibility versus chaff that Preordain gives.

[JeroenC]

I think I already know the answer to this question due to logical reasoning, but the search thread tool seems to be broken so I'll just go ahead and ask: how does this deck do against Maverick?

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

It can go either way. Sometimes you just rip bolt after bolt off the top and burn them down before they can really get going. Other times they stabilize after a few turns and it turns into a frantic rush to drop their life down before they drop a goyf or they keep recurring punishing fire and killing all your dudes. Maverick isn't a super unfavorable matchup; I'd rather be playing against it rather than high tide or any other goldfish deck.

[ReinVos]

It really depends on what cards are drawn during the match. This deck really wants to have the turn one Delver. If Maverick has the Swords to Plowshares for it, it is in for a good game. If not, Delver will start with a small advantage. It's very difficult to beat draws like turn one Delver, turn two Guide, and have a counter for something the opponent is doing. Likewise, if Maverick plows the turn one Delver and gets to resolve a Mystic, it will have a big advantage going into the middle game (which it's assured to hit), even if the Mystic gets bolted (the threat of the equipment dominating the game at some point remains).

There are a lot of ways these decks interact with each other. Scavenging Ooze gains life and is good against Snapcaster Mage. As always, Knight is good, but it's slow. By the time it's a 4/4 and hits play, you're probaby very close to 0. If Maverick gets to untap with Mom, it could be rough. Maverick has a lot of creatures that should usually be dealt with right away (which makes it such a good deck), but because Delver plays a different game (put opponent in reach, finish him off), sometimes the creatures don't matter all that much (they don't get time to dominate the board, or when they do, it's irrelevant). Maverick needs to survive the early game unscathed. It still needs to be very cautious but if Maverick can slow the pace down, their cards are just so much better. Delver needs to get an early advantage by pressuring Maverick and countering/bolting speedbumps. If it gets to the middle game, you should have enough gas left to kill the opponent before they overpower you.

So in short, I can't really answer that question with a percentage. There are just so many factors that influence the outcome of the game. They both have the tools to beat each other though, that's for sure. I think with best play from both sides, Maverick has Delver's number.

[BigBopper]

I'd also say it around 50/50, maybe a little on Delvers site. PoP is just so good vs. maverick in lategame and Snapcaster into PoP usually seals the deal. Still, Spell Snare is awesome (SFM, Jitte, Ooze, Goyf, pridemage, Punishing Fire-yes I do counter it and especially Scryb Ranger, he's just a bomb vs. Delver). Flash, Flying, ProBlue...
I also like to Force zenit every once in a while, other than that I agree with the above.

Different question: Fire (Fire/Ice) can kill Scryb Ranger, can it not?

[Kich867]

50/50? I'd lean heavily towards U/R Delver. Our deck runs burn, theirs doesn't, our deck runs counterspells, theirs doesn't. The #1 color Maverick doesn't want to play is red, we're faster than they are, we fly, and we can deal with threats a lot better than they can. They have to wait until turn 3-4 to even really start being a threat, we can be half way to the finish line by turn 3 pretty consistently.

In my experience playing against maverick, just kill everything they have and beat them to death.

[ReinVos]

I don't agree. There are more games than one during a match (Maverick having access to hateful sideboard cards that are tough to deal with). The argument, ''I'll just counter that then'' is too easy. Unless, you're completely oblivious, Maverick isn't going to put 5 non-basics into play and just die to Pop, SCM, Pop.

How can you be throwing all your burn at Maverick's creatures and then expect to have enough gas to just kill the opponent as well? It looks you're trying to have your cake and eat it all too. Swords to Plowshares and Punishing Fires take care of every creature Delver has, sometimes with value. So while I agree Delver can deal with threats better, Maverick ain't no slouch eiher. Knight of the Reliquary into a Maze is also pseudo-removal (albeit very slow) because without Wastelands, Maze will permanently knock out a creature. There are multiple forms of life gain in the Maverick deck. This means that once they establish, they will climb out of reach, sealing the game.

If you feel Delver is at an advantage, sure. But a heavy favorite? I just don't buy it.

The way you sketch the match-up it's like: You turn one Delver. Then me turn one Mom? answer. Turn two Mystic? answer. Turn three Ooze? answer. Turn 4 I'm in range; you bolt, bolt, fireblast, I'm dead.

If either one of those creatures gets to do their thing, Maverick is that much closer to establishing.

In regard to the one color I don't want to meet it's black actually. Because black is the color of combo and destruction. I don't like Dark Ritual (storm) and I don't like Smallpox (hurts bad). Lightning Bolt is fine.

In regard to Price of Progress; Sylvan Safekeeper is a great card because of it's protection ability, as well as his ability to reduce Pop damage.

[BigBopper]

How can you be throwing all your burn at Maverick's creatures and then expect to have enough gas to just kill the opponent as well? It looks you're trying to have your cake and eat it all too. Swords to Plowshares and Punishing Fires take care of every creature Delver has, sometimes with value. So while I agree Delver can deal with threats better, Maverick ain't no slouch eiher. Knight of the Reliquary into a Maze is also pseudo-removal (albeit very slow) because without Wastelands, Maze will permanently knock out a creature. There are multiple forms of life gain in the Maverick deck. This means that once they establish, they will climb out of reach, sealing the game.


I do feel the same. Always wondering if it's better to Bolt the creature (mother/ranger/bird) or my opponent. Most of the time I sit there with less cards in hand without having traded badly. Every zenit resolved is a new threat but Usually Lavamancer shines and StP dissynergieses with Ooze. So keep off Jitte and you might be ok-still a Sword on a huge knight might cost you the game (if you saced your last mountains for a fireblast).

[Kich867]

I don't agree. There are more games than one during a match (Maverick having access to hateful sideboard cards that are tough to deal with). The argument, ''I'll just counter that then'' is too easy. Unless, you're completely oblivious, Maverick isn't going to put 5 non-basics into play and just die to Pop, SCM, Pop.

How can you be throwing all your burn at Maverick's creatures and then expect to have enough gas to just kill the opponent as well? It looks you're trying to have your cake and eat it all too. Swords to Plowshares and Punishing Fires take care of every creature Delver has, sometimes with value. So while I agree Delver can deal with threats better, Maverick ain't no slouch eiher. Knight of the Reliquary into a Maze is also pseudo-removal (albeit very slow) because without Wastelands, Maze will permanently knock out a creature. There are multiple forms of life gain in the Maverick deck. This means that once they establish, they will climb out of reach, sealing the game.

If you feel Delver is at an advantage, sure. But a heavy favorite? I just don't buy it.

The way you sketch the match-up it's like: You turn one Delver. Then me turn one Mom? answer. Turn two Mystic? answer. Turn three Ooze? answer. Turn 4 I'm in range; you bolt, bolt, fireblast, I'm dead.

If either one of those creatures gets to do their thing, Maverick is that much closer to establishing.

In regard to the one color I don't want to meet it's black actually. Because black is the color of combo and destruction. I don't like Dark Ritual (storm) and I don't like Smallpox (hurts bad). Lightning Bolt is fine.

In regard to Price of Progress; Sylvan Safekeeper is a great card because of it's protection ability, as well as his ability to reduce Pop damage.

Punishing Maverick is a largely different story. My list runs 11 burns + 3 lavamancers, fireblasts are rarely targeted at creatures, generally speaking--that's enough to kill most creatures in Maverick until they get around to Thrun.

In game two I can board in Smash to Smithereens for Stoneforge and Submerge for Ooze/Knight (either when ooze burns a lot of creatures to get big or when knight fetches).

I'm inclined to favor Delver in a match-up ratio given both decks are being played / are drawing optimally.


I do feel the same. Always wondering if it's better to Bolt the creature (mother/ranger/bird) or my opponent. Most of the time I sit there with less cards in hand without having traded badly. Every zenit resolved is a new threat but Usually Lavamancer shines and StP dissynergieses with Ooze. So keep off Jitte and you might be ok-still a Sword on a huge knight might cost you the game (if you saced your last mountains for a fireblast).

Against Maverick I prefer to point most of it at the creatures (prioritizing Mother).

[Artlee]

Different question: Fire (Fire/Ice) can kill Scryb Ranger, can it not?
yes

[JMLL]

I think I already know the answer to this question due to logical reasoning, but the search thread tool seems to be broken so I'll just go ahead and ask: how does this deck do against Maverick?

I must disagree witht he flow of thought that this pairing is 50/50 or favorable to UR Burn.

I've tested this pairing a lot (and I mean A LOT) as for me, a deck unable to win Maverick (be GW or punishing) is not worth considering in my meta.

UR Delver may have the Hand of GOD and win, and even with a "quite alright" hand. Post board, Smash to Smithereens and Submerge help a lot, but it may not be enough. Knight, Ooze, Mother of Runes, and Stoneforge are too hard to stop (all of them). Zenith to Scryb Ranger also puts us into a problem for their multiple Knight/Mother activations. Post Board, Choke doesn't help either.

All in all, Maverick simply plays a ton of threads nonstop, putting preassure after the first turns. If you don't have the "right" hand, your burn/counter cannot keep up with their threats as they can start attacking as soon as they have their 2nd creature (almost always) and if they play it right, our counterspells cannot protect our Dudes AND avoid their big plays.

We can win on the spot, but being 30-70 or something close to that makes me avoid this deck on my meta, at least, until I find a version that can win 70-30 Maverick / Zenith.

Maybe a more burn oriented deck could do this (I'm thinking of Searing Blaze), till then, I'll keep working on it!

[Kich867]

I recently played a very good Punishing Maverick player, as expected, I lost 0-2..but I did find that I'm fairly certain I was playing wrong.

I spent most of the match-up killing his creatures, I had 18 points of damage in the yard and got 2 swings of a delver through before it died. Would I have died if I didn't kill 4-6 creatures? Maybe, but there's a very real chance he'd have to play drastically different in order to survive the burns.

I think going balls to the wall towards them (in the right circumstances) is the best choice.

[Beatusnox]

Against Punishing Maverick in My testing and experience, Price of Progress is our main out, Punishing Mav. is extremely greedy in its manabase and PoP is our way to punish that. Beyond that, I have had the best luck in beating them by throwing all the fire I can at their face. If anyone else has other insights on the match up I would love to hear it but I am personally not at that much of a disadvantage against the deck. I would say 55/45 +/- in their favor, so not unwinnable but not favored.

[lochlan]

I think going balls to the wall towards them (in the right circumstances) is the best choice.

Yes. UR Delver has to be the beatdown, the control magic is there for tempo and the burn is there to end the game. You can't effectively play control because then you're getting into the mid-game/late-game...at which point this deck doesn't have much play (unless you count drawing Price of Progress "mid-game").

Mono red usually doesn't waste burn on controlling the board and neither should this deck. 95% of the time it's correct to just burn face.

[Zilla]

I think going balls to the wall towards them (in the right circumstances) is the best choice.
This is absolutely true. I burn SFM on sight (assuming I can't get them to chump with it first) and ignore almost everything else they play, unless they're foolish enough to play a Goyf or KotR in bolt range. It's not an overwhelmingly positive matchup for us but it's really not that bad at all if you're playing the beatdown.

[JeroenC]

Cool, thanks for the advice guys. Might test this deck out at a semi-big tournament next week, have the manabase and Force (if I run them) so pretty cheap to build/borrow after that.

[BigBopper]

Talking about matchups. So far I have tested vs. maverick, which is positive to my believe. Furthermore BUG control is also a usual victim to PoP, due to its 3-colored manabase. Here Spell Pierce is better than Snare for planeswalker targets. ANT/TES is also positive 60/40 or better.

I haven't tested it yet but could imagine Burn as a bad MU, since they are faster and countering 1-drops is not that easy. Also goblins has a negative MU as far as I have seen from others testings, 'cause they usually handle our creatures and one stucks in bolting their guys or the player themselves.

Other impressions on MUs???

[Kich867]

Goblins is very much in our favor, in fact, I genuinely question whether goblins can actually win versus anything that drops creatures. I've played goblins countless times with various decks, every time I 2-0 them.

For us, just play it safe, make sure lackey gets blocked / killed and they pretty much lose (gross oversimplification but, that's certainly what it feels like most of the time). I really have trouble figuring out how that deck steals wins. I guess if you play against people who can't drop a turn 1 creature you're in the clear, but against any deck with one-drops, I haven't lost a game against them.

They don't run much if any removal (which is mind boggling) and have immense trouble getting things through. If their lists just ran at least lightning bolt they'd be in a better position I think but, I haven't seen many / any that do, so their lackey's get chumped or killed by delvers or guides and then I just beat them to death. I have yet to find this match up difficult against any of the decks I play, they run lackeys into 1/1 creatures assuming that I won't block and trade and their mana base is awkwardly unstable with usually 8 lands that don't tap for red, relying heavily on vials.

[Koby]

Is there a consensus on a decklist? I would like to build a version of this deck for a gauntlet and wanted to get the latest and greatest.

Thanks.

[Kich867]

Is there a consensus on a decklist? I would like to build a version of this deck for a gauntlet and wanted to get the latest and greatest.

Thanks.

I don't think there's much variations. I think it just comes down to "Do you want to play force or not?". I don't own forces, I've thought about running Disrupting Shoal in it's place since I'm .. pretty much just concerned about stopping removal and I happen to have a very sweet mix of one and two casting cost blue cards (Ponder, Delver, Brainstorm and Daze, Shoal, Snapcaster).

Here's my list at the moment:

Creatures: 14
4x Goblin Guide
4x Delver of Secrets
3x Grim Lavamancer
3x Snapcaster Mage

Spells: 28
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
3x Rift Bolt
3x Fireblast

4x Brainstorm
3x Ponder
4x Daze
3x Spell Pierce
//(going to try Shoal at spell pierce)

//Lands: 18
3x Volcanic Island
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Arid Mesa
2x Mountain
2x Island

//Sideboard:
3x Smash to Smithereens
3x Tormod's Crypt
3x Submerge
3x Price of Progress
3x Sulfuric Vortex
//Trying vortex out.

I really don't enjoy running price of progress maindeck.

[Sigyn]

Is there a consensus on a decklist? I would like to build a version of this deck for a gauntlet and wanted to get the latest and greatest.

Thanks.


Ther're two variants, Burn with little splash for the good blue cards -Delver,BS, Snapcaster- and the more blue version with Fow, Snare... I'm still trying to decide what's better.

I've tested the FOW version and i'm running this decklist right now:

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [UNH] Mountain
1 [UNH] Island

// Creatures
4 [ZEN] Goblin Guide
4 [ISD] Delver of Secrets
3 [M12] Grim Lavamancer
3 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage

// Spells
4 [B] Lightning Bolt
4 [LG] Chain Lightning
4 [CMD] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 [M10] Ponder
3 [EX] Price of Progress
2 [VI] Fireblast

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [NPH] Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 [IA] Pyroblast
SB: 3 [NE] Submerge
SB: 3 [SC] Sulfuric Vortex
SB: 2 [CMD] Flusterstorm

I'm pretty happy with it, i feel 4 Spell Snare is maybe too much but i don't want to run daze since it cuts our mana development, in this deck it's important to curve properly and spell pierce doesn't counter Tarmogoyf...

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

daze has been pretty bad for me lately. any good player is going to be prepared for it and too often its just more force food. wtf. thats what my snapcasters are for. spell pierce seems a lot more useful; if a creature resolves just burn it. it makes your creatures live longer too.

[Kich867]

daze has been pretty bad for me lately. any good player is going to be prepared for it and too often its just more force food. wtf. thats what my snapcasters are for. spell pierce seems a lot more useful; if a creature resolves just burn it. it makes your creatures live longer too.

UW Tempo is big where I'm at, Daze wins those games for me. I had a chat with the guy who made this deck: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=847049 after I beat him 2-0 with U/R Delver (was fist-pumping so hard on the inside haha) and I think he summed it up pretty nicely..

If you have the daze for stoneforge on turn 2, and they don't have the force to stop it, there's a good chance you win. I've also been really happy with dazing hymns and other key spells people tap out for. My main problem are the spells people don't tap out for, like swords to plowshares and lightning helix--that's why I want to try out disrupting shoal as a decent replacement for force of will (when you're only looking to hit 1-2 drops).

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

You know mental misstep has been banned for a while right?

[Kich867]

You know mental misstep has been banned for a while right?

Note the date, he built a force of will'less Bant deck and took it to first place at a GP invitational--he wasn't playing THAT deck (wtf?), he was playing U/W Tempo against me at our local FNM.

But your right, past accomplishments are a horrible measure of someone's abilities and knowledge of things..

[Vaxe]

When you play U/R Delver, your focus isn't to get in the red zone. The deck is essentially a burn deck with counter magic for interaction - and your focus/win con is through burn spells.

As such, the removal of Goblin Guide is essential. Sure, the card may have won 2 SCG Opens, but in the current metagame, it is absolutely garbage when drawn past turn 3.


Here is the list that I have been running with great success:

4 Delver of Secrets
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Grim Lavamancer

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Price of Progress
4 Fire // Ice

4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare

4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
1 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Arid Mesa
2 Mountain
2 Island
3 Volcanic Island

SB:
3 Pyroblast
3 Submerge
3 Counterbalance
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Sulfuric Vortex

[1maarten1]

As such, the removal of Goblin Guide is essential.

I 100% disagree here. Goblin guide is so insanely strong. often 6 damage for 1 mana is quite good i hear. So yea if he becomes bad after t3 where he did 6 damage, i would be happy to deal with that. Alongside Delver and Lavamancer you can have a pretty strong board position.

Anyway I guess it differs between play style and personal preference. For example, I don't run Force or Snapcaster(still testing these) and approach the deck very aggressive and balls to the wall and Goblin Guide is one of the better cards for that purpose.

[BigBopper]

Goblins is very much in our favor, in fact, I genuinely question whether goblins can actually win versus anything that drops creatures. I've played goblins countless times with various decks, every time I 2-0 them.

For us, just play it safe, make sure lackey gets blocked / killed and they pretty much lose (gross oversimplification but, that's certainly what it feels like most of the time). I really have trouble figuring out how that deck steals wins. I guess if you play against people who can't drop a turn 1 creature you're in the clear, but against any deck with one-drops, I haven't lost a game against them.

They don't run much if any removal (which is mind boggling) and have immense trouble getting things through. If their lists just ran at least lightning bolt they'd be in a better position I think but, I haven't seen many / any that do, so their lackey's get chumped or killed by delvers or guides and then I just beat them to death. I have yet to find this match up difficult against any of the decks I play, they run lackeys into 1/1 creatures assuming that I won't block and trade and their mana base is awkwardly unstable with usually 8 lands that don't tap for red, relying heavily on vials.

That's not quite true. The last time I played goblins at a tournament I faced U/R Delver and won both postboard games. Pyrokinesis is really good killing Delver and Guide at once. Other than that Tarfire has Bolt's spot and Incinerator is still all around. You also don't have a bolt/chain lightning for all lackeys, piledrivers and stuff. That's why I said either burn the opponent or lackey and co. He didn't have a removal for my EOT vialed Warren Instigator and on his turn he faced 8 more goblins. Also lists novadays don't neccessarly play Ports anymore. I don't say to fear the goblin MU, but as far as I heard its not the easiest.

I liked the synergy of goblin guide and PoP, but since I don't play PoP MD anymore....Still Guide is a really good turn 1 drop, especially with VI and daze backup. I strongly support 2+ Daze MD. Instead I removed Lavamancer, since he's very slow and I miss mana to activate him, since I usually use it for Bolt and co. or Snapcaster.

[r0773nluck]

So i recently built U/R Delver but its more of a tempo build
Land 18
1 Mountain
3 Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland

Creatures 12
4 Delver of Secret
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Snapcaster mage
2 Vendillion Clique

Instantsm 20
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
2 Fire//Ice
2 Magma Jet (this is a Trial)
4 Brainstorm

Sorceries 6
4 Chain Lightning
2 Gitaxian Probe

So i have 2 open slots (where magma jet is) and i have been suggested to put price of progress there but it seems like it could be bad if i am wasting lands and potentially stifling lands, i have 2 price in the side however. Also saw some list running ponder but its awkward when holding so many 1 drops in hand with it being a sorcery.

Any Suggestions Welcome

[Kich867]

I would put Fireblast in that spot--it's a good quick finisher and you can play it after tapping out.

I don't really see why people put Vendilion Clique in with tempo... it's not realistically a tempo card.

You can't drop it until turn 3, it doesn't actually reduce your opponent's hand-size and it's effectiveness is not a guarantee (although it usually is). By turn 3, I'd rather be snapping in stifles, Delver is a better beater. In my opinion if your deck is working correctly then what they have in their hand shouldn't matter much: they shouldn't have the mana to cast it before they die. Obviously shit doesn't happen optimally, but I would rather have 2 burns in that spot.

Keldon Marauder's aren't a terrible choice either: bare minimum they do 2 damage to the opponent, but can do 5 damage for 2 mana on the higher end (which is entirely possible).

They can be removal or life-gain depending on what you need, chump that Tarmogoyf or force them to block it.

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

In my opinion if your deck is working correctly then what they have in their hand shouldn't matter much: they shouldn't have the mana to cast it before they die. Obviously shit doesn't happen optimally, but I would rather have 2 burns in that spot.

This is truth, people.

Also cutting goblin guide is a really bad idea.

One last thing, to actually respond to your question no; displaying acumen in something prior isn't a clear-cut measurement of actual ability. Especially in a card game. The race isn't given to the swiftest etc. but it is the way to bet. Also you wouldn't believe the number of people on cockatrice who still swear MM is still legal.

[Kich867]

Given the purpose of his deck I overlooked the decision to cut Goblin Guide, if you're trying keep them off land you don't want to potentially give them more.

On the flip side, the argument (an argument I'd agree with as I also believe there's no room to cut Guide) could be made that...they would draw that land anyways and they can still only play one per turn.

In fact, it might be incredibly relevant to KNOW what that land is. If they pull in a fetchland, keep mana open to stifle, if not, don't. Win win? Guide gives you too much useful information, even if it is "helping" your opponent. If it's a basic, hell, don't even bother playing that wasteland right now, play the volcanic and get a really solid mana base going.

[lyracian]

Oh dear the deck has been downgraded again; that was a short tenure at the top.

Maybe we need to play more burn spells to get back up there...
(I still love Magma Jet).

What about some bigger creatures? Anyone tried Serendib Efreet?

[ReinVos]

Maverick players adjusted their strategy and figured out how to approach games against Delver. Delver used to have a favorable match-up because it was a new archetype, and played with surprise cards like Price and Fireblast. Now that the surprise is gone, and Maverick players know how to use their deck better against Delver, the ball is in the park of Delver again, having to adjust and somehow being favorable against Maverick.

Serendib Efreet is a bit slow. Yes, it's immune to Bolts but Clique is just so much better in many ways. It's also annoying that Scryb Ranger is in the format.

Goblin Guide is necessary, it still gives the deck it's share of broken draws.

Don't play Stifle. Don't try to mimic tempo thresh here, it heavily dilutes your plan. If you play Stifle, you really should play Wasteland and then you are starting to look like a tempo deck too much. Then your Guides conflict with your deck and then you're just a bad tempo thresh deck. Even if you don't have Guides you lack both speed and real beaters, like Tarmogoyf.

Maybe Searing Blaze is an option. It could potentially be better than Submerge and Smash to Smithereens. You'll just kill Mystics with profit anyway (so why Smithereens?) and it's also much better against Maverick in general, really putting the pressure on. Something could be said for a 2-of main deck. A meta call just like Price of Progress. Yes, sometimes it's dead, but there are plenty of tier decks that rely on creatures and Bolt is a very good card right now.

[Wereodile]

So I am slowly collecting the pieces of this deck and I have a couple questions. Right now I have 4x Spell Snare and 4x Spell Pierce is that too many of either of those? I know pierce is very well positioned in the meta these days and Snare is great against a lot of the DTB. Second questions is my S/B currently looks like this.

3x Smash to Smithereens
3x Surgical Extraction
3x Submerge
2x Price of Progress
2x Sulfuric Vortex
2x Hydroblast

I am torn on the Pyroblast slots, I feel I should be running some kind of bounce maybe Echoing Truth or possibly Dispel to help with other tempo MU's. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[snappingbowls | ಠ_ಠ]

I would take Vortexes completely out of your 75. They're awesome in straight burn because they can finish games nicely and obviously turn off the important parts of Jitte and 'Skull. I would just go up to x4 Submerge... Also, has anyone tested Repeal? Seems strong against anything with Batterskull.

Take the 2 PoP out of the board and into the MD. If you don't want x4 PoP MD just play x3 MD but keep 'em out of the SB. Burn isn't going to be as relevant in the coming weeks I don't think, I think Hydroblasts should be Pyros. Otherwise I run a very similar SB

[Wereodile]

I would take Vortexes completely out of your 75. They're awesome in straight burn because they can finish games nicely and obviously turn off the important parts of Jitte and 'Skull. I would just go up to x4 Submerge... Also, has anyone tested Repeal? Seems strong against anything with Batterskull.

Take the 2 PoP out of the board and into the MD. If you don't want x4 PoP MD just play x3 MD but keep 'em out of the SB. Burn isn't going to be as relevant in the coming weeks I don't think, I think Hydroblasts should be Pyros. Otherwise I run a very similar SB

Are you talking about Repeal hitting Batterskull itself or just other pieces in decks that run Batterskull? Hitting 6 mana is nigh impossible with this deck. But I agree the decks needs some kind of bounce as Maverick has quite a few tutor-able S/B enchantments which can hinder our plans ie. Warmth, Cop: Red etc.

My thoughts on the Hydro/Pyro deal was I would be bringing the Pyros against other burn decks but with all the counter magic we should be able to both shut down opposing burn.

[Kich867]

Are you talking about Repeal hitting Batterskull itself or just other pieces in decks that run Batterskull? Hitting 6 mana is nigh impossible with this deck. But I agree the decks needs some kind of bounce as Maverick has quite a few tutor-able S/B enchantments which can hinder our plans ie. Warmth, Cop: Red etc.

My thoughts on the Hydro/Pyro deal was I would be bringing the Pyros against other burn decks but with all the counter magic we should be able to both shut down opposing burn.

The token that is attached to batterskull is susceptible to repeal at 1 mana. So for one mana, you can bounce the token and draw a card.

[Wereodile]

The token that is attached to batterskull is susceptible to repeal at 1 mana. So for one mana, you can bounce the token and draw a card.

Well dang...I look like a fool, thank you for a clarification though!

[Kich867]

Well dang...I look like a fool, thank you for a clarification though!

It's not a permanent solution, but, hell with this deck? Sometimes an extra turn was all you needed to drop 12 damage on someone's face.

[Wereodile]

It's not a permanent solution, but, hell with this deck? Sometimes an extra turn was all you needed to drop 12 damage on someone's face.

Good Call. I am curious on how things will pan out with this deck over the next month, with people paying more attention to their MU's with this and burn.

[Hanni]

I'm not trying to troll or spam this thread, but the discussion in here is all over the place. The decklists are so drastically different. Some people are running Snapcaster and Clique, some are running Stifle/Waste, some are going heavy burn with little or no counters...

If it were just a matter of some minor choices, or even some major choices that didn't change the fundamental gameplan of the deck, that would be one thing. However, heavy control is different from Tempo is different from Sligh.

Anyway, my point is that I created a thread in N&D for the Sligh versions, that run little or no counters, and heavy burn. The thread is open to discussion for all R/u/x variations of Sligh, so anyone wanting to discuss that specific gameplan is more than welcome to do so there, if you'd like. Might make the discussions a little easier to focus on, for both threads.

Here's the link: R/u/x Blue Sligh (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23209-R-u-x-Blue-Sligh)

[BigBopper]

UR Delver just won another SCG Open with a "traditional" list. Here's the link:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=44095

[atropos]

UR Delver just won another SCG Open with a "traditional" list. Here's the link:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=44095

DTB status, anyone?

[SupREME-10]

Hey his deck was actually very conventional and ran 20 land (without using wasteland). I like that Legacy has evolved in such a way that this deck can steel victories like it does.

Congrats to the pilot and delver may just become one of those decks that will continue to fly under the radar and periodically rear up its head when people get greedy, etc.

Anyway, I thank you guys for the link.

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

U/R caught em sleepin. RUG delver didn't even T8? WTF.

[BigBopper]

How about playing Figure of Destiny in lavamancers spot? Made some bad experiences with it being too slow-thoughts about that?

[Kich867]

How about playing Figure of Destiny in lavamancers spot? Made some bad experiences with it being too slow-thoughts about that?

I would drop snapcaster before him. Honestly, grim lavamancer is way too good.

[millerd33]

We really never have enough mana to make figure all it can be. My normal board land wise looks like Volcanic, Island, Fetch (when cracked get basic mountain). I think this deck needs something for sure. Still trying to figure out what that would be. I'm starting to go the Zila route and am down to 2 snapcasters. With the success burn has been having my list is going less and less control and more burn tempo.

Im going to start playing around with 3 Sulfuric Vortex main in the Lavamancer spot or maybe 3 Flame Rift.

Land: (18)
Standard 18

Blue: (17)
4x delver
4x daze
4x brainstorm
3x ponder
2x snapcaster

Red: (25)
4x goblin guide
3x grim lavamancer (gonna be trying above changes)
4x lightning bolt
4x chain lightning
4x rift bolt
4x price of progress
2x fireblast

[Hanni]

The something it needs... could be Steppe Lynx?

[millerd33]

What would you remove for the Lynx? Lavamancer?

My concerns would be we don't like to play more then 3 lands making our brainstorm very strong. Lynx doesn't have haste or flying is also a 0 power most turns. Adding the 3rd color would require Plateau and making the price or progress hurt us more.

There seems to be 2 versions of this deck:
Counter/Burn (force snapcaster)
Burn Tempo (heavy red, no force/snapcaster)

I have not played enough games against different archtypes to even guess what is the way to go on this. I've been back in the game for about a year and it's been tough finding a test group to try all the different things I want to try here. Goldfishing only goes so far.

[SupREME-10]

We really never have enough mana to make figure all it can be. My normal board land wise looks like Volcanic, Island, Fetch (when cracked get basic mountain). I think this deck needs something for sure. Still trying to figure out what that would be. I'm starting to go the Zila route and am down to 2 snapcasters. With the success burn has been having my list is going less and less control and more burn tempo.

Im going to start playing around with 3 Sulfuric Vortex main in the Lavamancer spot or maybe 3 Flame Rift.

Land: (18)
Standard 18

Blue: (17)
4x delver
4x daze
4x brainstorm
3x ponder
2x snapcaster

Red: (25)
4x goblin guide
3x grim lavamancer (gonna be trying above changes)
4x lightning bolt
4x chain lightning
4x rift bolt
4x price of progress
2x fireblast

I hope your sideboard has something vs Combo... as without FoW, your probably done vs any turn 1 any combo out there if your on the draw. I also think that Spell Snare is simply too strong in today's meta to be left out completely. I understand that your doing for more of a Burn style; but your almost at the point where a pure Sligh deck would simply run better.

PS, what is the standard 18 lands, as I have seen at least 4-5 builds that are viable at present depending on if your going burn heavy, contorl heavy, in between or somewhat rogue.

Anyway, just putting it out there as I love this deck and see it doing well in my area (as soon as I get my last 2 Volcanic Islands in hand).

Cheers

[millerd33]

My standard 18 lands
3 volcanic island
2 island
2 mountian
4 scalding tarn
4 blue fetch (delta, strand,2 misty)
3 red fetch (foothills, mire, mesa)

SB:
4 pyrostatic pillar
3 smash to smithereens
3 submerge
3 surgical extraction
2 spell pierce

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

Tried spell pierce main. Never leaving home without them again. I tried figure of destiny over lavamancer and it def. felt subpar. Mancer has been an mvp against the popular decktypes and wacky homebrew decks that would have most definitely beaten me unless I had my little buddy busting shots at their hatebears. Other random thought; I tried running 2x barb rings and my verdict is leave them out. It's actually kind of hard to get threshold against certain decks esp. if you run 3/4 snapcasters. Don't know if anyone else thought about this but there's my 2c on it.

Also I wouldn't ever run less than 3 snapcasters, 4 ideally.

[Abantau]

Went to a local shop and got a 3-1 record

UR Delver
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Grim Lavamancer

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
3 Price of Progess
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
2 Daze

4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Arid Mesa
4 Volcanic Island
2 Mountain
2 Island

SB:
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Submerge
3 Smash to Smithereens
2 Dispel
1 Force of Will

UR Delver vs Burn 2-0
Game 1: he was stuck with 1 land for so many turns as i pound away with 2 flipped delvers.

Game2: removed PoP put in 1 FoW and 2 Dispel. 2 lands tapped out as i chain lightning his Marauder and played grim, On his third turn he just triple chain lightning me for 9 damage *face slap* thankfully he didn't kill my grim ..... I was nervous sitting at 3 when he threw fireblast at me at once saccing two mountains without floating the mana, responded with a strong spell pierce. That was a life saver as he drew lands on his 3 consecutive draws. with a flipped delver finish the job.

UR Delver vs UB Affinity 2-0
Game 1: Went to win with a small margin thanks to continuous brainstorm and ponder searching frantically for Bolts and attacking with 2 Flipped Delvers and a price of proress for 8 as he race me with Etched Champion carrying cranial plating.

Game 2: Board in REB for his MoE and StS removing spell pierce and FoW. grim lavamancer and bolts took care of memnite, ornithoper, frogmite and signal pest while 1 REB killed MoE while declaring attackers. Shoot down his Cranial Plating attached to Etched and race him with 2 PoP dealing 12dmg and 1 flipped delver attacking every turn.

UR Delver vs DnT 2-1
Game 1: I'm on the draw and he opened with vial and no FoW in hand. He went on to win riding serra avenger jitte+SoFI. GG.

Game 2: Board in StS and remove Spell Pierce I think. bolt his mom and Mangara on sight, killed his fliers and ride with 3 flipped Delvers as I counter away his StP.

Game 3: I was confident I took him down to 8 life riding mainly on 2 early game guides and snapcaster, when he turned the table with 2 Jotun "freakin" Grunt feeding on my mountainous graveyard while grim is a dead card with a single phyrexian revoker naming it. Jotuns stayed for a while with a flickerwisp/vial mechanic that kept that jotun's counter on restart mode. I was on Defense mode till I hit 1 life loosing all my men (most of my bolts were used killing moms, serras and arbiters as I attack with guides). EoT brainstorm and found my luckiest brainstorm ever (Guide, Bolt and StS), replaced my 2 fetch lands in hand shoot StS on Phyrexian Revoker that didn't attack then Bolt him. draw Guide and attack while his Jotun "bothersome" Grunt and Flickerwisp tapped and no hand.

UR Delver vs Enchantress 0-2
game 1: Mull to 5 with no lands in sight. :frown: I countered his city of solitude but he followed with Solitary Confinement. On that moment on it was a solitaire game.

Game 2: Board in Surgical Extraction, FoW and taking out 4 Chain Lightning. Mulled to 6 looking for a good hand. Another "Faceslap" when he drop 3 leyline of sanctity as i start. Took him to 7 life with 2 goblin guide and 1 flipped delver before he dropped solitary confinement again and in the end I just waited for Words of War shooting away.

Pros:
Delver is the MVP while Bolts hold off pesky critters.

Cons:
Facing enchantress

[keys]

I'm assuming the three missing cards in your decklist are PoP. Did you ever feel light on land with 18?

[Abantau]

@keys: oh yeah they're PoP's, edited it. My mull rate would be 2 out of 10 games in playtests not because of land issues but more on looking for good answers. I mull the 2nd game on enchantress because opening hand was arid mesa, mountain 3 bolt, 1 FoW, 1 price and i know enchantress would board in 4 leyline. >_< Haven't tested 20 lands though went straight to 18 lands when I started playing delver.

[Kich867]

Came in third at my local tournament again--I actually should have won but two grievously poor decisions on keeping hands essentially made the last set a blow-out.

I'll write a report and the decklist later today, heading to the 'rents house for the weekend.

Overall--U/R Delver is godlike and fast as hell.

Trend's I'm noticing: Goblin Guide feels shitty unless there's 2 of them, Delver does not. Mishra's Factories often shut down my aggression hard, as they save removal for delvers and can very easily block goblin guide's.

[Kich867]

Sorry for double post:

I came in third (again T_T) at my local FNM. Here's the list I ran:

//Creatures:
4x Goblin Guide
4x Delver of Secrets
3x Grim Lavamancer
3x Snapcaster Mage

//Spells:
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
3x Rift Bolt
3x Fireblast

4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
3x Ponder
3x Daze

//Lands:
3x Volcanic Island
2x Mountain
2x Island
11x Fetches

//Sideboard:
3x Pyroblast
3x Tormod's Crypt
3x Smash to Smithereens
3x Price of Progress
3x Submerge

Round 1: Nic Fit by Darrel-
Game one: I get a delver down, it flips next turn, he fetches into a Bayou and I remember that he plays Nic Fit, so I go balls deep. I believe I had him at turn 4. He deeds for one on turn 3 taking out lavamancer and delver, played his Liliana on turn 4, but I had the burn to win on my untap. Bolt Chain Fireblast.

-3 Fireblast, +3 PoP (despite the number of basics, he didn't play around PoP in game one and I don't run PoP maindeck so he never really saw it).

Game two: I have an aggressive start, double guide's go pretty far but a maelstrom pulse stops them. He goes off into a grave titan while I only have lavamancer down, I ping for two and at this point am surely dead, he's at 10, I'm at 10, except on his side it's a grave titan and 4 zombies. On his turn he deeds for 1 taking out my lavamancer (I have 4 cards in hand), big misplay here as I was surely dead. I shock him in response and I believe I brainstormed into a PoP for 8.

2-0
1-0-0

Round 2: GW Maverick by Casey-
Game one: I keep an ok hand. He swords my delvers and guides aren't terribly effective against 4/4 knights. The situation gets awkward, I get him to 2 life but can't top deck a burn--I brainstorm into a daze and 2 fetches and want to kill myself. He alpha-strikes me with thrun and a 13/13 kotr for exactly lethal.

-3 Rift Bolt, -3 fireblast, -2 Goblin Guide
+3 Submerge, +3 Price of Progress, +2 Smash to Smithereens

Game two: I drop a delver on turn 1, it flips turn 2. This was fairly straight forward, I burn hard and get there quickly.

Game three: I drop a delver on turn 1 and again it flips on turn 2. He gets beaten down for awhile until he drops a scryb ranger, I know it has protection from blue but very stupidly try to submerge it in response to a fetch. This sets me back, but later I have a PoP for 8 on the board and he's forced to waste his own savannah and take out half of his land. He fetches for a forest, I submerge a pridemage. We eventually land in a situation in which he has 3 life and I have a bolt and a delver ready. But his second scryb ranger prevents the attack. Scavenging ooze is there and I very stupidly don't check graveyards, it didn't ever occur to me that delver was actually the only creature I had played and he had already exhausted his own graveyard, so I very stupidly burn the ranger and swing to put him to 1. He plays two more creatures and passes. I topdeck a brainstorm into a chain lightning and a fireblast and seal the game.

2-1
2-0

Round 3: UW control by Rich-
Game one: I keep a one lander, ~30 cards later I still haven't found a land, he's at 1 and he finally sticks a stoneforge and grabs jitte. Then he sticks another one and grabs batterskull and stabilizes.

Game two: I keep a 4-lander after I'm sufficiently mind-fucked from somehow not seeing 2 lands in 30 cards, I have fetches, so my plan was to simply ditch the extraneous land for business and fetch it away. I brainstorm into 2 fetches and a daze (this is an odd trend I run into far, far too often). I fetch away things. I find a ponder, interestingly enough, it hits land. About 12 turns later, neither of us have done anything because we're land flooded, except he has actual bombs he can drop and I don't. I have every land in my deck on the table from trying to brainstorm/ponder into business and fetch away chaff, I eventually lose while he's at 10 life. I ponder, he fetches for a plateau and REB's it, I drop snapcaster, he snares it. He sided in a plateau and REB's, and my mind was sufficiently fucked.

0-2
2-1-0

That was very frustrating, but on the plus side, Force of Will kind of rocks. I finally got a playset and have been ecstatic about it. It won me several games throughout the day and I wouldn't run spell pierce over it. I generally just pitch dazes / ponders / snapcasters to it.. Specifically against GW Maverick, it ended up countering jitte's and SFM's while letting me tap out and be aggressive.

I played about 30 games between the tournament and then with friends at home, and forces were just such an improvement to the performance of it. It got a solid run against a variety of tier 1 decks and performed admirably against all of them. In fact, I likely would have gone 3-0 and won out had I not been land fucked on both sides of the spectrum on round 3. I tell myself everytime I don't do it, so I really need to stop--you don't keep one landers. The 4 lander was just me being -really- dumb and mindfucked. And even after that, I burned through 3 or 4 fetches and all I was drawing were lands and counters, it was mind boggling.

Submerge seems iffy in the board, REB's even don't seem that amazing.. Smash to Smithereens is boarded in against almost every deck on principle. Crypt and PoP are again pretty straight forward. I may move PoP back to the main, but fireblast just secures so many games--the only problem is occasionally drawing it in multiples. At which point, multiple PoP's are fine. I feel like I want to get submerge and REB out for other things, perhaps sulfuric vortex and something else..

[BigBopper]

Hey guys,

I was a little disappointed lately with Lavamancers performance and did some testings to cut him. Instead I played 2 Sulfuric Vortex MD. They also do 2 points of damage each turn, without summoning sickness and are way harder to deal with, 'cause decks rarly have answers to entchantments by hand. Furthermore it shuts down the punishing fire combo, played in Maverick or Aggro Loam as well as Jitte and Batterscull.
Its main drawback is the cc3, since I usually don't care much about my life. Other than that I like to topdeck one in mid- and lategame, while a Lavamancer usually doesn't stick long enough to push some damage through.
I'm very satisfied with my list and these changings leave me with 2 additional sideboard slots, which can be used for chain of vapor or echoing truth to deal with more and more common white leylines.

[Kich867]

Hey guys,

I was a little disappointed lately with Lavamancers performance and did some testings to cut him. Instead I played 2 Sulfuric Vortex MD. They also do 2 points of damage each turn, without summoning sickness and are way harder to deal with, 'cause decks rarly have answers to entchantments by hand. Furthermore it shuts down the punishing fire combo, played in Maverick or Aggro Loam as well as Jitte and Batterscull.
Its main drawback is the cc3, since I usually don't care much about my life. Other than that I like to topdeck one in mid- and lategame, while a Lavamancer usually doesn't stick long enough to push some damage through.
I'm very satisfied with my list and these changings leave me with 2 additional sideboard slots, which can be used for chain of vapor or echoing truth to deal with more and more common white leylines.

This doesn't sound terrible, especially looking at some recent tournament results. Stoneblade decks (Batterforge Jitte) are so dominant everywhere at the moment that Vortex would actually hose them pretty bad. Most of my games has people stabilizing at 5-6 life and I can't outpace their life gain via Jitte's or BSkulls.

[wutangkillabeezonaswarm]

honestly any kind of lifegain wrecks this deck hth.

[atropos]

Played the regular U/R Delver list with Daze and Price of Progress in the main without Fireblast in my 75. It was my first time playing this deck and I had a great time despite going 3-3.

Round 1: Past in Flames (2-0). Game 1 he mulled to 5 and didn't end up doing much of anything and Game 2 Sulfuric Vortex was sweet. He was at very low life and stormed to 1 life, playing a Empty the Warrens for 6 while I had a Goblin Guide in play. 2/2 > 1/1.

Round 2: Reanimator (1-2). Game 1 I burned him out after he reanimated an Elesh Norn on 10 or 11 live. It was sweet. Game 2 and 3 he plopped a Sphinx of the Steel Wind on the battlefield and it was terrible.

Round 3: RUG Delver (2-0). Grim Lavamancer and Price of Progress FTW.

Round 4: U/B Faeries (2-1). Delver of Secrets is bigger than Spellstutter Sprite. Umezawa's Jitte saw play games 2 and 3 but fortunately I was ready for it with Smash to Smithereens. Huzzah!

And now things take a turn for the worse...

Round 5: Spiral Tide (0-2). How do we beat this deck? It won on turn 4 both games and I never drew a Force of Will off his several Time Spirals. Poop. I don't even remember him countering any of my dudes and game 1 he went off on 1 life. I even Surgical Extractioned his High Tide game two:cry:

Round 6: U/W Stoneblade (0-2). I mulled to 5 game 1 and game 2 I think I was killed by a Batterskull. Not the easiest matchup either but at least it was interactive, unlike Spiral Tide.

General conclusions:

The deck is really fun, I'll definitely try it again but I might put in some Fireblast somewhere in the 75 for some extra reach. Also, lifegain is a huge problem so I'm considering Sulfuric Vortex as well.

For reference, here's my sideboard:
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Price of Progress
2 Pyroblast
2 Smash to Smithereens
3 Submerge
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt

[SupREME-10]

Congrats on the event, 3-3 is respectable, and I am sure you had fun; thank you for sharing.

High Tide decks don't generally counter dudes, they counter enough to stay alive until they can go off; thus they retain control to protect their combo. Your maindeck Control is one way to beat the deck, speed is another, and SB options such as Flusterstorm do work vs this type of deck; but you will need to be tight on your control and hit them early in the combo. Hand and Land destruction are another good way to ruin them. I play the Solidarity version of the deck, and your right that it is not very interactive; but, it is fun for the guy using the deck, matches are over quick (one way or the other), and some of them can actually go off on turn 3 (consistently).

Cheers

[Kich867]

Played the regular U/R Delver list with Daze and Price of Progress in the main without Fireblast in my 75. It was my first time playing this deck and I had a great time despite going 3-3.

Round 1: Past in Flames (2-0). Game 1 he mulled to 5 and didn't end up doing much of anything and Game 2 Sulfuric Vortex was sweet. He was at very low life and stormed to 1 life, playing a Empty the Warrens for 6 while I had a Goblin Guide in play. 2/2 > 1/1.

Round 2: Reanimator (1-2). Game 1 I burned him out after he reanimated an Elesh Norn on 10 or 11 live. It was sweet. Game 2 and 3 he plopped a Sphinx of the Steel Wind on the battlefield and it was terrible.

Round 3: RUG Delver (2-0). Grim Lavamancer and Price of Progress FTW.

Round 4: U/B Faeries (2-1). Delver of Secrets is bigger than Spellstutter Sprite. Umezawa's Jitte saw play games 2 and 3 but fortunately I was ready for it with Smash to Smithereens. Huzzah!

And now things take a turn for the worse...

Round 5: Spiral Tide (0-2). How do we beat this deck? It won on turn 4 both games and I never drew a Force of Will off his several Time Spirals. Poop. I don't even remember him countering any of my dudes and game 1 he went off on 1 life. I even Surgical Extractioned his High Tide game two:cry:

Round 6: U/W Stoneblade (0-2). I mulled to 5 game 1 and game 2 I think I was killed by a Batterskull. Not the easiest matchup either but at least it was interactive, unlike Spiral Tide.

General conclusions:

The deck is really fun, I'll definitely try it again but I might put in some Fireblast somewhere in the 75 for some extra reach. Also, lifegain is a huge problem so I'm considering Sulfuric Vortex as well.

For reference, here's my sideboard:
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Price of Progress
2 Pyroblast
2 Smash to Smithereens
3 Submerge
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt

Sweet report, I like the pyrostatic pillar idea (I'm assuming that's what you meant against PiF), but moreso towards high tide decks. That would be your answer to it. I'm likely going to try it myself.

Ad Nauseam based storm decks should have a tough time going off against us. Stay smart and aim for big damage asap. Know when to play a spell pierce or a daze to disrupt the combo. Landing a series of bolts will reduce their ADN tremendously. Pillar would be most harmful against this deck as well, likely ending the game. This looks like our go-to answer for storm decks imo.

Spiral Tide based decks, this doesn't sound hard on paper. I would actually, probably aim to counter their cantrips as quite frankly most of the deck is cantrips. Either that or aim to counter untap effects like Turnabout if they get greedy and use up all of their mana prior to untapping. Pillar in games two and three are going to be pretty key here as they require ~16-18 storm in order to deck you and can't go off until turns 3-5, giving you an opportunity to land it before they go off, and even then they need to dig. You don't care about your own life total so that's fine.

Against tide decks, I would board in REB's and Pillar's dropping Price and Mancer's to fit them in. A resolved pillar is nearly game ending to them, they'd have to dig hard for an answer that we can counter, and all of that dig will disrupt their main plan.

[atropos]

Against tide decks, I would board in REB's and Pillar's dropping Price and Mancer's to fit them in. A resolved pillar is nearly game ending to them, they'd have to dig hard for an answer that we can counter, and all of that dig will disrupt their main plan.

Glad you liked my really brief report, I was procrastinating from homework. Yeah that's a good suggestion, I'll keep that in mind next time I play. I'm also thinking of putting a FoW in the sideboard since I only run 3 maindeck. I suppose that means it'd be to my benefit to mulligan into a Pillar if at all possible.

@SupREME-10:
Flusterstorm's a good suggestion as well, that would certainly circumnavigate the Pact of Negations they usually side in against blue. I was honestly surprised how incredibly difficult that matchup was and I thought I'd at least be able to go 2-1.

[SupREME-10]

ReBs and hitting the cantrips does help; but hand disruption and land disruption hurts High Tide decks the most.

As I mentioned, I run the Solidarity version (as I don't have 4x Candelabra of Tawnos) and the all instant(s) aspect can actually be even more scary than the Spiral Tide version in certain match-ups.

It can go off on your opponents Turn 3 upkeep if you High Tide into High Tide, into Reset, into Turnabout, into Brain Freeze (@4), Remand, Brain Freeze (@5), Remand, Brain Freeze (6) for a total of 51 cards milled... yes it is a bit of a God Hand; but it happens as you have a lot of Dig cards to assemble things in those 1st 3 turns (and if you do the match that left 2 cards for Control too), etc.

It is more normal to go off as late as possible (more time to assemble lands and get sweet hand); but the deck is no longer considered top tier, so it can get in there to steel wins in a heartbeat.

If he is playing the Candelabra Version, then hit their Candels with your artifact removal and go for Surgical Extraction on them and the High Tides and/or the turnabouts.

Cheers

[Kich867]

So, I want to go through and, after quite awhile playing with the deck, bring up some observations and primarily--glaring issues I have with the deck.

I'll start with the most obvious ones:

1) Stoneforge Mystic rapes this deck. A resolved Jitte and Batterskull literally just end the deck's effectiveness. I actually don't recall the last game I won against a resolved Batterskull because the deck is 100% designed around your opponent having 20 life.

2) People damn near inherently play around Price of Progress. Maverick and Stoneblade can both maneuver around this card very easily and they're absurdly popular decks. The most I've hit anyone in recent memory with Price of Progress is 4. Why don't we just run Flame Rift or whatever it's called, at least that's just guaranteed damage.

Less obvious things:

3) I find myself mulliganing a lot with this deck. Too many hands are either like, straight burn with no counters and dig, or all counters and a creature with no dig, etc. I find optimal hands to be somewhat blended, for instance--in my last game of the night I snap-kept this hand: Delver, Guide, Force, Daze, Brainstorm, Fetch, Fetch. To me you literally cannot get a better opening hand. However it's rare to get two creatures in your opening hand, and 1-2 counters, and 1-2 burn, and 1-2 dig, etc. One landers and no-landers happen often enough at low land counts, having a hand of something silly that's too one-sided to play doesn't help. The deck actually needs the creatures to deal damage or else you basically can't win--we don't run a realistic amount of burn to outright kill someone -especially- if they play around PoP (which they will because it's often very easy to).

4) The deck has no real mid-late game threats. When I brainstorm when I'm out of gas and hit like guide guide bolt, this doesn't actually help me against their large knights etc. I want to see burn. Except if they've countered / killed all of my creatures, the burn isn't helpful anymore because I can't reach 16-20 life with burn, hell it's hard anything past 10. Delver's are good but fragile and die easily, guide's can be awesome until someone drops a factory or any naturally large creature like a knight, then he is just a chump blocker until I find burns.

5) In conjunction with point 4: the deck doesn't actually kill good decks in an optimal amount of time, almost ever. When you're running into Swords, then Snapcaster Swords, then Brainstorm swords, then spell snare on price, then stoneforge into jitte into "I can't die because you just don't hit that hard bro" mode, it's actually surprisingly easy to disrupt this deck's gameplan. If you deal with the early creatures, it doesn't pack enough burn to kill people and has a lot of trouble recovering the board state because as the game goes on, other people's boards get stronger while ours stays non-existent to the same weak 2/2's with haste. The 7/7 knights don't give a shit about your 2/2 body, sorry guide. On top of that, if you can't immediately kill that stoneforge and jitte hits, it's almost an unwinnable position. I've overcome a jitte once, because my opponent couldn't find a swords or a snapcaster mage and he was digging hard--I burnt 4 creatures while beating him with a delver to death.

Right now this deck just loses too much to all of the top tier decks, their strategies often times beat ours simply on a functional level. It's not like they're designed to hose it, they just happen to do so. Take for instance the new Lingering Souls stoneblade build, Lingering Souls wrecks us, we can't remove 4 creatures and we certainly can't swing enough creatures through without them dying to double blocks. Stoneforge based plans are incredibly tough to get through.

Hands of like Daze daze force brainstorm bolt land land aren't actually keepable, and yet they're remarkably common, as your hand size reduces the flexibility of it reduces and it becomes harder to keep your initial creatures alive when you sort of end up having to keep hands like Land land Delver Bolt Bolt. That hand is terrible, delver is -going- to die and you have a whopping 6 damage before you're top-decking. Even if it was land land delver daze bolt, it's not actually going to get there unless your opponent gets unlucky. The deck suffers from too many cards that don't operate well together because they're so independent of each other, they don't buy time for some big bomb and the burns are really intended for your opponent's face, buying yourself time to find a delver just buys them enough time to find removal for your delver, I'm either applying all of the pressure in the world or virtually no pressure because one or two cards completely shut the deck down.

[Vacrix]

honestly any kind of lifegain wrecks this deck hth.
Sulfuric Vortex is awesome sideboard material.

[SupREME-10]

I agree with Kich867 in many ways. I long ago shipped the PoP to the sideboard and trimmed it down to 2 off. I also agree that Sulfuric Vortex is awesome sideboard material, hell with So much Blade/lifegain out there I put it maindeck. Here is what I have been toying about with (No big events or anything, just MWS and some Thursday night Legacy as well as Playtesting).


1 x Arid Mesa
1 x Bloodstained Mire
1 x Flooded Strand
1 x Misty Rainforest
3 x Scalding Tarn
3 x Island
3 x Mountain
3 x Volcanic Island
3 x Wasteland

4 x Delver of Secrets
4 x Goblin Guide
3 x Grim Lavamancer
3 x Snapcaster Mage

4 x Brainstorm
4 x Force of Will
2 x Ponder
3 x Daze
3 x Spell Snare
4 x Chain Lightning
2 x Fireblast
4 x Lightning Bolt
2 x Sulfuric Vortex

Sideboard
3 x Surgical Extraction
2 x Hydroblast
3 x Submerge
2 x Pyroblast
3 x Smash to Smithereens
2 x Price of Progress

It is not ready to go up vs all the top tier decks; but it does steel wins vs them and I have found it reliable and good enough for my local meta.

Comments welcome.

[rmihael]

(first post on The Source)

I had some success versus CawBlades and similar decks by adding single Tropical Island and 3 of Ancient Grudge to sideboard. Surely Smash to Smitherness fits better to deck's plan in vacuum, but some widely played equipments (Jitte, I'm looking at you!) are really wrecking the plan, so I want to have an edge versus them. Having 2 of Sulfuric Vortex in maindeck also helps. My meta is infested with midrange decks and Vertexes are MVP against them.
Another tweak that I really like is adding singleton SDT to maindeck. If round lasts to mid- or late- game then SDT improves my chances of burning the opponent or getting this critical FoW.

As for Lingering souls (real nightmare), Surgical extraction is only card that was useful vs. them in my tests. In fact these souls is the reason why I'm getting away from U/R Delver now.

[Abantau]

Been playing UR Delver for 3 months now and kept thinking of ways how our fragile critters can dodge bolts without wasting counters then I saw the recent SCG Sacramento winner and incorporate it in UR. I was amuse with the idea of a 4/4 Flying Goblin Guide beating faces or a 6/5 Insectile Aberration.

Here's what I brewed so far:

4 Goblin Guide
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Delver of Secrets

2 Spectral Flight
3 Unstable Mutation

4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
2 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Price of Progress

3 Ponder
4 Chain Lightning

4 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Arid Mesa
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Mountain

Sideboard (Depends on the meta)
1 Force of Will
2 Pyroblast
2 Smash to Smithereens
3 Submerge
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Surgical Extraction

[Antonius]

why do you guys keep playing Force of Will? It seems bad. The best combo deck in the format is Reanimator and you can beat reanimator with bounce. The other combo deck (storm) can beat Force of Will pretty handily. Therefore, wouldn't playing bounce be better than playing Force?

[Abantau]

why do you guys keep playing Force of Will? It seems bad. The best combo deck in the format is Reanimator and you can beat reanimator with bounce. The other combo deck (storm) can beat Force of Will pretty handily. Therefore, wouldn't playing bounce be better than playing Force?

Example: with a burn heavy build without counters and instead have vapor snag or other bounce effects and an Iona resolve naming blue what will you do? We can't be certain that our seceeding draws are all burn spells that can fire away all till the end.

Against storm players, a deck with counters has still an advantage of a bluff against them. Offcourse we can't burn/creature beats them as fast as a mono red burn deck does before our opponent can go off 3rd to 4th turn average. We just need to counter at the right time. For ANT we usually wait for their Infernal tutors or Ad Nauseum to be cast then counter them. As they rebuild their hand we push steadily with delver, guide and burn spells.

[Zilla]

This deck lives and dies on the back of card efficiency. A single wasted card can often cost you a game, and two almost certainly will. Force of Will may be correct in certain combo-heavy metas, but Unstable Mutation and Spectral Flight are almost certainly not correct in this deck.

The deck's creature density is very low. Decks packing a decent amount of removal are going to be able to answer a large percentage of the ones you play. Giving them a 2-for-1 is almost certainly going to cost you the game.

[Antonius]

Example: with a burn heavy build without counters and instead have vapor snag or other bounce effects and an Iona resolve naming blue what will you do?

uhh, kill them? Sure, you can't be certain that all your draws will be burn, but you're still in pretty damn good shape. If your opponent played Iona >> blue, then they did exactly what you want and you've still got a good shot at burning them out.

Also, I didn't say without counters (though, tbh, the build I'm testing now runs no counters) I just said without Force. Daze, Snare and Pierce are pretty damn effective--but hitting yourself with the 2-for-1 hurts a lot.

[Koby]

RE: Creature auras
They only worked in the Bant Pants deck due to the Hexproof creatures. Otherwise, creature auras are an invitation to getting 2-for-1'd all day. Legacy has definitely been shifting towards more creature features as of late, and that demands almost all decks to play some sort of creature removal.

[BigBopper]

In order to higher the amount of damage. Maybe Shard volley is a reasonable answer, since it comes with instant speed. I think the alternative (rift bolt) is not worth waiting a turn and it's also still a sorcery.
I also had some bad experiences with PoP lately, but I can't see Maverick and other 3-colored dogding it?
Furthermore I think what you need to start out with is a one-drop creature. Therefore I came back to Lavamancer since he does his job and is one drop 9-12, which makes an explosive start more consistent.
I still see problems with these mid-games, but have no idea what to do.

[jares]

In order to higher the amount of damage. Maybe Shard volley is a reasonable answer, since it comes with instant speed. I think the alternative (rift bolt) is not worth waiting a turn and it's also still a sorcery.
I also had some bad experiences with PoP lately, but I can't see Maverick and other 3-colored dogding it?
Furthermore I think what you need to start out with is a one-drop creature. Therefore I came back to Lavamancer since he does his job and is one drop 9-12, which makes an explosive start more consistent.
I still see problems with these mid-games, but have no idea what to do.
Maybe this newly-spoiled card might help:

Thunderous Wrath -4RR , Instant, Thunderous Wrath deals 5 damage to target creature or player. Miracle R (You may cast this card for its Miracle cost when you draw it if it's the first card you drew this turn)
Uncommon

Cheers,
jares

[KobeBryan]

Maybe this newly-spoiled card might help:

Thunderous Wrath -4RR , Instant, Thunderous Wrath deals 5 damage to target creature or player. Miracle R (You may cast this card for its Miracle cost when you draw it if it's the first card you drew this turn)
Uncommon

Cheers,
jares

This card made UR delver instantly stronger. There's no point to run fireblast now.

[msten19]

Against a very specific metagame of several U/W Stoneblade, Esper Stoneblade, 2 Punishing Maverick, 1 Dredge, 1 High Tide, 1 Forgemaster Combo, random Burn decks... what would recommend for a sideboard?

[Aggro_zombies]

This card made UR delver instantly stronger. There's no point to run fireblast now.
I disagree.

Imagine if Thunderous Wrath had the following wording:

Thunderous Wrath
Instant
~ deals 5 damage to target creature or player.
Miracle R (If it's your draw step or you're casting a Brainstorm on the opponent's turn, and if this is the top card of your library, you may cast it for its miracle cost. Otherwise, it can't be cast.)

Still sold on using these over Fireblasts?

[Kich867]

I disagree.

Imagine if Thunderous Wrath had the following wording:

Thunderous Wrath
Instant
~ deals 5 damage to target creature or player.
Miracle R (If it's your draw step or you're casting a Brainstorm on the opponent's turn, and if this is the top card of your library, you may cast it for its miracle cost. Otherwise, it can't be cast.)

Still sold on using these over Fireblasts?

Probably, ponder and brainstorm really set this card up. As a 2-of, for sure, you won't be inundated with it, it's more likely to show up as a top-deck, I see no issue here. Turn 2 delver flip off a miracle flip, you're hitting for ~11 that turn. Your opponent is at 8-9 on turn 2.

The sheer power of the card warrants the requirements used to power it.

[Dmnd]

After all you got 4Brainstorms for it
and there are 3- 4 ponders wich can also work with it.

but it can never be as good as fireblast. Caus only with Fireblast you can do this fancy moves and deal the last points of damage with no more open Mana.
I cant remember how often i could kill a Maverick player with Pop + fireblast for up to 12 dmg with only 2 mana!

Nevertheless this new Card should be tested!

[jares]

After all you got 4Brainstorms for it
and there are 3- 4 ponders wich can also work with it.

but it can never be as good as fireblast. Caus only with Fireblast you can do this fancy moves and deal the last points of damage with no more open Mana.
I cant remember how often i could kill a Maverick player with Pop + fireblast for up to 12 dmg with only 2 mana!

Nevertheless this new Card should be tested!
I don't agree that Thunderous Wrath should be viewed as a replacement for Fireblast, but rather, it feel that it should be played alongside your other burn spells. It's difficult to say no to a card that can potentially be 5 damage for 1 mana, especially given that this deck already runs the card that seems to have been meant to break it - Brainstorm. In fact, I wouldn't be too surprised to see any deck with Brainstorm messing around with another Miracle card - Temporal Mastery, the Legacy-legal Time Walk. Thunderous Wrath, though, fits this deck's aggressiveness very nicely.

Cheers,
jares

[gustha]

Just to put a draft on the table, numbers still to tweak, etc.


4 Goblin Guide
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Grim Lavamancer

3 Temporal Mastery
3 Thunderous Wrath

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder

4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain Lightning

4 Daze
4 Force of Will

4 Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
1 Arid Mesa

I really see no reason not to play time walk in a shell which is able to really abuse it. Time walk should suffice for the loss of some burn power, especially with a flipped delver on the table, and it makes racing or actions in the red zone more complicated for opponents. It's not maybe a t4 deck anymore, but maybe a little more resilient. Miracle seems a very cool mechanic on paper.

[jares]

Just to put a draft on the table, numbers still to tweak, etc.


4 Goblin Guide
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Grim Lavamancer

3 Temporal Mastery
3 Thunderous Wrath

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder

4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain Lightning

4 Daze
4 Force of Will

4 Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
1 Arid Mesa

I really see no reason not to play time walk in a shell which is able to really abuse it. Time walk should suffice for the loss of some burn power, especially with a flipped delver on the table, and it makes racing or actions in the red zone more complicated for opponents. It's not maybe a t4 deck anymore, but maybe a little more resilient. Miracle seems a very cool mechanic on paper.
Do take note, though, that having 6 cards with Miracle gives you a 54.14% chance of getting one in your opening hand - that's more than half the time! Of course, that's also in the consideration that you'll also have a Brainstorm in your opening hand 39.95% of the time, and would also be able to draw it as the game progresses.

The figures show that using cards with Miracle will surely require some sense of balance and caution, unless your deck is also equipped to hard-cast these cards.

Cheers,
jares

[gustha]

In testing I'm doing it happens that 1 card with miracle in your opening hand can happen. Thing is, the blue one can be fodder for fow, the red one cannot. In fact, i'm atm considering cutting thunderous wrath for maybe chain#4 + fireblast. 5 dmgs for 1 mana is a lot, but being not synergistic at all with snapcaster mage is something to consider very strongly. Still debatable Th wrath #1&2 over fireblast.

[jares]

In testing I'm doing it happens that 1 card with miracle in your opening hand can happen. Thing is, the blue one can be fodder for fow, the red one cannot. In fact, i'm atm considering cutting thunderous wrath for maybe chain#4 + fireblast. 5 dmgs for 1 mana is a lot, but being not synergistic at all with snapcaster mage is something to consider very strongly. Still debatable Th wrath #1&2 over fireblast.
Ah yes - in fact, we can all expect all Miracle cards to be dis-synergistic with Snapcaster Mage based on the preliminary observations on the design of the mechanic.

Honestly, I expect Temporal Mastery to be banned in Legacy after everyone gets the hang of abusing it via Brainstorm. Hopefully, if that scenario does blow-up, it won't be Brainstorm that would get the banning... :eek:

Cheers,
jares

[SupREME-10]

I don't think Temporal Mastery will get the Ban-Hammer in Legacy, as I honestly don't see it running away with the show. Control will simply stop it from happening, as Stifle is still in action (to mention one card) and other decks like Maverick will still give you a 4 turn clock to get it done or die.

It's a cool card; and it might prove me wrong, but I don't think the miracle cast will be that awesome.

Player draws Temporal Mastery, you cast Vendilion Clique and remove it from his hand... I just see a lot of ways around it where things like Time Walk can simply be useful right from T1 forward.

[jares]

I don't think Temporal Mastery will get the Ban-Hammer in Legacy, as I honestly don't see it running away with the show. Control will simply stop it from happening, as Stifle is still in action (to mention one card) and other decks like Maverick will still give you a 4 turn clock to get it done or die.

It's a cool card; and it might prove me wrong, but I don't think the miracle cast will be that awesome.

Player draws Temporal Mastery, you cast Vendilion Clique and remove it from his hand... I just see a lot of ways around it where things like Time Walk can simply be useful right from T1 forward.
I don't think that Vendilion Clique will be able to stop a card played via Miracle, as the card would already have been cast, and would no longer be in that player's hand (this is simply based on my understanding of the wording). Of course, I could be wrong.

As for the future of Temporal Mastery, we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Kind Regards,
jares

[SupREME-10]

Your understanding is incorrect. Player draws card (the thing they just used a Brainstorm or Jace or some other mechanism to set to the top of their library); Vendilion Clique is then played, the ability triggers as Miracle is not at instant speed, and the Temporal Mastery is set to the bottom of their library and they get to draw another card. Seriously, Control players have been using Vendilion for a long time now, and coupled with things like Karakas they can do some fate-sealing quite often.

You are correct about time being the true test if Temporal Mastery is any good though.

[Kich867]

Your understanding is incorrect. Player draws card (the thing they just used a Brainstorm or Jace or some other mechanism to set to the top of their library); Vendilion Clique is then played, the ability triggers as Miracle is not at instant speed, and the Temporal Mastery is set to the bottom of their library and they get to draw another card. Seriously, Control players have been using Vendilion for a long time now, and coupled with things like Karakas they can do some fate-sealing quite often.

You are correct about time being the true test if Temporal Mastery is any good though.

I was under the impression miracle is triggered at instant speed and/or can be done in response to vendilion clique.

Given it's on their draw step, you should never get priority to cast vendilion clique before they can cast Temporal Mastery, or am I mistaken about this?

Draw step, active player has priority, active player draws his card, upon drawing card (according to the ruling of miracle) he is required to immediately play the card for it's miracle cost if he intends to do so, and then the priority is passed to the opponent to either respond to or play spells at the end of the draw step.

For clarity on my understanding of it:

"You may cast this card for it's Miracle cost when you draw it if it's the first card you drew this turn."

To me this implies that despite it being a sorcery you are capable of playing it at instant speed as you are using an ability of the card that states that you can. Essentially giving a sorcery card conditional flash. This would also imply that, were you to use a SDT and flip it EOT to cast temporal mastery, you'd get a lot more out of your two turns as you'd get 2 untap steps.

[whienot]

"You may cast this card for it's Miracle cost when you draw it if it's the first card you drew this turn."

Is this not a triggered ability? Don't triggers need to resolve before their effects can take place? To me it looks like Clique can be used with the Miracle trigger on the stack.

[SupREME-10]

I still read the card as a Sorcery

[whienot]

From the mothership:
(http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/190a)


Miracle is a new keyword that allows you to cast some instants and sorceries for very little mana when you draw them.

As you draw an instant or sorcery with miracle, if it's the first card you've drawn this turn, you can immediately reveal it. When you do so, you may cast it for its miracle cost. It doesn't matter whether it's an instant or sorcery; if you choose to cast it, you do so right away, even if it's at a time (such as your draw step) when you couldn't normally cast it. You're not required to reveal a miracle card, even if you could pay for it. You can always choose to just draw it as normal.

You're allowed to cast the first card you draw each turn if it has miracle, so if you find ways to draw cards during your opponent's turn, you get another chance for a game-breaking, miraculous moment.

Now that I look at it, Miracle may be a static effect that grants castability when it's the first card drawn for the turn.

[jares]

Your understanding is incorrect. Player draws card (the thing they just used a Brainstorm or Jace or some other mechanism to set to the top of their library); Vendilion Clique is then played, the ability triggers as Miracle is not at instant speed, and the Temporal Mastery is set to the bottom of their library and they get to draw another card. Seriously, Control players have been using Vendilion for a long time now, and coupled with things like Karakas they can do some fate-sealing quite often.

I'm afraid that your understanding is incorrect. I just based my understanding on what I got to read from the card (and the mechanic), but don't take my word for it - the comment provided by whienot is probably the most reliable reference.

Regards,
jares

[jares]

From the mothership:
(http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/190a)



Now that I look at it, Miracle may be a static effect that grants castability when it's the first card drawn for the turn.
I'm not sure, though, if Miracle can be Stifled. It seems like it can, because it says "...when...", which makes it a triggered ability.

Do correct me if I'm wrong.

Regards,
jares

[whienot]

702.91. Miracle

702.91a Miracle is a static ability linked to a triggered ability (see rule 603.10). "Miracle [cost]" means "You may reveal this card from your hand as you draw it if it's the first card you've drawn this turn. When you reveal this card this way, you may cast it by paying [cost] rather than its mana cost."

702.91b If a player chooses to reveal a card using its miracle ability, he or she plays with that card revealed until that card leaves his or her hand, that ability resolves, or that ability otherwise leaves the stack.

There it is. Miracle can be Stifled and otherwise responded to.

[Kich867]

There it is. Miracle can be Stifled and otherwise responded to.

Right, and it essentially gives it instant speed, meaning you can't clique it out of their hand, it's already being cast. It is a sorcery, but it's a sorcery card with conditional flash. The miracle trigger explicitly states that you play it when you reveal it.

[jares]

There it is. Miracle can be Stifled and otherwise responded to.
That clears things up. Thanks.

Cheers,
jares

[whienot]

Right, and it essentially gives it instant speed, meaning you can't clique it out of their hand, it's already being cast. It is a sorcery, but it's a sorcery card with conditional flash. The miracle trigger explicitly states that you play it when you reveal it.

Being a sorcery has nothing to do with resolving the miracle ability, but the miracle trigger has to resolve before you can pay costs and place the spell on the stack.


Miracle [cost]" means "You may reveal this card from your hand as you draw it if it's the first card you've drawn this turn. When you reveal this card this way, you may cast it by paying [cost] rather than its mana cost."

When you reveal this card this way , you must pass priority.

[jares]

Being a sorcery has nothing to do with resolving the miracle ability, but the miracle trigger has to resolve before you can pay costs and place the spell on the stack.



When you reveal this card this way , you must pass priority.
If that's the case, then you can indeed respond to it using Vendilion Clique.

Cheers,
jares

[Blitzbold]

Stifle just got better by another margin.

[keys]

Stifle just got better by another margin.

Yup. I asked this in the spoiler thread. Glad it's cleared up.

[SupREME-10]

So you can respond when they reveal and pass priority, etc... and you can use things such as Stifle on it as well.

Maybe the card is a little more broken than I initially thought (as I did see it as a Sorcery); but I still see a lot of things that work around it, control it, etc... and the Miracle is not going to happen that often without manipulation so it will take time and effort to execute well. Which gives our deck time to respond better in turn.

Thanks for clearing that up guys

[GranataGoblin]

Vexing Devil :r:
Creature - Devil Rare
When Vexing Devil enters the battlefield, any opponent may have it deal 4 damage to him or her. If a player does, sacrifice Vexing Devil.
4/3

0.0

[Angels]

Vexing Devil :r:
Creature - Devil Rare
When Vexing Devil enters the battlefield, any opponent may have it deal 4 damage to him or her. If a player does, sacrifice Vexing Devil.
4/3

0.0
Looks like burn just got better.

[SupREME-10]

That card does sound good for Sligh/Burn... might even work in this deck (maybe).

[KobeBryan]

forget about temporal mastery...

vexing devil is the card this deck needs.

Use capitalization please. Thanks. -zilla

[SupREME-10]

forget about temporal mastery...

vexing devil is the card this deck needs.

Quoted for truth; but I think that I will actually try to use 4x Vexing Devil.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Vexing Devil is probably better in this deck than Burn actually, because you can protect it with a counterspell when the opponent figures "Oh, I'll let it resolve and then bolt/stp/whatever it."

[Dmnd]

For now i am uncertain if you really want the Devil in U/R.
I would neither cut Delver nor Goblin Guide.
And Snapcaster / Lavamancer are out of the question.

Lavamancer is so great vs Maverick. And Snapcaster is what gives us card advantage.
So in what spot shall the Devil fit ?
Less Brainstorming? This Deck is all about Card quality so.. it doesnt fit for this

Less Burn? // LB / CL ? I would never trade a 3dmg spell on creature or player to a situational card like Devil

Less Counters? I really like the amount of counters i have so why should i give them up.
I cant see him fit in this deck at all.

It could be possible to build an U/R Zoo with the Devil on the purpose of more quality creatures but that would be a different Deck in my opinion.

regards

[oRen]

Keep in mind that you always want to run a really high amount of instants and sorceries (26+) for blind flipping delver so cutting any non creature spells for more creatures is out of question. The only substitutable card seems to be the Guide in the current builds. I will give it a try for sure because the Guides' drawback gets worse along with the level of play skill of your opponents which was always kind of unsatisfying for me.

I am pretty unsure about the miracle cards. The blue one seems to be hyped crap to me while I could easily see the red one fit as a 2 off here.
Regarding the blue one - time walk is good in vintage because so much more happens during every turn because of the the much higher power level of the individual cards. Yet I can see no legacy deck profiting from the blue miracle card in the same way as a vintage deck running power, will, recall, ...

[Kich867]

For now i am uncertain if you really want the Devil in U/R.
I would neither cut Delver nor Goblin Guide.
And Snapcaster / Lavamancer are out of the question.

Lavamancer is so great vs Maverick. And Snapcaster is what gives us card advantage.
So in what spot shall the Devil fit ?
Less Brainstorming? This Deck is all about Card quality so.. it doesnt fit for this

Less Burn? // LB / CL ? I would never trade a 3dmg spell on creature or player to a situational card like Devil

Less Counters? I really like the amount of counters i have so why should i give them up.
I cant see him fit in this deck at all.

It could be possible to build an U/R Zoo with the Devil on the purpose of more quality creatures but that would be a different Deck in my opinion.

regards

I illustrated earlier in the thread that the current model of running 7-10 counters and snapcaster mages aren't good for the deck.

It is not a different deck to build this as a sligh deck, which it very much should be. Notice the what, 1 month period this deck was a DTB? Because people weren't prepared for it at all and for a quick minute people were wrecking with it.

Except people then began trying to add more counter-magic to it, and cards that intend to go into the late game.

Put flatly, snapcaster mage in this deck is terrible. 3 mana burns or brainstorms aren't good, they're bad, and there's no actual reason to run him. He's done cool things for me, but ironically, it's because he was flashing back bolts.

Zilla probably has the best concept of the deck: all burn goes to their face, swing with your creatures until they're dead, only brainstorm/ponder for gas. And that's it. Daze is questionable at best and only really worth it around turn 2 or 3 when you already have sufficient lands down to keep playing things through it, but T1 daze'ing is awful for this deck.

This is the list I would / probably will be playing for UR Delver:

//Creatures: 12
4x Goblin Guide
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Vexing Devil

//Instants: 13
4x Brainstorm
3x Daze
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Thunderous Wrath

//Sorceries: 17
4x Rift Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
2x Lava Spike
2x Price of Progress
2x Fireblast
3x Ponder

//Lands: 18

I'd be inclined to drop ponder for lava spikes in some number, but the card filtering will help set up turn 3 Thunderous Wrath bombs and I'm a pretty big fan of it in general.

[jares]

I illustrated earlier in the thread that the current model of running 7-10 counters and snapcaster mages aren't good for the deck.

It is not a different deck to build this as a sligh deck, which it very much should be. Notice the what, 1 month period this deck was a DTB? Because people weren't prepared for it at all and for a quick minute people were wrecking with it.

Except people then began trying to add more counter-magic to it, and cards that intend to go into the late game.

Put flatly, snapcaster mage in this deck is terrible. 3 mana burns or brainstorms aren't good, they're bad, and there's no actual reason to run him. He's done cool things for me, but ironically, it's because he was flashing back bolts.

Zilla probably has the best concept of the deck: all burn goes to their face, swing with your creatures until they're dead, only brainstorm/ponder for gas. And that's it. Daze is questionable at best and only really worth it around turn 2 or 3 when you already have sufficient lands down to keep playing things through it, but T1 daze'ing is awful for this deck.

This is the list I would / probably will be playing for UR Delver:

//Creatures: 12
4x Goblin Guide
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Vexing Devil

//Instants: 13
4x Brainstorm
3x Daze
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Thunderous Wrath

//Sorceries: 17
4x Rift Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
2x Price of Progress
2x Fireblast
3x Ponder

//Lands: 18

I'd be inclined to drop ponder for lava spikes in some number, but the card filtering will help set up turn 3 Thunderous Wrath bombs and I'm a pretty big fan of it in general.
I guess that this essentially means that you'll be swapping Vexing Devil for the slots of Snapcaster Mage.

I also really like Thunderous Wrath for this deck, as I even believe that no other deck (among the established ones at least) would be able to utilize that card better.

Kind Regards,
jares

[SupREME-10]

I agree that Thunderous Wrath may have a place in this deck. I am running a couple Fireblast and a couple Fire//Ice so I think that the F&I might be on the way out; oh and now I have almost the exact list listed above.... man that is a lot like Canadian Thresh without the Green for Goyf, but maybe we can get back to being a DTB.

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=129809&d=1333846379

[DragoFireheart]

Bryant Cook suggested in his new article that for UR burn players that want to run Thunder Wrath should consider taking out Fireblasts as:

A- Deals more damage.

B- Has a less severe drawkback if countered.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23575-Cook%92s-Kitchen-%96-Avacyn-Restored

[alderon666]

Vexing Devil is crap in this deck. It's that much worse than chain lightning because it doesn't hit creatures. And banking on your opponents making the "wrong" choice and then having the counter for their removal doesn't sound good.

What about the new UR land? 1UR + tap is steep and the colorless is almost useless for us. But being able to cycle lands, dead miracles in hand and even feeding snapcaster/lavamancer could be good. Maybe 1-of or 2-of?

[Kich867]

Vexing Devil is crap in this deck. It's that much worse than chain lightning because it doesn't hit creatures. And banking on your opponents making the "wrong" choice and then having the counter for their removal doesn't sound good.

What about the new UR land? 1UR + tap is steep and the colorless is almost useless for us. But being able to cycle lands, dead miracles in hand and even feeding snapcaster/lavamancer could be good. Maybe 1-of or 2-of?

This deck shouldn't be letting people live long enough for us to hit 4 lands. There's no reason to.

Running a bunch of counters in a deck where our "bomb" is delver of secrets, that doesn't get there.

It works for Canadian Thresh because tarmogoyfs can be huge blockers, they run jace, they run way more counters than we do, they run more land, it's a control deck. UR Delver isn't, and shouldn't ever be.

The deck runs 18 lands, when do you even hit 4 lands and/or why aren't you getting rid of them for business with brainstorm to kill them? The deck can't afford colorless lands, which is why we don't run wasteland (because we don't care if they have land).

Vexing Devil hitting the opponent for 4 damage is the most astronomically awesomest shit ever. There exists no other spell that hits someone for 4 damage for 1 mana outside of thunderous wrath, which -requires- setup, this doesn't.

I illustrated some of these points in the burn thread, and probably here already, but really, what does your opponent actually do when you drop multiples of these? What do they do when they sword your flipping turn 1 delver and turn 2 you drop back to back devils. They likely don't have removal, if they take the 8 they're -surely- dead. If they don't take the 8 -they're probably dead- next turn.

I'm blown away that people aren't recognizing how face-smashingly broken that card is for it's casting cost. Arguments that late-game it'll never be the burn you want it to be don't matter, you're not hitting the late-game with this deck, it only matters what it is for the first 3 turns and it doesn't even matter what they pick--I don't even care--because whatever it is is a huge step forward toward killing them.

The argument that they'll just kill it is silly too. Why even bother playing Delver of Secrets then, or Goblin Guide? Or Grim Lavamancer? They'll just die anyways right? This deck should never point burn at a creature unless it's stoneforge mystic and they just tutored batterskull or it's a creature being equipped by jitte. That's pretty much it. Those are all the things. Unfortunately we can't only play burns in this deck, we have to run creatures, and this thing's power is too strong not to.

I've made enough power plays of Delver > Guide > Guide, and sometimes that gets there, but sometimes they drop a mishra's factory and sword my delver. If that was Delver > Devil > Devil, that's a pretty scary position for someone to be in, if they take 8 or not.

[DragoFireheart]

I really hate all of the HILARIOUSLY BAD anti-Devil arguments that have been used between the various threads on The Source.

"It can be blocked!"

"I can remove it and not take 4!"

"It's just a Lava Spike!"

"They'll pick the least harmful effect!"

Yeah, not having the choice of a 4/3 or 4 damage for 1 is SO HORRIBLE OH GOD IT'S BROWBEAT ALL OVER AGAIN BADBADBADBADBADBADBADBADBAD!

Holy shit.

[alderon666]

I really hate all of the HILARIOUSLY BAD anti-Devil arguments that have been used between the various threads on The Source.

"It can be blocked!"

"I can remove it and not take 4!"

"It's just a Lava Spike!"

"They'll pick the least harmful effect!"

Yeah, not having the choice of a 4/3 or 4 damage for 1 is SO HORRIBLE OH GOD IT'S BROWBEAT ALL OVER AGAIN BADBADBADBADBADBADBADBADBAD!

Holy shit.

Wait until you topdeck this creature when the opponent is at 3 life with a Maze of Ith/Mother of Runes/Knight of the Reliquary. You are going to wish this was a Chain Lightning. I'm not even saying it's a bad card for itself, I'm just saying that the possiblity of being a dead draw might not be enough to justify the extra point of damage.

[Brushwagg]

Wait until you topdeck this creature when the opponent is at 3 life with a Maze of Ith/Mother of Runes/Knight of the Reliquary. You are going to wish this was a Chain Lightning. I'm not even saying it's a bad card for itself, I'm just saying that the possiblity of being a dead draw might not be enough to justify the extra point of damage.

Well you can say the same for Goblin Guide, Delver, etc.. in that postion. Hell name any creature there and it's a dead draw other then Grimmy. I'm not playing this exact deck but I'm playing fairly close to it and when Devil and Wrath are printed my list is going to be really close to one that Kich867 put out there.

I can see Devil being really good and if you want to bring up worse case scenarios then you could put pretty much any creature there and still get the same result.

[Kich867]

Wait until you topdeck this creature when the opponent is at 3 life with a Maze of Ith/Mother of Runes/Knight of the Reliquary. You are going to wish this was a Chain Lightning. I'm not even saying it's a bad card for itself, I'm just saying that the possiblity of being a dead draw might not be enough to justify the extra point of damage.

That's an invalid comparison though. Think hard, logically, how is that even a possibility. It is virtually impossible to draw this card over a chain lightning in that scenario. You take two identical lists, you replace say, Grim Lavamancer, with this guy.

On the turn you're describing, you would have drawn Grim Lavamancer.

So then you ask yourself--in what situation would I rather see Grim Lavamancer than Vexing Devil.

This can't possibly be that hard for this many people to get. You aren't replacing burn. So when you see him instead of a burn, you would have lost anyways. I can give you hypotheticals for days where Black Lotus is the worst possible top-deck it doesn't make it a bad card nor does it warrant exclusion in a list.

It is fundamentally impossible for you to topdeck this over any other card except for, in my case, Grim Lavamancer. If you want to drop burn for him, be my guest, that's a poor decision. But as a veteran of this deck I'm telling you that Grim Lavamancer is not that great, rarely impressive at all.

[jares]

Vexing Devil is crap in this deck. It's that much worse than chain lightning because it doesn't hit creatures.
The funny thing about Vexing Devil is that it's a creature masquerading as a burn spell, which is why people would sometimes treat it as such. It's a creature, folks, and it would be helpful for us to take note of this fact amidst all our other considerations for this card.

Regards,
jares

[SupREME-10]

I am with Kich on this one too.

//Creatures: 12
4x Goblin Guide
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Vexing Devil

//Instants: 13
4x Brainstorm
3x Daze
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Thunderous Wrath

//Sorceries: 17
4x Rift Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
2x Price of Progress
2x Fireblast
3x Ponder

//Lands: 18

Looks like a pretty friggen good start, we can tweak it as we test it. I might add 2x Grim Lavamancer by removing 2x Ponder or 2x PoP (as some meta's don't use greedy mana bases); but his idea is solid to start with. I am running 14 creatures right now anyway, so it is pretty easy for me to sub in 4 devils for my 4 snapcasters.

I dissagree about the need of Wasteland though, and I will retain 3 in my deck and tweak it later if I need to. I hate facing Maze of Ith, etc.

[jares]

I really hate all of the HILARIOUSLY BAD anti-Devil arguments that have been used between the various threads on The Source.

"It can be blocked!"

"I can remove it and not take 4!"

"It's just a Lava Spike!"

"They'll pick the least harmful effect!"

Yeah, not having the choice of a 4/3 or 4 damage for 1 is SO HORRIBLE OH GOD IT'S BROWBEAT ALL OVER AGAIN BADBADBADBADBADBADBADBADBAD!

Holy shit.
We should probably make a collection of these hilarious comments just for kicks. You can add "It's that much worse than chain lightning because it doesn't hit creatures" to the list. I'm sure that we can gather more from the Burn thread. :laugh:

This is probably my favorite so far:


Yes R for 4 to the dome is ALWAYS good (but not spectactular) in this type of deck. R for a 4/3 is however NOT
I'm glad that the day of when a vanilla 4/3 Creature for :r: would no longer spectacular hasn't arrived yet. Last I checked, that Creature for :1::g: that starts with a "T" and ends with an "armogoyf" is still regarded very highly (as a 4/5, more often than not).

Cheers,
jares

[jares]

I might add 2x Grim Lavamancer by removing 2x Ponder or 2x PoP (as some meta's don't use greedy mana bases)...

I dissagree about the need of Wasteland though, and I will retain 3 in my deck and tweak it later if I need to. I hate facing Maze of Ith, etc.
I think that, if non-basic lands are really a concern, then Price of Progress would surely be able to help with that, not to mention that it'll also be able to support the "Burn" game plan better than Wasteland.

I find that Grim Lavamancer is an excellent card to have in the current meta, though, so I would surely try to make some space for it if possible.

Regards,
jares

[SupREME-10]

I am finding that Wastland works to remove the problem land
Maze of Ith means that I can not get my beater through repeatedly.
Mishra's Factory means that my attack route is cleared for the beater.
Karakas means that I don't see Vendilion on a stick, etc.

So yes Price of Progress might do more damage occasionally in one shot at my opponents lands, Wasteland often gets my beaters more successful hits into the red zone or prevents stabilizing Shenanigans. I think that it is a matter of 6 of those or half dozen of these... If your using PoP then Wasteland is not so good, and vice-a-versa. but I also only run 3x Volcanic Island as I find basic lands can actually win most games for you anyway... I also mix up my fetchlands to avoid things like Surigal Extraction putting me into a mana screw situation. I am weird like that but that is how I roll.

PS, I also run 19 lands to be honest though, as I run a 61 card deck (I know, that is just oh so wrong for so many people; but it works for me).

[GranataGoblin]

Why not replace guide goblin with vexing devil?

4 Delver of secrets
4 Vexing devil
3 Snapcaster/Lavamancer

[oRen]

Why not replace guide goblin with vexing devil?

That's pretty much the only reasonable thing to do but even though I really like the Devil I think that this should be tested pretty well because not having haste in direct comparison might be a huge disadvantage.

Generally I think the takes on this deck which are basically Burn splash Delver + Brainstorm are pretty bad. I can't see those 8 cards being a shitty manabase (compared to 1x Mountains) worth when 10+% of the field is Canadian.

[Sandoz]

I am with Kich on this one too.

//Creatures: 12
4x Goblin Guide
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Vexing Devil

//Instants: 13
4x Brainstorm
3x Daze
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Thunderous Wrath

//Sorceries: 17
4x Rift Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
2x Price of Progress
2x Fireblast
3x Ponder

//Lands: 18

Looks like a pretty friggen good start, we can tweak it as we test it. I might add 2x Grim Lavamancer by removing 2x Ponder or 2x PoP (as some meta's don't use greedy mana bases); but his idea is solid to start with. I am running 14 creatures right now anyway, so it is pretty easy for me to sub in 4 devils for my 4 snapcasters.

I dissagree about the need of Wasteland though, and I will retain 3 in my deck and tweak it later if I need to. I hate facing Maze of Ith, etc.


Good news: no need to cut anything. As you and Kich only run 58 cards there are still two slots available ;-)

I wonder if it's still necessary to run Price of Progress. As the goal of this deck is to win by turn 3 or 4, how much damage will PoP do reliably in these turns?
With Vexing Devil and Thunderous Wrath the amount of damage this deck deals will increase significantly. Thus, I think the situational PoP as a finisher has become obsolete.

Well, this is the list I will most likely run after the release of Avacyn Restored:

//Creatures: 14
4x Goblin Guide
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Vexing Devil
2x Grim Lavamancer

//Instants: 17
4x Brainstorm
4x Daze
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Thunderous Wrath
2x Fireblast

//Sorceries: 11
4x Rift Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
3x Ponder

//Lands: 18


As Vexing Devil might often resolve as a direct damage spell I decided to raise the creature count by two Grim Lavamancers. Still like these guys very much.

//SB: 15
4x Pyroblast
4x Smash to Smithereens
4x Echoing Truth
3x Tormod's Crypt

Comments appreciated.

[Kich867]

Good news: no need to cut anything. As you and Kich only run 58 cards there are still two slots available ;-)

I wonder if it's still necessary to run Price of Progress. As the goal of this deck is to win by turn 3 or 4, how much damage will PoP do reliably in these turns?
With Vexing Devil and Thunderous Wrath the amount of damage this deck deals will increase significantly. Thus, I think the situational PoP as a finisher has become obsolete.

Well, this is the list I will most likely run after the release of Avacyn Restored:

//Creatures: 14
4x Goblin Guide
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Vexing Devil
2x Grim Lavamancer

//Instants: 17
4x Brainstorm
4x Daze
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Thunderous Wrath
2x Fireblast

//Sorceries: 11
4x Rift Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
3x Ponder

//Lands: 18


As Vexing Devil might often resolve as a direct damage spell I decided to raise the creature count by two Grim Lavamancers. Still like these guys very much.

//SB: 15
4x Pyroblast
4x Smash to Smithereens
4x Echoing Truth
3x Tormod's Crypt

Comments appreciated.

Oh, wow I'm not sure why I counted 17 sorceries. I would just add 2 Lava Spike's then. Or one more fireblast / price. But I would rather up the lava spike count.

Pyroblast seems like a poor sideboard choice in decks like these. Truth makes sense for dredge, STS is amazing. Like, you have to ask yourself what Pyroblast actually does--it is probably going to let a burn resolve that will kill the opponent. But what are you dropping? Probably a burn spell, which makes it redundant. If you're dropping daze for it then you're leaving mana open that you could be using to hurt them, and dropping creatures for it seems bad.

[Sandoz]

Thanks for your reply, Kich.

The Pyroblasts are a relic of my Spiral Tide paranoia. :-)
As the count of blue cards has become too low, I replaced Force of Will with these.
I tried Pyrostatic Pillar and Flusterstorm in those slots as well. Not sure, what the right sideboard strategy in the current and upcoming meta is though.

Basically, my sideboard plan is as follows:

- 2 Grim Lavamancer, - 2 Thunderous Wrath/Fireblast:

+ 4 Echoing Truth (mainly against Enchantments. But as a universal hate card it works against many other things as well)

alternatively:

+ 4 Pyroblasts (if I have to deal with heavy blue permission)

The 4 Smash to Smithereens will always replace the 4 Rift Bolts when sided in.

That way I think the game plan of the deck will not be affected that much even after sideboarding.

[Kich867]

Thanks for your reply, Kich.

The Pyroblasts are a relic of my Spiral Tide paranoia. :-)
As the count of blue cards has become too low, I replaced Force of Will with these.
I tried Pyrostatic Pillar and Flusterstorm in those slots as well. Not sure, what the right sideboard strategy in the current and upcoming meta is though.

Basically, my sideboard plan is as follows:

- 2 Grim Lavamancer, - 2 Thunderous Wrath/Fireblast:

+ 4 Echoing Truth (mainly against Enchantments. But as a universal hate card it works against many other things as well)

alternatively:

+ 4 Pyroblasts (if I have to deal with heavy blue permission)

The 4 Smash to Smithereens will always replace the 4 Rift Bolts when sided in.

That way I think the game plan of the deck will not be affected that much even after sideboarding.

I would run pillars all day. I've only had extremely positive results from utilizing them. Spiral Tide has to go pretty far out of their way to deal with it. It's also quite reasonable to race them as they often have to go off turn 4--any time they time spiral you just hope to hit a fireblast and blow them out.

[Zilla]

//Creatures: 14
4x Goblin Guide
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Vexing Devil
2x Grim Lavamancer

//Instants: 17
4x Brainstorm
4x Daze
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Thunderous Wrath
2x Fireblast

//Sorceries: 11
4x Rift Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
3x Ponder

//Lands: 18

This is nearly identical to the list I've been testing as well. I run the third Lavamancer over the third Thunderous Wrath, but overall it's been treating me really well so far.

[kasparovski]

So i posted a list on the Burn thread that jares pointed to me would be better here, the thing is i had overlooked Delver and wasn't in my list. So after reading that and this thread i think this would be a great list atm and the one i'll be testing:

//Creatures [16]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Vexing Devil
4 Grim Lavamancer

//Instants/Sorceries [26]
2 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress

//Lands [18]
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
2 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island

//Sideboard
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Smash to Smithereens
2 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Mindbreak Trap

What do you guys think?

[Kich867]

So i posted a list on the Burn thread that jares pointed to me would be better here, the thing is i had overlooked Delver and wasn't in my list. So after reading that and this thread i think this would be a great list atm and the one i'll be testing:

Creatures [16]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Vexing Devil
4 Grim Lavamancer

Instants/Sorceries [26]
2 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress

Lands [18]
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
2 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Smash to Smithereens
2 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Mindbreak Trap

What do you guys think?

Snapcaster isn't very good in this deck and very slow, I would drop them for Goblin Guide's. Force of Will is also very bad in this deck, snapcaster's are often just "Random Blue Card in Hand to pitch for Force" since they're too slow to be relevant when you're casting FOW.

Cut the snapcaster, drop FOW for more burn, and it should be solid.

The idea of playing a Burn + Control list doesn't work out--your creatures aren't strong enough to get there by themselves, you end up having to burn your opponent's threats to keep yourself in the game, in the end you end up just not doing much damage on them and rely on absurdly huge PoP's to win--which good players casually play around because it's not that great of a card anymore. People run basics, most people try to fetch them over duals if they can.

To the above poster (towards the top) that recommended dropping goblin guide from the list, goblin guide is practically the bread and butter of the deck, he does -way- too much work to drop him.

[jares]

So i posted a list on the Burn thread that jares pointed to me would be better here, the thing is i had overlooked Delver and wasn't in my list. So after reading that and this thread i think this would be a great list atm and the one i'll be testing:

Creatures [16]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Vexing Devil
4 Grim Lavamancer

Instants/Sorceries [26]
2 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress

Lands [18]
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
2 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Smash to Smithereens
2 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Mindbreak Trap

What do you guys think?
Glad you found the right thread for you. :smile:

I agree that Force of Will doesn't fit this deck too well for a variety of reasons, the most basic of which is that I think that there aren't enough blue cards to support it. Having said that, I feel that, while Daze seems like a better fit, it's still a bad top-deck, but I guess that it's something that we'll have to deal with for this deck until a better option comes around. Has anyone tried forgoing Daze altogether in favor of more Burn/Draw? Maybe a singleton Temporal Mastery just for kicks? :tongue: Running more Ponder and even Preordain will certainly help the frequency with which you'll be able to play Thunderous Wrath - in fact, maybe even Magma Jet could be considered as a one or two-of.

Snapcaster Mage doesn't look to good in a deck that wants to run just 18 lands, while also being alongside 5cc (Force of Will) and 6cc (Thunderous Wrath) cards. The best benefit that you could probably do with a Snapcaster Mage is to use and maximize cards with Phyrexian mana costs in the sideboard (e.g. Surgical Extraction).

Those are just my two-cents. I hope that helps.

Cheers,
jares

[kasparovski]

Great feedback guys, i guess i'll try this then:

//Creatures [16]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
4 Vexing Devil
4 Grim Lavamancer

//Instants/Sorceries [26]
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress
2 Fireblast

//Lands [18]
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
2 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island

//Sideboard
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sulfuric Vortex

I knew Snapcaster Mage would be slower and thought that with control i could use it but having played Burn recently i understand the need of speed in this and what you guys said about Force of Will etc, just thought would be able to help the deck against combo etc, but i guess it decreases it's potency to much. Still, saw some of this decks making tops on tcdecks so can't be that bad no?

So i guess my doubts now are if it's better to use the 4th Grim Lavamancer or not, if Fireblast is the best option there and if Sulfuric Vortex would be better in main deck and probably on that slot. Sulfuric Vortex while not that great of a card per se it helps to anul a big weakness of this deck and Fireblast sounds weird when also playing with islands, not like we'll ever have to many mountains will we?

btw, how do you guys have the cards linked here?

edit: nice, thanks again kich867

[Kich867]

Creatures [16]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
4 Vexing Devil
4 Grim Lavamancer

Instants/Sorceries [26]
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress
2 Fireblast

Lands [18]
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
2 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sulfuric Vortex


Quote this post! ^_^!!

Basically, you just have some cards [cards], except the second one is going to have a / in front of cards. Or maybe, replace ('s with ['s for the real deal:

(cards) some cards (/cards)

Force is occasionally in some side-boards for combo, and that I agree with. Sometimes it's main decked, but honestly I don't see how they can really push through with it. I often find myself with a lonely FOW in hand with no blue to pitch to it--I mean what do you pitch? Brainstorm, ponder, delver? Daze is the only real option because lategame dazes suck.

Alternatively, if you want to make it look a little more organized, putting //'s in front of a line "comments" it out (if you're familiar with programming).

Like this:

[cards]
//Creatures [16]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
4 Vexing Devil
4 Grim Lavamancer

//Instants/Sorceries [26]
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress
2 Fireblast

//Lands [18]
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
2 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island

//Sideboard
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sulfuric Vortex


I like this set up personally, others just make a section for all their cards, or you can have the whole thing in it, I think this just looks prettier haha.

[kasparovski]

Thanks man :smile: see post above yours.

Idk, don't think that's a very good reason not to board FoW, if everything we have to pitch is good then great, means we have a great deck! Once i was playing with a friend that was playing with a budget deck of humans and i used a FoW pitching another FoW and he was like fu. But yeah, cards are only good if useful and at that moment the second FoW was good for that. This is an example but yeah, i would pitch all of those you said if it make sense in a match and it would be the play with the biggest expected value.

[keys]

Lava Spike is terrible when you're playing creatures. You need cards that have the ability to affect the board state. I've been liking Vapor Snag in this deck. The 1 life can make a difference, and it's a great tempo play, letting your Guides or Devils swing past Knights and Goyfs (if Devil resolves without dying for 4 damage, it's likely because your opponent has a blocker). I would recommend testing the card as a 3-of in the maindeck. I play 3 Submerges in the sideboard as well. With 6 bounce effects, Maverick has a hard time keeping their big bodies on the battlefield. It also gives you an out to things like Sphinx of the Steel Wind...

[jares]

Lava Spike is terrible when you're playing creatures. You need cards that have the ability to affect the board state. I've been liking Vapor Snag in this deck. The 1 life can make a difference, and it's a great tempo play, letting your Guides or Devils swing past Knights and Goyfs (if Devil resolves without dying for 4 damage, it's likely because your opponent has a blocker). I would recommend testing the card as a 3-of in the maindeck. I play 3 Submerges in the sideboard as well. With 6 bounce effects, Maverick has a hard time keeping their big bodies on the battlefield. It also gives you an out to things like Sphinx of the Steel Wind...
I also like the tempo-ish feel that Vapor Snag is able to provide, though it does make you a bit more dependent on your creatures on dealing damage, though that won't really be a major issue. Some have used Rift Bolts instead of Lava Spike, though that alternative also has its issues, but at least it can target creatures whenever necessary.

Cheers,
jares

[Kich867]

Lava Spike is terrible when you're playing creatures. You need cards that have the ability to affect the board state. I've been liking Vapor Snag in this deck. The 1 life can make a difference, and it's a great tempo play, letting your Guides or Devils swing past Knights and Goyfs (if Devil resolves without dying for 4 damage, it's likely because your opponent has a blocker). I would recommend testing the card as a 3-of in the maindeck. I play 3 Submerges in the sideboard as well. With 6 bounce effects, Maverick has a hard time keeping their big bodies on the battlefield. It also gives you an out to things like Sphinx of the Steel Wind...

I would much rather run lava spike over vapor snag. Goyfs and Knights should never get big enough to be a threat with this deck, if they have (at least knights), you're likely already in a losing position and a bounce won't bring you back. Vapor Snag's reliance on creatures is sketchy.

I don't want to rely on the creatures, they aren't strong enough to do that, I just want them to swing once or twice and get some damage in before I flip burn-mode on.

[jares]

I would much rather run lava spike over vapor snag. Goyfs and Knights should never get big enough to be a threat with this deck, if they have (at least knights), you're likely already in a losing position and a bounce won't bring you back. Vapor Snag's reliance on creatures is sketchy.

I don't want to rely on the creatures, they aren't strong enough to do that, I just want them to swing once or twice and get some damage in before I flip burn-mode on.
It's also worth noting that Vapor Snag isn't as good a top-deck as the other burn spells available.

Regards,
jares

[kasparovski]

Some more tweaking:

//Creatures [14]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
3 Vexing Devil
3 Grim Lavamancer

//Instants/Sorceries [26]
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lava Spike
2 Rift Bolt
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress
1 Fireblast

//Enchantments
2 Sulfuric Vortex

//Lands [18]
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
3 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island

//Sideboard
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Pyrostatic Pillar


-1 Devil and -1 Grim for +2 Sulfuric. - i have a feeling Sulfuric will be helpful enough to be in main deck and that those other 2 creatures might be to much. Also by boarding Sulfuric in MD gained space in SB to have Pyrostatic Pillar that might come in handy.

4 Lava Spike might be to much and like i said i don't like Fireblast that much here so -1 of each and +2 Rift Bolts for variety and keep what i think are good burn stuff.

Also don't like the Vapor Snag idea in this deck after what kich867 said about having control in this list. I'm completely on board that this should look more like a slight built in terms of concept, some creatures dealing damage and then some burn. We just have better creatures and draw that now let us use Thunderous Wrath better then any deck. Vexing is also probably better here then anywhere and since we're using fetches and have tons of stuff going into the graveyard i still think it would be to much to cut on the grim entirely.
The deck is looking really strong now and would be really surprised if it doesn't make some very good results in the upcoming weeks.

btw Flame Rift is the only notable spell omission in this list comparing to the std burn list that has been having good results and might try to take the 2 Sulfuric Vortex and maybe 1 Ponder (or the lonely Fireblast) to include 3 and see how it goes. I just never really liked much of the card but i might be wrong and overlooking it.

[jares]

Given the sligh-ish nature of the deck, would it be theoretically beneficial to run Pyrokinesis in the deck to ease the possible inconsistencies induced by running Thunderous Wrath (possibly a full set)?

Cheers,
jares

[4eak]

I'm not convinced by Wrath. Pyrokinesis is actually a very interesting idea in the sideboard. Unlike Force of Will, Pyrokinesis generally produces card advantage. Pyrokinesis is especially godly against decks like Maverick and Elves, preventing them from out-tempoing you and granting you CA.

I'll have to try it out. Thanks for the idea.

My initial worries:


Not enough room in the sideboard.
Not a high enough red count.
Pyrokinesis is an awful topdeck, generally even more awful for a deck that doesn't have a way to fill its hand with cards (lacking Goblin Ringleader).


peace,
4eak

[jares]

I'm not convinced by Wrath. Pyrokinesis is actually a very interesting idea in the sideboard. Unlike Force of Will, Pyrokinesis generally produces card advantage. Pyrokinesis is especially godly against decks like Maverick and Elves, preventing them from out-tempoing you and granting you CA.

I'll have to try it out. Thanks for the idea.

My initial worries:


Not enough room in the sideboard.
Not a high enough red count.
Pyrokinesis is an awful topdeck, generally even more awful for a deck that doesn't have a way to fill its hand with cards (lacking Goblin Ringleader).


peace,
4eak
People were actually suggesting the use of Cave-In in Burn to offset the possibility of drawing into a Thunderous Wrath in the opening hand, but this didn't sound too good for Burn. I realized that Pyrokinesis was probably the better option, but would be a better fit for decks that have a sligh-ish nature. It's also good against the current meta, as you mentioned.

Some thoughts about your concerns:

[2x] in the sideboard sounds adequate.
The burn-oriented U/R Delver builds would likely have a better red-card density than the ones that run Snapcaster Mage.
As for the card being a bad top-deck... I guess that that's really just something that we'll have to deal with when using the card, as I can't really think of a solution for this drawback as of now. :frown:

Cheers,
jares

[kasparovski]

//Creatures [14]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
3 Vexing Devil
3 Grim Lavamancer

//Instants/Sorceries [28]
3 Risky Bet
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lava Spike
3 Rift Bolt
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress
2 Fireblast

//Lands [18]
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
3 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island

//Sideboard
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sulfuric Vortex

Really like this one, went back to taking Sulfuric Vortex into SB since it's badish for delver, slows the deck down, and having Mindbreak Trap in SB takes the need of Pyrostatic Pilar in it. Also another Fireblast cause 1 just sounds weird and the card is really powerful since so many times makes us win 1 turn before (and an otherwise lost game sometimes); maybe there should even be 3 or 4 in there.

And something just clicked and i think Risky Bet is the missing piece in this deck, both for more card advantage and to accommodate Thunderous Wrath. I understand people concern with this card but was playing with this (http://www.tollie.org/files/cardcount.php?deck=60&cardsInit=3&times=1000) calculator and with some basic math it's like: the odds of having Wrath in opening hand with 3 cards on the deck are 30%, odds of having brainstorm in opening hand with 4 are 40% etc etc, numbers rounded and without counting with muligan. Now the thing with this list is odds of having or brainstorm or risky bet in the fist 10 cards we draw (7 from opening + turn 3) to fix an unwanted opened Wrath are of almost 75%. Now i don't even know how to make the exact math but my guess is this way it will be very rare that we stay with an unwanted Wrath in hand and even if we do like 5% of the games, there are worse things in life imho :smile:

Oh, and the thing with the Risky Bet is that is basically good to get +1 card when we run out of them, the thing with fixing wrath would be if we would stay with those 2 we would ditch both risky and Wrath and get two new ones, not getting the +1 but fixing the problem. Also think it works good with Grim Lavamancer. We can also use it on the end of opponent turn (like we probably should be doing with brainstorm) and increase the odds of drawing a miracle :wink:

[oRen]

>8 spells requiring U
>6 blue sources including 2 basics

Consider cutting 1 Island (and 1 Volcanic) if you want to stick to this list. Besides that Trap does not win against Combo and Pillar is infinitely better in most of the situations (= if you are able to resolve it).

Anyway I would not take everything said here for granted. It is stunning that you take serious advice from people claiming 21 cards including FoW is not enough to support them, that it is a serious issue with a deck playing 18 lands including 4 basics to hit 3 lands for flashbacking anything with Snapcaster or that opposing creatures like Knight or Goyf will never be a serious issue for this deck because you can outrace everything.
That said I liked you initial list much more and would always go with that style of the deck because you will be able to defend yourself better against the randomness this wonderful format provides. With the "rererererise" of Burn in the current metagame people are actually packing hate against R and you will lose to nearly everything once it is resolved.

I still strongly doubt that blue in this red based super aggressive style of the deck provides enough to be worth the splash even when playing more cards like Daze or Ponder. The color provides very few viable sideboard options and does not solve any problem mono red Sligh has. I would rather stick to Rw with Lynx when intending to play an ultra aggressive Red based deck.

[Kich867]

>8 spells requiring U
>6 blue sources including 2 basics

Consider cutting 1 Island (and 1 Volcanic) if you want to stick to this list. Besides that Trap does not win against Combo and Pillar is infinitely better in most of the situations (= if you are able to resolve it).

Anyway I would not take everything said here for granted. It is stunning that you take serious advice from people claiming 21 cards including FoW is not enough to support them, that it is a serious issue with a deck playing 18 lands including 4 basics to hit 3 lands for flashbacking anything with Snapcaster or that opposing creatures like Knight or Goyf will never be a serious issue for this deck because you can outrace everything.
That said I liked you initial list much more and would always go with that style of the deck because you will be able to defend yourself better against the randomness this wonderful format provides. With the "rererererise" of Burn in the current metagame people are actually packing hate against R and you will lose to anything resolved.

I still strongly doubt that blue provides enough to be worth the splash even when playing more cards like Daze or Ponder. The color provides very few viable sideboard options and does not solve any problem mono red Sligh has. I would rather stick to Rw with Lynx when intending to play an ultra aggressive Red based deck.

Brainstorm actually solves most of the problems with the deck by itself. Delver does as well. Those are the only two cards worth noting in blue.

It's not that force can't be supported, it's that you actively shouldn't. There's kind of a big difference there. What do you pitch? If Force was just another burn spell, would you even need to counter whatever you're countering? I've found that generally, no, you don't need to. The extra burn gets there faster and counterspells are very useless to the deck.

Daze is barely playable and I'd rather not do it but it is fairly helpful sometimes. In fact, it's often pretty helpful, bouncing volcanic islands back to lessen the damage of PoP and or against combo decks.

Force however, rapes your hand too hard. Daze and Force are the only cards you can legitimately pitch to it without losing something truly valuable.

[oRen]

That is your point of view and I can completely get it. A list got to be generally harmonious which leads to different approaches which are the more controlling and "your" very aggressive version. Presenting either as generally unplayable is amateurish. I do not see any problems pitching any card when it prevents me from losing.

... yet there is this statement on the last page which I was originally referring to:

I agree that Force of Will doesn't fit this deck too well for a variety of reasons, the most basic of which is that I think that there aren't enough blue cards to support it.

I do not think that filtering your draw and a cheap 3/2 creature solve the problems aggressive red based decks got which are in my opinion running out of gas plus getting outclassed before winning and losing to "you lose cards" including combos of all kind and random stuff like Chalice, Confinement, CB, all the sideboard stuff, etc.

[jares]

... yet there is this statement on the last page which I was originally referring to:

Kindly refer to the statement on the last page which you were originally referring to:


I agree that Force of Will doesn't fit this deck too well for a variety of reasons, the most basic of which is that I think that there aren't enough blue cards to support it.
I believe though, that Kich867 was able to expound on this much more clearly with the following:

It's not that force can't be supported, it's that you actively shouldn't. There's kind of a big difference there.

...

Force however, rapes your hand too hard. Daze and Force are the only cards you can legitimately pitch to it without losing something truly valuable.
Cheers,
jares

[oRen]

With the second and "most basic" part of that statement being completely wrong it is absurd to take the focus on the other vague and completely undifferentiated part. I also already said that I can get Kichs point of view. If you agree with what he said I am completely fine with that but do not try to warp the crap you have written around.

[jares]

I also already said that I can get Kichs point of view.

Good for you then.


If you agree with what he said I am completely fine with that

Again, that's great.


but do not try to warp the crap you have written around.

You might want to do the same. I don't know what your problem is, but you might want to lay off on your own crap.
-jares

[kasparovski]

oren, the feedback given to me here was precious to make the list you see here. I am aware that it doesn't bring all that much to the regular slighish mono burn list BUT i do believe this last one won't lose fuel, and will be more efficient overall (i'm to tired atm to go thru all my reasons).
This being said i agree that the first list with FoW etc was also good but since it didn't got much love here i just continued doing it on my own. As it is now i think it's as good as this last one but in a more control fashion and obv with it's pros and cons like this has.

edit: was looking at my first version and the only thing i changed was also -1Devil and -1Grim for +2Fireblast // but yeah, think that list is pretty good also, maybe even better, idk will test them both when i have time for it. Maybe i will also try to change there the Ponders for the Risky Bet, does look like a good bet =P and thank you for the mana comment, have to say i didn't put much thought on it but i think you're probably right.

[Kich867]

I do not think that filtering your draw and a cheap 3/2 creature solve the problems aggressive red based decks got which are in my opinion running out of gas plus getting outclassed before winning and losing to "you lose cards" including combos of all kind and random stuff like Chalice, Confinement, CB, all the sideboard stuff, etc.

You'd be surprised, then.

Brainstorm does tremendous work for this deck, often resulting in 6-10 damage. Smart players I play against actively counter brainstorms as they are often far more lethal, and the fact that against these decks people must value time far more than they value their own life total.

These decks fall apart once the tier 1 midrange 3 color control decks get to a certain point, force legitimately doesn't help that situation. What am I going to force? That stoneforge mystic on turn 2? Well that depends on my hand but my hand should be filled with maybe 1 more land and otherwise aggressive cards. Do I believe that that jitte will win them the game? Maybe, but instead of forcing the stoneforge and 2 for 1'ing myself why not just play my threats out and kill whatever they aim to equip it to if it even gets there?

With a not-so-shitty hand I regularly deal between 15-19 damage by turn 3. When you put forces in that pushes that back by as much as a turn, when you put spell pierces in even further, and with snapcasters even further. And at that point you're basically hoping to top-deck a hyper aggressive hand with maybe 1 counter in it and a brainstorm.

I posit that if you want to run forces and other counters, Canadian Thresh is a far, far more ideal deck for it. They can ride the back of a Tarmogoyf / Delver for days. This deck can't.

[oRen]

I don't know what your problem is.
21 blue cards including FoW are enough to support FoW and therefore your statement was wrong. Period. Now you are starting to argue about how I expressed what I have said and I got to admit that I really hate nitpicking in that manner. Whats up with all the butthurt? Where exactly is the point to go on with this completely redundant discussion?


You'd be surprised, then.

Brainstorm does tremendous work for this deck, often resulting in 6-10 damage. Smart players I play against actively counter brainstorms as they are often far more lethal, and the fact that against these decks people must value time far more than they value their own life total.
Obviously I am not. Also countering BS is not "secret tech" at all ...

Well lets pretend you play Magma Jet + Hellspark Elemental in the BS + Delver slots. Those cards are significantly worse for sure but you can play 18 Mountains instead of a manabase being open to Wasteland and Stifle while pinging yourself in a metagame full of tempo and midrange piles playing those cards. I just can not see how BS + Delver make a superb deck out of a mediocre one because while you profit greatly off those cards you are giving up one of the greatest advantages a mono colored deck provides. That said ... I do not think that Ru Sligh with BS + Delver is bad or even worse than mono R - I just doubt that it changes the deck in the direction needed to be top tier. In the end you got to admit that your version is not that far from mono R regarding the playstyle, general weaknesses, etc - overall maybe just a bit better because BS + Delver are awesome cards.


These decks fall apart once the tier 1 midrange 3 color control decks get to a certain point, force legitimately doesn't help that situation. What am I going to force? That stoneforge mystic on turn 2? Well that depends on my hand but my hand should be filled with maybe 1 more land and otherwise aggressive cards. Do I believe that that jitte will win them the game? Maybe, but instead of forcing the stoneforge and 2 for 1'ing myself why not just play my threats out and kill whatever they aim to equip it to if it even gets there?

With a not-so-shitty hand I regularly deal between 15-19 damage by turn 3. When you put forces in that pushes that back by as much as a turn, when you put spell pierces in even further, and with snapcasters even further. And at that point you're basically hoping to top-deck a hyper aggressive hand with maybe 1 counter in it and a brainstorm.

SFM was never a problem for me. Never. Kill it in any way and you will be able to race or counter the 5 drop without haste.
Jitte depends on the Creatures on the board. KotR and Mother are pretty bad and would probably result in countering it.
Generally it is about any card you would lose to just by letting it resolve - winning by having 2 more burn is just another approach on the problem of "you lose" cards.

15-19 dmg turn is obviously versus the goldfish. And even though this is pretty awesome an opponent resolving anything which makes you lose at this point sucks a lot. I have much rather only dealt 10 dmg while being able to handle the card you would lose to.


I posit that if you want to run forces and other counters, Canadian Thresh is a far, far more ideal deck for it. They can ride the back of a Tarmogoyf / Delver for days. This deck can't.
I played Canadian one or two times without Delver and lost a lot against Survival ... It sucks a lot that 1238273 people start to play Canadian now that it is top tier. Even if the deck got a lot easier to play with Delver (making it possible for shitheads like Kenny Castor to place 2nd at a GP) I think that it stays one of the hardest non combo decks to play properly. I do not think that I would be able to constantly play the deck on a level which would be necessary to be superior.

You got to admit that even if you are truly convinced by what you are telling me the only lists that got results were those with Snapcaster and Force. Black-white thinking towards certain cards or approaches of the deck does not help when trying to drain the maximum out of sometting.

Sidenote ... Tarmogoyf barely makes the cut in Canadian and the deck rides on Mongooses and Delvers most of the time.

[oRen]

I don't know what your problem is.
21 blue cards including FoW are enough to support FoW and therefore your statement was wrong. Period. Now you are starting to argue about how I expressed what I have said and I got to admit that I really hate nitpicking in that manner. Whats up with all the butthurt? Where exactly is the point to go on with this completely redundant discussion?


You'd be surprised, then.

Brainstorm does tremendous work for this deck, often resulting in 6-10 damage. Smart players I play against actively counter brainstorms as they are often far more lethal, and the fact that against these decks people must value time far more than they value their own life total.
Obviously I am not. Also countering BS is not "secret tech" at all ...

Well lets pretend you play Magma Jet + Hellspark Elemental in the BS + Delver slots. Those cards are significantly worse for sure but you can play 18 Mountains instead of a manabase being open to Wasteland and Stifle while pinging yourself in a metagame full of tempo and midrange piles playing those cards. I just can not see how BS + Delver make a superb deck out of a mediocre one because while you profit greatly off those cards you are also giving up one of the greatest advantages a mono colored deck provides. That said ... I do not want to say that Ru Sligh with BS + Delver is bad or even worse than mono R - I just doubt that it changes the deck in the direction needed to be top tier. In the end you got to admit that your version is not that far from mono R regarding the playstyle, general weaknesses, etc - overall maybe just a bit better because BS + Delver are awesome cards.


These decks fall apart once the tier 1 midrange 3 color control decks get to a certain point, force legitimately doesn't help that situation. What am I going to force? That stoneforge mystic on turn 2? Well that depends on my hand but my hand should be filled with maybe 1 more land and otherwise aggressive cards. Do I believe that that jitte will win them the game? Maybe, but instead of forcing the stoneforge and 2 for 1'ing myself why not just play my threats out and kill whatever they aim to equip it to if it even gets there?

With a not-so-shitty hand I regularly deal between 15-19 damage by turn 3. When you put forces in that pushes that back by as much as a turn, when you put spell pierces in even further, and with snapcasters even further. And at that point you're basically hoping to top-deck a hyper aggressive hand with maybe 1 counter in it and a brainstorm.

SFM was never a problem for me. Never. Kill it in any way and you will be able to race or counter Batterskull.
Jitte obviously depends on the board. KotR and Mother are pretty bad and would force me to force it,
Generally it is about any card you would lose to just by letting it resolve - winning by having 2 more burn is just another approach on the problem of "you lose" cards. 15-19 dmg turn 3 is obviously versus the goldfish and not against someone disrupting you/interacting with you. And even though the amount of damage is pretty awesome an opponent resolving anything which makes you lose at this point sucks a lot. I have much rather only dealt 10 dmg while being able to handle the card you would lose to.


I posit that if you want to run forces and other counters, Canadian Thresh is a far, far more ideal deck for it. They can ride the back of a Tarmogoyf / Delver for days. This deck can't.
I played Canadian one or two times without Delver and lost a lot against Survival ... It sucks a lot that 1238273 people start to play Canadian now that it is top tier. Even if the deck got a lot easier to play with Delver (making it possible for shitheads like Kenny Castor to place 2nd at a GP) I think that it stays one of the hardest non combo decks to play. I do not think that I would be able to constantly play the deck on a level which would be necessary to be superior.

You got to admit that even if you are truly convinced by what you are telling me the only lists that got results were those with Snapcaster and Force. They just can not be as bad as you are pretending them to be.

Sidenote ... Tarmogoyf barely makes the cut in Canadian and the deck rides on Mongooses and Delvers most of the time.

[Kich867]

I don't recognize Hellspark Elemental and Magma Jet even being on the same plane as Delver and Brainstorm. The mana base is already practically immune to wasteland, I run 2 volcanics at the moment, you rarely ever need to actually fetch them.

- The deck is far from top tier and likely isn't trying to be. Few decks are. I would say that more people would play this deck because it's fairly cheap to build and a completely legitimate contender to win a tournament with, and it's fun to play.

- Delver and Brainstorm fix most of what's wrong with mono red burn. You choose cards based on potential, and Delver has way too much of it to ignore. I've had some games, for sure, where delver just dies immediately--whatever. But the number of games that I've dropped a delver and it's gotten in 6-9 damage for 1 blue mana is enough to warrant him. Brainstorm has shown me Bolt Bolt Fireblast enough times to say "This card fixes burn". You said it yourself earlier, burn's biggest issue is refueling if the opponent isn't dead. Brainstorm refuels you for 1 blue mana at instant speed.

- My opinions of force of will are far from black and white. I tested it in the deck for quite awhile, the consensus that I received after months of testing with it, is that it's not a good fit for the deck. Zilla said it best, the deck needs all the cards it can get.

- Snapcaster Mage is absurdly slow and is painful to see in your opening hand--I regularly just pitched them to force.

- I've already thoroughly outlined why I don't like a lot of counters in the deck. You either end up trying to be Canadian Thresh but you can't because you fundamentally just don't have enough counters to do it, or you end up being a shitty burn deck because your brainstorms find you counterspells when you want burns. Too many brainstorms in a list with forces and spell pierces or whatever resulted in seeing those when I needed more burn, so they were dropped for more burn and everything feels right again.

- I would posit that the lists you see that did well did well when this deck was very early in it's development--as few people have actually performed reasonably with it since, and if they are still performing well with it, I'd probably chalk it up more to drawing the nuts enough times. Lists that run a plethora of counterspells can be fucking nuts if they draw a perfect blend of counters, burn, and creatures.

- I'm not really trying to argue that this is a different deck than burn, in fact if you look at my post history, you'd notice I spent a rather long time in the burn thread recently trying (unsuccessfully) to convince them that this deck is a strictly better burn. UR Delver is a terrible name, I'd much rather call it Blue Burn or UR Burn. Hanni's blue sligh has tremendous support behind it right now from sligh players, not many people have brought it to a tournament however, I think people who play "professionally" are too afraid of letting go of their combo/3 color control decks to try something that fast and potentially swingy, but the testing suggests the deck is absurdly consistent.

However with the printing of Vexing Devil, all this deck actually needs a creature to do is about 4 damage, Vexing Devil fulfills the role Steppe Lynx did in Hanni's list and I'm convinced it's perfectly acceptable to remove it. Steppe Lynx dies to all the same shit Devil does except far worse (at least if you swords a devil you get 4 life back, as opposed to swording it in response to the second landfall trigger and only getting 2 life).

If a guide or delver gets 4-6 damage in, an opponent is at 16-14 life, most players will drop a fetchland in this time, so realistically 15-13 life. The rest is just finding some combination of 4-5 burn spells to kill them, which, isn't hard when you run 20+ of them and brainstorm..

Snapcaster was dropped, for me at least, because it's redundancy that's unnecessary. What does snapcaster regularly do? Hit bolts or something. So it's a 3 mana lightning bolt instead of just another bolt effect.. Force was dropped because after dropping snapcaster and realizing I pretty much only ever pitch snap/daze/force to force it seemed silly to even run it when I could just have more burn. It's good in the combo matches for sure though..

So that really only left delver, brainstorm, and ponder. Which is a perfectly adequate splash that addresses issues burn has.

[jares]

21 blue cards including FoW are enough to support FoW and therefore your statement was wrong. Period.
I'm glad that we agree with that. I believe that I have already clarified your understanding of what I meant with that; kindly refer to comment #466. In fact, I find it hilarious that you're behaving disagreeably given that we're not even disagreeing! :laugh:

Now you are starting to argue about how I expressed what I have said and I got to admit that I really hate nitpicking in that manner.
I don't think that I can help you with that. You'll have to deal with that on your own.

Where exactly is the point to go on with this completely redundant discussion?

I guess we agree on that again - as stated earlier, there seems to be no point because we're not even disagreeing on anything! :laugh:

-jares

[kasparovski]

So i called 2 friends today to come here and play a few matches, we didn't had much time but was able to test this against merfolks, painters+grind combo (don't know the exact name), and one of my friends played against the other with my deck against affinity. I went 2-0, 2-0 but my friend went 1-2 against affinity, i saw him make one or two sub opt plays, we talked after and he agreed that he might have won if he didn't made them. The biggest was playing Devil in the middle of the game when he had enough burn in his hand to won in two turns, opponent chose that he entered and in his turn dropped tons of creatures. Loved Risky Bet, loved Thunderous Wrath but i can now see why so much discussion around Devil, it was always a lava spike for 4 for me in the first turn were i might had prefer to have a creature on the board ready to attack or in turn 2. Still can't complain about 4 damage on 1st turn without much stress.
Maybe i just run to good (only had Wrath in first hand and was able to resolve it with brainstorm) but can't see the problem ppl have with getting stuck with wrath, i get so many times stuck with PoP it's not even funny and a lot of other times it only works for like 2-4-6 damage and it's still probably a good card to have in deck. Wrath on the other hand gives so much so many times, one game i had two straight miracles to win the game on like turn 4 or 5, it felt so good (lol sample and that was ridiculously lucky but still, i play this game for fun and that was fun :smile:).

Also i now def agree with oRen on the mana thing and will also update my list with Pyrostatic Pillar cause that guy looks like he knows what he's talking about :tongue:, and makes sense obviously (i just sometimes play against belcher with a friend of mine and thought mindbreak would be a better choice against it, i am a casual player after all and while i'm trying to make an overall competitive deck my meta are like 10 ppl and 15 good decks, that said i'll probably play some tournaments in a near future).
1+ Fireblast cause i really love that card and it's not as bad here as i though it would be, on the contrary.
Another thing is more variety on SB because of cards like Surgical Extraction, while not that important it definitely won't hurt to be careful.

//Creatures [14]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
3 Vexing Devil
3 Grim Lavamancer

//Instants/Sorceries [28]
3 Risky Bet
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lava Spike
2 Rift Bolt
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress
3 Fireblast

//Lands [18]
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
4 Mountain
3 Volcanic Island

//Sideboard
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Tormoyd's Crypt
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
2 Smash to Smithereens
1 Shattering Spree
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sulfuric Vortex


Btw, imho this should be called Ru Burn. lol 'R u burn?'

[oRen]

Belcher should be a lose anyway when not playing counters so 1-3 Traps in the SB won't make such a big difference. I would cut the Trap for more gravehate. Relying on 3 cards against a deck like Dredge is not going to work.


Snapcaster was dropped, for me at least, because it's redundancy that's unnecessary. What does snapcaster regularly do? Hit bolts or something. So it's a 3 mana lightning bolt instead of just another bolt effect.. Force was dropped because after dropping snapcaster and realizing I pretty much only ever pitch snap/daze/force to force it seemed silly to even run it when I could just have more burn. It's good in the combo matches for sure though..
Well ... if I got the choice between BS, Ponder, Spell Pierce and Bolt I do not mind paying 3 for either one. I am sure that this has something to do with the "general harmony" a deck list needs. Snapcaster without Force or the other way around seems significantly worse so dropping either would therefore result in dropping both.

You make me somewhat sad.

[jares]

Btw, imho this should be called Ru Burn. lol 'R u burn?'
Or even "U R Burn!". :laugh:

Cheers,
jares

[Richard Cheese]

Is there any evidence that moving from the version with counters to a burn list splashing U for Delver and Brainstorm produces better results? Looking at TCDecks over the past few months, I'm just not seeing it. All of these run Force, Snapcaster, and Lavamancer:

14th of 138: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8121&iddeck=59212
1st of 49: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7929&iddeck=57756
1st of 79: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7971&iddeck=58044
1st of 153: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7707&iddeck=56058
6th of 113: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7741&iddeck=56331

Of course, TCDecks isn't the alpha and omega of measuring Legacy performance, and I didn't go through every single deck listed in the UR Burn category, just those that placed well in large events.

I'm not trying to say that this is statistical evidence that the heavier blue versions are better, but for the amount of vitriol in this thread recently, I'm just not seeing any evidence that they aren't. Am I just looking in the wrong place?

[atropos]

Is there any evidence that moving from the version with counters to a burn list splashing U for Delver and Brainstorm produces better results? Looking at TCDecks over the past few months, I'm just not seeing it. All of these run Force, Snapcaster, and Lavamancer:

14th of 138: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8121&iddeck=59212
1st of 49: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7929&iddeck=57756
1st of 79: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7971&iddeck=58044
1st of 153: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7707&iddeck=56058
6th of 113: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7741&iddeck=56331

Of course, TCDecks isn't the alpha and omega of measuring Legacy performance, and I didn't go through every single deck listed in the UR Burn category, just those that placed well in large events.

I'm not trying to say that this is statistical evidence that the heavier blue versions are better, but for the amount of vitriol in this thread recently, I'm just not seeing any evidence that they aren't. Am I just looking in the wrong place?

I would actually agree with you, Richard Cheese. Although my evidence comes from personal playtesting I think the the blue-heavier version of U/R Delver is more stable and has an easier time beating combo. I don't see myself taking out much blue even after Avacyn Restored comes out.

[kasparovski]

Is there any evidence that moving from the version with counters to a burn list splashing U for Delver and Brainstorm produces better results?
No


Looking at TCDecks over the past few months, I'm just not seeing it. (...) Am I just looking in the wrong place?
You won't find it anywhere, at least i didn't. It's just being discussed here but no evidence of any kind imo (not that it would work or fail fwiw.) I went with their (kich and jares mainly) philosophy and i'm trying to post and correct lists to learn more about this deck and well, i did.


I don't see myself taking out much blue even after Avacyn Restored comes out.
fwiw i don't think the regular list can take any of the AVR cards and win much with it, a more red version could and that's also why i was posting this lists to get feedback.
Thing is, is there anything interesting to be discussed on the tcdecks stable proven list?

[oRen]

Thing is, is there anything interesting to be discussed on the tcdecks stable proven list?

Imo the decklists without Guide. I dislike the card myself in the more controlish build because your opponents can drain insane card advantage out of the Guides while you will be most likely not able to kill them before they can use the cards which overall results in you getting outclassed because of the advantage you grant your opponent. In the faster burn heavy build the Guide is so good because even if they draw additional cards they will most likely not be able to use them properly.

I think neither Devil and Clique are able to replace the Guides properly so ... I don't know ...

[kasparovski]

I see, maybe play with 10-11 creatures and 31-32 instants/sorceries? Not like there isn't burn or control cards to be added there, Delver would appreciate it and in a more control version you don't need those hasty creatures as much. Having Devil ends up doing that since he will for the most part be a Lava spike for 4, just won't count for Delver and sometimes be good for nothing.

On another note when i played with the more red version with both guide and vexing i realized it sucks a bit if we get to many of them since those cards are mostly good at the beginning and we will only be able to play one of them optimally.

[BigBopper]

I think the threads name should actually be UR Tempo, since that's what this deck does: creating tempo. We do this by playing creatures that are very powerful for their cc1 and we do the damage as fast as a burn list.
Therefore I believe vexing devil should be in here, 'cause as said before in order to win a game you can't rely on your burn, but need to have a creature one-drop to push enough damage through. But since this is a tempo deck you don't want to see most of the cards you have in there from round 4 and on anyways, but on the same spot you don't want the cards inportant from round 4 and on in your opening hand.
So similar to a sligh list you want to have a certain amount of finishers for what you're able to draw into round 4 or 5 or bs/ponder for. I think a good number would be around 4-6, while the options I'm talking about are fireblast, thunderous wrath and even sulfuric vortex.
For reasons stated before I would drop PoP cause it just doesn't do enough damage in a red heavy meta. And this is the point where I need to come to talk about counters. First of all PoP would be one of the few cards affected by counters (Spell Snare). But why should we drop playing counters? I mean if my opponent needs to get rid of delver right away by swording it or playing punishing fire why not dazing/spell piercing??? If that card was a lava spike or other burn spell I would do 3 more damage right, but if my delver survives that's 3 damage, too, with the option of more, or my opponent needs to spend another card on him, while I might play another creature he's to handle. I can see the issues about fow and the blue card count, but with bs/ponder/delver/daze/fow/spell whatever you still have lots of blue cards left.
Let's take it from another point of few. I think most of you would agree with me, that this deck can beat control lists with its tempo and even in mid game, with a resolved finisher, as th.wrath, fireblast or at best sulfuric vortec. We seem to struggle with creature loaded decks, like maverick, affinity and zoo, but now we got creatures as big and as ceap as zoo (delver/devil) to stble the boards and still we play the burn over it, so we should make this as well. The only problem I see in the lately posted burn heavy lists is, what do you guys do vs. a 2nd turn infernal tutor, a Show and Tell, a grindstone, a goblin charbelcher. All kinds of combo MU seem pretty worse to me without daze and spell spierce, leaving fow out 'cause of the stated above reasons. Sure it's not a great topdeck with no cards in hand, but what would be? A vexing devil, a delver, that need's to flip? i think at a point where you're topdecking you're in a poor position anyways unless you have 3 creatures out and a vortex. And before all of that, with cards in hand we have bs and ponder to see what we're gonna draw. Other than that I usually like my opening 7 when I keep them and if my first topdeck is a spell pierce, I'm glad to be able to protect my one-drop creature.
I do see the intention of a burn heavy list and it might work out fine with risky bet, but in order to be a stable deck and handle everything you might meet at a tournament you should be prepared for combo and for sure you might be able to race them somethimes, but for the other times I'd make sure they don't win vs. a goldfish.

[BigBopper]

The "U/R Delverburn" lists just got first AND second at the SCGopen in Birmingham. Maybe that's something to show how competetive this deck is? Total amount of counters = 7 (including Daze, FoW and Spell Pierce).
Here's the link: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/120422_birmingham.html

[oRen]

The lists are pretty close to what I was testing in the end. Even though I really dislike the Guides because your opponents can turn Brainstorms into Ancestrals I guess they are essential not substitutable. I got to agree with Kich that this deck pretends to be something it can hardly be - a good midrange deck. Taxation counters get worse with every turn passing by (in contrast to Canadian with the heavy mana denial) which is pretty bad with the really slowish hands you get from time to time. On the upside the Manabase and especially Lavamancer and Delver are amazing in this deck.

Yet it seems to work ... Maybe I will take my list and go on instead of searching for another generally more harmonic deck. If anyone got some input I would really appreciate it.

// Lands
3 [R] Volcanic Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
4 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [R] Mountain (3)
2 [R] Island (3)

// Creatures
4 [M12] Grim Lavamancer
4 [ISD] Delver of Secrets/Insectile Aberration
3 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage
4 [ZEN] Goblin Guide

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
3 [NE] Daze
3 [LRW] Ponder
4 [R] Lightning Bolt
3 [LG] Chain Lightning (should be 4 I guess)
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [VI] Fireblast (-> Thunderous Wrath)

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [SHM] Smash to Smithereens
SB: 2 [R] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [5E] Pyroblast
SB: 3 [SC] Sulfuric Vortex
SB: 4 [NPH] Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 [SC] Pyrostatic Pillar

[Kich867]

Generally you'd cut a daze for your fourth chain. If you peek their lists, 1-2 dazes is all you ever want. I used to run 4, but brainstorming into dazes made me want to kill myself, so I dropped to three, then I dropped to two, which is ideal.

Daze needs to be surprising, either that or they need to play around it. Everyone will play around daze against this deck though, because psychologically the times spells get dazed has more of an impact than spells that don't. The thought "thank god that didn't get dazed" carries a lot less weight than "Shit, I just walked into a daze, why am I so bad at this game?".

So really, it's not something you want to see more than probably one of. Extra's are perfect pitch to force candidates but, it still feels really terrible when you brainstorm hoping to find burn and see "Fetch daze fetch". Or brainstorm hoping to find a force and see a daze etc.

Daze carries more weight by simply being included in the deck, and seeing a ton of them is usually bad. It feels real shitty double-dazing something haha.

[BigBopper]

@oRen: I think your list looks fine. You might take a Daze and a Force or something else out and play PoP or what I like even more: Sulfuric Vortex. I agree with everyone here, that PoP is not a top card right now, when everybody play around it. But that's exactly the reason why we should at least have it in our 75!

My thoughts were that people are expecting it being played. Therefore they play around it, therefore I put it in SB and just board it when People can't play around, like Maverick or BUG/Team America and other 3 colored decks. Fair enough?

Maybe you think of trading one of these islands for another basic mountain? With 3 Fireblast you're not even able to cast all of them (3 VI + 2 Mountain).

[subzero]

hi guys,
i usually play sligh uwr , but at now, i want back at ur delver, for have less dual to play, beacsue too much non basic land, and not very strong mana base

but i van t decide me, if is better play some few counters(and really i hate daze, so i m sure 3x pierce and 3x will) or blu only for cantrip, and delver

about avacyn i see many nice ur cards, but what cards are better n this deck? and instead of what?

Use capitalization and punctuation when posting here, please. Thanks. -zilla

[oRen]

I was fine with that land split until now while I rarely even played 2 Fireblast. Maybe you are right right now but with AVR getting legal soon this manabase seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Regarding PoP - the only really flexible slots I think I have are the 2 Pillars which I really like because they give me an edge especially versus High Tide (and obviously other combo decks). I do not know if the Combo matchup is already fair enough to play something beating multicolored aggro control and control. Also I have seen Maverik lists with up to 4 Basics and people can generally still waste themselves or "fail" to find lands with their open fetchlands. To me this is one of the cards which is generally better versus bad players ... good players playing around it even if it is not there is also nice.

@Kich - I nearly always want to have Daze on my opening hand to daze library manipulating stuff like Brainstorm or Top for reducing the Guides' drawback. Maybe I will just go ahead and play 61 cards instead of cutting anything.

[SupREME-10]

PoP went to my sideboard a while ago, it is good; but not that reliable in my area as too many are fetching a basic first, waste their own duals, etc.

I like 3 Daze personally and 2 Fireblast; but I also run Spell Snare instead of pierce. 3 Grim Lavamancers are enough for me.

Your list is fine though, just tweek as you see what is working best in your area.

[David Kaplan]

With Vexing Devil, I prefer aggro over aggro-control.

//Manipulation
4 Brainstorm

//Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
4 Vexing Devil

//Burn
4 Chain Lightning
4 Fireblast
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Price of Progress
4 Rift Bolt
1 Grim Lavamancer/Thunderous Wrath

//Land
3 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Scalding Tarn

//Sideboard
3 Smash to Smithereens
4 Submerge
2 Grim Lavamancer
3 Searing Blaze
3 Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast
Sulfuric Vortex
Spell Pierce
Tormod's Crypt/Faerie Macabre

I have tested Thunderous Wrath and find it good at best. It is not that powerful for a deck that needs to end the game before turn 7, meaning you will blind flip Wrath less than half the time vs. it being in your hand (an average of 2.5 damage with added variance.) The ability to Brainstorm it back and cheat with Delver peeking and a Fetch Land to shuffle away a non-instant/sorcery makes it considerable. Reducing the Instant/Sorcery count by 1to accomdate Lavamancer is made up by his ability to clear the way for Devil if it hits later in the game than desired.

Submerge is absolutely nuts against Maverick (added strength by responding to fetch/Knight triggers). It is also strong against Threshold, as they have a 70% chance of having Delver/Tarmogoyf in play by turn 2.

[ateu89]

// Lands
3 [R] Volcanic Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
4 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [R] Mountain (3)
2 [R] Island (3)

// Creatures
4 [M12] Grim Lavamancer
4 [ISD] Delver of Secrets/Insectile Aberration
3 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage
4 [ZEN] Goblin Guide

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
3 [NE] Daze
3 [LRW] Ponder
4 [R] Lightning Bolt
3 [LG] Chain Lightning (should be 4 I guess)
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [VI] Fireblast (-> Thunderous Wrath)

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [SHM] Smash to Smithereens
SB: 2 [R] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [5E] Pyroblast
SB: 3 [SC] Sulfuric Vortex
SB: 4 [NPH] Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 [SC] Pyrostatic Pillar

I would
-1 Daze
-1 Fireblast
-1 Grim Lavamancer
+1 Fetchland
+1 Thunderous Wrath
+1 Chain Lightning

And you need at least 2x Submerge (I like 3x) in your SB.

[SupREME-10]

With Vexing Devil, I prefer aggro over aggro-control.

//Manipulation
4 Brainstorm

//Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
4 Vexing Devil

//Burn
4 Chain Lightning
4 Fireblast
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Price of Progress
4 Rift Bolt
1 Grim Lavamancer/Thunderous Wrath

//Land
3 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Scalding Tarn

//Sideboard
3 Smash to Smithereens
4 Submerge
2 Grim Lavamancer
3 Searing Blaze
3 Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast
Sulfuric Vortex
Spell Pierce
Tormod's Crypt/Faerie Macabre

I have tested Thunderous Wrath and find it good at best. It is not that powerful for a deck that needs to end the game before turn 7, meaning you will blind flip Wrath less than half the time vs. it being in your hand (an average of 2.5 damage with added variance.) The ability to Brainstorm it back and cheat with Delver peeking and a Fetch Land to shuffle away a non-instant/sorcery makes it considerable. Reducing the Instant/Sorcery count by 1to accomdate Lavamancer is made up by his ability to clear the way for Devil if it hits later in the game than desired.

Submerge is absolutely nuts against Maverick (added strength by responding to fetch/Knight triggers). It is also strong against Threshold, as they have a 70% chance of having Delver/Tarmogoyf in play by turn 2.

I think that I would still want 1 basic Island and 4 Mountains with 3 Volcanic and 11 fetchlands but I do like your aggro style for the deck. Spell Pierce could be Flusterstorm in SB for me, Grim would not be Maindeck unless I ran 2-3 of them while PoP could go down to 2 off leaving more room in the SB (I am thinking more GY hate).

Thanks for sharing the list though I really do like it and Vexing Devil will be seeing a fair amount of play I would say between this style of deck and Sligh decks.

[lordofthepit]

The "U/R Delverburn" lists just got first AND second at the SCGopen in Birmingham. Maybe that's something to show how competetive this deck is? Total amount of counters = 7 (including Daze, FoW and Spell Pierce).
Here's the link: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/120422_birmingham.html

I was reading the tournament coverage, and I notice the second-place U/R Delver player boarded in Smash to Smithereens, Sulfuric Vortex, and Sulfur Elemental in his semifinals round against Hive Mind (http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/semifinals_chris_boozer_vs_dav.html) and Surgical Extraction in his finals matchup (http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/finals_chris_boozer_vs_andrew_.html).

This seems like a mistake to me, because there are definitely 60 cards stronger in my opinion for games 2 and 3, but he did get 2nd place at a high profile event. Can anyone explain the logic behind this?

[oRen]

Can anyone explain the logic behind this?
The level of playskill at SCG opens tends to vary a lot. Smash to Smithereens at least deals with Grim Monolith which is not that unreasonable ... while the other three cards were just terrible choices indeed.

Damn it. I hate Goblin Guide so much that I might drop my intents of running this deck as my deck of choice. :really:

[JDK]

Maybe he was expecting Leyline of Sanctity, like most Show and Tell decks have in their sideboard.

[lordofthepit]

Maybe he was expecting Leyline of Sanctity, like most Show and Tell decks have in their sideboard.

Actually, that would make some sense, although I would be hesitant to cut my some of my best cards (Bolts and Chains). Grim Lavamancer can probably go, although it's ironically the least dead of the three under Leyline.

[JDK]

Well, you don't want dead cards, do you? If he doesn't have bounce, it makes sense to cut at least the sorcery speed Nukes like Chain Lightning and side in more reliable damage in form of creatures and enchantments.

Unfortunately I didn't find the boarding plans on the linked website. :(

[oRen]

Both Sulfur Elemental and Vortex are not what you want in this matchup. The cards do 2 and 3 damage on your turn 4 which is pretty bad (while Vortex also forces you to tap yourself out). Smash to Smithereens is reasonable, Elemantal okayish but really slow and Vortex terrible. I'd rather keep a fair amount of burn in and hope for no Leyline.

Also boarding Surgical in the Mirror is just terrible.

[lordofthepit]

Well, you don't want dead cards, do you? If he doesn't have bounce, it makes sense to cut at least the sorcery speed Nukes like Chain Lightning and side in more reliable damage in form of creatures and enchantments.

Unfortunately I didn't find the boarding plans on the linked website. :(

It's one thing if you were playing regular burn, but you're still playing a blue deck with the option to Brainstorm away dead cards if your opponent does indeed bring in Leylines.

In addition, you have Force of Will and Red Elemental Blasts coming in against Hive Mind. The extra Price of Progress in the sideboard is also very good if they're trying to kill you with Pacts (since they get doubled). I'd also prefer to bring in the Surgical Extractions to mess up their Intuitions over the Smash to Smithereens to mess up their Grim Monoliths, but that's just me. At that point, there really aren't many cards to take out.