SCG Invitational + Request

[4eak]

The SCG Invitational is in Atlanta (I'm qualified and this tournament is actually close enough for me to attend) on September 21-23. I want to go - the prizes seem pretty awesome. Plus, if I scrub out on Day 1 or 2, then I still get to play in the Legacy Open on Day 3. The only problem is: I know nothing about Standard, and I have no deck for the Standard rounds.

Looking through TC Decks Standard Results (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/formato.php?format=Standard%20[SoM_M12_Isd]), UW Delver looks like the best deck and pretty straightfoward (at first glance) to pilot. I assume this deck will still be legal for the tournament. I was thinking about this list:

// Lands - 18
8 Island
2 Moorland Haunt
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Seachrome Coast

// Creatures - 16
4 Delver of Secrets/Insectile Aberration
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Augur of Bolas
2 Restoration Angel
2 Geist of Saint Traft

// Pump - 2
2 Runechanter's Pike

// Sad, Sad Control/Disruption - 12
4 Gut Shot
4 Vapor Snag
4 Mana Leak

// Cantrips - 12
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Thought Scour

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Celestial Purge
SB: 2 Timely Reinforcements
SB: 2 Oblivion Ring
SB: 2 Steel Sabotage
SB: 3 Mental Misstep (I might get to play with MM again, lol)
SB: 3 Phantasmal Image

Thoughts? Go ahead and throw tomatoes - I'm not a Standard player.

Lastly, assuming this deck above is acceptable, is there anyone close to New Orleans or Atlanta, or anyone willing to mail cards, or anyone who will be at the Invitational (it starts on Friday), who would loan me the following cards?

4 Glacial Fortress
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Restoration Angel
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Runechanter's Pike
3 Phantasmal Image

I am happy to put up other Legacy cards as collateral to insure the safety and return of your cards.

I basically can't go unless I have a good Standard deck. Any help would be appreciated.



peace,
4eak

[Malchar]

You could consider running surgical extraction in the sideboard to combat reanimator, lingering souls, and snapcaster.

The delver deck you posted is probably considered the "best deck". I'm sure that lots of people will be playing it, so make sure that you understand how to play the mirror match.

[Roman Candle]

The SCG Invitational is in Atlanta (I'm qualified and this tournament is actually close enough for me to attend) on September 21-23. I want to go - the prizes seem pretty awesome. Plus, if I scrub out on Day 1 or 2, then I still get to play in the Legacy Open on Day 3. The only problem is: I know nothing about Standard, and I have no deck for the Standard rounds.

Looking through TC Decks Standard Results (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/formato.php?format=Standard%20[SoM_M12_Isd]), UW Delver looks like the best deck and pretty straightfoward (at first glance) to pilot. I assume this deck will still be legal for the tournament. I was thinking about this list:

// Lands - 18
8 Island
2 Moorland Haunt
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Seachrome Coast

// Creatures - 16
4 Delver of Secrets/Insectile Aberration
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Augur of Bolas
2 Restoration Angel
2 Geist of Saint Traft

// Pump - 2
2 Runechanter's Pike

// Sad, Sad Control/Disruption - 12
4 Gut Shot
4 Vapor Snag
4 Mana Leak

// Cantrips - 12
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Thought Scour

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Celestial Purge
SB: 2 Timely Reinforcements
SB: 2 Oblivion Ring
SB: 2 Steel Sabotage
SB: 3 Mental Misstep (I might get to play with MM again, lol)
SB: 3 Phantasmal Image

Thoughts? Go ahead and throw tomatoes - I'm not a Standard player.

Lastly, assuming this deck above is acceptable, is there anyone close to New Orleans or Atlanta, or anyone willing to mail cards, or anyone who will be at the Invitational (it starts on Friday), who would loan me the following cards?

4 Glacial Fortress
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Restoration Angel
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Runechanter's Pike
3 Phantasmal Image

I am happy to put up other Legacy cards as collateral to insure the safety and return of your cards.

I basically can't go unless I have a good Standard deck. Any help would be appreciated.



peace,
4eak

I'm by no means an expert on the deck, but I've played Delver for a few months now, and this list seems really strange.

Gut Shot is awesome, but I think it's more of a 3-of than a 4-of. Against the green decks, it's very strong, and it's good against Delver, but it's dead a lot, and having four might be too much life loss alongside Probe.

It also seems like this list is a little short on win conditions. Before I switched to mono-blue, I was playing 4 Geist, 3 Angel, and 3 Pikes, alongside the 4 Delvers. Sometimes Delvers don't flip, or are Gut Shotted, and you need a way to close out the game while giving the opponent the fewest number of turns to rip Bonfire or grind you out with Pod. The format right now is incredibly unforgiving toward durdling.

I'm also pretty sure 4 Augurs is too many, the card is fine, but he's only really that good against Zombies and Naya, and only if they're not already eating your face with Golem tokens/Geralf's Messengers.

I would definitely recommend considering maindeck Images. I've been playing them maindeck in mono-blue Wizard Delver, and they're incredible.

In the SB, Divine Offering/Revoke Existence is likely better than O-Ring, since you have Snapcasters, Augurs, and Delvers.

18 land might also be one or two too few -- I was on 19 with all 12 cantrips -- but I'm not confident in saying what number is actually *right.*

I would also recommend looking at PVDDR's list from the World Magic Cup. Invisible Stalker seems awesome right now.

[Chmur]

Gut shot in current meta is awesome as 4-of - mana birds, splicers and opposing delvers die to it.


4 Augur of Bolas is far too many from my testing. Geist of Saint Traft is your best creature, you do not want less than 3, prefferably 4. Personally I'd go:

- 2 Augur
+1 Angel
+1 Geist

Alternate 4-drop plan is 2-3 Hero of Bladeholds to support them Augurs.

3 Mana Leaks is enough, try replacing 1 with Mutagenic Growth.

As far as SB is concerned, I've lately started running 0 purges and 4 of those Knights of Glory from M13, that card completely wrecks Zombie MU.

The best SB plan is cutting the 3 Images (ramp is unplayed and there is no opposing legend to rule out that you can't rule out with your own Geist) and if at all possible, running 2-3 Talrands.

[Di]

As someone who regularly plays Standard and am quite involved with it, I'd really urge you to not play UW Delver at that tournament unless you get a lot of practice with it first. It isn't the hardest deck in the world to pilot but is by no means an easy deck to play. I'm not questioning your play skill or anything like that, but you'll likely be way behind in experience compared to most other pilots in that tournament, making the common mirror match an issue. Delver is a very unforgiving deck when it comes to mistakes as its wins are often grindy, so putting yourself in a position where you can't afford to make mistakes yet being unexperienced with the deck seems like a poor idea.

Unless you're dead set on it, I suggest you look elsewhere for a simpler, yet still strong deck. Naya or Bant Pod and UWR Midrange come to mind. Pod is really well-positioned right now, and isn't difficult to play at all. Unlike Survival, your options with Pod are incredibly limited so the only real difficulty with the deck stems from battle math and such. As for midrange, I've played UWR Midrange for most of the PTQ season and posted multiple t16's with it and also won a 1k with it, so it's solid enough and incredibly easy. There are a few other good contenders out there as well, so don't assume that Delver is 'the' deck right now and needs to be played. If you like go ahead and PM me and I'd be happy to talk about the format and help you out in any way I can.

[4eak]

Ah, thank you all for the feedback. I must admit, I will not have the time to do much playtesting. I will be able to familiarize myself with decks, but not much more beyond that. A lack of experience may very likely be a serious problem.

UW Delver appeared to be the tier 1 deck (I'm making an uneducated assumption of what counts as tier 1 based upon TC Decks' results) with which I would be most comfortable playing. My lack of experience may still prove to be too much of an obstacle, and I daresay that may be the case for the majority of decks (including those listed by Di) I'm considering against the quality of players/decks I would face at the invitational.

That leads me to think that a combo or aggro-combo deck with minimal interaction would be best. Imho, these sorts of decks often allow an inexperienced player to be successful despite not completely understanding the fabric of a metagame.

What about Infect? That deck seems reasonably good and it fits that aggro-combo scheme. I also have a decent amount of experience with it in other formats. Also, I wouldn't need to borrow many cards at all.


peace,
4eak

[SpikeyMikey]

Ah, thank you all for the feedback. I must admit, I will not have the time to do much playtesting. I will be able to familiarize myself with decks, but not much more beyond that. A lack of experience may very likely be a serious problem.

UW Delver appeared to be the tier 1 deck (I'm making an uneducated assumption of what counts as tier 1 based upon TC Decks' results) with which I would be most comfortable playing. My lack of experience may still prove to be too much of an obstacle, and I daresay that may be the case for the majority of decks (including those listed by Di) I'm considering against the quality of players/decks I would face at the invitational.

That leads me to think that a combo or aggro-combo deck with minimal interaction would be best. Imho, these sorts of decks often allow an inexperienced player to be successful despite not completely understanding the fabric of a metagame.

What about Infect? That deck seems reasonably good and it fits that aggro-combo scheme. I also have a decent amount of experience with it in other formats. Also, I wouldn't need to borrow many cards at all.


peace,
4eak

R/G aggro and Naya aggro are well positioned right now. Whether or not that will hold true in a month is unsure but it has a naturally good matchup vs. Delver so with Delver at 13-14% of the meta, it's a solid call. I've been playing with GW aggro and a Frites variant but both of those require a little more knowledge of the format and what cards people are running. R/G just jams threats and miracles Bonfires. It's as close to brainless as Magic gets.

[joemauer]

Hey Mike. If you do decide to go with U/W delver I could probably loan you a few cards.
Snapcasters 3-4, Glacial Fortress 3-4,and possibly two Seachrome Coasts.
Just email me if you decide to use delver.

[feline]

So now I have to ask 4eak, how did you do & what did you play. >^,^<

[4eak]

I played Dredge and Infect. I performed hilariously bad. I made day 2, but Standard was my bane (on both days). While I made mistakes, I feel the games I lost weren't up to me (it wasn't due to my mistakes - I just couldn't win against the decks/hands I faced). Also, fuck Delver in standard (I wish I played that deck instead). I have my notes, but I'm too lazy to write up a report. I did get to hardcast a GGT@2 counters against an unanswerable cage + multiple Crypts + SExtraction played by RUG (and won the game for it).

Also, over the weekend, I played against an SCG judge who had presided as a head judge (and was working as a judge that weekend), and he claimed I couldn't activate LED to empty my hand unless I was casting or had cast an instant. Lulz. We called a judge over, he didn't believe his peer, so he appealed to the head judge. It was funny (although, I tried to be as polite as possible).

I enjoyed the competition. Most everyone was polite, skilled, and had a good deck. Several people were very kind and generous to me during the weekend as well. I had a good time. I couldn't ask for more!



peace,
4eak

[feline]

If I get to the point of playing in the Open series more than just when it shows up in the pacific northwest, I would get myself to push dredge a time or 2 at them, even though the grave yard hate is just that, the fact that it exists, lol. In either case, it's all about having fun in the end, I always enjoy good games that are fun, it's never fun to sit across from someone that's so serious they make it unfun.

Also I was told someone from the forums was the one that made top 8 at Grand Prix Indianapolis, and for some reason I think they told me it was 4eak, is that correct? if so then kick @$$, because that was with high tide and I love the crap outta that deck.

[Whippoorwill]

Also I was told someone from the forums was the one that made top 8 at Grand Prix Indianapolis, and for some reason I think they told me it was 4eak, is that correct? if so then kick @$$, because that was with high tide and I love the crap outta that deck.

That was Di.

[feline]

wow, I wasn't expecting you to know anything about that at all >^,^< thank you