[Deck] Team America (BUG Delver)

[Dragonslayer_90]

You guys are dismissing library too easily. There have been plenty of recent successful BUG Delver lists with one main deck library. Yes it can be weak when you need gas, but that's why you only play one. At worst it's another card to keep in your hand for brainstorm. The point of library is to have another incremental advantage engine besides Liliana main deck that allows us to have gas going into the mid and late game. I also don't think library only has value in control matchups but also can be utilized well against combo and other delver decks. In my experience it has varying degrees of value depending on the matchup, only being weak enough to cut against aggressive decks like burn and merfolk where your life total is under pressure REALLY quickly. Library may not be good in tempo decks (though I hear drawing more cards is good for tempo decks), but Team America isn't a pure tempo deck. It's somewhere in between tempo and midrange. If you want to try a more tempoish version of Team America go ahead and move library to the side, but I would not cut it entirely.

Also, Sorry to hear about your bad run Barbed Blightning. I've a lot of bad runs recently as SCGs , most involving facing fish within the first three rounds as well. Hate that deck so much.

[anakyn]

You guys are dismissing library too easily. There have been plenty of recent successful BUG Delver lists with one main deck library. Yes it can be weak when you need gas, but that's why you only play one. At worst it's another card to keep in your hand for brainstorm. The point of library is to have another incremental advantage engine besides Liliana main deck that allows us to have gas going into the mid and late game


I agree Library can be great, but since it's meh in about 50% of the matchups I prefer to have it in the sideboard and playing the 3rd Liliana (which is good in almost any matchup) in its place.



I also don't think library only has value in control matchups but also can be utilized well against combo and other delver decks.


Getting value from Library against combo means playing it as soon as possible, ideally on 2nd turn: so either you have to tap yourself out (which is something you could regret against combo decks), or you have to play Shaman on turn 1, Library turn 2 and keep yourself open for countermagic.

The first case seems very dangerous, the second one doesn't happen very often.

Since we pack 4 Tourach, IMHO a 2nd turn Hymn is the best play vs combo.



Library may not be good in tempo decks (though I hear drawing more cards is good for tempo decks), but Team America isn't a pure tempo deck. It's somewhere in between tempo and midrange. If you want to try a more tempoish version of Team America go ahead and move library to the side, but I would not cut it entirely.


I agree, it depends on your strategy.

I prefer to play the "tempo" role in game 1, and keep the controllish tools in the sideboard.

[Esper3k]

I'm a huge fan of Sylvan Library myself. Against most matchups, the card selection alone is worth it to win the game. Even when you see 3 terrible cards on top with no way to shuffle, you still have the option to pay 8 life and clear off the top.

The only time I board it out is against fast combo and even then, it's not horrible. Just don't tap out for it and you should be ok.

[phazonmutant]

Played TA at SCG Portland to a 27th place finish. Not as good as I was hoping, but I'm 4/4 placing in the top 32 or better, so I guess that's ok. I played the same list as the one I got 4th with at Columbus. I'll talk more about the choices after.

R1 - Shardless BUG - 1-0 - He used his Deathrites much less efficiently and he couldn't deal with Clique(s) despite gumming up the ground.
R2 - Elves! - 2-0 - I managed to win g1 thanks to Sinkholing him with double Disfigure. G2 I didn't draw a dude with butt, just Golgari Charms, so his x/2s got there. G3 I killed everything and Cliqued him.
R3 - D&T - 2-0-1 - My first draw in probably a year or 2. I want to talk about this one in detail.
So G1 I have 2 lands, flipped Delver, and a DRS to his 3 lands including Port and an Aether Vial on 1. I'm at 18, he's at 14. My hand is double Goyf, Hymn, Decay. He has just topdecked a Flickerwisp to rebuy his Stoneforge for SoFI (he forgot to search the first time). The next couple turns had several decision points each of which could have changed the game.
I decided to play Goyf and try to race instead of Hymning his SoFI. He ticked up Vial, topdecked Wasteland, and hit a land. I could now choose to Decay his Flickerwisp (possibly getting blown out by a topdeck Flickerwisp) or play another Goyf. I decided to play Goyf since I can Decay in response to Port. He put in SoFI, drew, suited up, hit for 5, and killed Deathrite. Then he proceeds to rip chump blockers and removal while I brick on sufficient lands and he kills me. So the big decisions are: (1) Hymn, Decay, or Goyf? (2) next turn, Goyf or Decay?
Anyway, g2 I win very easily despite his RiP, and then g3 I had the board under control with a Goyf to his Serra Avenger and Stoneforge (which found Jitte), but then I Hymn (the 1 I left in) him and hit Wilt-Leaf Liege. We ended up drawing with him at a favorable board state, so I'll chalk it as a loss.
R4 - Grixis OmniTell - 3-0-1 - I left him with 1 permanent on board and no cards in hand both games. Hymn and Wasteland are sweet.
R5 - D&T - 3-1-1 - G1 he took over with equipment and fliers. G2 I Thoughtseized him and saw 2 lands, Vial, RiP, double Mom, double Wilt-Lief. Took Vial. He never cast WLL and won very easily.
R6 - UWR Delver - 4-1-1 - I won both games very decisively. Deathrite is a real card.
R7 - Jund - 4-2-1 - I wasn't in either game, not really. Punishing Fire did work.
R8 - TA - 5-2-1 - Game 3 was very silly with dueling Lilianas. I drew more threats so got to ultimate mine first since he had to use his as removal. Successfully Do or Died a single land. Like I said, very silly.
R9 - Deathblade - 6-2-1 - He never got above 3 mana sources. I killed many lands.

So overall still happy with the list. I like the Sylvan main although I didn't draw it much. It's a generically great card in most every matchup. It definitely gets boarded out, but I'm happy to have it in the main. Clique has been absolutely amazing in the maindeck and board. Most decks just have so many problems dealing with a flier, and its disruption is very relevant. I boarded in Tar Pit a lot, but never really drew it. I'm not sure that I'm entirely happy with it, but I would feel nervous having only 19 lands in the 75. Pithing Needle was also underwhelming. I had been boarding it in a lot since most decks have targets, but really it's just not worth it I think. It's not a threat and they can either get value off planeswalkers if you drop it reactively or just brainstorm away the card you name if you do it proactively. I'm seriously considering Virtue's Ruin in its slot.

[Esper3k]

Well done on the finish still!

Re: Hymn / Goyf / AD - did he have anything else on the board other than Flickerwisp, SFM, Aether Vial, 2 lands + Port? How many cards in hand did he have? If he had 2 or less, I would've been tempted by Hymn if I could guarantee hit the SoFI. I think Goyf is fine there too though since D&T has a hard time dealing with him if they don't have Mom or StP ready.

Re: Virtue's Ruin - As much as I love the card, I don't think it's needed right now. The main selling point of Virtue's Ruin to me is killing KoTR. Against D&T, I think Dread of Night is generally better? Much easier to cast through Thalia and sits around gimping their team. God forbid you get to Golgari Charm when you have one of those out.

[Barbed Blightning]

Re: Virtue's Ruin - As much as I love the card, I don't think it's needed right now. The main selling point of Virtue's Ruin to me is killing KoTR. Against D&T, I think Dread of Night is generally better? Much easier to cast through Thalia and sits around gimping their team. God forbid you get to Golgari Charm when you have one of those out.

Basically came here to say this. I suppose killing Crusader, Liege, Avenger and SFM is nice, but Ruin is on the expensive side.

[phazonmutant]

Well done on the finish still!

Thanks!


Re: Hymn / Goyf / AD - did he have anything else on the board other than Flickerwisp, SFM, Aether Vial, 2 lands + Port? How many cards in hand did he have? If he had 2 or less, I would've been tempted by Hymn if I could guarantee hit the SoFI. I think Goyf is fine there too though since D&T has a hard time dealing with him if they don't have Mom or StP ready.

That's it for the board, and his hand is only SoFI.


Re: Virtue's Ruin - As much as I love the card, I don't think it's needed right now. The main selling point of Virtue's Ruin to me is killing KoTR. Against D&T, I think Dread of Night is generally better? Much easier to cast through Thalia and sits around gimping their team. God forbid you get to Golgari Charm when you have one of those out.

I keep on losing to Serra Avengers and having issues with Brimaz and Mirran Crusader. 3 mana can be tough, but killing their team is usually worth it. Dread of Night has its perks like bringing Avenger into Disfigure range, but it doesn't deal with the really scary threats by itself.

[Esper3k]

That's it for the board, and his hand is only SoFI.

So if he draws a land, he can SFM in the SoFI + Equip & attack?

Also consider that Hymn probably won't have any more value the rest of the game if we don't Hymn there.

Of course, it's all easy to say this with 20/20 hindsight :)




I keep on losing to Serra Avengers and having issues with Brimaz and Mirran Crusader. 3 mana can be tough, but killing their team is usually worth it. Dread of Night has its perks like bringing Avenger into Disfigure range, but it doesn't deal with the really scary threats by itself.

Yeah Crusader is just a bitch for us to deal with. For me though, I always had more problems with 1) T1 Mom when I'm on the draw and of course, don't have a Disfigure to deal with it and 2) Thalia + mana disruption keeping me from cantripping effectively.

I haven't had as much of an issue with Brimaz because we can AD him nor Serra Avenger unless they happen to get multiples out and we can't kill them.

Ever consider a Jitte in the board? I've loved it in pretty much every fair matchup we play, especially in ones like vs D&T where they're not particularly fast and they have plenty of little dudes for us to murder.

[phazonmutant]

So if he draws a land, he can SFM in the SoFI + Equip & attack?

Also consider that Hymn probably won't have any more value the rest of the game if we don't Hymn there.

Of course, it's all easy to say this with 20/20 hindsight :)

I definitely think you're right there. What about the Goyf vs. Decay play?



Yeah Crusader is just a bitch for us to deal with. For me though, I always had more problems with 1) T1 Mom when I'm on the draw and of course, don't have a Disfigure to deal with it and 2) Thalia + mana disruption keeping me from cantripping effectively.

I haven't had as much of an issue with Brimaz because we can AD him nor Serra Avenger unless they happen to get multiples out and we can't kill them.

Ever consider a Jitte in the board? I've loved it in pretty much every fair matchup we play, especially in ones like vs D&T where they're not particularly fast and they have plenty of little dudes for us to murder.

Haven't had too many issues with Mom because of Charm, but I've had more of a problem with the 6+ creatures that need to be Decayed stretching the card too thin. Jitte definitely is a consideration - I had it in the board for Elves and Burn at one point. Hmm, might give that a go.

[Megadeus]

Deluge over virtues ruin? That way you can board it against other things as well maybe? Your Goyf gets tostick around most of the time

[KobeBryan]

So if he draws a land, he can SFM in the SoFI + Equip & attack?

Also consider that Hymn probably won't have any more value the rest of the game if we don't Hymn there.

Of course, it's all easy to say this with 20/20 hindsight :)




Yeah Crusader is just a bitch for us to deal with. For me though, I always had more problems with 1) T1 Mom when I'm on the draw and of course, don't have a Disfigure to deal with it and 2) Thalia + mana disruption keeping me from cantripping effectively.

I haven't had as much of an issue with Brimaz because we can AD him nor Serra Avenger unless they happen to get multiples out and we can't kill them.

Ever consider a Jitte in the board? I've loved it in pretty much every fair matchup we play, especially in ones like vs D&T where they're not particularly fast and they have plenty of little dudes for us to murder.

I feel like Brimaz is a win more for DNT. When he drops, his board has already stablized and brimaz just seals the game.

Our biggest problem against them is MOM and that stupid guy who has protection from B/G

[Esper3k]

I definitely think you're right there. What about the Goyf vs. Decay play?

You mean the turn you played the 2nd Goyf instead of the AD?





Haven't had too many issues with Mom because of Charm, but I've had more of a problem with the 6+ creatures that need to be Decayed stretching the card too thin. Jitte definitely is a consideration - I had it in the board for Elves and Burn at one point. Hmm, might give that a go.

I'm down to 2 Charms in my board right now and for some reason, I can never call any of them to my hand when my opponent gets down an active Mom :(

Even with Charm, part of the problem I run into is when they go T1 Mom into T2 SFM. Now, even with Golgari Charm, they still get to get down Batterskull unless we happen to have Disfigure + 2nd removal spell.

[wcm8]

Massacre; Dread of Night; Darkblast, etc.

Beating DnT is not impossible if you devote a little bit of sideboard space to beat it. With how popular the deck seems to be right now, I'm not sure why people aren't taking it more seriously. It seems reasonable to have a specialized slot or two for White in addition to your 'general removal suite' (Disfigure, Golgari Charm).

[catmint]

In my testing I am slightly positive vs. DnT postboard - even without narrow cards like Dread of Night. Pithing needle is very good vs. DnT (Vial, SFM, equip, Port, mother,...) and also helps other problematic matchups like miracles and sneak attack. Library is also a good card and the backup plan to just outgun them if no quick win is possible. A resolved mirran cruisader is a huge pain and there is surely a different win% if a list plays 0-1 or 3-4 mirran, however resolving it is no autowin for them (racing, liliana) and since they have no card advantage except SFM enough games are won on the back of our card advantage (Hymn, Liliana, Library, Charm).

-4 FoW
-4 Daze
-1 Tarmogoyf
+3 Disfigure
+2 Library
+2 Pithing Needle
+2 Golgari Charm

[Dragonslayer_90]

In my testing I am slightly positive vs. DnT postboard - even without narrow cards like Dread of Night. Pithing needle is very good vs. DnT (Vial, SFM, equip, Port, mother,...) and also helps other problematic matchups like miracles and sneak attack. Library is also a good card and the backup plan to just outgun them if no quick win is possible. A resolved mirran cruisader is a huge pain and there is surely a different win% if a list plays 0-1 or 3-4 mirran, however resolving it is no autowin for them (racing, liliana) and since they have no card advantage except SFM enough games are won on the back of our card advantage (Hymn, Liliana, Library, Charm).

-4 FoW
-4 Daze
-1 Tarmogoyf
+3 Disfigure
+2 Library
+2 Pithing Needle
+2 Golgari Charm

Concur with Catmint, though I would not side out a single goyf. They are probably bringing in the 3-4 Rest in Peace they have in the board, but it's not unusual for them to not see it in a game since they have little to no card draw (usually just a few horizon canopy). Goyf is too good against them when they don't have rest in peace out. I've won many games where they couldn't deal with one goyf and crushed them when I draw more than one.

[Barbed Blightning]

Concur with Catmint, though I would not side out a single goyf. They are probably bringing in the 3-4 Rest in Peace they have in the board, but it's not unusual for them to not see it in a game since they have little to no card draw (usually just a few horizon canopy). Goyf is too good against them when they don't have rest in peace out. I've won many games where they couldn't deal with one goyf and crushed them when I draw more than one.
It's actually only two RIP nowadays. Cage takes the 3rd slot to shore up Elves (as much as possible anyway). But I agree on not siding out Goyf; Tombstalker goes first. Just wanted to keep you up to date.

[catmint]

Stalker instead of goyf might be right. Not sure though... both of them are affected by RiP so that was not my consideration.

Goyf is often a good early play if they have Thalia out, but flying is also a thing against mirran crusader, mother or other non-sense on the ground.

[Barbed Blightning]

Stalker instead of goyf might be right. Not sure though... both of them are affected by RiP so that was not my consideration.

Goyf is often a good early play if they have Thalia out, but flying is also a thing against mirran crusader, mother or other non-sense on the ground.
Look at it this way: Goyf needs four cards total in all graveyards to be good and has a very flexible casting cost; Tombstalker needs six in yours alone just to be cast, and that's if they are letting you have black mana. I know the analogy isn't perfect, but on the whole I think it's accurate enough to give you an idea of how much more RIP hurts the demon than Goof.

Though I do admit a certain amount of Time Spiral nostalgia for Serra Avenger and Tombstalker duking it out...

As far as flying goes, though, D&T plays the most. Tombstalker will be blocked.

[exallium]

Hey Guys,

So, I've been playing Miracles for the last few months and have decided to switch it up, going back to good ol' Team America. (For one, people in my LGS now automatically put me on Miracles, and are right, and we can't have that. For two, Team America is an awesome deck and I feel like I'm in a good meta for it.)

I'm fairly set in stone on my maindeck. It feels very solid, it's done very well for me in the past, and it's extremely consistent:

Delver and his boys:
4x Delver
4x DRS
4x Goyf
2x Tombstalker

The lady in black:
2x Liliana

The stuff that flips Delver:
4x Hymn
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Daze
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Force of Will

Let's me play all the stuff listed above:
4x Wasteland
4x Underground Sea
2x Bayou
1x Tropical Island
4x Verdant Catacomb
4x Polluted Delta
1x Misty Rainforest

My sideboard currently looks like so (with incomplete notes of intended matchups):

2x Disfigure -- Stoneforge Decks, elves, D&T, Jund, Merfolk, Delver decks...
1x Dismember -- Tarm decks, D&T, Merfolk...
1x Envelop -- Miracles, Storm, Show&Tell
3x Golgari Charm -- Miracles in a small amount, Storm, D&T, Elves
2x Grafdigger's Cage -- Elves, Storm, Dredge if it rears it's ugly head
1x Null Rod -- Stoneblade decks, Miracles, Shops
3x Spell Pierce -- Storm, Miracles, Show & Tell, RUG Delver
2x Vendilion Clique -- Storm, Miracles, Show & Tell, Stoneforge decks, RIP decks

I guess my question is, does that SB seem fine? It looks fine but I'm questioning whether I should have the second clique over envelop, and whether a library should be in there somewhere. Also, I'm questioning whether 3x spell pierce is correct. I like that 3 would feel consistent, but was also considering a split with flusterstorm or cutting one for the second clique as well. My thoughts on 2 clique out of the board is that they can often replace tombstalker in the more reactive matchups, especially if I expect some form of GY hate in either relic, spellbomb, or rest in peace to be brought in. There's also the option of a third liliana, as well as creeping tarpit somewhere. I feel like I'm trying to do too much =P


For reference, my meta (going off what I saw last night) looks something like this:

1-2 Elves Decks
1 Miracles Deck (Also another reason I wanted to jump ship for a bit... haha)
1-2 Death and Taxes
1-2 Jund
1-2 RUG Delver
1 Deathblade
1 Sneak and Show
1 Merfolk deck

There are, at times, other random decks brought in, as we allow proxies (though I don't use any ;) ) and people like to switch things up.

EDIT:
-1 Sapphire Charm, +1 Vendilion Clique

[Esper3k]

I think the Sapphire Charm is a little weird but other than that the rest of the cards are fine.

I can see playing a second Clique to swap out for when you board out Tombstalkers as well.

[exallium]

I think the Sapphire Charm is a little weird but other than that the rest of the cards are fine.

I can see playing a second Clique to swap out for when you board out Tombstalkers as well.

Cool. And I think to an extent (Saph being able to remove BSkull) VClique can perform a similar role (remove BSkull from hand in response to stoneforge), and is a lot less narrow Thanks!

[catmint]

Hey Guys,

....
My sideboard currently looks like so (with incomplete notes of intended matchups):

2x Disfigure -- Stoneforge Decks, elves, D&T, Jund, Merfolk, Delver decks...
1x Dismember -- Tarm decks, D&T, Merfolk...
1x Envelop -- Miracles, Storm, Show&Tell
3x Golgari Charm -- Miracles in a small amount, Storm, D&T, Elves
2x Grafdigger's Cage -- Elves, Storm, Dredge if it rears it's ugly head
1x Null Rod -- Stoneblade decks, Miracles, Shops
3x Spell Pierce -- Storm, Miracles, Show & Tell, RUG Delver
2x Vendilion Clique -- Storm, Miracles, Show & Tell, Stoneforge decks, RIP decks

I guess my question is, does that SB seem fine? It looks fine but I'm questioning whether I should have the second clique over envelop, and whether a library should be in there somewhere. Also, I'm questioning whether 3x spell pierce is correct. I like that 3 would feel consistent, but was also considering a split with flusterstorm or cutting one for the second clique as well. My thoughts on 2 clique out of the board is that they can often replace tombstalker in the more reactive matchups, especially if I expect some form of GY hate in either relic, spellbomb, or rest in peace to be brought in. There's also the option of a third liliana, as well as creeping tarpit somewhere. I feel like I'm trying to do too much =P



My thoughts:
3 Pierce are fine - Pierce is there for problematic cards like jace and sneak attack which make a split with flusterstorm a bad choice.
2 Clique are also set in stone for me since they are prime vs. combo and control (especially miracles and stoneblad), where a swap for tombstalker who is not needed in those matchups is pretty standard

On creeping tar pit: there are much more potent threats like SYLVAN LIBRARY (which is completely missing imo)!

Your 60 are equal to mine.

My SB is different:
3 disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
2 Pithing Needle
2 Sylvan Library
3 Spell Pierce
1 Grafdiggers Cage
2 Vendilion Clqiue

First I think Miracles is the best deck in the format and 2 Library and 2 needles next to the other disruption of pierce,charm and clique are necessary. If you ask what to board out additionally: -4 Wasteland is the answer (tested and 100% correct - you draw a lot more gas and wasteland does not do anything most of the time - not even cast any of your spells!) :tongue:

Not having Sylvan Library in the SB seems like a big mistake since resolving it in any control matchup increases your win% by a lot!

On Null Rod vs. Pithing needle.
Null Rod is better vs. UWR (you only need to kill 1 batterskull token and not lose to delver for an easy win - again if sylvan library is in the mix, because they also have tons of removal and RIP for our threads, but nothing against Sylvan Libary). However that matchup is not problematic without Null Rod.

Null Rod is better vs. random artifact decks (also not a bad nor common matchup) but needle hits other uncommon random stuff (dark dephts combo,...) so that evens out

Null Rod is much worse versus miracles because it cant hit Jace. Needle hits both win conditions (jace and SD.top).

Not sure on Stoneblade since null rod hits all equipments but stoneblade also plays Jace - Null Rod probably a bit better.

Needle hits Sneak attack, which is a bad matchup.

Needle hits the 3rd elves win condition (wirewood symbiote) or quirion (which also can do a lot of shit) - if the boarding plan allows for needle to be played - not that set on this tech by the way.

Not sure on DnT. Null Rod hits more at once, but might cost 3 under THalia while Needle can also hit their disruption lands or mother if desperate. Not enough testing to have a clear verdict here, but most important is that the matchup is not problematic for me with my current boarding plan.

Null Rod hits LED, but I play Golgari charm instead which are also good vs. their possible xantid swarms or empty the warrens.

The way I see it:
Problematic matchups are Miracles and Sneak where Needle is miles better and there is no real compelling reason for Null Rod.


Envelop is a very good card - I think there are much better high impact cards versus miracles (needle, sylvan) and even versus sneak I think shutting off all of their sneaks is better than another hard counter for show so I also prefer needle. But Envelop rocks vs. elves and other combo decks in general so it is a solid choice.

I don't like dismember. Life is a big issue in general and with decay/liliana and our own 6 large monsters we don't need to worry about goyfs.

Golgari charm is a good card but despite elves and DnT I don't see other matchups where I could fit the 3rd one.

[Esper3k]

Cool. And I think to an extent (Saph being able to remove BSkull) VClique can perform a similar role (remove BSkull from hand in response to stoneforge), and is a lot less narrow Thanks!

Yeah, I figured Sapphire Charm was for trying to get Germs. The problem I have with that is that it's pretty narrow (which you admit) and even then that plan only works if you catch them when they don't have mana to bounce the Batterskull in response.

I prefer Krosan Grip myself in dealing with Batterskulls. You get to let them spend mana to plop it down, maybe equip a Jitte to it, before you blow it up and they wasted all their time & mana. Grip also comes in vs Miracles and is a nice catchall for any weird enchantment / artifacts that Abrupt Decay can't get.

[Manipulato]

My thoughts:
3 Pierce are fine - Pierce is there for problematic cards like jace and sneak attack which make a split with flusterstorm a bad choice.
2 Clique are also set in stone for me since they are prime vs. combo and control (especially miracles and stoneblad), where a swap for tombstalker who is not needed in those matchups is pretty standard

On creeping tar pit: there are much more potent threats like SYLVAN LIBRARY (which is completely missing imo)!

Your 60 are equal to mine.

My SB is different:
3 disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
2 Pithing Needle
2 Sylvan Library
3 Spell Pierce
1 Grafdiggers Cage
2 Vendilion Clqiue

First I think Miracles is the best deck in the format and 2 Library and 2 needles next to the other disruption of pierce,charm and clique are necessary. If you ask what to board out additionally: -4 Wasteland is the answer (tested and 100% correct - you draw a lot more gas and wasteland does not do anything most of the time - not even cast any of your spells!) :tongue:

Not having Sylvan Library in the SB seems like a big mistake since resolving it in any control matchup increases your win% by a lot!

On Null Rod vs. Pithing needle.
Null Rod is better vs. UWR (you only need to kill 1 batterskull token and not lose to delver for an easy win - again if sylvan library is in the mix, because they also have tons of removal and RIP for our threads, but nothing against Sylvan Libary). However that matchup is not problematic without Null Rod.

Null Rod is better vs. random artifact decks (also not a bad nor common matchup) but needle hits other uncommon random stuff (dark dephts combo,...) so that evens out

Null Rod is much worse versus miracles because it cant hit Jace. Needle hits both win conditions (jace and SD.top).

Not sure on Stoneblade since null rod hits all equipments but stoneblade also plays Jace - Null Rod probably a bit better.

Needle hits Sneak attack, which is a bad matchup.

Needle hits the 3rd elves win condition (wirewood symbiote) or quirion (which also can do a lot of shit) - if the boarding plan allows for needle to be played - not that set on this tech by the way.

Not sure on DnT. Null Rod hits more at once, but might cost 3 under THalia while Needle can also hit their disruption lands or mother if desperate. Not enough testing to have a clear verdict here, but most important is that the matchup is not problematic for me with my current boarding plan.

Null Rod hits LED, but I play Golgari charm instead which are also good vs. their possible xantid swarms or empty the warrens.

The way I see it:
Problematic matchups are Miracles and Sneak where Needle is miles better and there is no real compelling reason for Null Rod.


Envelop is a very good card - I think there are much better high impact cards versus miracles (needle, sylvan) and even versus sneak I think shutting off all of their sneaks is better than another hard counter for show so I also prefer needle. But Envelop rocks vs. elves and other combo decks in general so it is a solid choice.

I don't like dismember. Life is a big issue in general and with decay/liliana and our own 6 large monsters we don't need to worry about goyfs.

Golgari charm is a good card but despite elves and DnT I don't see other matchups where I could fit the 3rd one.

Hi,
you forget that Null Rod not only handles Top against Miracles, it also handles Explosives (a answer for our answer & mass removal against us).

Against Storm & DnT I see Null Rod way over Needle because it shuts off more cards at once (LED + Petal/Chrome Mox or Vial + equipment).
The argue that needle helps against Sneak Show & Griselbrand/Jace is the reason I'm playing a 1:1 split atm.

[Esper3k]

Cool. And I think to an extent (Saph being able to remove BSkull) VClique can perform a similar role (remove BSkull from hand in response to stoneforge), and is a lot less narrow Thanks!


Hi,
you forget that Null Rod not only handles Top against Miracles, it also handles Explosives (a answer for our answer & mass removal against us).

Against Storm & DnT I see Null Rod way over Needle because it shuts off more cards at once (LED + Petal/Chrome Mox or Vial + equipment).
The argue that needle helps against Sneak Show & Griselbrand/Jace is the reason I'm playing a 1:1 split atm.

I like both Null Rod and Pithing Needle vs D&T. Don't forget that Pithing Needle can also hit Moms as well as Port/Wasteland/Karakas (keeps them from bouncing Brimaz!)

[Dragonslayer_90]

So...curious, is anyone from here planning on going to Eternal Extravaganza? Whether or not you play team there doesn't matter. Just love meeting source friends irl :smile:

[Esper3k]

So...curious, is anyone from here planning on going to Eternal Extravaganza? Whether or not you play team there doesn't matter. Just love meeting source friends irl :smile:

Nope, but the payout seems pretty bonkers.

[pattymac2306]

Hey All,

I had a question about SB for reanimator? Do you just side the basic combo hate? Aso when is it right and wrong to side out Daze? and what for? I recently started getting into competative legacy started with burn then Esper3k turned me on to BUG delver. Love it. Still terrible with it though. Hoping to gain further insight on SB stratagy. Thnx

[KobeBryan]

Hey All,

I had a question about SB for reanimator? Do you just side the basic combo hate? Aso when is it right and wrong to side out Daze? and what for? I recently started getting into competative legacy started with burn then Esper3k turned me on to BUG delver. Love it. Still terrible with it though. Hoping to gain further insight on SB stratagy. Thnx

You do not take out daze against reanimator. They are very land light...17 lands with 2-3 petals.

You board in all your counter magic which should be 2 spell pierce and a envelop, 1 cage, 1 surgical. You board in pithing needle as a 1 of and vendilion clique as a one of...so 7 cards.

You take out your 1 disfigure, a tombstalker, 1 goyf, if you want your abrupt decays (you may try to next level them because I expect a pithing needle against your DRS), 1 tropical island (Since they don't wasteland you), some take out hymns because of the randomness. I know esper keeps his hymns in.

essentially, you have 4 cards to choose from...either decays or hymns. Personally, I'd take out decays as its a much worse card than Hymns. At least Hymns i may have a shot at killing that guy's land and a reanimate spell. I'll roll the dice and just force a needle on my DRS

[eostby]

I have a BUG Delver list I'm working on acquiring right now, but I thought it would be better if I asked people who know a lot more about the deck than I do right now to look it over and make sure I'm not building it badly before I drop a ton of money on it. I've goldfished the deck online a few times, but I don't have access to a better method of testing it currently.

The list right now:

Land
2x Bayou
3x Misty Rainforest
3x Polluted Delta
1x Tropical Island
4x Underground Sea
3x Verdant Catacombs
4x Wasteland

Sorcery
2x Hymn to Tourach
4x Ponder
3x Thoughtseize

Instant (16)
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Brainstorm
4x Daze
4x Force of Will

Creature (14)
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Tarmogoyf
2x True-Name Nemesis

Planeswalker (1)
1x Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard (15)
2x Disfigure
1x Dismember
2x Golgari Charm
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Krosan Grip
1x Liliana of the Veil
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Pithing Needle
2x Spell Pierce
1x Stifle
1x Vendilion Clique

Cards from this list I already own: 1 Hymn, 4 Ponder, 3 Thoughtseize, 1 Abrupt Decay, 4 Brainstorm, 1 Daze, 4 DRS, 4 Delver, 1 TNN, 1 LotV, 2 Disfigure, 1 Dismember, 2 GCharm, 1 Spellbomb, 1 Needle, 1 Pierce


Hope you all can help, and if I posted this in the wrong place, I'm sorry, I'm new.

[Barbed Blightning]

The miser's Stifle in the board seems weird but it looks fine to me. There may be a few tweaks I'd do (dropping Thoughtseize for Hymns first) but on the whole I think you'll be fine with the deck.

[KobeBryan]

i'd trade that stifle for a library 10 times a day

[eostby]

I decided to go with both of your suggestions. Bring the 3rd Hymn main and add a 4th, add a Library main, drop one Thoughtseize to the board and the other two out entirely.

[Esper3k]

The miser's Stifle in the board seems weird but it looks fine to me. There may be a few tweaks I'd do (dropping Thoughtseize for Hymns first) but on the whole I think you'll be fine with the deck.

Agreed. The singleton Stifle in the board seems weird to me, but the rest seems fine.

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

[QUOTE=eostby;824101]I have a BUG Delver list I'm working on acquiring right now, but I thought it would be better if I asked people who know a lot more about the deck than I do right now to look it over and make sure I'm not building it badly before I drop a ton of money on it. I've goldfished the deck online a few times, but I don't have access to a better method of testing it.

Cards from this list I already own: 1 Hymn, 4 Ponder, 3 Thoughtseize, 1 Abrupt Decay, 4 Brainstorm, 1 Daze, 4 DRS, 4 Delver, 1 TNN, 1 LotV, 2 Disfigure, 1 Dismember, 2 GCharm, 1 Spellbomb, 1 Needle, 1 Pierce

Wow, that is an investment for just the land, hope you really want to play this deck for the money needed spent, but duels, fetches, wastelands is money well spent for the future.



Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk 2

[wcm8]

[QUOTE=eostby;824101]I have a BUG Delver list I'm working on acquiring right now, but I thought it would be better if I asked people who know a lot more about the deck than I do right now to look it over and make sure I'm not building it badly before I drop a ton of money on it. I've goldfished the deck online a few times, but I don't have access to a better method of testing it.

Cards from this list I already own: 1 Hymn, 4 Ponder, 3 Thoughtseize, 1 Abrupt Decay, 4 Brainstorm, 1 Daze, 4 DRS, 4 Delver, 1 TNN, 1 LotV, 2 Disfigure, 1 Dismember, 2 GCharm, 1 Spellbomb, 1 Needle, 1 Pierce

Wow, that is an investment for just the land, hope you really want to play this deck for the money needed spent, but duels, fetches, wastelands is money well spent for the future.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk 2

Buy 3 Hymns and 3 Daze for the main deck right now. Also, 3 Abrupt Decay are worth it to pick up, as they are only going to go up in the future.

You can build a decent BUG sideboard without spending too much, as most of those cards are on the cheaper side.

Duals will never be reprinted and are a pretty safe investment. This is a deck that really only functions with the proper mana base, simply put you can't really skimp by playing basics here. Shocklands will cost you games in Legacy, so I also wouldn't both picking up any of these as temporary replacements.

It's worth it to pick up another Liliana or two since she's also played heavily in Modern and will retain value. Sylvan Library is another card you should invest in picking up a copy or two of.

Fetches are likely to be reprinted. With this deck, you can get by with the cheaper ones (Verdant Catacombs and Misty Rainforest) and a single Polluted Delta. However, if you are the patient type it is likely we will be seeing a Fetch Land reprint in the next year or two.

Force of Will and Wasteland... not sure we will ever get a massive reprint, but it's technically possible. They are essential for playing a tempo deck in Legacy.

Tarmogoyf is the best beater for this deck. Barring something else being printed soon, this guy will always be the go-to 2-drop for this deck. However, I would also expect another reprint in the next Modern Masters set, so it's possible his price might come down to more reasonable levels.

[eostby]

With luck, I'll eventually finish the build I laid out (with the stated changes), but right now, I just want some confirmation that I'm not building a strictly inferior build of the deck. Once I get the money, I'll get the rest of the deck.

My thought on the miser's Stifle is that there are a few matchups where it might be valuable, mostly against Sneak and Show style decks, but also the occasional fetch Stifle as well. It's also another blue card for FoW at worst. If I'm completely overvaluing how important it is, feel free to correct me on that.

[Barbed Blightning]

With luck, I'll eventually finish the build I laid out (with the stated changes), but right now, I just want some confirmation that I'm not building a strictly inferior build of the deck. Once I get the money, I'll get the rest of the deck.

My thought on the miser's Stifle is that there are a few matchups where it might be valuable, mostly against Sneak and Show style decks, but also the occasional fetch Stifle as well. It's also another blue card for FoW at worst. If I'm completely overvaluing how important it is, feel free to correct me on that.
You are (no offense).

Library has more impact and we already trounce most combo decks, SS included.

[ESG]

I have a BUG Delver list I'm working on acquiring right now, but I thought it would be better if I asked people who know a lot more about the deck than I do right now to look it over and make sure I'm not building it badly before I drop a ton of money on it. I've goldfished the deck online a few times, but I don't have access to a better method of testing it currently.

Goldfishing is pretty much worthless unless you are playing a Turn 1 combo deck. I recommend making a printout of the cards to slip over junk commons. It's a small investment of time that allows you to actually test the deck. Jam your proxy deck with your friends or anyone at your local store, and you'll quickly figure out the deck's strengths and weaknesses as well as what you like and don't like about the build. Unless you are filthy rich, it's prudent to do this, since it would be a bummer to sink a bunch of money into the deck and then find out you either don't like it or it isn't well-positioned in your area.

[exallium]

My thoughts:
3 Pierce are fine - Pierce is there for problematic cards like jace and sneak attack which make a split with flusterstorm a bad choice.
2 Clique are also set in stone for me since they are prime vs. combo and control (especially miracles and stoneblad), where a swap for tombstalker who is not needed in those matchups is pretty standard

On creeping tar pit: there are much more potent threats like SYLVAN LIBRARY (which is completely missing imo)!

Your 60 are equal to mine.

My SB is different:
3 disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
2 Pithing Needle
2 Sylvan Library
3 Spell Pierce
1 Grafdiggers Cage
2 Vendilion Clqiue

First I think Miracles is the best deck in the format and 2 Library and 2 needles next to the other disruption of pierce,charm and clique are necessary. If you ask what to board out additionally: -4 Wasteland is the answer (tested and 100% correct - you draw a lot more gas and wasteland does not do anything most of the time - not even cast any of your spells!) :tongue:

Not having Sylvan Library in the SB seems like a big mistake since resolving it in any control matchup increases your win% by a lot!

On Null Rod vs. Pithing needle.
Null Rod is better vs. UWR (you only need to kill 1 batterskull token and not lose to delver for an easy win - again if sylvan library is in the mix, because they also have tons of removal and RIP for our threads, but nothing against Sylvan Libary). However that matchup is not problematic without Null Rod.

Null Rod is better vs. random artifact decks (also not a bad nor common matchup) but needle hits other uncommon random stuff (dark dephts combo,...) so that evens out

Null Rod is much worse versus miracles because it cant hit Jace. Needle hits both win conditions (jace and SD.top).

Not sure on Stoneblade since null rod hits all equipments but stoneblade also plays Jace - Null Rod probably a bit better.

Needle hits Sneak attack, which is a bad matchup.

Needle hits the 3rd elves win condition (wirewood symbiote) or quirion (which also can do a lot of shit) - if the boarding plan allows for needle to be played - not that set on this tech by the way.

Not sure on DnT. Null Rod hits more at once, but might cost 3 under THalia while Needle can also hit their disruption lands or mother if desperate. Not enough testing to have a clear verdict here, but most important is that the matchup is not problematic for me with my current boarding plan.

Null Rod hits LED, but I play Golgari charm instead which are also good vs. their possible xantid swarms or empty the warrens.

The way I see it:
Problematic matchups are Miracles and Sneak where Needle is miles better and there is no real compelling reason for Null Rod.


Envelop is a very good card - I think there are much better high impact cards versus miracles (needle, sylvan) and even versus sneak I think shutting off all of their sneaks is better than another hard counter for show so I also prefer needle. But Envelop rocks vs. elves and other combo decks in general so it is a solid choice.

I don't like dismember. Life is a big issue in general and with decay/liliana and our own 6 large monsters we don't need to worry about goyfs.

Golgari charm is a good card but despite elves and DnT I don't see other matchups where I could fit the 3rd one.

Thanks very much for the thorough response =) I'll sleeve up the deck and try some of this for next week's legacy night, as I won't have time to change decks tonight. Appreciate it! (You too, Esper)

[Dragonslayer_90]

Hey guys. So after a brief excursion with Storm at my locals I'm back on Team America. I feel like I've finally gotten out of my slump that I've been in for a while now. So much so that I 4-0-1'ed (ID last round) at my local legacy tournament last week. Here's the list I ran:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Disfigure
1 Sylvan Library
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Spell Pierce
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta

SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Envelop
SB: 1 Liliana of the Veil
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 3 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Disfigure
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique

My sideboard is a little biased towards beating elves postboard, hence the second cage and toxic deluge. There's always potentially three elves players in my meta, and all three of them were there this time around. Thankfully I dodged them all till the last round, in which he was kind enough to split, though we did some test games. I'm not going to give a report since this was just a local, but I do want some input on something.

Round 2 I faced Rw Painter. I was able to navigate Game One pretty well since I identified early on what he was on and played accordingly. Game 2 I die turn 2 Blood Moon with red blast back up. Game 3 I get there with a Goyf while keeping him off any potential lock pieces and combo pieces.

In the past I've never had much problem beating Rx Painter Moon decks. I feel like BUG Delver has a bit game against them unlike other Delver decks because of Abrupt Decay mostly. However, I am still unsure about how to sideboard against them. Game 2 I sided the following way: -3 Daze, -2 Tarmogoyf, +1 Decay, +1 Vendilion Clique, +1 Spell Pierce, +1 Null Rod, +1 Pithing Needle. Game 2 I sided out Liliana for Toxic Deluge as a way of clearing the board if I got too behind in that area since many of their permanents are creatures. This matchup seems harder to sideboard for than other decks since they attack from many different angles being both a prison deck and combo deck in one. Would appreciate input on this matchup. Also would like any input on my list in general if anyone has any opinions on it since I'll probably be running Team at Eternal Extravaganza. I'm thinking I'll probably add a little in the sideboard for miracles. As it stands now it's just metagamed for my local meta which has no miracles atm.

[Manipulato]

Hey Sourcers,
I'm searching for this super sweet playmat which were sold on magiccardmarket.eu.
http://i57.tinypic.com/2wp17y1.jpg

Unfortunately this playmat was sold out and I don't know the seller :-( Can anybody tell me who that seller on mcm was?
I know its off topic but maybe a TA player knows that article?

Greetings

[KobeBryan]

Kyle Peters has some horrendous boarding plan

tombstalker, daze game 2?

[Dragonslayer_90]

@Manipulato: I have no idea since I'm American but thanks for sharing. That playmat is GORGEOUS. Would love to own it...

@Kobebryan: What are you talking about? Some player on scg stream?

[KobeBryan]

@Manipulato: I have no idea since I'm American but thanks for sharing. That playmat is GORGEOUS. Would love to own it...

@Kobebryan: What are you talking about? Some player on scg stream?


yup. playing against miracles.

[shadowhunter007]

My sideboard is a little biased towards beating elves postboard, hence the second cage and toxic deluge. There's always potentially three elves players in my meta, and all three of them were there this time around. Thankfully I dodged them all till the last round, in which he was kind enough to split, though we did some test games. I'm not going to give a report since this was just a local, but I do want some input on something.

Round 2 I faced Rw Painter. I was able to navigate Game One pretty well since I identified early on what he was on and played accordingly. Game 2 I die turn 2 Blood Moon with red blast back up. Game 3 I get there with a Goyf while keeping him off any potential lock pieces and combo pieces.

In the past I've never had much problem beating Rx Painter Moon decks. I feel like BUG Delver has a bit game against them unlike other Delver decks because of Abrupt Decay mostly. However, I am still unsure about how to sideboard against them. Game 2 I sided the following way: -3 Daze, -2 Tarmogoyf, +1 Decay, +1 Vendilion Clique, +1 Spell Pierce, +1 Null Rod, +1 Pithing Needle. Game 2 I sided out Liliana for Toxic Deluge as a way of clearing the board if I got too behind in that area since many of their permanents are creatures. This matchup seems harder to sideboard for than other decks since they attack from many different angles being both a prison deck and combo deck in one. Would appreciate input on this matchup. Also would like any input on my list in general if anyone has any opinions on it since I'll probably be running Team at Eternal Extravaganza. I'm thinking I'll probably add a little in the sideboard for miracles. As it stands now it's just metagamed for my local meta which has no miracles atm.

I would be siding out -2 disfigures as well since they can't really kill the painter's servants and the only real problem permanent they deal with are revokers. I would add +2 golgari charms in their place - which can deal with revokers with it's -1/-1, can get rid of blood moons and regenerate your dude if they try to pyroblast/reb your permanent to get those last points of damage through. Our Abrupt Decays seem like they're overloaded in this matchup with all the Servants and Blood Moon-like permanents that a couple more enchantment removal that can serve other purposes seems pretty good. I generally don't think that its a terrible matchup but can be blown out by those early blood moons, I estimate it at 50/50 at least in my experience.

[Dragonslayer_90]

I think I've got my maindeck for Team America pretty much set for Eternal Extravaganza this weekend. However, I'm still tinkering with my sideboard and would like some input on it. Here it is:

SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Liliana of the Veil
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Disfigure
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 1 Sylvan Library

What I'm not sure about is the Toxic Deluge slot. The reason for it's inclusion is to have a card that blows out D&T that isn't so narrow. The issue with it is 1) It cost 3 and the life loss can be relevant sometimes. 2) Is the fact that it kills our creatures too much? Other cards I have considered are Dread of Night, Massacre, or even just go back to the third Golgari Charm.

[Esper3k]

If you're looking to hit specifically D&T, I think Dread of Night is the best one. It hoses them perpetually and doesn't do anything to us.

[o_boogie]

I think Toxic Deluge is fine. Besides being exceptional against D&T, it is also excellent against two other problem match ups: Merfolk and Elves.

[ryscott85]

So I was trying to figure out a good sideboard card for some of our not so great aggro matches. Merfolk sucks, we all know that. Death and taxes and elves can be alright if we draw into the right hate. Unlike miracles and death blade, we do not have a catch all sweeper, (yes golgari charms are awesome, but not for every circumstance). Has anyone tried engineered explosives as a catch all? It seems that it would cover most of merfolk and a large portion of d&t. I know you may sometimes catch a guy or two of your own in the crossfire, however; it'll often be a two for one if not three for one if timed correctly. I have not tried this yet, as it may very well just be too slow, however; I was wondering what you guys thought of it as an option?

[suffah]

How do you guys play the burn matchup? Seems rough post and preboard.

[YamiKuriboh]

How do you guys play the burn matchup? Seems rough post and preboard.

Burn is favourable imo. Get a goyf out asap as a 3/4, strip their hand with hymn, never play more than two lands unless you have a daze in hand or one of the lands is an untapped wasteland so you can destroy a land in response to price of progress. Price of progress is their big card so try not to take more than 4 from it. Counter repeatable sources of damage, recognise that delver and shaman are going to die pretty quickly.

[shadowhunter007]

Burn is favourable imo. Get a goyf out asap as a 3/4, strip their hand with hymn, never play more than two lands unless you have a daze in hand or one of the lands is an untapped wasteland so you can destroy a land in response to price of progress. Price of progress is their big card so try not to take more than 4 from it. Counter repeatable sources of damage, recognise that delver and shaman are going to die pretty quickly.

Burn seems like it's a toss-up and really depends on how aggressive your hand is. If you don't end up having an aggressive start, they will usually out-pace you with their normal clock. Since we don't really have much ways of lifegain aside from Deathrite (and i don't expect him to live very long, if at all long enough to gain life), it's an all-out race to the finish line against burn.

I second most of what Yami has already stated as it's pretty universal advice against burn for both pre-board and post-board games. Hymn is the card you want early here to lower the density of spells they can cast. Goyf is your friend, both to stop guides and be above bolt-range, he'll be your usual win-con and also will want to get him out early so long as he's a 3/4 (or if you have multiple) to have a reliable clock.

As far as boarding goes, I generally don't change much, I take out the sources of damage to myself in my deck, namely one bob and my two thoughtseizes out for some spell pierce/flusterstorm. I'd consider putting in cliques for more threats to try to win the race and potentially steal their price of progress if they've tapped out if you're looking for cards to put in. I leave the decays in for guides and eidelons. If you have disfigures in the board, you could argue that those should replace the decays. I don't run any in my board at the moment so can't bring them in. I also mulligan if my hand doesn't come out of the gates playing threats. hands like 2 abrupt decay, wasteland, 2 fetch, ponder, daze just might not cut it.

[shadowhunter007]

So I was trying to figure out a good sideboard card for some of our not so great aggro matches. Merfolk sucks, we all know that. Death and taxes and elves can be alright if we draw into the right hate. Unlike miracles and death blade, we do not have a catch all sweeper, (yes golgari charms are awesome, but not for every circumstance). Has anyone tried engineered explosives as a catch all? It seems that it would cover most of merfolk and a large portion of d&t. I know you may sometimes catch a guy or two of your own in the crossfire, however; it'll often be a two for one if not three for one if timed correctly. I have not tried this yet, as it may very well just be too slow, however; I was wondering what you guys thought of it as an option?

ryscott85 - I generally use toxic deluge as my catch-all sweeper rather than EE since EE only gets things with the same casting cost - Casting Deluge can be slightly problematic at 3CC against death and taxes sometimes, but EE requires 2 mana to cast and 2 to activate so not sure that's markedly better either so generally perfer deluge. Others may have a different opinion. Pernicious deed is also another option some may consider that are on-color, which is something that Nic Fit and some Shardless BUG lists play however BUG Delver plays far fewer lands and casting that and having the mana to activate for the right amount of CC seems difficult at times since it's even more mana intensive than Toxic Deluge, particularly against D&T.

[YamiKuriboh]

Just played nic-fit followed by pikula and got trounced by both. Explorer, thragtusk, lingering souls just seems awful. Are these matches unwinnable? Any strategy or sb advice?

[shadowhunter007]

Just played nic-fit followed by pikula and got trounced by both. Explorer, thragtusk, lingering souls just seems awful. Are these matches unwinnable? Any strategy or sb advice?

nic-fit's good matchups are generally the mid-range delver decks and other fair decks so this is not a particularly good matchup for us and is usually one I hope to avoid in my build. My build runs dark confidants instead of tombstalkers but if yours runs stalkers, you're already in a better place against nic fit as that is a permanent they can have some amount of difficulty dealing with.

As far as board, sweepers that can deal with large creatures such as deluge or maelstrom pulse are good answers but for me, its something I don't generally try to devote a huge amount of sideboard to since its a matchup that I don't expect to encounter too often. Perhaps the meta is changing though and we'll have to adjust.

[wcm8]

I've been playing 2 Toxic Deluge in the main to deal with the various creature strategies in Legacy, mainly Elves, Esper Blade and DnT which see a fair amount of play in my local meta. If you time it right, you don't have to kill any of your own creatures either. It works very well since most players feel pretty confident about over-extending in game 1 against TA since there's generally no threat of mass removal. This is a step towards playing like BUG Cascade, just without having to run a bunch of clunky late-game cards or auto-lose to combo.

[Dragonslayer_90]

I've been playing 2 Toxic Deluge in the main to deal with the various creature strategies in Legacy, mainly Elves, Esper Blade and DnT which see a fair amount of play in my local meta. If you time it right, you don't have to kill any of your own creatures either. It works very well since most players feel pretty confident about over-extending in game 1 against TA since there's generally no threat of mass removal. This is a step towards playing like BUG Cascade, just without having to run a bunch of clunky late-game cards or auto-lose to combo.

Do you play the two deluges in place of flex slot cards like Liliana?

Also, I won the Legacy SCG IQ today that they held during the Columbus, OH PTQ with BUG Delver. Probably post some sort of mini-report tomorrow when not so tired.

[AggroControl]

What I'm not sure about is the Toxic Deluge slot. The reason for it's inclusion is to have a card that blows out D&T that isn't so narrow. The issue with it is 1) It cost 3 and the life loss can be relevant sometimes. 2) Is the fact that it kills our creatures too much? Other cards I have considered are Dread of Night, Massacre, or even just go back to the third Golgari Charm.

Massacre is somewhat narrow but you can cast it under a Thalia + Rishadan Port scenario for 1 mana and blowing out D&T's initial creature drops early is a key in the matchup. The only thing more important than that is killing/countering Vial fast. If you can do both then D&T is just a slow white weenie deck.

With a Deathrite Shaman out you can hard cast Massacre turn 3 against Elves. If you got rid of their initial mana elf drop that might be just in time. Massacre is slow against them but so is everything else but Golgari Charm, assuming they don't drop a lord on turn 2 which they can easily do.

Against Esper Stoneblade and UWR Delver Massacre hits every creature they have until equipment hits the board. You likely get to cast Massacre for 1 against them also, leaving mana up for counter play or alternately allowing you to Hymn them before casting.

[Dice_Box]

I have a very DnT heavy meta and I have gone with 2 Dread and 2 Toxic. Dread is just not fair and Toxic is a good answer to other randoms that arise. Like eating regeneration creatures. Personally, while I like having Charm at instant speed, sometimes that extra impact is really worth the investment.

[phazonmutant]

I played a Virtue's Ruin in board for the Saturday legacy #1 event at GP Portland. I didn't play against D&T (although there was a ton of it), but did board it in against Esperblade with Lingering Souls. He Misdirected my Hymn and hit it though :frown: It's ok, won that game.

[Dragonslayer_90]

Hey guys. So Here's a mini-report of what I played against in the IQ last weekend:

My list for reference:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Disfigure
1 Sylvan Library
1 Liliana of the Veil
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta

SB: 3 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Liliana of the Veil
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Disfigure
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Here's how the rounds went:

Round 1: ANT - 0-2 Loss

Round 2: Burn - 2-0 Win

Round 3 ANT - 2-1 Win

Round 4 Esper Delver - 2-1 Win

Round 5 Manaless Dredge - ID for Top 8 Spot

Top 8 Round 1: Oops All Spells - 2-0 Win

Top 8 Round 2: Tin Fins - 2-1 Win

Top 8 Round 3: ANT - Split the winnings to where I got the Invite, first place, and half the packs while he got the cash between first and second. He was okay with that since he's already queued up for SCG Invitationals.

Weird field eh? Was mostly combo and burn. Also I was the only guy with Force of Will in the Top 8 lol.

One question: Against my round one ANT opponent I kept the following hand on the play in game 2: 1 Delver, 1 Deathrite, 1 brainstorm, 4 lands (2-3 of which were fetches). Would you keep this against ANT? My thought process was ANT is a Turn 3-4 combo deck on average so I didn't feel the need to mulligan looking for more disruption. The argument against it is that if they play a turn one discard spell I can get pretty boned, but I'm not sure if I can play around that either. I got punished because he actually had the nut. On his first turn he probed me, saw I had nothing, and went off turn one. I don't think you can play around ANT going off turn one. What I'm really wondering is if you guys think this hand is keep-able based on ANT's average draws?

[btm10]

If you knew that he was on ANT, I'd throw it back, especially on the draw. It doesn't just not do much, it pretty muh makes you play land, DRS so you can do Brainstorm + Delver or discard turn 2, meaning your Delver might not flip on turn 3...etc. It's a pretty risky hand.

[trollking21]

I was curious what results people have had with the dark confidant version of this deck. I saw the version that placed 4th at SCG and was curious what people thought of it.
This is the list for reference. Stifle is also in interesting inclusion, at the cost of space for Lilliana
Creatures (17)

3 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
2 True-Name Nemesis
Lands (18)

4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
Spells (25)

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
3 Stifle
4 Ponder
Sideboard

2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Arcane Laboratory
2 Disfigure
3 Divert
1 Force of Will
1 Spell Pierce
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Marsh Casualties

[Stratus_FK]

@Dragonslayer_90: Maybe I just have exceedingly poor luck against ANT, but in my experience they have the resources and go for the Turn 1 KO often enough that I typically won't keep a hand on the draw without FoW + blue card.

@trollking21: I only run a singleton Dark Confidant for now and don't like running multiples unless I'm main boarding Sylvan Library as well. To be fair, I'm still fairly new to piloting this archetype, so I would consider some of the other users' opinions with more weight than my own. I'm also very found of Stifle and like the extra edge it grants me against Storm and Miracles.

[mox toaster]

One question: Against my round one ANT opponent I kept the following hand on the play in game 2: 1 Delver, 1 Deathrite, 1 brainstorm, 4 lands (2-3 of which were fetches). Would you keep this against ANT? My thought process was ANT is a Turn 3-4 combo deck on average so I didn't feel the need to mulligan looking for more disruption. The argument against it is that if they play a turn one discard spell I can get pretty boned, but I'm not sure if I can play around that either. I got punished because he actually had the nut. On his first turn he probed me, saw I had nothing, and went off turn one. I don't think you can play around ANT going off turn one. What I'm really wondering is if you guys think this hand is keep-able based on ANT's average draws?

I'm new to TA, so take this with a grain of salt, but I picked up the deck because I was tired of losing to it when I played ANT. That opener looks strong. ANT's T1's are so, so rare, and even more so with a Probe to check for safety. The only risky part is what you pointed out; they can get your Brainstorm and you won't be able to turn it into a Hymn, a Liliana, or some other strong disruptive play. Most of the time T1 DRS is perfectly serviceable because their graveyard will be completely under your control. IMO having a disruptive permanent against ANT, much less one that they can't discard because you resolve it T1, is way more valuable than having one or two pieces of permission.

[ESG]

I was curious what results people have had with the dark confidant version of this deck. I saw the version that placed 4th at SCG and was curious what people thought of it.
This is the list for reference. Stifle is also in interesting inclusion, at the cost of space for Lilliana
Creatures (17)

3 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
2 True-Name Nemesis
Lands (18)

4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
Spells (25)

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
3 Stifle
4 Ponder
Sideboard

2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Arcane Laboratory
2 Disfigure
3 Divert
1 Force of Will
1 Spell Pierce
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Marsh Casualties

That list is pretty similar to Jerry Mee's build (see Post 461), although Jerry didn't run any Tarmogoyfs. The main issue I have with the above list is that Delver is weakened a lot when you have 17 creatures. The BURG thread went on and on, rightly, about the need to keep the spell count high in order to maximize Delver's power. The more you weaken Delver, the more I think you would be better off moving into Deathblade or something like that. Stifle and countermagic are better against Miracles than discard, so a build like this is logical if that's the deck you're looking to improve your percentages against.

[Sturtzilla]

Greetings All!

I would like to give a shout out to Sith (aka Dragonslayer_90) for his run at the SCG IQ at the Columbus PTQ this past weekend. Nice work qualifying for the Invi. I encouraged him to play BUG Delver over Shardless. I think the percentages you gain against midrange and control with Shardless are both a smaller percentage of the field and of a lesser magnitude than the gains you get playing BUG Delver versus most of the combo and faster decks. Anyway after a bit of a break from playing competitive Magic... I had some weird summer work scheduling, vacation, and some travelling for judging, I played in this week's Legacy event at my LGS. I played a slightly modified version of Rich Shay's BUG Delver list which is a bit more midrangey than the typical BUG list. Here is what I ran for reference.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Daze
1 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Dimir Charm
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Mizzium Skin
2 Disfigure
1 Null Rod
1 Gilded Drake
2 Golgari Charm
1 Engineered Plague
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Submerge

We only had 8 players this week. I played Feline running High Tide in round one, lost (1-2). I faced Dan piloting G/U 12 Post in round two, winning (2-0). Round three my opponent was Paul playing Goblins, winning (2-1). I ended third overall. Overall takeaways... the maindeck seemed very powerful although possibly a touch week to fast aggro one-drops (due to no maindeck Disfigure). In hindsight I slanted my sideboard for the Show and Tell combo decks but ended up being a bit soft to combo decks such as High Tide and Storm. I will hone the board a bit over the next few weeks for my LGS meta. I think that probably means cutting the SB Mizzium Skin and the Gilded Drake as they are fairly narrow in favor of either a pair or 1/1 split of Spell Pierce and/or Flusterstorm. Thanks for reading! Hit me up with any questions or comments!

[phazonmutant]

Greetings All!

I would like to give a shout out to Sith (aka Dragonslayer_90) for his run at the SCG IQ at the Columbus PTQ this past weekend. Nice work qualifying for the Invi. I encouraged him to play BUG Delver over Shardless. I think the percentages you gain against midrange and control with Shardless are both a smaller percentage of the field and of a lesser magnitude than the gains you get playing BUG Delver versus most of the combo and faster decks. Anyway after a bit of a break from playing competitive Magic... I had some weird summer work scheduling, vacation, and some travelling for judging, I played in this week's Legacy event at my LGS. I played a slightly modified version of Rich Shay's BUG Delver list which is a bit more midrangey than the typical BUG list. Here is what I ran for reference.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Daze
1 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Dimir Charm
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Mizzium Skin
2 Disfigure
1 Null Rod
1 Gilded Drake
2 Golgari Charm
1 Engineered Plague
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Submerge

We only had 8 players this week. I played Feline running High Tide in round one, lost (1-2). I faced Dan piloting G/U 12 Post in round two, winning (2-0). Round three my opponent was Paul playing Goblins, winning (2-1). I ended third overall. Overall takeaways... the maindeck seemed very powerful although possibly a touch week to fast aggro one-drops (due to no maindeck Disfigure). In hindsight I slanted my sideboard for the Show and Tell combo decks but ended up being a bit soft to combo decks such as High Tide and Storm. I will hone the board a bit over the next few weeks for my LGS meta. I think that probably means cutting the SB Mizzium Skin and the Gilded Drake as they are fairly narrow in favor of either a pair or 1/1 split of Spell Pierce and/or Flusterstorm. Thanks for reading! Hit me up with any questions or comments!

Rich Shay is a smart dude, no doubt. I have a lot of respect for his deckbuilding skill in Vintage. However, Jace is not good in this deck, get that garbage out of here. You don't want to cast him when you're ahead, and he's not as good as Lili at coming back from behind. 3 Ponder is ridiculous, it's one of the best cards in the deck. Dimir Charm is fine, but requires a meta with more Miracles and combo than Stoneforge and Elves - Disfigure is good to necessary in those matchups. I just don't think that's where we're at in the meta. Also nice double-Trop, quad Hymn manabase. :tongue:

[AggroControl]

I've run this twice at the local shop (10 to 16 people draws) and have not had the consistency with it that I like out of a Tempo list. It's partly the meta at my shop which features one and sometimes two D&T players plus a couple of guys playing RUG and Burn but the real problem is a very good player who is playing BUG control and just tops me if the game goes longer than 5 turns. He sides in 2x Obstinate Baloth for game 2 and after I side the hymns out the list just feels underpowered against him. I leave Lili in most of the time but her primary purpose is just an expensive sorcery speed edict until I see a Baloth on the board and one in the graveyard. If I leave the hymns in and he drops a baloth on turn 2 that's basically enough to do me unless I'm holding Lili or the Diabolic Edict from the sideboard and a Force to back them up.

I'm also having real draw problems with only 20 lands in the list. I know that the cantrips should resolve that but they've been iffy and they really don't help in the no-land draws. In the 1-land draws they either smooth things out or leave me feeling like a fool for keeping a 1-lander.

The list plays a lot of tight games in the meta I described above but it is an overall loser after round 1 when I wind up matched up like clockwork against D&T, Burn, RUG or the BUG Control.

[Zombie]

One question: Against my round one ANT opponent I kept the following hand on the play in game 2: 1 Delver, 1 Deathrite, 1 brainstorm, 4 lands (2-3 of which were fetches). Would you keep this against ANT? My thought process was ANT is a Turn 3-4 combo deck on average so I didn't feel the need to mulligan looking for more disruption. The argument against it is that if they play a turn one discard spell I can get pretty boned, but I'm not sure if I can play around that either. I got punished because he actually had the nut. On his first turn he probed me, saw I had nothing, and went off turn one. I don't think you can play around ANT going off turn one. What I'm really wondering is if you guys think this hand is keep-able based on ANT's average draws?

I would never keep that if I knew my opponent is on ANT. I'd classify ANT as a Turn 3, maybe a Turn 2.5 deck or so. That already tells you you need to have pressure and disruption in your opener to have a prayer. You have the pressure down pat, but with that hand you're essentially going in blind against someone who will pretty much just kill you T3 and could rip T1/T2 nut draws - and know you're cold thanks to Gitaxian Probe.

Furthermore, consider what that Brainstorm could find you. Assuming you want to deploy a T1 threat - preferably Delver in this matchup - you're going to be playing both of your blue cards. You'd need to draw 2 blue to have a live Force. Daze just isn't enough. Banking on a T3 Hymn or Liliana sounds suspect as hell to me. They're strong, but not alone. If you start with DRS, you have Delver to pitch to FoW and 2 mana to deploy a drawn Hymn or Goyf. Problem is, that's still pretty lacking in pressure though probably better than the first line. But if the Brainstorm doesn't draw gas, you're screwed. Consider: T1 you DRS, T1 they Duress. You might just as well pick up your cards.

tl;dr: Ship it. Just ship it.


The list plays a lot of tight games in the meta I described above but it is an overall loser after round 1 when I wind up matched up like clockwork against D&T, Burn, RUG or the BUG Control.

D&T, Burn and BUG control I can believe are unfavoured, but RUG should be a favourable matchup.

[AggroControl]

D&T, Burn and BUG control I can believe are unfavoured, but RUG should be a favourable matchup.

On the play I'll beat him fairly often. On the draw I wind up with tight games that are losses much of the time. Nimble Mongoose is very hard to deal with if I don't have a Golgari Charm in hand in the first couple of turns. His bolts and forked bolts handle both delver and DRS. He plays goyf with burn so my goyfs are at a disadvantage. I think the matchup is fairly even overall and unpromising if I lose the die roll. Having just 20 land in the list with 8 fetches kind of plays into RUG's gameplan. It's not foolproof for him but finding myself playing off of 1-land on turn 3 is a not uncommon occurrence.

[Esper3k]

On the play I'll beat him fairly often. On the draw I wind up with tight games that are losses much of the time. Nimble Mongoose is very hard to deal with if I don't have a Golgari Charm in hand in the first couple of turns. His bolts and forked bolts handle both delver and DRS. He plays goyf with burn so my goyfs are at a disadvantage. I think the matchup is fairly even overall and unpromising if I lose the die roll. Having just 20 land in the list with 8 fetches kind of plays into RUG's gameplan. It's not foolproof for him but finding myself playing off of 1-land on turn 3 is a not uncommon occurrence.

This is why I don't think the RUG matchup is partiularly good. Stifle is huge in the matchup and Abrupt Decay costing 2 mana is a significant detriment here.

I'm not really a fan of a Golgari Charm vs RUG. Yes, it can kill a unthreshed Mongoose, but those aren't the ones we have to worry about. As a mid/late game draw, it's pretty bad IMO.

[AggroControl]

This is why I don't think the RUG matchup is partiularly good. Stifle is huge in the matchup and Abrupt Decay costing 2 mana is a significant detriment here.

I'm not really a fan of a Golgari Charm vs RUG. Yes, it can kill a unthreshed Mongoose, but those aren't the ones we have to worry about. As a mid/late game draw, it's pretty bad IMO.

I MD 1 Golgari Charm and I actually side in a second for the matchup, particularly on the play. RUG does not play DRS and Golgari Charm kills an unflipped delver and an unthreshed mongoose. It kills a goyf after a collision with another goyf and a bolt to mine (unless neither creature not instant were already in the GY at the time of the collision, which is almost an impossibility in this matchup). Late game it can save a DRS from a top decked bolt or forked bolt.

I guess my record against RUG, which basically has followed the die rolls argues that I could find a better card to play after SBing but I'm not sure what this is.

[KobeBryan]

I MD 1 Golgari Charm and I actually side in a second for the matchup, particularly on the play. RUG does not play DRS and Golgari Charm kills an unflipped delver and an unthreshed mongoose. It kills a goyf after a collision with another goyf and a bolt to mine (unless neither creature not instant were already in the GY at the time of the collision, which is almost an impossibility in this matchup). Late game it can save a DRS from a top decked bolt or forked bolt.

I guess my record against RUG, which basically has followed the die rolls argues that I could find a better card to play after SBing but I'm not sure what this is.

You guys should ask dragonslayer his record when we were practicing with me on RUG

[Zombie]

I do play a Liliana-heavy build so that may be why I don't feel that troubled by Mongeese.

[btm10]

The list plays a lot of tight games in the meta I described above but it is an overall loser after round 1 when I wind up matched up like clockwork against D&T, Burn, RUG or the BUG Control.

As someone who plays mostly BUG Control, I think my match against BUG Delver is somewhere between even (with the stock list) to unfavorable (with the Shay list). The fact that your threat density is higher than ours is usually what wins it - things usually end up in a topdeck war after I've answered the Delver player's early threats, and the fact that my answers need to line up with the nature of the threat is usually what turns things against the Control list. Shay's build with Jace makes stabilizing after killing 2-3 creatures even harder because now you have free Brainstorms to exploit your higher threat density in addition to your already higher quality of manipulation and draw.

[AggroControl]

As someone who plays mostly BUG Control, I think my match against BUG Delver is somewhere between even (with the stock list) to unfavorable (with the Shay list). The fact that your threat density is higher than ours is usually what wins it - things usually end up in a topdeck war after I've answered the Delver player's early threats, and the fact that my answers need to line up with the nature of the threat is usually what turns things against the Control list. Shay's build with Jace makes stabilizing after killing 2-3 creatures even harder because now you have free Brainstorms to exploit your higher threat density in addition to your already higher quality of manipulation and draw.

The BUG Control list I am seeing is a bit unusual. It is designed to top delver lists and also compete with Miracles. I'm not going to give away his main tech but basically he forces me to tune out discard and then he has a lot of 2-for-1's against me which leave me with 3 cards in hand in the midgame to his 5, which is usually enough to do me. He is not less threat dense than BUG Delver. He's just more willing to wait until later to drop assets. That gives him a top position over delver at this point.

[nditiz1]

So I played in a 75 man tournament yesterday at Squabbles aka MTGFirst.com in Glen Burnie. I placed 4th. Here is the list I ran:

4 x Delver
4 x Goyf
4 x Deathrite
2 x Tombstalker

4 x Hymn
4 x Ponder
4 x Brainstorm
4 x FOW
4 x Daze
4 x Abrupt Decay
2 x Liliana

4 x Sea
2 x Bayou
1 x Trop
4 x Verdant C
3 x Delta
2 x Misty
4 x Wasteland

SB

2 x Clique
2 x Spell Pierce
3 x Disfigure
2 x Grafdiggers
2 x Golgari Charm
1 x Sylvan Lib
1 x Krosan Grip
1 x Toxic Deluge
1 x Null Rod

It was 7 rounds of swiss with a cut to top 8:

Rd 1 - Mirror
G1 - I get out two delvers quick and miss for two turns while he lays down a goyf. The third time they would have flipped I am too hasty at the helm and draw my card. He adds bob to the party. Finally both flip. We trade blows for a little bit. I get him down to 4 before I die, the same 4 that would have come had I not missed the 4th turn flip. That's what I get for being away for 6 months.
Out - 4 FOW
In - 3 Disfigures, 1 Library
G2 - I get delver, deathrite, and goyf out quick and he doesn't recover
Out - 4 Daze
In - 4 FOW
G3 - I die to more goys and removal
(0-1)

Rd 2 - Lands
Funny enough I played a test game against this guy a week prior at another game store, we played a regular match where I won
G1 - I get an early delver and deathrite and remove all hope at loam, luckily no p.fire
Out - 4 Daze
In - 2 Pierce, 1 lib, 1 Null rod
G2 - Turns out to a lot like game 1 except he managed to get an intuition off for 3 p.fires, but by that time he was starring down a goyf and 2 deathrites. He nuked one, but was already at such low life he died to the next attack
(1-1)

Rd 3 - Miracles
G1 - I took over with delver goyf beats, he was land light and I managed to counter his terminus
Out - 2 Tomb, 4 Decay (No next level here, if he leaves in balance oh well or Im just bad lol)
In - 2 Clique, 2 Pierce, 1 Rod, 1 Lib
G2 - Delver and deathrite went the distance thwarting off STP and I forced his miracle angle maker
(2-1)

Rd 4 - 12 Post
I had never played against this nor did I know the cards in the deck
G1 - I beat him down with creatures keeping him off double post with wastelands
Out - 4 Daze, 4 Decay
In - 2 clique, 1 rod, 2 cage, 2 pierce, 1 Lib
G2 - An early Cage and rod shut down his hand and his top. Goyf and delvers went the distance
(3-1)

Rd 5 - Miracles
G1 - Can't remember this game that much, but I don't think he was getting good draws and goyf went the distance
Out - 2 Tomb, 4 Decay
In - 2 Clique, 2 Pierce, 1 Rod, 1 Lib
G2 - I believe this game went like the first game
(4-1)

Rd 6 - Shardless Bug
G1 - We traded removal back and fourth against delvers I had 3 DR's to his 1 and strix until his goyf joined the party. At the end he was 7 and I was at 8, but he didn't have enough to deal the final blow, I DR him out.
Out - 4 daze
In - 3 Disfigure, 1 Lib
G2 - I got land locked to 1 land and he capitalized
Out - 4 FOW
In 4 daze
G3 - This match went all my way with early disfigure and library. I was able to jump way ahead and he couldn't recover.

Rd 7 - ID

Top 8 Rd 1 - 12 Post
G1 - He is never really in and my early flipped delver goes the distance
Out - 4 Daze, 4 Decay
In - 2 clique, 1 rod, 2 cage, 2 pierce, 1 Lib
G2 - Another early delver and a DR close it out with a waste to take him down to 1 post

Top 8 Rd 2 - Thopter Bant
This was against Bob Huang. The games were close, but it seems like I never had enough for the last blow
G1 - I take out an early thopter, but some STP's take out my goyf and delver. I take him down to 4 before batterskull joins the party.
SB - can't remember what I sideboarded
G2 - Went close as well, but a much needed null rod didn't show when it needed and he got thopter sword of meek out when at 6 to an active goyf and DR. It pulled him out of death range

All in all a great tournament and not bad to trade $40 for 4 trops.

[Dragonslayer_90]

@nditiz1: Good job on the excellent finish.

In response to the discussion of the RUG matchup: Kobebryan, you know I just run hot a lot when we test. Don't take those sessions as definitive samples lol :tongue: In all seriousness though, I think this is just one of those very die roll and draw dependent MUs. Assuming that neither side gets too lucky or unlucky and both pilots of are of similar skill I think that it's pretty even, with the deciding factor being a combination of the die roll and draw of each deck. Remember guys, in playing this deck we sacrifice some efficiency in creating tempo for more flexibility, better late game, and a better ability to come back from behind. RUG is still the purest tempo deck out there.

[KobeBryan]

@nditiz1: Good job on the excellent finish.

In response to the discussion of the RUG matchup: Kobebryan, you know I just run hot a lot when we test. Don't take those sessions as definitive samples lol :tongue: In all seriousness though, I think this is just one of those very die roll and draw dependent MUs. Assuming that neither side gets too lucky or unlucky and both pilots of are of similar skill I think that it's pretty even, with the deciding factor being a combination of the die roll and draw of each deck. Remember guys, in playing this deck we sacrifice some efficiency in creating tempo for more flexibility, better late game, and a better ability to come back from behind. RUG is still the purest tempo deck out there.

Hot in 30+ games?

I think this matchup is still 60/40 BUGs favor despite running hot. There's really no need to discuss this match all too much. The matchups we need to focus on more are elves, dnt, and miracles and how to beat these decks.

[AggroControl]

Hot in 30+ games?

I think this matchup is still 60/40 BUGs favor despite running hot. There's really no need to discuss this match all too much. The matchups we need to focus on more are elves, dnt, and miracles and how to beat these decks.

The killer card against D&T is Massacre. Casts for 1 under Thalia and wipes their board except for Grimaz and whatever they choose to bounce. The Flickerwisp they bounce with dies also.

[Esper3k]

The killer card against D&T is Massacre. Casts for 1 under Thalia and wipes their board except for Grimaz and whatever they choose to bounce. The Flickerwisp they bounce with dies also.

Yeah unfortunately, it has the side effect of killing our own Delvers, Deathrites, and TNNs too.

My preference is still Golgari Charm for its general usefulness, but if you want something specific to fight D&T, I prefer Dread of Night for its continuous one-sided effect.

[shadowhunter007]

Rd 4 - 12 Post
I had never played against this nor did I know the cards in the deck
G1 - I beat him down with creatures keeping him off double post with wastelands
Out - 4 Daze, 4 Decay
In - 2 clique, 1 rod, 2 cage, 2 pierce, 1 Lib
G2 - An early Cage and rod shut down his hand and his top. Goyf and delvers went the distance
(3-1)


What do the 2 cage do in the match up against Cloudpost? Any crop rotations or Primeval Titan triggers don't get affected since its only creatures that are restricted from entering play in Grafdigger's Cage's clause. It doesn't affect Eye of Ugin or Expedition Maps either since that searches and places into the Hand.

[TheHeff]

I second what Esper said, Dread of Night is huge game vs. DnT. Also brings Serra Avengers into Disfigure range, too.

I'm looking for some help filling out my sideboard for SCG-DC, I'm running a pretty stock list (20 land, 2 Lili, mostly 4-ofs) except a Vendilion Clique and a Sylvan Library in the place of the 2 Tombstalkers. TS is great, but he's horrible against white decks and combo decks and I often find myself boarding him out. My sideboard is as follows:

2x Disfigure
1x Envelop
2x Golgari Charm
2x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Krosan Grip
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
2x Spell Pierce
1x Vendilion Clique
2x FLEX

In the past, these spots have been: Dread of Night, Jace, extra Disfigure/Dismember, Jitte, Life from the Loam, Surgical Extraction, Submerge, Stifle, even Divert. I went 3-3 drop at SCG Baltimore after facing no combo decks (not sure if I was just really unlucky on that front) and am wondering if anyone knows the DC meta well enough to be able to help me sort out these last two spots. I've seen it kicked around a lot in this thread but I really like 1 Jace SB for those grindy matchups- I realize it's not quite our axis of attack but he's such a huge threat on his own and with our high threat density, being able to just free Brainstorm each turn is huge.

[AggroControl]

Yeah unfortunately, it has the side effect of killing our own Delvers, Deathrites, and TNNs too.

My preference is still Golgari Charm for its general usefulness, but if you want something specific to fight D&T, I prefer Dread of Night for its continuous one-sided effect.

Goyf owns though and if you are playing Tombstalker (which I don't) you have another big beater and one that is easy to cast after a turn 3 Massacre. The problem I have with Dread of Night is that it is too narrow as a sideboard card. Outside of D&T almost nobody uses x/1 white creatures. Massacre also works against UWR Delver, hitting every creature in their list except the token under Batterskull. It works against Esper Stoneblade. It works against many Painter lists including Imperial Painter, which is the toughest right now. No mana to cast it means you can wipe their board under a Moon effect and if Magus was the effect you are back in business, you do have to play a basic swamp in the list though to have this option. It sweeps Merfolk in the mid-game as long as you can spot remove a lord or Cursecatcher on the turn before you cast it.

It just has a lot more value than Engineered Plague or Dread of Night at the moment. It has more value than Golgari Charm as a sweeper but not as a control device.

[hobart]

Goyf owns though and if you are playing Tombstalker (which I don't) you have another big beater and one that is easy to cast after a turn 3 Massacre. The problem I have with Dread of Night is that it is too narrow as a sideboard card. Outside of D&T almost nobody uses x/1 white creatures. Massacre also works against UWR Delver, hitting every creature in their list except the token under Batterskull. It works against Esper Stoneblade. It works against many Painter lists including Imperial Painter, which is the toughest right now. No mana to cast it means you can wipe their board under a Moon effect and if Magus was the effect you are back in business, you do have to play a basic swamp in the list though to have this option. It sweeps Merfolk in the mid-game as long as you can spot remove a lord or Cursecatcher on the turn before you cast it.

It just has a lot more value than Engineered Plague or Dread of Night at the moment. It has more value than Golgari Charm as a sweeper but not as a control device.

I do not like Massacre for us at all. Yes Goyf survives, but it still kills at least 2/3 of our threats. It's decent against the SFM decks, but batterskull is the main threat we really care about anyway. We already run the Golgari charms for their utility and similar effect, but if you think DnT is a big part of the meta Dread of Night is way better. If not, Toxic Deluge kills at least the same stuff, can be controlled to let your x/2s live, and can even take out the pesky Germ token. I also think resolving a Massacre against Painter with a Blood Moon effect out is extremely narrow. We need a basic Swamp in play and they need a basic Plains

[AggroControl]

I do not like Massacre for us at all. Yes Goyf survives, but it still kills at least 2/3 of our threats. It's decent against the SFM decks, but batterskull is the main threat we really care about anyway. We already run the Golgari charms for their utility and similar effect, but if you think DnT is a big part of the meta Dread of Night is way better. If not, Toxic Deluge kills at least the same stuff, can be controlled to let your x/2s live, and can even take out the pesky Germ token. I also think resolving a Massacre against Painter with a Blood Moon effect out is extremely narrow. We need a basic Swamp in play and they need a basic Plains

I wasn't thinking about a local meta. I was thinking about a bigger competition. I actually have 2 D&T players out of the 10 to 12 regulars I play every Friday night. I don't like Dread of Night even in that scenario because it does nothing against any other list I face regularly, which include BUG Control, BUG Delver, UWR Delver/RUG Delver, Elves, Miracles/SnT, EsperBlade, Dark Depths Suicide and Lands/Imperial Painter depending on what the guys decided to run that night. I think that list is a good simile of the current meta, although missing Storm Combo, Burn and Shardless Control.

You're right about it being hard to resolve Massacre against a resolved Blood Moon but it is possible with a DRS. All you need is the swamp because most Moon lists, including Imperial Painter, run no removal except for REB's with a blue Painter in play. If Painter and Moon are both on the board, well that's a really tough road and if I do not have them low with a resolved threat I'll scoop and go to the next game.

[nditiz1]

What do the 2 cage do in the match up against Cloudpost? Any crop rotations or Primeval Titan triggers don't get affected since its only creatures that are restricted from entering play in Grafdigger's Cage's clause. It doesn't affect Eye of Ugin or Expedition Maps either since that searches and places into the Hand.

I brought it in against Green Sun Zenith mainly, but it also stops the second coming of moment's peace. I also didn't know how the deck operated except it cast big dudes, for some reason I was thinking T&N. I never really got to see the deck do anything except crop rotate, repeal my delver, spin top, cast fog.

[shadowhunter007]

I brought it in against Green Sun Zenith mainly, but it also stops the second coming of moment's peace. I also didn't know how the deck operated except it cast big dudes, for some reason I was thinking T&N. I never really got to see the deck do anything except crop rotate, repeal my delver, spin top, cast fog.

Aha! I'm more familiar with the G/U versions of the deck that don't generally run Green Sun's and don't always have that many moment's peace either. Makes sense.

[Dice_Box]

I am loving Null Rod. Played it last week, won me two games, played it last night, won me a game. It's just too good to cut. Also with so many sideboard cards being Artifacts, it can really help. Cliqued an Aggro Loam player to find him holding a fist full of Grave hate and an EE he could not use. Love that card.

[KobeBryan]

I am loving Null Rod. Played it last week, won me two games, played it last night, won me a game. It's just too good to cut. Also with so many sideboard cards being Artifacts, it can really help. Cliqued an Aggro Loam player to find him holding a fist full of Grave hate and an EE he could not use. Love that card.

Ya null rod has won me a game against Esper stoneblade when he dropped a relic of prog. Also helped me win against stupid jittes.

[Sturtzilla]

Greetings All!

Dragonslayer_90 and I played some legacy locals this week. We were both playing BUG Delver. I ran basically the same list I posted a page or two back. Here is a refresher...

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Daze
1 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Dimir Charm
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Disfigure
1 Null Rod
1 Gilded Drake
2 Golgari Charm
1 Engineered Plague
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Submerge

We played five rounds this week. I played against Dan with 12Post, winning (2-1); Mike with Merfolk, winning (2-1); Ian with Merfolk, winning (2-1), Matt? with ANT, draw (1-1-1), and Paul with Goblins, winning (2-1). Yes, I did draw with my ANT opponent in round four. I we had a very grindy game two. I was in really good shape in game three but alas... I needed two turns to finish him off, (I had some counter magic left too!). So I ended 4-0-1 and ended in first place overall. Dragonslayer_90 was playing a similar list and ended 3rd, so a pretty solid evening. As for the deck itself, the Spell Pierces felt pretty good versus ANT. Additionally there was some Sneak and Show and some High Tide in the room. I sided on running the Spell Pierce over Flusterstorm as my current configuration is rather soft to Blood Moon and similar effects. As phazonmutant stated last week, Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a meta specific card. Currently I am not convinced that the meta at my LGS warrants running one in the maindeck. I think one in the sideboard is likely fine; however, there were a number of game ones where it was a struggle to get him into play to stabilize. Additionally I felt that there were a number of times where I would draw a Hymn to Tourach and want basically anything else. Has anyone given any thought to 3 vs 4 Hymn? Multi-Hymn draws are sweet against most combo decks and slower midrange decks, but against some of these creature heavy decks I find the results polarized. On the play it seems powerful while on the draw it is a 2-for-1 but doesn't affect the board. So you could Hymn your opponent's hand away and still die to the guys already resolved. Just wondering if anyone else has done any testing here. I think the deck felt pretty strong overall but against all of these tribal/aggro decks the lack of maindeck Disfigure was noticed. Anyway thanks for reading!

[Dragonslayer_90]

Additionally I felt that there were a number of times where I would draw a Hymn to Tourach and want basically anything else. Has anyone given any thought to 3 vs 4 Hymn? Multi-Hymn draws are sweet against most combo decks and slower midrange decks, but against some of these creature heavy decks I find the results polarized. On the play it seems powerful while on the draw it is a 2-for-1 but doesn't affect the board. So you could Hymn your opponent's hand away and still die to the guys already resolved. Just wondering if anyone else has done any testing here. I think the deck felt pretty strong overall but against all of these tribal/aggro decks the lack of maindeck Disfigure was noticed. Anyway thanks for reading!

Hey man. I think Hymn is important in tribal matchups like merfolk and goblins since their gameplan necessitates them to assemble a critical mass of dudes to kill you usually. It doesn't affect the board yes, but it still goes with the gameplan of denying them resources long enough for us to kill them. If you want to side out hymn against these decks you would probably need to add more removal than you would want to in your sb since the first thing to go is most of your counterspells since they are worse for the most part than hymn I think. If you feel like you're drawing hymn more than you like it is perfectly reasonable to go to 3 though.

As for my route to third it went thusly: R1 ANT (2-0), R2 Rbw Goblins (0-2), R3 UG Cloudpost (2-0), R4 High Tide (2-0), R5 Merfolk (2-0). I tried having two spell pierce in the main because from what Sturtzilla told me the meta at our LGS seemed combo heavy. I have just came back for school so I haven't played at this LGS in a while. Last time he played there first and second went to high tide and sneak and show. Now the field was half combo but I, myself, had a lot of matchups where spell pierce was pretty bad. Game one against Goblins in particular I drew too many useless counterspells. Definitely going back to my two disfigure main deck. It seems like my combo matchup game one is good enough between force, daze, hymn, and lili. Probably going to try maindecking a toxic deluge or two like wcm8 has been doing since our meta has a good amount of tribal and add a basic swamp to the sideboard to fight blood moon effects. Got screwed over by Magus of the Moon out of goblins game 2. It was not a good time:cry:

[Sturtzilla]

Hey man. I think Hymn is important in tribal matchups like merfolk and goblins since their gameplan necessitates them to assemble a critical mass of dudes to kill you usually. It doesn't affect the board yes, but it still goes with the gameplan of denying them resources long enough for us to kill them. If you want to side out hymn against these decks you would probably need to add more removal than you would want to in your sb since the first thing to go is most of your counterspells since they are worse for the most part than hymn I think. If you feel like you're drawing hymn more than you like it is perfectly reasonable to go to 3 though.

Hymn is great if you are at parity in these match ups. When you have the luxury of attacking an opponent's hand, slowing down their assault by attacking their hand is great. However when they are on the play and/or get ahead on board, it may slow their clock but you are still likely to die. It is not that you are not doing anything, but attacking their hand may or may not buy you more turns. I see these match ups to come down to what each player gets into play (and sure Hymn can help). I am just not sure you always have a chance to cast Hymn. Overall I like it one the play, but less so on the draw. I am interested to hear what others think.



Got screwed over by Magus of the Moon out of goblins game 2. It was not a good time:cry:

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden activations to put Magus of the Moon or Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (in addition to basically every other dude in the deck) into play... spicy.

[btm10]

The best BUG colored card I've encountered for Tribal matchups is Toxic Deluge. It's sort of expensive in a Delver list, but it's also generally a blowout when you get it.

[ESG]

Has anyone given any thought to 3 vs 4 Hymn? Multi-Hymn draws are sweet against most combo decks and slower midrange decks, but against some of these creature heavy decks I find the results polarized. On the play it seems powerful while on the draw it is a 2-for-1 but doesn't affect the board. So you could Hymn your opponent's hand away and still die to the guys already resolved. Just wondering if anyone else has done any testing here.

I've gone between 2, 3, and 4 Hymn, but I feel that 4 is the strongest for my build. I'm playing 13 creatures in the main and no TNNs. Also here to stay is 4 Ponder. That's what I had originally, and I've been back on 4 Ponder for months now, and it's fantastic. It makes the whole deck better. It's often OK to shave a Hymn on the draw, I feel. I frequently side out some number of Dazes on the draw, and usually FOWs against any matchup that's going to come down to card advantage. The exception is if the deck has a key bomb I need to stop. I recently tried dropping Thoughtseize from the main, and it's been successful so far. I played in a 37-person tournament over the weekend and was X-0-0 going into the penultimate round, but the tournament was misrun, having one less round than normal, so that made drawing complicated. I was sitting in 1st place and offered my opponent, in 2nd, a draw. He declined, so we played it out. I won Game 1, then got Blood Mooned out the next two games. (He was on RW Painter.) A friend and I got paired in the last round, and we had a very good chance of both making it into Top 8 if we drew, so we decided to draw. He got 7th. I got 9th. Oh well. Next time.

[Sturtzilla]

I've gone between 2, 3, and 4 Hymn, but I feel that 4 is the strongest for my build. I'm playing 13 creatures in the main and no TNNs. Also here to stay is 4 Ponder. That's what I had originally, and I've been back on 4 Ponder for months now, and it's fantastic. It makes the whole deck better. It's often OK to shave a Hymn on the draw, I feel. I frequently side out some number of Dazes on the draw, and usually FOWs against any matchup that's going to come down to card advantage. The exception is if the deck has a key bomb I need to stop. I recently tried dropping Thoughtseize from the main, and it's been successful so far. I played in a 37-person tournament over the weekend and was X-0-0 going into the penultimate round, but the tournament was misrun, having one less round than normal, so that made drawing complicated. I was sitting in 1st place and offered my opponent, in 2nd, a draw. He declined, so we played it out. I won Game 1, then got Blood Mooned out the next two games. (He was on RW Painter.) A friend and I got paired in the last round, and we had a very good chance of both making it into Top 8 if we drew, so we decided to draw. He got 7th. I got 9th. Oh well. Next time.

Thanks for the reply. Just curious, what is your creature configuration? I have been also thinking about bringing the 4th Ponder back. As for sideboarding, I think shaving a Hymn is solid. Against tribal decks like Merfolk and Goblins, I basically cut all of my counter magic. They just have too many ways to make your counterspells dead (namely Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls). If I am on the play, I might leave a pair of Dazes. On the draw, I don't really like any of the counter magic. It all just feels clunky. Sorry about your bad draw... better luck next time! :smile:

[Dice_Box]

Hymn is so backbreaking against so many decks, I would always want 4 in my opening 60. Yes, there are going to be times where I cut one or two, but in that opening 60, I want that card. Get two back to back... Ouch.

Honestly, the place I made cuts was in the number of Force, from 4 to 3. Added in Library and called it a day. My Meta is so full of Midrange and Control right now I feel that is the best list. But if I was going into an unknown situation, I think I would be likely to cut s Stalker or Decay (dependent on what I was adding in with the Decay) before I would look at Hymn.

[Esper3k]

I'm a fan of Hymn vs the tribal decks as well. Yes, it sucks to draw late game against them, but since those decks don't run Brainstorm / Ponder to smooth out their draws, I feel it's important to get them into topdeck mode as quickly as possible and allow the consistency of our deck to take over the game.

[AggroControl]

Hymn is the best turn 2 2cc sorcery in Legacy at the moment. It's a bit of a double-edged sword after game 1 in my meta. Too many people are playing Wilt-leaf Liege or Obstinate Baloth as a 2-of in their sideboards to counter Liliana of the Veil, Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach.

The problem is that lists that feature Hymn do so for a reason. It's not an optional card, the entire list is weaker without it.

[ESG]

Thanks for the reply. Just curious, what is your creature configuration? I have been also thinking about bringing the 4th Ponder back. As for sideboarding, I think shaving a Hymn is solid. Against tribal decks like Merfolk and Goblins, I basically cut all of my counter magic. They just have too many ways to make your counterspells dead (namely Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls). If I am on the play, I might leave a pair of Dazes. On the draw, I don't really like any of the counter magic. It all just feels clunky. Sorry about your bad draw... better luck next time! :smile:

Yeah, it's hard to compute draws in a weird situation like that, but my friend got in, so that was good. I determined that it was the 9-point Burn player winning his pair-down against the 7-point Deadguy player that bumped everyone who drew down a slot, and then tiebreakers shifted around a bit. (Tiebreakers also fluctuate more when there are fewer rounds.)

My creature base is the same as yours except for a Tombstalker. I'm running no planeswalkers at the moment. I'll run up to two Liliana if I want to hedge against Sneak and Show or Reanimator. Never Jace. If I wanted to play Jace, I would run BUG Control or a different deck.

I would be inclined to leave in some number of Force of Will on the draw. Force is always going to be worse against decks with Cavern of Souls, but it's excellent against their Turn 1 Aether Vial hands. Abrupt Decay can hit Aether Vial, but sometimes that's a turn or two too late, especially if they are able to follow it up with Wasteland on your T1 dual. If I have Pithing Needle in my board, then I'd be more inclined to pull the set of Forces.

[suffah]

Just got my first ever turns 2-5 4 consecutive hymns on MODO. Opp was on SnT I believe and quit game three in frustration.

[Manipulato]

Hey Guys,
today I played our monthly local legacy turney. We were 20 people and I went 3:2 :frown:

I played the following list

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Liliana of the Veil

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catcacombs
4 Wasteland

Sideboard :
3 Spell Pierce
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Golgari Charm
2 Disfigure
2 Null Rod
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Grafdiggers Cage

Round 1: RUG Delver (Won 2:0)
I know he's on RUG because it's his Pet deck, he's a good player and I know the MU is difficult so Im like, meh.
I win 2:0 easily because I had a good draw and he had no explosive starts.

Round 2: Dredge (Won 2:1)
I thougt he's on DnT so I was suprised to see 1st turn City of brass in Breakthrough :-)
I lost Game 1 because I had no Shaman & double Hymn is quite bad against Dredge :wink:
In the end I win 2:1 because of Grafdiggers Cage, Shaman & counterspells.

Round 3: Elves (Won 2:0)
He's a friend of mine and I know he's on Elves, also a good player which went 5:1 the week before in Munich.
I won 2:0 because of a good draw and a really good timed Daze of mine. Game 2 he got crushed by Toxic Deluge + double Hymn + pressure.


Round 4: UWr Miracles (Lost 0:2)
The last time we played we had a 1:1 draw and I played Esper Deathblade.
I lost 0:2. Game 1 gets to the late game and we both draw from the top (I Decayed his Top in response to a fetch earlier), and I double dazed his EOT Clique (Him having a Karakas on board) and he drew Entreat straight from the top (Me with FoW without pitch in hand) :frown:
Game 2 were really frustrating because I had Null Rod resolved and Cliqued his Entreat but my double delver never flipped for the entire game :mad: A couple turns later he had Jace, SFM & another Entreat.


Round 5: Death & Taxes (Lost 0:2)
I was confident for this MU because of my strong Sideboard against it (2 Deluge, 2 Charm, 2 Disfigure, 2 Null Rod, 2 Cliques).
Game 1 my deck fucked me up a bit because I had only Underground Sea & Tropical + Shaman but without any land in any graveyard + 2 dead Hymn in hand:rolleyes: Anyway, we had a long game but somewhere I knew I cant win this game & wanted to save time.

Game 2 he had 2 Wasteland & 2 Port to fuck my manabase :rolleyes: I handled his Thalia & Mother but later he resolved RIP and ported me twice a turn so I was never able to play my 2 drops (3 AD, 2 Goyf etc...)

So the 3:2 is not impressive but I made no mistakes which is a good think too and the three turneys before went always 5:0 or 4:1 so you can't have it anytime :smile:

Somewhere I want to fit 2 Sylvan Library or 2 Jace just for the Miracles/Midrange MU's but I cant find place for it :rolleyes:

In the end I went in 5th place and got 3 Boosters & made some good trades.

Greetings

[venice]

Hi everyone!

I recently started playing Team America as well and have been pretty successful with it so far. I played in 3 local tournaments, finishing 3rd at the first one and winning both other ones with a total record of 12-1-1. My MUs during these tournaments were:

R1: 12-Post Win 2-0
R2: Mono-U Control Win 2-1
R3: Death and Taxes Win 2-0
R4: UW Stoneblade Loss 0-2
R5: Burn Win 2-0

R1: Burg Delver Win 2-0
R2: Burn Win 2-1
R3: Mirror Win 2-0
R4: Death and Taxes Win 2-0

R1: Death and Taxes Win 2-0
R2: Reanimator Win 2-1
R3: RW Goblins Win 2-0
R4: UW Stoneblade Draw 1-1
R5: MUD Win 2-1


For reference, here is my current list:

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
1 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
4 True Name Nemesis
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

SB:
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Spell Pierce
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Disfigure
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Null Rod
2 Grafdigger´s Cage

I have been really, really happy with True Name Nemesis! I started out with only 2 copies but was so impressed by it that I quickly upped them to 4. The MU where they did the most work for me was against D+T, but also in other matches I was never ever sad to draw one. I am really surprised that this card doesn´t see more play in Team America lists. I feel it is criminally underplayed and is so much better than Tombstalker or Dark Confidant imo.

What I would like to discuss/ know is how you guys approach the Stoneblade MU. As you can see from my results, that is where I have been struggling the most so far and I really don´t know what I could do differently to improve it. Maybe the MU is just unfavourable? Between Swords to Plowshares, Snapcasters, Supreme Verdict, Councils Judgment, Batterskull, Jace and True Name of their own, it has been really tough for me to get anything going in that MU.
Maybe I´m boarding wrong?

My SBing usually looks like this:

-4 FoW
-4 Daze (on the draw)
-4 Waste (they have so many basics that I feel Wastelands aren´t really doing anything)

+2 Liliana
+2 Disfigure
+2 Toxic Deluge
+2 Null Rod
+3 Pierce (on the draw)
+1 Clique (on the draw)

I would be really thankful for any advice concerning SB strategies or general approaches to the UW/Esperblade MU. Thanks! :smile:

[Esper3k]

Against Stoneblade decks, I wouldn't board out my Wastelands. First of all, the Deathblade lists have such greedy manabases, that Wasteland is actually very powerful against them. Even against Esper or UW, there are plenty of utility lands or duals to hit.

I'm personally not a fan of Spell Pierce against them since many of their most threatening cards early on are creatures (DRS, SFM, TNN).

Vendilion Clique should come in regardless of play/draw. It is very powerful against SFM as well as gives you an evasive attacker that isn't affected by RIP.

One card I saw that you don't play, but helps greatly in the matchup is Golgari Charm. All three modes are useful vs Stoneblade lists.

[venice]

Against Stoneblade decks, I wouldn't board out my Wastelands. First of all, the Deathblade lists have such greedy manabases, that Wasteland is actually very powerful against them. Even against Esper or UW, there are plenty of utility lands or duals to hit.

I'm personally not a fan of Spell Pierce against them since many of their most threatening cards early on are creatures (DRS, SFM, TNN).

Vendilion Clique should come in regardless of play/draw. It is very powerful against SFM as well as gives you an evasive attacker that isn't affected by RIP.

One card I saw that you don't play, but helps greatly in the matchup is Golgari Charm. All three modes are useful vs Stoneblade lists.

Thanks for your reply!

Against Deathblade I would not cut Wastelands either. The thing is against UW Blade (at least the lists I played against), the mana base was much more "Miracle-like", meaning they would be fetching for basic lands at least the first 3 turns so I felt like Wastes aren´t really pulling their weight. Sure, you can hit Mishra´s Factory with it but still feels kinda weak to me.

Regarding Spell Pierce you are probably right. I wasn´t sure about them as well. I brought them in mainly against Jace/Elspeth. But retrospectively they weren´t as good as I would have thought. So, they will stay in the board for now on.

I´ll also take your advice on Cliques and Charms. I also thought of Golgari Charm, since it gives protection from Supreme Verdict which is really huge. Maybe I will replace the Toxic Deluges with it.

That said, what does your exact boarding plan look like?

[btm10]

I would be really thankful for any advice concerning SB strategies or general approaches to the UW/Esperblade MU. Thanks! :smile:

In addition to Golgari Charm and Clique, I'd run a Krosan Grip out of the board. It's a little expensive, but that match is going to run long and Grip is both useful in other matchups while being the best answer to Batterskull. Overall, I think Blade decks are pretty bad, and the matchup of any Blade variant vs. any BUG variant is strongly favorable for the BUG variant.

[Esper3k]

No problem!

So the list I run is generally different from the standard 4/4/4 lists (sorry, I'm posting from my phone so it's a pain for me to dig it up - it's around in this thread though).

Generally speaking, you're on the right idea with boarding (at least IMO). I tend to like to turn us into essentially a blue Jund deck.

That means something like (using your list):

-4 FoW
-4 Daze
-1 Spell Pierce

+2 Liliana
+2 Vendilion Clique
+2 Toxic Deluge (Golgari Charm is really superior here)
+2 Disfigure
+1 Null Rod (I'm not a huge fan of Null Rod in this matchup. It seems good on paper, but in practice, there is much it doesn't actually stop here)

[movingtonewao]

how would you board against D&T? I thought liliana would be good but they bring in wilt-leaf lieges from the board nowadays.

[Esper3k]

I am not a fan of Liliana against D&T. They tend to drop creatures quickly onto the board to pad for Liliana's -2, have plenty of evasive attackers to kill her, have Revoker to shut her off, and she is a convenient discard outlet for Wilt-Leaf Liege as you mentioned.

The only thing she really brings to the table is the ability for us to kill Mirran Crusader, which really isn't that big of a problem as long as you deal with their equipment.

[SansSerif]

@venice
Congrats on your finish, and thanks for sharing your experience.

I have struggled how to treat Spellpierce when side boarding and was wondering if you could share your approach.

I feel like there are several matchups (like Stoneblade) where there are relevant non-creature threats that we want to counter. The problem is that these are not the only threats, and the impact of spellpierce drops as the match goes to late game.

My approach has been to side Spellpierce again decks that are a large number of non-creature threats. Or against decks where I need to leverage the tempo nature of a 1CC counter.

In for Delver, Non-Creature Combo, Artifacts, miracles, Burn, and so on.

Out for Stoneblade/Deathblade, Shardless BUG, BUG Control, Golbins and Merfolk.

For Elves and D+T I think I would bring it in, but I'm not sure for these matchups.

[venice]

@venice
Congrats on your finish, and thanks for sharing your experience.

I have struggled how to treat Spellpierce when side boarding and was wondering if you could share your approach.

I feel like there are several matchups (like Stoneblade) where there are relevant non-creature threats that we want to counter. The problem is that these are not the only threats, and the impact of spellpierce drops as the match goes to late game.

My approach has been to side Spellpierce again decks that are a large number of non-creature threats. Or against decks where I need to leverage the tempo nature of a 1CC counter.

In for Delver, Non-Creature Combo, Artifacts, miracles, Burn, and so on.

Out for Stoneblade/Deathblade, Shardless BUG, BUG Control, Golbins and Merfolk.

For Elves and D+T I think I would bring it in, but I'm not sure for these matchups.

Thanks! :smile:

Concerning the Stoneblade MU, I had the same thought process about Spell Pierce like you but for now came to the conclusion that Pierce is not doing enough to be brought in.
The MUs I really want it are the ones you mentioned: Miracles, Combo (including Elves, Reanimator, Dredge), Burn, MUD, etc. Against Delver decks I would only board it on the draw. And that would still depent on which Delver variant I face. For example against RUG Delver I would not bring them in at all since I feel there is no non-creature card that I would want Pierces for. Getting enough lands into play and then overwhelm them with threats would be the plan here. Same goes for UWR Delver. Only against the Mirror it is worth boarding it imo since here countering Hymn and/or Liliana is crucial.

Now, against Death and Taxes I would not board it either. The only card that would be worth boarding it for is Aether Vial. Granted Vial is huge obviously when it gets going but with 4 Decay + 2 Null Rod (which is absolutely HUGE against D+T) I feel there are enough answers to that.

Hope that helps a bit! Note that I am relatively new to this deck and I am still testing different SB approaches as well. :wink:

[Neffy]

@Venice:
Nice list and SB!

Do you ever miss sylvan library?
I will probably test a lsit with -1 TNN, +1 Library.

Thanks,

A

[venice]

@Venice:
Nice list and SB!

Do you ever miss sylvan library?
I will probably test a lsit with -1 TNN, +1 Library.

Thanks,

A

Thanks! I really like the list, too!

Sylvan Library is definitely a super awesome card and going -1 TNN, +1 Library seems totally fine. So far I didn't miss it myself. I prefer the threat consistency over the card advantage. But that is just personal preference I guess. Let me know how the testing goes! :wink:

[TheHeff]

So I've been having a lot of difficulty lately with this deck (including a pretty poor outing at SCG DC this weekend that REALLY stings), and largely I think my main problems are how to correctly SB and how aggressively I should be mulliganing. In general, if you see a threat-dense hand that's light on disruption, do you pitch it back if it's against a quicker deck (RUG, UWR, combo) without a cantrip? What about with a cantrip? A lot of times I think I keep good hands but they're not hands that can win against the deck I'm playing against, and I get punished for it. I realize every situation is different and knowing the best course just comes from experience, but I'm looking for some general advice on how to mulligan against the quicker decks.

I've toyed with my list a little (MD sylvan library, cutting Tombstalkers, running a pierce/disfigure main) but am bringing it back to basics for the time being since I'm moving soon and want to keep the list for an open meta. I'm running the stock 4-of list with 2x Tombstalker, 2x Liliana, 20 land and the following SB:

SB:
3x Disfigure
1x Envelop
2x Golgari Charm
2x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Krosan Grip
1x Null Rod
2x Spell Pierce
1x Sylvan Library
2x Vendilion Clique

Here's how I'm SB'ing for some major matchups I see at my store and at local SCG events, any and all comments/suggestions are appreciated!

RUG Delver:
In- 3x Disfigure, 2x Spell Pierce
Out- 4x FoW/Daze (play/draw), 1x Hymn

Miracles:
In- 1x Envelop, 1x Null Rod, 2x Spell Pierce, 1x Library, 2x Clique
Out- 2x Tombstalker, 4x Daze, 1x Bayou

Elves:
In- 3x Disfigure, 1x Envelop, 2x Golgari Charm, 2x Grafdigger's Cage, 2x Spell Pierce
Out- 4x Daze, 2x Liliana, 1x Bayou, 3x Hymn

ANT:
In- 1x Envelop, 2x Golgari Charm, 2x Grafdigger's Cage, 1x Null Rod, 2x Spell Pierce
Out- 4x Abrupt Decay, 1x Bayou, 2x Tombstalker, 1x Waste

D&T:
In- 3x Disfigure, 2x Golgari Charm, 1x Krosan Grip, 1x Null Rod, 1x Library, 2x Clique
Out- 4x Daze, 4x FoW, 2x Tombstalker

SnT:
In- 1x Envelop, 2x Golgari Charm, 1x Krosan Grip, 2x Spell Pierce, 2x Clique
Out- 4x Abrupt Decay, 1x Bayou, 2x Tombstalker, 1x Waste

Deathblade:
In- 3x Disfigure, 2x Golgari Charm, 1x Krosan Grip, 1x Library, 2x Clique, 1x Null Rod
Out- 4x Daze, 4x FoW, 2x Tombstalker

[Esper3k]

So I've been having a lot of difficulty lately with this deck (including a pretty poor outing at SCG DC this weekend that REALLY stings), and largely I think my main problems are how to correctly SB and how aggressively I should be mulliganing. In general, if you see a threat-dense hand that's light on disruption, do you pitch it back if it's against a quicker deck (RUG, UWR, combo) without a cantrip? What about with a cantrip? A lot of times I think I keep good hands but they're not hands that can win against the deck I'm playing against, and I get punished for it. I realize every situation is different and knowing the best course just comes from experience, but I'm looking for some general advice on how to mulligan against the quicker decks.

I've toyed with my list a little (MD sylvan library, cutting Tombstalkers, running a pierce/disfigure main) but am bringing it back to basics for the time being since I'm moving soon and want to keep the list for an open meta. I'm running the stock 4-of list with 2x Tombstalker, 2x Liliana, 20 land and the following SB:

SB:
3x Disfigure
1x Envelop
2x Golgari Charm
2x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Krosan Grip
1x Null Rod
2x Spell Pierce
1x Sylvan Library
2x Vendilion Clique

Here's how I'm SB'ing for some major matchups I see at my store and at local SCG events, any and all comments/suggestions are appreciated!

RUG Delver:
In- 3x Disfigure, 2x Spell Pierce
Out- 4x FoW/Daze (play/draw), 1x Hymn

Not a fan of Spell Pierce here. You'll rarely get anything other than a cantrip and your mana is already going to be taxed by their Stifle + Wasteland + taxing counters, so you can't really afford to leave 1 mana open all the time. I would keep the Hymn and the Sylvan Library. Also, I don't like FoW because Delver matchups tend to be very attrition based.

Miracles:
In- 1x Envelop, 1x Null Rod, 2x Spell Pierce, 1x Library, 2x Clique
Out- 2x Tombstalker, 4x Daze, 1x Bayou

I'd rather trim a Wasteland than the Bayou. Colored mana matters much more and you're unlikely to Wasteland them out of the game. Your Krosan Grip and probably 1 Golgari Charm or 2 should come in.

Elves:
In- 3x Disfigure, 1x Envelop, 2x Golgari Charm, 2x Grafdigger's Cage, 2x Spell Pierce
Out- 4x Daze, 2x Liliana, 1x Bayou, 3x Hymn

ANT:
In- 1x Envelop, 2x Golgari Charm, 2x Grafdigger's Cage, 1x Null Rod, 2x Spell Pierce
Out- 4x Abrupt Decay, 1x Bayou, 2x Tombstalker, 1x Waste

If youre going to trim a land, I'd rather trim 1 Sea since you have plenty of them. You also should be bringing in Vendilion Cliques. I'm not a huge fan of Grafdigger's Cage here.

D&T:
In- 3x Disfigure, 2x Golgari Charm, 1x Krosan Grip, 1x Null Rod, 1x Library, 2x Clique
Out- 4x Daze, 4x FoW, 2x Tombstalker

SnT:
In- 1x Envelop, 2x Golgari Charm, 1x Krosan Grip, 2x Spell Pierce, 2x Clique
Out- 4x Abrupt Decay, 1x Bayou, 2x Tombstalker, 1x Waste

I don't like Golgari Charm here or Grip unless you saw a Blood Moon. It's not worth it just to try and hit Sneak Attack. I'd rather keep your lands in.

Deathblade:
In- 3x Disfigure, 2x Golgari Charm, 1x Krosan Grip, 1x Library, 2x Clique, 1x Null Rod
Out- 4x Daze, 4x FoW, 2x Tombstalker

My sideboard thoughts in red above.

Against most decks, I find there are very few unkeepable hands (other than the obvious ones) unless you're against combo. Against other Delver decks, the matchups tend to be very grindy (unless someone gets blown out by Wastelands), so I try not to mulligan if possible. Having a higher than normal land count hands are also more keepable in those matchups.

Also keep in mind that imo, Delver decks are among the hardest decks to play (other than Miracles) due to all the decisions you get to make from the 4x Brainstorm / 4x Ponder as well as needing to plan ahead and set up your future turns.

[TheHeff]

@Esper3k: Thanks much for the sideboarding/mulling advice! I'll admit I'm a BUG Delver n00b, but I love what a versatile deck it is and want to put the time into getting better with it! My follow-up question would be in regards to the SnT matchup, the guy at my LGS runs 3 SB and I always seem to see it, so adding in the charms/kgrip are a response to that since abrupt decay is somewhat underwhelming. He always fetches almost exclusively basics, and I've found my wastes being extremely underwhelming. Knowing that, would you still stick with the same sb plan?

[tescrin]

how would you board against D&T? I thought liliana would be good but they bring in wilt-leaf lieges from the board nowadays.

This is from a grindier perspective (junk) but I would never board out Lili. The christmas land they get WLL in is pretty rare and if you can find a Deluge who cares if they get a 4/4? Your goyfs live, their everything dies. The only reason I would not run Lily is because it's a 3-drop; not because of a potential 1-2 of that they may get by T3 into their hand.

If they get it late game it was going to hit the table anyway. If they get it early game *and* you tick up Lily *and* they have guys on the board to eat edicts *and* you don't have goyf [...]

WLL is not a reason to quit playing one of the best cards in Legacy. They have no cantrips to find that WLL with and if they don't have it you eat card after card. Dies to removal arguments are lame.

[Esper3k]

@Esper3k: Thanks much for the sideboarding/mulling advice! I'll admit I'm a BUG Delver n00b, but I love what a versatile deck it is and want to put the time into getting better with it! My follow-up question would be in regards to the SnT matchup, the guy at my LGS runs 3 SB and I always seem to see it, so adding in the charms/kgrip are a response to that since abrupt decay is somewhat underwhelming. He always fetches almost exclusively basics, and I've found my wastes being extremely underwhelming. Knowing that, would you still stick with the same sb plan?

Your sideboard plan is fine then if you know they're on the Blood Moon plan. I still don't like Golgari Charm because of how narrow it is (and hard to cast under Blood Moon, whereas Grip can be easily cast off of a single DRS). I might still go with the full 4 Wastelands and just trim 1 Bayou for 1 Golgari Charm.

Even against Sneak & Show, they run enough nonbasics that Wasteland is still often good against them. If you can stop their first attempt at going off, you can then Wasteland the Ancient Tomb / City of Traitors that they had to use to prevent them from trying again. Wasteland makes all of our taxing counters much more effective so while you might not color screw them, you're making it harder for them to go off multiple times.


This is from a grindier perspective (junk) but I would never board out Lili. The christmas land they get WLL in is pretty rare and if you can find a Deluge who cares if they get a 4/4? Your goyfs live, their everything dies. The only reason I would not run Lily is because it's a 3-drop; not because of a potential 1-2 of that they may get by T3 into their hand.

If they get it late game it was going to hit the table anyway. If they get it early game *and* you tick up Lily *and* they have guys on the board to eat edicts *and* you don't have goyf [...]

WLL is not a reason to quit playing one of the best cards in Legacy. They have no cantrips to find that WLL with and if they don't have it you eat card after card. Dies to removal arguments are lame.

WLL is just part of the reason why I don't like Liliana against D&T. The main one is that they tend to swarm the board and can simply sacrifice something irrelevant, then kill her. They tend to drop their hand faster than we do, so it's more often that when you +1 her, you're losing something and they won't. Aether Vial also makes Liliana much worse as they can either flash in their last card in response to her +1 and her -2 has a tough time catching flash creatures.

[TheHeff]

WLL is just part of the reason why I don't like Liliana against D&T. The main one is that they tend to swarm the board and can simply sacrifice something irrelevant, then kill her. They tend to drop their hand faster than we do, so it's more often that when you +1 her, you're losing something and they won't. Aether Vial also makes Liliana much worse as they can either flash in their last card in response to her +1 and her -2 has a tough time catching flash creatures.

Agree with this 100%. I played D&T tonight in my Legacy FNM, going 2-1 overall and 2-1 against D&T after losing the die roll, so not too shabby there (thanks again to Esper3k for the SB tips!). Both times I managed to drop Lili in G2 and G3 she ended up killing 2 SFMs, hitting a plains and a revoker on discard, and died shortly after she dropped to combat damage despite leaving blockers back. I didn't have too many other SB cards I wanted to bring in so I left her in, but I wasn't very impressed- in that position it's hard for her to pull you ahead from being behind and unless you get her out T2 on the play against an empty board (which almost never happens), she's mana better spend dropping threats or keeping a Mom/Vial off the table.

As an aside, I had a conversation tonight with a guy who plays a ton of legacy events and had played BUG Delver for a long time about the merits of Tombstalker in today's meta. We both agreed that with the rise of fair decks (containing white/Jace) and the amount of sideboarded Submerges, Tombstalker gets much worse. I've been toying with swapping them out for 1 MD Clique and 1 MD Library and opening up two sideboard slots. Does anyone have any experience playing with SB cards like Maelstrom Pulse, Jitte, Life from the Loam? I'm looking for some ways to tweak the deck to be more comfortable in longer games and have considered those.

[Manipulato]

Agree with this 100%. I played D&T tonight in my Legacy FNM, going 2-1 overall and 2-1 against D&T after losing the die roll, so not too shabby there (thanks again to Esper3k for the SB tips!). Both times I managed to drop Lili in G2 and G3 she ended up killing 2 SFMs, hitting a plains and a revoker on discard, and died shortly after she dropped to combat damage despite leaving blockers back. I didn't have too many other SB cards I wanted to bring in so I left her in, but I wasn't very impressed- in that position it's hard for her to pull you ahead from being behind and unless you get her out T2 on the play against an empty board (which almost never happens), she's mana better spend dropping threats or keeping a Mom/Vial off the table.

As an aside, I had a conversation tonight with a guy who plays a ton of legacy events and had played BUG Delver for a long time about the merits of Tombstalker in today's meta. We both agreed that with the rise of fair decks (containing white/Jace) and the amount of sideboarded Submerges, Tombstalker gets much worse. I've been toying with swapping them out for 1 MD Clique and 1 MD Library and opening up two sideboard slots. Does anyone have any experience playing with SB cards like Maelstrom Pulse, Jitte, Life from the Loam? I'm looking for some ways to tweak the deck to be more comfortable in longer games and have considered those.

Hi,
the white decks (Miralces, Blade, DnT) are the reason why I play 2 Cliques in my SB, so that I can switch them in G2/G3 for the cliques and dont lose pressure...
I played Pulse as a 2off in my SB in the past and it was very strong against Miracles (Jace, Angel Token, Balance etc) but most of the time you cant cast it against decks like DnT which is really poor. Nowadays I play 2 Toxic Deluge in that slot which hels against a lot of decks....

[Sturtzilla]

Greetings All!

Dragonslayer_90 and I played some legacy locals again this week. We were both playing BUG Delver (again). Here is my updated list...

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
1 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Dimir Charm
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Force of Will
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Disfigure
1 Null Rod
2 Golgari Charm
1 Engineered Plague
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Submerge

As for the configuration, I decided to try to play the fewest number of potentially dead cards when playing an unknown opponent. The local meta has been about 50/50 tribal/midrange and combo. That being said, I didn't want to be running maindeck Disfigure or Spell Pierce because if you maindeck the creature removal and get paired against High Tide you have dead cards and the converse can be true of the counter spells in the aggro/midrange match ups. We had four rounds this week. I played against Tom with Oops All Spells, winning (2-0); Feline with Belcher, winning (2-0); Luke with Burn, winning (2-0), and Ian with Merfolk, intentionally drawing (0-0-3; 2-0). Ian and I decided to split the store credit prize and play for the free tournament entry. We played two games and I was able to win both of them.

The deck felt very solid, but now after playing a few weeks with nearly the same configuration, I think I will be exchanging a Tropical Island for a Polluted Delta. I have not had very many (if any that I can remember) hands wherein the two Trops have really hurt me as far as casting spells (Hymn to Tourach and Liliana of the Veil), but when considering this change you are dealing with the consistency to cast your spells versus gaining some percentages versus Stifle and Wasteland. Ultimately that is both a preference and/or metagame call.

I have a couple neat items to share from the games that I played. The first was my second game against Tom with Oops All Spells. He is on the play and my opening seven is piss poor, so I ship it for six. The six are Wasteland, Bayou, Force of Will, Force of Will, Daze, and Ponder. I consider for a moment... as this hand does very little in the abstract; however, here it counters his actual spells and possibly a Cabal Therapy if necessary. So I keep and he cast Gitaxian Probe for 2 life and sees the grip. He ponders for a moment and passes. I was relieved that he didn't have the Therapy to force me to cast one of the Forces. I draw for turn and hit a Grafdigger's Cage. I play Bayou into Cage and pass back. He draws and tanks hard... then concedes. So I guess Grafdigger's Cage is sometimes a combo kill? Cast one spell and win the game!?

The second scenario was against Ian with Merfolk. Game two he is on the play. I keep Misty Rainforest x2, Wasteland, Deathrite Shaman, Tarmogoyf, Engineered Plague, and Liliana of the Veil. A pretty solid hand I would say but it does require items to line up favorably for me. My opponent plays Island and passes. I draw a second Deathrite for turn. I play a Misty, fetch Bayou and cast Deathrite. My opponent plays a second Island and plays a Silvergill Adept revealing a Lord of Atlantis. He then also Submerged my Deathrite. So I draw my Deathrite. Play Misty, fetch Bayou number two and cast and resolve both Deathrites. My opponent draws, plays the revealed Lord of Atlantis and then attacks with the now 3/2 Silvergill. I choose to double block trading one of the Deathrites. On my turn I play Wasteland and cast Liliana of the Veil (playing around Daze; basically forcing him to have Daze x2 or Force of Will and blue card) and use the -2, forcing him to sacrifice his Lord. His next turn is land and a True-Name Nemesis. My next turn is Engineered Plague and we both discard to Lili's +1. I pass back. He looks at the board, his hand and conceded. All of the answers I had drawn were a bit conditional and required things to come together is a particular manner. However either I made the right choices in lining them up or my opponent played loose... maybe a bit of each. As always thanks for reading!

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

Seems like BUG tends to struggle against white decks. Here's a crazy idea, think a Stromgald Cabal in the sideboard would make a huge difference?

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk 2

[KobeBryan]

Seems like BUG tends to struggle against white decks. Here's a crazy idea, think a Stromgald Cabal in the sideboard would make a huge difference?

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk 2

Too much vial in white decks.

You'd die from paying to counter.

[Thorhammer]

Took second at a small 8 man local event last night but some interesting insights as always. A list then A brief report:
Land
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

4 deathrite shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Vendillion Clique
1 Tombstalker

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Sylvan Library
2 Liliana of The Veil


Board:
3 Disfigure
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Submerge
1 Spell Pierce
1 Envelop
2 Golgari Charm
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Vendillion Clique
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod

Match 1: Shardless BUG
As familiar as I am with the deck I have never faced Shardless.... Game 1 a hymn to tourach hits the best possible cards in agent and goyf. It is back and forth for a while and I resolve a sylvan library with a goyf in my hand. He has had a card in his hand for a while and I assume it is force. I rip a hymn off of Library and clear his last card which turned out to be a sandbagged Jace! Yikes! The game ends quickly from there.
Game 2 is a long one which of course is not good for the Team player. It is a pitched battle back and forth and I legitimately think I have a shot until, in a matter of two turns, he has strix, agent agent, jitter, and I have Bayou. What the heck happened? Jitte and vision will do that I guess.
Game 3 I have the nuts. Delver into goyf into double abrupt decay on both his threats. Another goyf stomps him down to make sure he's dead.

Match 2: Junk Depths
I win very easily as Team does what team does best, utilize death rite shaman... Hymn and daze keep him from resolving relevant things and an early flipped delver keeps a good clock going. Game 2 he floods a bit and mysteriously living wishes for a wasteland while I have a death rite. A submerge on a knight finishes him.

Match 3: RUG Delver
Game one I foolishly think i can deal with a mongoose and decide not to force it. i don' find a goyf or lili and the stupid 3/3 ends me. Game 2 is back and forth but i drop two goofs and am fairly confident. I attack into his lone goyf with a disfigure in my hand. He blocks and I disfigure and he has MISDIRECTION!!!! Bah. The game went downhill from there as he finds land after I waste him twice and finds plenty of burn in the form of bolt and Chain lightning.

Interesting set of matched in that I won the supposedly bad matchup and lost the supposedly good matchup. Misdirection out of RUG is unorthodox of course but a blow out non the less. Submerge was awesome all night and I successfully tucked a death rite against shard less which just feels dirty. I like the list going forward as a list geared towards edging out miracles and delver variants.

[Dragonslayer_90]

Hey guys. So I'm in Somerset for the weekend. Did not hit up the invitational even though I was qualified because I haven't been playing standard. Thus, I've just been durdling and being a degenerate while my friends play :tongue: I will be playing in the legacy open this Sunday though. I am not sure if I'm playing BUG Delver but if I do here's what I'm thinking of registering:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Disfigure
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Liliana of the Veil

SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Disfigure
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Sylvan Library
SB: 1 Liliana of the Veil
SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 2 Submerge

What I'm not sure about is if I want to be playing 4 Abrupt Decay and two Lili or the current removal suite I'm running. The advantage of this main deck removal suite is that you are a little more effiecient at controlling the board, which is important in Delver mirrors obviously. As most of us know, sometimes Abrupt Decay costs too much. The down side is that we have more dead cards main deck when we get paired against combo. Recently I've been favoring the main deck disfigure approach as the general meta is pretty fair at the moment.

As for the sideboard I like most of the slots, but would love any input and/or constructive criticism on it. Particularly, I'm wondering if I need something to blow out shardless? I don't know what to make of that matchup. I used to think they are were favored but in my testing I seem to be winning half the games because sometimes they don't do anything to affect the board so you just kill them. One sideboard card I was considering is Winter Orb for Miracles and midrange decks. I'm just not sure what I would cut and whether it is worth it.

[Thorhammer]

Hey guys. So I'm in Somerset for the weekend. Did not hit up the invitational even though I was qualified because I haven't been playing standard. Thus, I've just been durdling and being a degenerate while my friends play :tongue: I will be playing in the legacy open this Sunday though. I am not sure if I'm playing BUG Delver but if I do here's what I'm thinking of registering:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Disfigure
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Liliana of the Veil

SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Disfigure
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Sylvan Library
SB: 1 Liliana of the Veil
SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 2 Submerge

What I'm not sure about is if I want to be playing 4 Abrupt Decay and two Lili or the current removal suite I'm running. The advantage of this main deck removal suite is that you are a little more effiecient at controlling the board, which is important in Delver mirrors obviously. As most of us know, sometimes Abrupt Decay costs too much. The down side is that we have more dead cards main deck when we get paired against combo. Recently I've been favoring the main deck disfigure approach as the general meta is pretty fair at the moment.

As for the sideboard I like most of the slots, but would love any input and/or constructive criticism on it. Particularly, I'm wondering if I need something to blow out shardless? I don't know what to make of that matchup. I used to think they are were favored but in my testing I seem to be winning half the games because sometimes they don't do anything to affect the board so you just kill them. One sideboard card I was considering is Winter Orb for Miracles and midrange decks. I'm just not sure what I would cut and whether it is worth it.


I have definitely always wanted to try winter orb. If you do let me know how it works out. I have a feeling it is on par with Needle and Null Rod at least against Miracles.
I can never bring myself to cut abrupt decay. With all the Shardless running around and delver, I just feel like a want something that works 100% of the time every time. I also prefer two Lili as she has applications against so many decks in the field. There are not many decks that don't cringe when she hits. Miracles, Delver, Shardless, depths, storm, even sneak and show is annoyed to see her show up. The only time I really board her out is certain combo decks, and elves.

I like yer board. The 2 submerge should be quite good against shard less. But the card that really blows them out if you can avoid Mr. Mindsculptor is Tombstalker.

[venice]

Hi everyone,

I took down yet another local tournament today. Playing 5 rounds, I faced the following MUs:

R1: Mirror Win 2:1
R2: Reanimator Win 2:0
R3: Mirror Win 2:0
R4: Thoughtlash Combo Win 2:1
R5: Mirror (we decided to split and play for the 1st pick, I win 2:0)

So 4-0-1 (5-0) total. Facing the mirrormatch 3 times today was a good practice. I now feel like boarding in Spell Pierce is definitely right here. As always, True Name Nemesis was awesome all day, I also tryed out 2 Golgari Charms over 2 Vendilion Cliques in the SB. Unfortunately I didn't really need them, so I cannot comment on that. In theory I want them as additional sweep against D+T and Elves, or vs Supreme Verdicts. I guess I will just keep testing different SB configurations...if only we had like 17 SB slots available, there are so many good options, its hard to choose. :wink:

[iostream]

Went 7-2-1 (ID into top 32 in round 10) with BUG Delver at the Legacy Open in Somerset today. I played 3 Stifles maindeck and they were great all day. It's the real deal - try it out! I beat Shardless BUG twice, combo Elves twice, Zombardment once, Jund once, and Omnitell once. My two losses were to 12-Post and Jund. I can post a list if anyone cares, but I'll keep it short for now since I'm exhausted.

I agree with Dragonslayer (who I believe I personally met at the open after playing against him in the Open Trial the night before - hi!) that Shardless is not a bad matchup for us. They play a bunch of 1/1's for 2 and 2/2's for 3 and their deck just seems so diluted because of it. Basically, when you play against them, it seems like they have very few ways to convert their card advantage into actually killing you. Stifles are particularly good here since they have so little countermagic. In one game, I managed to Stifle not one, but two Ancestral Visions coming off of suspend, once through a Force. That was disgusting. But in another game, a Visions and a Strix actually resolved and I still was able to roll over him just by jamming a bunch of threats.

[Dice_Box]

Do post a list, it would be interesting to see what you had.

On other news, we have the BUG charm. Pulse is better.

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

On other news, we have the BUG charm. Pulse is better.[/QUOTE]

The new BUG charm is a disappointment, definitely agree Pulse and Toxic Deluge are way better options.



Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk 2

[iostream]

Do post a list, it would be interesting to see what you had.
It was totally stock except for the Stifles:

Lands (20)
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island

Creatures (13)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
1 True-Name Nemesis

Spells (27)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Daze
3 Force of Will
3 Stifle
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard (15)
2 Disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Spell Pierce
1 Sylvan Library
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Krosan Grip
1 Force of Will
1 Pithing Needle

I think going forward, it might be nice to have a harder piece of graveyard hate in the sideboard (I got Life from the Loam/Wasteland locked in one game against Punishing Jund) and perhaps another TNN somewhere in the 75, either as a 14th threat or possibly replacing the fourth Goyf. I didn't miss Tombstalker at all.

What do you all think about the two different 18 land/0 Hymn/0 Liliana decklists that made top 8 of the Invitational? The decklists are here: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?t%5BC1%5D=3&start_date=08/29/2014&end_date=08/31/2014&start=1&finish=8&event_ID=21

It seems so strange to give up the discard spells and to play so few mana sources for the three-drops...

[carnifex]

Just FYI, both lists were almost identical to the list that John Wiley popularized with a recent top 8 open finish (and multiple lifetime open top 8s with similar no-hymn builds). They are not the first to do it, and I am surprised to see so little discussion about the no-discard, pro-stifle lists such as these.

Maybe it is time we discuss the merits of these different styles?

[iostream]

Just FYI, both lists were almost identical to the list that John Wiley popularized with a recent top 8 open finish (and multiple lifetime open top 8s with similar no-hymn builds). They are not the first to do it, and I am surprised to see so little discussion about the no-discard, pro-stifle lists such as these.

Maybe it is time we discuss the merits of these different styles?
I think I can see the theory justification for doing it, but I'm not sure. Maybe the logic is like this:

You want Stifle because of its utility, and if you run both Stifle and Wasteland, you're going to mana screw people a decent fraction of the time, which makes your discard weaker, so why not run other things instead of Hymn and Lili? The thing I don't get is why you run Bobs in those slots. It is a very weak attacker, so if you're going to try to out-tempo people, grinding with Bob doesn't make a whole lot of sense (not to mention that flipping Force is awful). If you want to play that aggressively, why not just play RUG? Is Abrupt Decay really that good? If it's just because you need some kind of card advantage now that you don't run Hymn, then what's the point? It actually seems to me like Bob would be better in the 20 land + discard versions of this deck... The other free slots going to Spell Pierce is understandable as a metagame call - these could easily be Disfigures or Gitaxian Probes or whatever. The pilots probably just expected there wouldn't be much D+T or Elves around.

On the other hand, I've found that Hymn to Tourach specifically can help solidify your mana-denial plan by randomly screwing people out of their lands in hand. Turn 1 Deathrite into turn 2 Wasteland+Hymn is often game over. It's also just generally useful to have another angle of attack since converting extra cards into wins can sometimes be tricky. For example, Elves doesn't really care about you flipping a few possibly useless extra cards off of Bob as much as it cares about you stripping the Natural Order or Cradle out of its hand.

[ESG]

We touched on that style briefly back at post No. 567 and post No. 461. Jerry Mee's build and his preliminary discussion of it is in post No. 461. Jerry Mee's list differs more than these other lists in that he cut Tarmogoyf from the deck, but there's some crossover.

[Sturtzilla]

Greetings All!

Dragonslayer_90, btm10, CroSS.24, and I played some legacy locals again this week. We all save Dragonslayer_90, played some flavor of BUG Delver. He forsook us to play that ANT deck... :mad:. I played very nearly the same 75, only changing a Polluted Delta for a Tropical Island.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
1 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Dimir Charm
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Force of Will
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Disfigure
1 Null Rod
2 Golgari Charm
1 Engineered Plague
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Submerge

I stuck with the no Disfigure and no Spell Pierce in the main deck configuration as it has been serving me rather well. We had four rounds again this week. I played against John Wiley (CroSS.24, the progenitor of Wiley BUG, the Stifle build) with BUG Delver, winning (2-1); Adam with ANT, winning (2-1); Dan with Burn, winning (2-1), and Gus with Sneak and Show, intentionally drawing (0-0-3; 0-2). Gus and I decided to split the store credit prize and play for the free tournament entry. We played two games and I was edged out in two close games.

Just a couple interesting points, Wiley (CroSS.24) kept a double Wasteland hand with no colored sources in our game one. This gave me enough time to come back from my mulligan to 5 on the play to win. Essentially the same thing happened in game three. He kept a hand with one colored source and I was able to punish that pretty brutally. Our game three looked like this, I fetched for a Underground Sea and played Deathrite Shaman. He played fetched into Sea and played a Delver of Secrets. I followed with Wasteland to take out his Sea, removed his Sea with Deathrite to make black for a Disfigure targeting his Delver. I then tapped my Sea for a Delver. He bricked off for a few turns and that was all she wrote. I think Jon's build is very strong, but my experience playing it has been marred by games where the deck loses to itself. More specifically opposing Wastelands and Stifles are a lot more detrimental at 18-19 land. Also I have a very love-hate relationship with Stifle... as has been discussed a good bit, when it is good it is really good, but when it is bad it is pretty bad.

Against my Sneak and Show opponent, in game one I survived the Sneak Attacking Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, while sandbagging a Sea and a Ponder. I had put on some solid pressure with a double Delver opener. After the Emrakul attack, I had four cards, no permanents, and 3 life to my opponents Sneak, four lands, no cards, and 2 life. I played the Sea, Pondered and found a second land. This let me play the Sylvan Library the following turn. I got to stack one time not finding any creatures or cantrips before he natural drew a Griselbrand to finish me off. So had he bricked another turn or two we might have gotten there. In game two I had, fetch into Tropical (had a Sea in hand and needed to be able to Daze) into Deathrite. He had Ancient Tomb, Lotus Petal x2 for a Blood Moon. No counter magic... just the second Petal. So his hand lined up perfectly with what I had kept. This turned off the Abrupt Decay and Dimir Charm that I had in the opener. So on the next turn I made a Delver and began attacking. He bricked off a bit but eventually got there. Had my hand had a Force of Will or his hand not had the second Petal we probably would have won that one. Sometimes that is how it goes though.

Sidenote: I playtested the Burn match up with my brother a bit over the weekend. We played eight games. I won five and lost three. That with my record the past few weeks would put me at 9-4 in games against Burn. I know it is a tough match up but it is certainly a match we should be able to win. As always thanks for reading!

[Dragonslayer_90]

So I did pretty bad at Somerset over the Weekend. I think it was mostly me rather than the deck tbh. I hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before and was on autopilot or could not see lines very clearly most of the time to drop at 2-3. My head was just not in it that weekend. Maybe next time. Going to take a break from the deck for a little while to try out other deck. I think my brain needs a break from delvering in general. That's why I ended up playing ANT at my locals yesterday. Also just wanted to say congrats to iostream for your Top 32. Was nice meeting you over the weekend. Hope to see you again in the future:smile:

Anyways, I want to weigh in on the Stifle discussion. I think that the stifle lists have there merits and demerits as the tapout ones do. I do not think one is strictly better than the other. It really depends on the type of meta you are playing in and your playstyle. For instance there is a good amount of tribal in my local meta, specically two merfolk players and one goblins player. Stifle can be good in the Goblins matcup but is absolutely terrible in the Mefolk matchup. At least Sturtzilla and I agree that Hymn is generally better than Stifle in our local meta across the board. However, I think playing a more draw-go list with stifle might be better in the general meta we have at the moment since Miracles and Shardless BUG are seeing more and more play. I do not think that these matchups are extremely bad when playing the tapout hymn versions but Stifle does give us more tools to fight the ways these decks try to go over the top of BUG Delver. I think this style of BUG Delver warrants some more testing as others have said. Specifically, I don't think the lists that are being played at the moment are as tuned as they should be. For example I talked to Jim Davis about CroSS.24's list and he said he doesn't like True-Name Nemesis since all it did was die all the time. He basically said he didn't like investing three mana for a creature that is supposedly hard to kill. But really everyone is prepared for the stupid merfolk rogue at this point. I'm also skeptical of playing 18 lands with some three drops even if we have Deathrite Shaman. Furthermore, I am not sure how I feel about Dark Confidant. He helps a lot in the grindy matchups but the problem is he is generally pretty board impotent and dies to every removal spell played being a fragile 2/1. Other than that I will leave you other BUG Delver players to explore this this other version of BUG Delver if you are so inclined. I, on the other hand, am going to take a break from playing Blue Wild Nacatl.

[Sturtzilla]

For example I talked to Jim Davis about CroSS.24's list and he said he doesn't like True-Name Nemesis since all it did was die all the time. He basically said he didn't like investing three mana for a creature that is supposedly hard to kill. But really everyone is prepared for the stupid merfolk rogue at this point. I'm also skeptical of playing 18 lands with some three drops even if we have Deathrite Shaman.

I am in agreement about True-Name Nemesis. I dislike this card on two levels. The first is purely from the standpoint of playing fun, interactive magic. I am not going to make the argument that TNN disallows interaction, it just hampers the manners in which opponents can interact. Furthermore from having played both with an against it, I am of the opinion that the card is no fun. When I play it... I always find myself thinking, "That was a shitty game. My opponent couldn't do anything and got 3ed over and over until he/she died." Playing against it is the same scenario but worse as you probably lose and wish you drew a sideboard card to deal with it.

From a logistical standpoint, :1::u::u: can be difficult to get to in a lot of games, especially in the fair match ups wherein you often have to fight over mana (theoretically this is when TNN is supposed to shine). Maybe in a 20 land list it is fine but I never really liked it in Wiley's configuration. There probably is a shell out there for it, I just am not sure what it is.



I, on the other hand, am going to take a break from playing Blue Wild Nacatl.

No longer BUG brothers... :cry:.

[Dragonslayer_90]

No longer BUG brothers... :cry:.

Oh come on man. I'll probably play a blue deathrite shaman deck again at some point. The shell is too good not to. BUG Brothers forevaaah :cool:

[iostream]

At least Sturtzilla and I agree that Hymn is generally better than Stifle in our local meta across the board. However, I think playing a more draw-go list with stifle might be better in the general meta we have at the moment since Miracles and Shardless BUG are seeing more and more play.
I'm not a master of this deck by any stretch, but I don't know why we have to choose between Stifle and Hymn - I was happy to run both.

I think there is too much emphasis on the fetchland-Stifle interaction (which indeed is usually only relevant in the first two or so turns). The utility of Stifling random things later in the game is undervalued. Cascade triggers, Craterhoof triggers, Miracle triggers, Stoneforge Mystic triggers... these are all relevant in the midgame and lategame, and so holding one in hand after tapping out for Deathrite or Hymn is not inherently a problem. In addition, they can sometimes even synergize. Some games you get to turn 1 Stifle a fetchland and then Hymn the rest of the lands in their hand away, similar to the Wasteland/Hymn line that is the trademark of this deck.

I view having the choice of leaving open mana or tapping out in the early game to be an interesting strategic option that allows you to maximize the impact of your opening hand given your knowledge of your opponent's deck. It does not seem to me to be the mark of a "confused" or "antisynergistic" deck design like is sometimes said. For example, jamming a turn 1 Delver on the play and hoping for a blind flip is a weak play against certain decks that the Stifle-less versions nevertheless have to do some reasonable percentage of the time. Having the option to hold Stifle up instead gives you another potential line.

As for TNN, I think he is fine - the deck really likes having evasive threats like Deathrite and Delver - but I would not play him with fewer than 20 land.

[btm10]

However, I think playing a more draw-go list with stifle might be better in the general meta we have at the moment since Miracles and Shardless BUG are seeing more and more play. I do not think that these matchups are extremely bad when playing the tapout hymn versions but Stifle does give us more tools to fight the ways these decks try to go over the top of BUG Delver. I think this style of BUG Delver warrants some more testing as others have said. Specifically, I don't think the lists that are being played at the moment are as tuned as they should be. For example I talked to Jim Davis about CroSS.24's list and he said he doesn't like True-Name...

I'm on the fence about True-Name, too. I think it's not supportable at 1UU like Sturtzilla pointed out, though I'd confine that statement to the more conventional lists that run 1-2 Bayou and 1-2 Trops, whereas Wiley's more RUG-like list is fine supporting the double blue off of 3 Trop, 3 Sea, even though it's otherwise a little land light for a 3 mana spell. At 20 lands, it's probably fine. That being said, he won our game 2 last night 100% on the back of double TNN because we ended up in a Tarmogoyf standoff and he drew the second TNN before I hit my Charms. It's just one example, but it bears mention when we're all talking about how we think it's suboptimal.

[kaminamina]

inb4 "Can the new khans card (http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/ktk/8arg43u984398yf/en_58k3wyhkpr.png) be good in BUG delver?"

So before any misguided souls bring it up, no, the synergy with DRS and Tombstalker do not make this playable.

[Sturtzilla]

inb4 "Can the new khans card (http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/ktk/8arg43u984398yf/en_58k3wyhkpr.png) be good in BUG delver?"

So before any misguided souls bring it up, no, the synergy with DRS and Tombstalker do not make this playable.

While there is synergy, it is slow and grindy. This new cat demon does dodge Abrupt Decay and Lightning Bolt; however, I would wager that it is too slow in just about every match up. A converted mana cost of 5 is too high for a 4 power dude even if there is a slight upside. Still hoping that they print us something playable...

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

Be a good card for EDH for sure.

[Thorhammer]

Question for everybody. I have been experimenting with the 19 land build. So far I haven't noticed any difference. But I wanted to ask what land to cut. Is the answer just an underground sea? Or can we cut a fetch land and go down to just eight. I am wary of cutting actual mana producing land since it plays right into RUG's game.

Also, is running Jace in a 19 land build just out of the question?

[ESG]

Question for everybody. I have been experimenting with the 19 land build. So far I haven't noticed any difference. But I wanted to ask what land to cut. Is the answer just an underground sea? Or can we cut a fetch land and go down to just eight. I am wary of cutting actual mana producing land since it plays right into RUG's game.

Cut either a fetch or a Bayou. If you're strongly committed to BB for Hymn, Tombstalker, or Liliana, then I recommend not cutting the second Bayou.


Also, is running Jace in a 19 land build just out of the question?

Yes. If you're cutting lands, it makes no sense to be running a four-drop. Jace is a great card, but he doesn't fit the tempo plan. If you want to play Jace, play Shardless or a dedicated control deck. The only way I could see Jace in this deck is in the sideboard for non-combo, non-Wasteland matchups (which I guess is just Miracles).

[YamiJoey]

A friend of mine play Jace Beleren for that. Giving them a card every few turns doesn't matter as much when you've already drawn 2, and sometimes you can just draw 3 and let it die. I am also boarding it, but I've not played with the deck for a while. Walkers are a pain for us to deal with, and Beleren does everything you need.

[Esper3k]

Question for everybody. I have been experimenting with the 19 land build. So far I haven't noticed any difference. But I wanted to ask what land to cut. Is the answer just an underground sea? Or can we cut a fetch land and go down to just eight. I am wary of cutting actual mana producing land since it plays right into RUG's game.

Also, is running Jace in a 19 land build just out of the question?

I cut the 9th fetch and played a Sylvan Library in the spot of the 20th land.

[Manipulato]

Hey Guys,
I played a 32 man turney yesterday in Nuerenberg and went 3:2.
After playing 2 Toxic Deluge & 3 Spell Pierce in the SB I was more focused on beating Miracles so I decided to cut 1 Deluge, 1 Null Rod & 2 Pierce for a Sylvan Library, 1 Pithing Needle & 2 Envelop, but I played never against it :tongue:

A short report and my current thoughts.

Round 1: Junk (Won 2:1)
Round 2: Dragon Stompy ( Won 2:0)
Round 3: Death & Taxes against my Team mate :rolleyes: (Lost 1:2)
Round 4: Death & Taxes (Lost 1:2)
Round 5: Burn (Won 2 : 1)

My Sideboard was :
2 Envelop
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Golgari Charm
2 Disfigure
2 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Spell Pierce
1 Sylvan Library
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle

MD was the solid standard list.

Final thoughts:
- 2 Toxic Deluge are a must! (It would definitly won me all the DnT MU!) Golgari Charm on its own is not enough because we die to Avenger, SFM & Mirran Crusader.

- Definitly side out all 2 Liliana against DnT ( Its just too expensive especially with Thalia, Ports & Wastes + they flood the board most of the time + WLL is very good against her)

- Play 3 Spell Pierce instead of 2 Envelop 1Pierce because Envelop is only good against Elves & Miracles, Pierce is just way more flexible. They sucked hard against Burn & Stompy.

- I think I will try out 2 Jace in the SB for Miracles & all the BGx MU's. With 20 lands & 4 Shaman he is supportable.

All in all it was a fun day and 2 of our Team made Top 8 (3rd & 5th) and I learned something for the future plus 3:2 is not thaaaaat bad especially if you play against DnT 2 times. ..

Greetings

[Requiem2]

Played in some locals last night and finished 3-1 and placed in the money. I played a pretty standard list and felt good about the match ups. Death and taxes and miracles are both 50/50 but felt my board gave me good answers to everything, drawing them is another story. My SB is still always changing and would love feedback. Below is a tournament report. It was written on my phone so I apologize in advance for grammatical and punctuation errors. Thanks for reading.

Land:
3x useas
2x bayou
2x trops
4x wastelands
3x polluted delta
3x misty
3x verdant

Creatures:
4x delver
4x drs
4x tarmo
2x stalkers

Spells:
4x brainstorm
4x ponder
4x force
4x daze
4x decay
4x hymn
2x lily

SB:
2x spell pierce
2x golgari charm
1x null rod
1x pithing needle
1x sylvan library
1x vendilion clique
2x disfigure
1x diabolic edict
1x toxic deluge
1x thoughtsieze
1x Krosan grip
1x Jace, the mind scultor


R1 D&T. Result 1-2
G1 I ride delvers to victory. G2 he plays 2 vials early and strains my mana and does his thing. G3 was very close with both my golgari charms doing work, it ended with him with Serra avenger on board me with tarmo, he plays an eot aven, beats for 6. I play a second tarmo, he plays eot flicker and the race is close but he gets me in the air as he just needs to chump one of the tarmos to stay alive.

R2 Miracles. Result 2-0
G1 he is on the play he plays a volcanic and passes I play delver and he goes for an eot brainstorm, I daze, he forces back. I consider forcing, but am happy he forced my daze and let the brainstorm resolve. I beat with delver, he plays a land passes back. I play a hymn and he is now at 1 or 2 cards in hand and no top. He plays his terminus on t3, I proceed to force. I play a deathrite and pass turn back, holding back the tarmo in hand. A few turns later he plays terminus and clears the delver and deathrite. I follow up with tarmo and he can't find an answer in time. G2 he plays ponder and passes turn, I play t1 drs. He t2 terminus my drs and follows up with a top. I play a null rod he draws with top, he plays draw go for a bit. Drs gets in for 4-6 dmg before it gets answered. I build up a hand of lily, tarmo, stalker and land. I play lily and discard the land, the next turn I play tarmo which beats for a few turns. He plays a revoker at some point and I play a needle. I named flooded strand, and wasted him, in hindsight I really should have named jace, but he was at 3 mana with pressure on him. Once he answered the tarmo, my stalker hit the board he gg'd. Lily won me that game.

R3 oops all spells. Result 2-1
G1 he did his thing and went off turn 2. G2 I keep a good hand (delta,delver,hymn,fow,fow,BS,daze). T1 play my delver and pass the turn, he plays another probe, probe, mox and petal into 3x morphous into cabal ritual, his GY at 6 (Nervous about cabal therapy). I proceed to let that resolve, so he plays another cabal therapy since he has thresh, I force it and he passes the turn. I transform the delver with brainstorm, draw 2 lands and tarmo (fow off). I put a land force back, reveal force and fetch and cast hymn. He can't recover from here and delver and tarmo beats take me to g3. G3 is very similar I draw well and get force+daze and hymn and delver beats get me there.

R4 Mono red planes walkers and Rabble. Result 2-0
G1 he plays land and passes, I play a t1 drs, he eot bolts it. Land go, then I play tarmo. T3 I hymn hitting a planeswalker and a grim monolith. Tarmo beats in for 5. He plays something at some point that I force but tarmo gets me there fast. G2 a little nervous about an early bloodmoon but decide to keep what I thought was a risky hand (verdant,drs,drs,tarmo,disfigure,hymn,ponder). He plays land go, I decide to play drs(considered ponder to find force,dazed sided out) and pass turn. He plays a land and passes back. I draw a land play a hymn and hit land and Chandra, I ponder and find force. He draws and play bloodmoon and I consider force. I let it resolve because of drs and the 2 lands left in the grave, also I sided out everything double black except the remaining 3 hymns. I follow up next turn with a tarmo and pass. He is ramped quite a bit at this point and goes for a rabble, it resolves, he goes for another and it meets force. He gets a little bummed out as he later reveals playing both was greedy as he could have used pyro blast to protect the rabble if he waited. I proceed to swing with tarmo and he takes 4. I then eat the last land in the grave and disfigure his rabble. Tarmo and drs beats get me there threw his future magus of the moon and Simian spirit guide chump blockers he plays.

[btm10]

I cut the 9th fetch and played a Sylvan Library in the spot of the 20th land.

Same. Sylvan Library is insane. Don't know why it isn't more widely run.

[Thorhammer]

Same. Sylvan Library is insane. Don't know why it isn't more widely run.

Agreed. Sylvan is definitly getting the nod. I feel like 19 lands is enough with deathrite. Rug can't afford to take a turn wastelanding us when we are clocking them and have a mana dork already. And I feel like I've been flooded more times than I've been screwed.

[Requiem2]

Scg St. Louis had 2 bug delver lists in the top 10. Both lists ran 2 Dark Confidants shall we discuss?

[zerzab11]

Always when i want a short break from my beloved Miracles i play this beauty:

//Mainboard:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Tombstalker
1 Vendilion Clique

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Abrupt Decay

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Sylvan Library

1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland


// Sideboard :
2 Spell Pierce
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Disfigure
1 Golgari Charm
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Null Rod
2 Grafdiggers Cage
2 Stifle
1 Liliana of the Veil

I strongly believe this deck is the (second :tongue:) best deck in the meta at the moment.

I played the same 32 - ppl- tournament as Manipulato above on Saturday and managed to take it down with this deck... MU's:

GW/Maverick 2:0
Elves 2:0
Death and Taxes 2:0
Burn 2:1
Elves 2:0 (I.D. played out)

@Jacediscussion: I don't see Jace as a nonplayable card in this deck, one reason, because for me Team America is more of a midrange deck, like Eva Green with cantrips and counters. Of course the deck CAN have tempo draws like double Delver, Deathrite + Waste, threat followed by double hymn.... But the reason the deck is so strong is that it can be both a tempo deck with e.g. nutdraws, AND a midrange deck with mid - and lategame power thanks to Jace and Library.
With Library and Jace in the Maindeck and 9 Cantrips (not counting Library here) the Control MU's, especially Miracles get much better. I think with the list above the MU might be slightly favorable preboard, when playing against a stock Miracle list, and a player with the same skill.
As Canadian has nearly disappeared, I see no MU where we should be missing the 20th land. Preordain might seem somewhat sketchy, but it gives the deck even more consistency and can be counted as a split between the 20th land and a Spell.
In so many grindy MU's youre gonna face during a tournament Jace is MVP. There is no other card for 4 Mana in this deck that changes a game so much when in enters play. I can't imagine this new 4/4 for 5 Mana is even considered, when you can play a much broader and better card like Jace. When you're resolving him against Miracles (which is quite constantly possible, believe me, I tested this MU a lot), the opponent is mostly on few handcards and low life, so you can just BS every turn, put a threat each turn and wait until he is out of removal/gas, whil disrupting further.
If you want to discuss this list further you can PM me too, as I don't want to derail the discussion in this thread too much.

With nearly the same list I'm now 15:1 in matches during the last 3 tournaments I played (counting the two I.D. that I played out and won). I don't say this because I'm so proud of myself, but because I think it's a solid record (while being my personal record also^^) and it might interested people show and tell ;), that this is definetly another valid approach to this archetype.

Best Greetings

Johannes Gutbrod

[cheerios]

Any tips for the elves matchup?

Cheers

[cheerios]

Any tips for the elves matchup?

Cheers

[Manipulato]

Always when i want a short break from my beloved Miracles i play this beauty:

//Mainboard:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Tombstalker
1 Vendilion Clique

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Abrupt Decay

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Sylvan Library

1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland


// Sideboard :
2 Spell Pierce
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Disfigure
1 Golgari Charm
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Null Rod
2 Grafdiggers Cage
2 Stifle
1 Liliana of the Veil

I strongly believe this deck is the (second :tongue:) best deck in the meta at the moment.

I played the same 32 - ppl- tournament as Manipulato above on Saturday and managed to take it down with this deck... MU's:

GW/Maverick 2:0
Elves 2:0
Death and Taxes 2:0
Burn 2:1
Elves 2:0 (I.D. played out)

@Jacediscussion: I don't see Jace as a nonplayable card in this deck, one reason, because for me Team America is more of a midrange deck, like Eva Green with cantrips and counters. Of course the deck CAN have tempo draws like double Delver, Deathrite + Waste, threat followed by double hymn.... But the reason the deck is so strong is that it can be both a tempo deck with e.g. nutdraws, AND a midrange deck with mid - and lategame power thanks to Jace and Library.
With Library and Jace in the Maindeck and 9 Cantrips (not counting Library here) the Control MU's, especially Miracles get much better. I think with the list above the MU might be slightly favorable preboard, when playing against a stock Miracle list, and a player with the same skill.
As Canadian has nearly disappeared, I see no MU where we should be missing the 20th land. Preordain might seem somewhat sketchy, but it gives the deck even more consistency and can be counted as a split between the 20th land and a Spell.
In so many grindy MU's youre gonna face during a tournament Jace is MVP. There is no other card for 4 Mana in this deck that changes a game so much when in enters play. I can't imagine this new 4/4 for 5 Mana is even considered, when you can play a much broader and better card like Jace. When you're resolving him against Miracles (which is quite constantly possible, believe me, I tested this MU a lot), the opponent is mostly on few handcards and low life, so you can just BS every turn, put a threat each turn and wait until he is out of removal/gas, whil disrupting further.
If you want to discuss this list further you can PM me too, as I don't want to derail the discussion in this thread too much.

With nearly the same list I'm now 15:1 in matches during the last 3 tournaments I played (counting the two I.D. that I played out and won). I don't say this because I'm so proud of myself, but because I think it's a solid record (while being my personal record also^^) and it might interested people show and tell ;), that this is definetly another valid approach to this archetype.

Best Greetings

Johannes Gutbrod

Gratz to your finish Johannes! The foil version had more succes on that day like the altered one :tongue:
My current record is 20:5 in 5 turneys with 5 rounds :tongue:

I played RUG a couple of month and after playing 2-3 turneys with TA I will never look back! I had the same feelings/thoughts about the 2 roles of the deck like you. Playing with FoW, Daze & Pierce against unfair decks and Deluge, Jace, Liliana, Cliques & Sylvan against Midrange/Control/BGx decks is a thing which only TA can do! Im in love with the deck (exept for my wife :wink:)

A couple of MU's like Elves & DnT can be tough G1 but after boarding this deck has so much answers/options that everything is winnable or in our favor (Sure the skill level of the opponent is important too).

I'm not sure about the 1:1 Jace/Liliana split MD with 19 lands but a 2:2 split MD SB is a good call I think. I will not draw jim G1 against Elves, DnT or Tempo.
In my MU's the Jace MD would have been not so great.

I think my SB will look like this in the future

2 Spell Pierce
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Disfigure
2 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Golgari Charm
1 Sylvan Library

Greetings

[zerzab11]

Foil Versions always have the most success, that's why I'm playing them :tongue: Your deck is truly beautiful, though!
I agree of Jace beim clunky in the faster MU's (where he get's boarded out obviously), but anyways I think he has earned a spot MD and is better than the alternatives (Lili, Land, TNN, whatever) for me.

@Elves MU: Preboard this is difficult MU. I try to race him all while disrupting. (Important Cards: Delver, Stalker, Hymn, Force)
Postboard it get's much better bringing in +2 Cage, +2 Disfigure, +2 Deluge, + 1 Charm, + 2 Cage, +1 Clique. Taking out -1 Jace, - 4 Daze, -2 Goyf, -1 Library, -1 Hymn, - 1 Decay. (Note: These are widely adjustable plans, for example, leaving in Dazes otP, might be correct against Players that will not play around it (because they might think you boarded it out)). Flyers are very important to pressure them as your groundattack can be easily dispatched wia Symbiote + Elf, Quirion + Arbor or whatever. I like hymn to as it can be very valuable, because Elves has much less key cards in this MU than other decks. It Forces them to overcommit into Deluge, too. I think this MU is slightly negative, but with right boarding and a good draw, it's definetly manageable. Hope that helps :)

[Barbed Blightning]

Well hello beautiful... (http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/avatars/62/95/635457707616883387.png)

[Manipulato]

Well hello beautiful... (http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/avatars/62/95/635457707616883387.png)

With DS & Stalker already in the deck I think removing 4 cards is too unconsistent/suboptimal. Plus we wanna keep some cards in the grave for Goyf & its quite bad in the first 2 turns of the game. I think Smother or Go for the Throat or something would be better if you wanna play such a card. Another disadvantage is that it a nearly dead card against GY hate like RIP/Spellbomb etc...

Greetings

[wcm8]

Well hello beautiful... (http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/avatars/62/95/635457707616883387.png)

Nah, doubtful. For one thing, it doesn't kill creatures on turn 1, which is often critical in matchups where you'd even want a dedicated creature removal spell. For another, it's a non-bo with your DRS, Goyfs, and obviously Tombstalker (if running them). Opposing Rest in Peace and whatnot also make it un-castable. Disfigure, Submerge, Darkblast, and Dismember are going to remain the main SB removal options. Maindeck, Abrupt Decay and Liliana are going to stay the most versatile/powerful choices.

It would have been a more realistic consideration at 2B. 4B is just way too steep.

[Zion Burger]

Hello, all. I spent the past weekend in St. Louis in the StarCity Games Legacy open playing a list very similar to Peter Ingram's from the invitational top 8 in Somerset. I placed 45th, losing to two burn decks and one death and taxes match. I really liked the options here versus the stock 20~ land lists, and I'll go over why I think so.
Without further ado, here's the list I ran:

4x Delver of Secrets
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Deathrite Shaman
3x Dark Confidant
2x True-Name Nemesis
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Daze
3x Stifle
3x Force of Will
2x Spell Pierce
1x Disfigure
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Wasteland
3x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island

SB:
2x Divert
2x Thoughtseize
1x Flusterstorm
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Pithing Needle
1x Vendillion Clique
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Golgari Charm
1x Disfigure
1x Force of Will
1x Spell Pierce

My Record over nine rounds of swiss:
2-1 Sneak and Show
1-2 Death and Taxes
2-1 ANT
0-2 Burn
2-1 The Mirror (someone was running a very close 75)
2-0 Death and Taxes
0-2 Burn
2-0 Charbelcher
2-1 Rug Delver

I liked Dark Confidant in the majority of situations I drew it as it either drew removal that would be pointed at delver or Deathrite Shaman, or just let me run away with the game.The downsides were the possibility of flipping Force of Will, (Game one can suddenly become un-winnable, despite the fact I didn't flip one all day, I have lost games because of this in testing), drawing multiples in an opening hand and little other threats, and his horrible tendency of just sitting there. Greatness at any cost applies a little too heavily here, but I feel like he shines against other Decks to Beat except Elfball. 17 creatures also adds threat density against Death and Taxes, and Dark Confidant really helps us keep up with their onslaught of creatures. Against Shardless, it helps us close the gap a little bit between their ancestral visions, as they can just reload after we'd normally resolve a Hymn to Tourach.

At first, I liked the idea of having stifle in the same way that RUG Delver tempos through player's lands with it, and occasionally I stifle-wasted people into the ground with a Deathrite Shaman on the board, then played a slew of threats. Other times it turned Stoneforge Mystic into a squire or bought me a time walk when an opponent tapped out to equip something. It also counters Ancestral Vision pretty solidly. However, I feel like it's only marginal against combo decks, as Hymn to Tourach does a better job dismantling their plan two random cards at a time except versus Charbelcher. It might just be better played in a known metagame.

The last card I'd like to mention is Divert. Between opposing Hymn to Tourach, burn spells, removal, and being the only possibly "counter" to Abrupt Decay, this card over-performed for me in a lot of match-ups. I often got to send lava spikes back to their caster, Submerged an Insectile Aberration, and pushed an Abrupt Decay onto an opposing Tarmogoyf. I wanted to live the dream of diverting a cascaded Ancestral Vision, but it hasn't happened yet.

Overall, I think this version should be considered. Whether or not it's "better" than the version playing more lands, Liliana of the Veil, and Hymn to Tourach is yet to be determined, but after playing the mirror, I'm certain it'll show up again.

[eostby]

A slight curiosity as someone who is trying to put a build together: Assuming I'm trying to build the 4 Wasteland, 4 USea, 2 Bayou, 1 Trop manabase, given the Khans announcement, should I just try to grab the 9 cheapest fetches in the BUG colors, or is there a strategic reason to have the 3/3/3 (or a different) split besides Pithing Needle?

[Dragonslayer_90]

A slight curiosity as someone who is trying to put a build together: Assuming I'm trying to build the 4 Wasteland, 4 USea, 2 Bayou, 1 Trop manabase, given the Khans announcement, should I just try to grab the 9 cheapest fetches in the BUG colors, or is there a strategic reason to have the 3/3/3 (or a different) split besides Pithing Needle?

When people try to get cute with surgical extraction and target the first land of yours that hits the graveyard. I don't think this or the pithing needle dilemma should affect your choice on what fetches to buy unless you're not too strapped for cash. Saving money should be prioritized.

[Zion Burger]

A slight curiosity as someone who is trying to put a build together: Assuming I'm trying to build the 4 Wasteland, 4 USea, 2 Bayou, 1 Trop manabase, given the Khans announcement, should I just try to grab the 9 cheapest fetches in the BUG colors, or is there a strategic reason to have the 3/3/3 (or a different) split besides Pithing Needle?

I think people also like to keep their opponents on the guessing game of what deck you're playing by the turn one fetch into dual land. Verdant Catacombs into Bayou > Deathrite Shaman is about five, maybe six different possible decks.

[Thorhammer]

Clearly you want the lands that have flavor text about dragons...:wink:

[ESG]

A slight curiosity as someone who is trying to put a build together: Assuming I'm trying to build the 4 Wasteland, 4 USea, 2 Bayou, 1 Trop manabase, given the Khans announcement, should I just try to grab the 9 cheapest fetches in the BUG colors, or is there a strategic reason to have the 3/3/3 (or a different) split besides Pithing Needle?

I agree with the others. I don't think there's a big enough in-game advantage to merit shelling out a bunch of extra cash just to run a slightly better split. Finish the deck first, then worry about optimizing. That kind of detail is way less important than putting together a solid sideboard for your area.

[YamiJoey]

I think that playing 4 Mistys is the biggest advantage, as it's the most played fetch we can run. Deltas are also used in combo, so you can get away with those. Catacombs telegraphs our deck quite well. Delta -> Sea -> Ponder can put the frighteners on people.

But it's not going to matter a lot. Get the ones you cn afford, or like the most. For me, it's 4 Judge Deltas, 4 Catacombs. Playing BUG stinks because we only have access to two Judge lands. (Delta/Waste)

[Esper3k]

I actually like Misty the least.

Verdant lets you pretend to be Jund on T1 (I play 4). Sometimes you can still get people with Verdant -> Underground Sea -> Daze.

Polluted Delta lets you pretend to potentially be combo on T1 as well as being the pimpest fetch :)

[YamiJoey]

Catacombs -> Sea is very telling of being on BUG. Most combo lists want Blue fetchlands, with the exception of Reanimator. Misty -> Go puts them on you playing Stifle a lot of the time.

So I suppose it also depends on your list. I currently play Stifle, so I probably want to cut down on Mistys.

[Jeremy]

So, I was able to sleeve back again after a while in a decent size tournament
Last time in an 8-round with BUG Delver I went 4-1 then losing to myself with a stupid mistake

Now, the metagame wasn't looking so appealing (elves, burn), so I tried different decks (Shardless Bug, Canadian, Miracle), panicked again, then the night before re-sleeved the deck I was more confidant in, screw the rest.

Also, it has been a long time I wasn't on the good side of variance on a big event, like 2011, http://www.tipo1.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=26528), so I think I owed some :tongue:

Decklist

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
1 Dismember
3 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Liliana of the Veil
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Dark Confidant

SIDE

1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Enginnered Explosives
2 Disfigure
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Misdirection
1 Force of Will
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Flusterstorm
1 Jace the Mind Sculptor
1 Life from the Loam
1 Golgari Charm


209 people on Tarmogeddon 10

Milan people, where some of the best Miracle players live, wouldn't come to Padova for a big Modern there. Elves, D'nT, Burn were expected in large numbers, Canadian and tempodeck generally lacking, Miracle was present (in fact, got to finals) but not so much as I could think
Maindecked Jitte to remove&gain life, I saw it really often.

Turn1: Christian with UW blade (delver, snapcaster, SFM, Clique&TNN)

I know him and his kind of deck as he is a local player
Game 1 he tries to stay away from my denial fetching double basic island, but remains out of white so he couldn't remove a fast delver+tarmo. Once he is on white with SFM, I discard bskull.
Game 2, we get to topdeck with empty boards, he goes TNN, CLique, TNN, I go to three lands. Ponder looking for charm/deluge/EE finds nothing
Game 3, I rape him with tempoplay

Turn 2: Memories of The Times with MOST (Zenith-manadorks and strange creatures) - should be in the source

Game1: he mulls to 5, I get into DRS->Tarmo-> jitte equip->gg
Game2: 2nd turn meddling on decay, I shuffle two of them on Brainstorm to topdeck Disfigure after shuffling. He can extend, with fauna needled but 3 dorks+tradewind+scryb ranger seal the game
Game3: again he mulls to 6 I think, 1st round delver flipping, many spot removal and two mass (EE and golgari) rape him

Turn 3: Matteo with Imperial Painter

Probably the game I played best sunday. He played reeeally slow with top, called the judge sometimes, but he wasn't unsporty, only hellish slow.

Game 1: quick delver, wasted sol lands to avoid blood moon quick, decayed moon when cast, on the last turn he mills me but I have just cast DRS which deals last damage in my upk
Game 2: 1st moon ->decay Magus ->i have 2 DRS, 1 land in gy and 1 dismember as out; 2nd magus + imperial on revoker->GG
Game 3: quick Tarmo and decay on Top (which he misteriously didn't put on top because he wanted the cards in order) makes 2 swings before ensnaring. I misdirect the bolt on DRS on him, then play Clique when he's on 3 cards and only 1 colorless in pool to gain an attack for 3. On the very last additional turn I am able to deal the last 2 dmgs with DRS

Turn 4: Marco with Merfolks

I see jitte all 3 games.
G1 I'm racing but double nemesis wins the race when he topdecks lord
G2 I win on delver with jitte
G3 he counters my jitte but he's slow against my Tarmo. 2 drs would win the race, but in combat after submerging Tarmo he vials a Revoker and f..ks me-ponder into brainstorm into find something doesn't work - he also had active FOW

Turn 5: a silent guy with RW Goblins

G1: leads with land Lackey. My hand has 2 decays but no 1-drops. I ponder into nothing, he attacks, drop warchief and wastes me. Split concede
G2: Quick beater with Jitte, he makes some huge mistakes like falling into daze with active skirk-prospector. Deluge for 1 kills his board and I get the game
G3: he mulls to 7, I don't notice until he plays a lackey and count his cards. I call the judge, he would give him game loss, but he's a poor player and not a cheater. I say the judge I don't belive it was intentional, but he has to mull to 5. Double delver and golgari charm seal the game fast

Turn 6: Gino with Death and Taxes

G1: quick delver, he's manascrewed after I remove the fast threat with seize, never finds a STP and dies
G2: this turn was my mistake. Kept 1-lander, went delver->sunlance, Seize->something, then he rishandans me out with my DRS and ponder stuck in hand
G3: discard quick creature, play tarmo, get jitte, kill him

In 3 games he never found a STP...

Turn 7: Roberto "Bob" with Jund

I heard today is his day. After G1 I could easily believe so
G1: his seize removes me a piece, kills my four threat with 2 bolts and 2 punishing without recursion (I wasted him), then he drops some BBE and lily
G2: We go both into topdeck with 3 mana. He lands Lily, I discard DRS and keep brainstorm. Next turn I find Loam+decay with Bstorm, waste him away of green, discard by lily a land, waste 2nd time, when I draw brainstorm I loam into 3 lands, ancestral with BS/dredge and slam Tarmo, lily and he concedes before I drop the jace on my topdeck
G3: he mulls to 6. I keep 7 with delver, tropical, brainstorm, misdirection, 2 wasteland and sthg. else. He lands (5) seize (4). I misdi pitching delver, then find 2 seize, tarmo, lily. This leads me to the skilled 1st turn wasteland win..

I thought I could ID into Top because I was on table 3. Instead, I'm paired with a friend, Loris, who's on Elves and the last game killed a 1st turn show-n-tell griselbrand dropping Worldspine Wurm.
We agree on 20% split, because I feel I can't win

G1: I win dice roll, he mulls to 5 or 6, I go DRS into seize+ tarmo into decay into liliana. I'm able to make a race.
G2: Keeps 7, I don't see hate, I die quite fast
G3: he goes to 5, my hand was delver delver DRS needle land land something, probably ponder. Turn 1 delver, he DRS, I have the thought and make needle on DRS. He sadly reveals 2nd DRS in hand, then 2 delvers beat harder than drs and quirion ranger.

I'm in as 2nd in swiss

In top8

Me
Miracle (playable)
TES (playable)
Sneak&show (playable)
Infect (don't know but probably playable)
2 elves (hardly winnable)
1 jund (bad mu)

I got paired with elves.

G1 I try the fast race, force his first mana elf, probably my mistake was to drop delver T1, Tarmo T2, decay T3 and tarmo T4. had I decayed the wirewood simbyosomething and got (at least) one more tarmo attack, probably I had won, because he stucks my ground and the turn before dying of DRS he finds the natural order
G2 things go naturally, and after a delver and some resistance, he Behemots me away.


I omitted to say that I also mulliganed a lot on sunday, but always necessarily, to find more playable hands. I boarded out many times a bayou and eventually a wasteland when wasn't so necessary (most, painter, elves). Played all cards in the board except flusterstorm, but It was fine because it would have been there for non-artifact combo and maybe some miracle counterwars.

Won some negative MUs on luck but also on skill or opponent mistakes, as my imperial painter opponent admitted he learnt way more from this game than from many wins. He kept supporting me during the whole tournament even if I just met him today, very nice guy.

Quite satisfied with the list, jitte isn't the best choice but a necessary meta call. I think Italian metagame looks shady in the future for the deck, but, who cares, as long as my delvers flips the turn after I drop it :laugh:

Hope to be able to answer to your questions, if you have some

Bye
Massimo/Jeremy

[YamiJoey]

http://mythicspoiler.com/ktk/cards/hootingmandrills.jpg

Hooting Mandrills
5G Creature - Ape
Delve, Trample
4/4

Call me crazy, but we used to play the significantly more expensive and harder to cast Tombstalker. Could this have a place? I get that 'Stalker has flying, was a little more powerful, and that Goyf is usually a 4/5 and beats this up, but we don't often care about enemy Goyfs with our 4 Shamans, and if we're moving away from the BB Spells, this could do a lot of work in the Stifle builds. 4 Shaman, 4 Delver, 4 Goyf, 2 Mandrills seems like a solid base for a much more aggressive BUG Delver deck.

[Sturtzilla]

Greetings All!

I guess my hot streak ended. This week at locals we played four rounds. I lost to Adam with Sneak and Show (0-2), lost to Rysuke? with 12 Post (1-2), won against Ashley with Burn (2-0) and won against Tom with Oops All Spells (2-0). The deck was basically the same as the last two postings. Admittedly, I think I got greedy in game three against 12 Post and got punished for it. Details are very specific but given the top of my library and what he had in hand an extremely aggressive line would have likely won me the match. A slightly more conservative line seemed better at the time. Alas that is Magic though.

As I increase the number of games played with the Hymn build, I just feel more and more that that card has gotten to be too slow. I cast them against Sneak and 12 Post and they just didn't seem to matter. These are match ups where early 2-for-1s should be great. Maybe I drew a little poorly or maybe my opponents drew well. I may do a little tweaking. Hope to have a more exciting report for you guys next week.

[wcm8]

I'm more interested in Treasure Cruise (7U, Sorcery, Delve, Draw 3 cards). I think this would be a nice singleton (or maybe 2-of) to run. It's not that tough to reach threshold with this deck, and mid-late game casting it for 3 or 4 is doable. It's probably sided out against decks running Rest in Peace, but damn if it doesn't give you a big edge elsewhere. And unlike Ancestral Visions, you don't have to run Agent or wait a bunch of turns for it to fire.

So:

20 lands
12 creatures (4/4/4 goyf/delver/DRS)
4/4 daze/FoW
4/4 ponder/bstorm
4/4 hymn/decay
2 liliana
1 sylvan library (or 2nd treasure cruise... though Sylvan is busted in many matchups)
1 treasure cruise

90% of the time DRS is eating cards from your opponents graveyard, so there's few instances where this would be problematic to cast. I see no obvious downside to fitting at least one into the deck.

[wcm8]

http://mythicspoiler.com/ktk/cards/hootingmandrills.jpg

Hooting Mandrills
5G Creature - Ape
Delve, Trample
4/4

Call me crazy, but we used to play the significantly more expensive and harder to cast Tombstalker. Could this have a place? I get that 'Stalker has flying, was a little more powerful, and that Goyf is usually a 4/5 and beats this up, but we don't often care about enemy Goyfs with our 4 Shamans, and if we're moving away from the BB Spells, this could do a lot of work in the Stifle builds. 4 Shaman, 4 Delver, 4 Goyf, 2 Mandrills seems like a solid base for a much more aggressive BUG Delver deck.

Dodges Bolt and Abrupt Decay too. This could be a decent option to increase threat density. However, remember Hidden Gibbons is a card too. I don't think TA really suffers from running only 12 creatures, and for creature slots 13-14 you have the option of Dark Confidant, V. Clique and TNN. Not sure that running another vanilla beater is worth it, especially when Tombstalker is probably the best option if that's your goal.

[Esper3k]

Catacombs -> Sea is very telling of being on BUG. Most combo lists want Blue fetchlands, with the exception of Reanimator. Misty -> Go puts them on you playing Stifle a lot of the time.

So I suppose it also depends on your list. I currently play Stifle, so I probably want to cut down on Mistys.

If you're going to try and trick someone, this is assuming you're not going to crack your Catacombs until their turn to Brainstorm / Daze in response to something.


http://mythicspoiler.com/ktk/cards/hootingmandrills.jpg

Hooting Mandrills
5G Creature - Ape
Delve, Trample
4/4

Call me crazy, but we used to play the significantly more expensive and harder to cast Tombstalker. Could this have a place? I get that 'Stalker has flying, was a little more powerful, and that Goyf is usually a 4/5 and beats this up, but we don't often care about enemy Goyfs with our 4 Shamans, and if we're moving away from the BB Spells, this could do a lot of work in the Stifle builds. 4 Shaman, 4 Delver, 4 Goyf, 2 Mandrills seems like a solid base for a much more aggressive BUG Delver deck.

Not a fan of it myself for the drawbacks you listed. Could be better in the Stifle lists, I agree, but I think at that point in the game, you won't get as much value from Stifle anyways.

I'm much more interested by Necropolis Fiend, myself. He's a little more expensive than Tombstalker with a pretty nuts ability. Activating it for 2 kills most creatures in Legacy.

[ESG]

Greetings All!

I guess my hot streak ended. This week at locals we played four rounds. I lost to Adam with Sneak and Show (0-2), lost to Rysuke? with 12 Post (1-2), won against Ashley with Burn (2-0) and won against Tom with Oops All Spells (2-0). The deck was basically the same as the last two postings. Admittedly, I think I got greedy in game three against 12 Post and got punished for it. Details are very specific but given the top of my library and what he had in hand an extremely aggressive line would have likely won me the match. A slightly more conservative line seemed better at the time. Alas that is Magic though.

As I increase the number of games played with the Hymn build, I just feel more and more that that card has gotten to be too slow. I cast them against Sneak and 12 Post and they just didn't seem to matter. These are match ups where early 2-for-1s should be great. Maybe I drew a little poorly or maybe my opponents drew well. I may do a little tweaking. Hope to have a more exciting report for you guys next week.

I side out Hymns against Belcher and All Spells and bring in any blue cards in my board because I know my plan is mull to Force of Will. Turn 1 combo decks and Sneak and Show are both matchups where Thoughtseize is better than Hymn, but Hymn is still strong against Sneak and Show. Spell Pierce is also good in these matchups. Either or both would be good out of the sideboard. I run Envelop in my board, so that comes in. For All Spells, all grave hate comes in even though they could be transforming into Belcher. The deck is powerful but isn't consistent, so I don't devote any special slots to beating it. If I needed to do that, I would run Mindbreak Trap or Faerie Macabre.

12 Post is a 50-50 matchup. The mono-green version is somewhat unfavorable due to the added threat of Dark Depths. Can't win 'em all. Better luck next time.

[KobeBryan]

This is just an idea.

Delver is by far our worst creature. I know.

Maybe we can swamp delver out for that new green dude since it puts a beating on TNN as well as other creatures in the format minus goyf.

Since this eats up our 1 drops, we can replace the hymn, which people are already complaining about, for 4 thoughtseizes so it gives us more turn 1 plays.

[KobeBryan]

http://mythicspoiler.com/ktk/cards/hootingmandrills.jpg

Hooting Mandrills
5G Creature - Ape
Delve, Trample
4/4

Call me crazy, but we used to play the significantly more expensive and harder to cast Tombstalker. Could this have a place? I get that 'Stalker has flying, was a little more powerful, and that Goyf is usually a 4/5 and beats this up, but we don't often care about enemy Goyfs with our 4 Shamans, and if we're moving away from the BB Spells, this could do a lot of work in the Stifle builds. 4 Shaman, 4 Delver, 4 Goyf, 2 Mandrills seems like a solid base for a much more aggressive BUG Delver deck.

I would not take out those 2 flex slot creatures. Those creatures are usually the vendillion clique, tombstalker, and dark confidant. These are utility creatures and for matchup purposes.

If you want to fit the new guy in, i would suggest you take out beaters in that slot.

[Sturtzilla]

I side out Hymns against Belcher and All Spells and bring in any blue cards in my board because I know my plan is mull to Force of Will. Turn 1 combo decks and Sneak and Show are both matchups where Thoughtseize is better than Hymn, but Hymn is still strong against Sneak and Show. Spell Pierce is also good in these matchups. Either or both would be good out of the sideboard. I run Envelop in my board, so that comes in. For All Spells, all grave hate comes in even though they could be transforming into Belcher. The deck is powerful but isn't consistent, so I don't devote any special slots to beating it. If I needed to do that, I would run Mindbreak Trap or Faerie Macabre.

12 Post is a 50-50 matchup. The mono-green version is somewhat unfavorable due to the added threat of Dark Depths. Can't win 'em all. Better luck next time.

The only match up that I felt was really poor was Sneak and Show. I think I need to work on my plan for boarding there a little bit. Thanks for your take on the MU. I think the 12Post match was winnable. I think I got a little unlucky/my opponent got a bit lucky and I made a subpar call on how to move from the mid to late game. So I will try to keep that in mind for the future. Oops All Spells is awful. I don't even understand how it is a deck. More than half of the format plays Force of Will. Lots of decks play Spell Pierce, Daze, Thoughtseize... the list goes on. The last time I played against this guy, He tried to go off on T1, I Forced, on my turn, I played a Grafdigger's Cage and he scooped. Like why would you play this garbage?

[ESG]

Oops All Spells is awful. I don't even understand how it is a deck. More than half of the format plays Force of Will. Lots of decks play Spell Pierce, Daze, Thoughtseize... the list goes on. The last time I played against this guy, He tried to go off on T1, I Forced, on my turn, I played a Grafdigger's Cage and he scooped. Like why would you play this garbage?

Many people are attracted to strategies that feel broken. When you kill your opponent Turn 1, that's a very powerful feeling. Some people want an "easy mode" for Magic, and a Turn 1 combo deck can provide that, because there typically is not much thought beyond that first critical turn. Other people -- gamblers, let's say -- get their kicks in playing a high-risk, high-reward deck. Most of the time, All Spells is putting you all-in on the first turn, so that's probably a rush for players who like that. All Spells is still one of the cheapest decks in the format, so there's that, too. I don't play MTGO, but I understand the deck is far more prominent there than in paper.

[wcm8]

This is just an idea.

Delver is by far our worst creature. I know.

Maybe we can swamp delver out for that new green dude since it puts a beating on TNN as well as other creatures in the format minus goyf.

Since this eats up our 1 drops, we can replace the hymn, which people are already complaining about, for 4 thoughtseizes so it gives us more turn 1 plays.

I agree that Delver is a bit underwhelming in this deck in comparison to RUG, but one of its major purposes is maintaining a healthy Blue count for Force of Will. If you start dropping the tempo angle for more midrange threats, then why even bother playing cards like Daze, Hymn, Stifle, etc? Might as well drop that angle of attack altogether and play BUG Cascade. 5G is going to be tough to cast in a decent timeframe, and difficult to cast in multiples. It's also yet another creature that suffers from graveyard removal.

I am well aware that TA's earlier incarnations didn't have access to Delver, but I think it's now one of the stronger elements in the deck and the second-best turn 1 play behind DRS.

Realistically, you're not going to be casting Hooting Mandrills until turn 3 at the absolute earliest. In which case, perhaps you'd be better off dropping Delver for TNN if you want to mix up the threat base and play something more robust.

To be under consideration for Team America, you have to be better than the following, in roughly this order:
1. DRS
2. Tarmogoyf
3. Delver
4. V. Clique
5. Dark Confidant
6. TNN
7. Tombstalker
8. Snapcaster Mage
9. Nimble Mongoose
10. Baleful Strix
11+ Unusual sideboard creatures (Thrun the Last Troll, Kitchen Finks, Scavenging Ooze, Obstinate Baaloth, Terravore, Sower of Temptation, Gilded Drake, Hidden Gibbons, etc.)

It's fun to get excited about new cards, but Team America is a collection of the best and most efficiently-costed cards in the Legacy cardpool. This deck, perhaps more than any other is going to have an extremely high barrier of entry.

[ESG]

I agree that Delver is a bit underwhelming in this deck in comparison to RUG, but one of its major purposes is maintaining a healthy Blue count for Force of Will. If you start dropping the tempo angle for more midrange threats, then why even bother playing cards like Daze, Hymn, Stifle, etc? Might as well drop that angle of attack altogether and play BUG Cascade. 5G is going to be tough to cast in a decent timeframe, and difficult to cast in multiples. It's also yet another creature that suffers from graveyard removal.

I am well aware that TA's earlier incarnations didn't have access to Delver, but I think it's now one of the stronger elements in the deck and the second-best turn 1 play behind DRS.

Realistically, you're not going to be casting Hooting Mandrills until turn 3 at the absolute earliest. In which case, perhaps you'd be better off dropping Delver for TNN if you want to mix up the threat base and play something more robust.

To be under consideration for Team America, you have to be better than the following, in roughly this order:
1. DRS
2. Tarmogoyf
3. Delver
4. V. Clique
5. Dark Confidant
6. TNN
7. Tombstalker
8. Snapcaster Mage
9. Nimble Mongoose
10. Baleful Strix
11+ Unusual sideboard creatures (Thrun the Last Troll, Kitchen Finks, Scavenging Ooze, Obstinate Baaloth, Terravore, Sower of Temptation, Gilded Drake, Hidden Gibbons, etc.)

It's fun to get excited about new cards, but Team America is a collection of the best and most efficiently-costed cards in the Legacy cardpool. This deck, perhaps more than any other is going to have an extremely high barrier of entry.

One large drawback to the Delve creatures is you can't realistically play them with Dark Confidant. That being said, I can imagine a list where Hooting Mandrills would get the nod over some of these other creatures. I wouldn't be playing it, but I think it's playable.

[Zombie]

Many people are attracted to strategies that feel broken. When you kill your opponent Turn 1, that's a very powerful feeling. Some people want an "easy mode" for Magic, and a Turn 1 combo deck can provide that, because there typically is not much thought beyond that first critical turn. Other people -- gamblers, let's say -- get their kicks in playing a high-risk, high-reward deck. Most of the time, All Spells is putting you all-in on the first turn, so that's probably a rush for players who like that. All Spells is still one of the cheapest decks in the format, so there's that, too. I don't play MTGO, but I understand the deck is far more prominent there than in paper.

If I wanted to gamble with a broken deck I'd play TES though :/

[YamiJoey]

Can we stop discussing why someone might want a deck that you consider bad but has performed well? When Rogues was first suggested and I had no way of playing a real deck I tested it out, alongside stuff like 4-horsemen. It was a very effective deck, and sugnificantly more consistent then you're making it out to be. People will play it, we don't care about it. Sometimes it will get you, most of the time we're the best deck in the format to beat it. (Or one of, at least.)

[Sturtzilla]

Can we stop discussing why someone might want a deck that you consider bad but has performed well? When Rogues was first suggested and I had no way of playing a real deck I tested it out, alongside stuff like 4-horsemen. It was a very effective deck, and significantly more consistent then you're making it out to be. People will play it, we don't care about it. Sometimes it will get you, most of the time we're the best deck in the format to beat it. (Or one of, at least.)

You make two good points. The first is that while a deck may just fold to a number of cards that are frequently played in a given metagame, people may still play the deck. The game is about more than winning or playing the "best" deck. Many will play decks that they find fun (which may or may not [here it would certainly be not] be different than my opinion) or simply have access/budget for. Not to derail the thread, but I would like to see any information on the deck Oops All Spells doing well. If I recall, Adam Prosak Top 8-16ed an SCG Open and then it has never again put up results. I would love to know if it has had more success than that. Shoot me a PM if you turn anything up. Additionally I was not speaking to the validity of Rogues or Four Horsemen... so I am not sure what that has to do with anything. The second being that we should get back onto the topic of BUG configurations, sideboards, reports... and other things BUGy.

[Dragonslayer_90]

You make two good points. The first is that while a deck may just fold to a number of cards that are frequently played in a given metagame, people may still play the deck. The game is about more than winning or playing the "best" deck. Many will play decks that they find fun (which may or may not [here it would certainly be not] be different than my opinion) or simply have access/budget for. Not to derail the thread, but I would like to see any information on the deck Oops All Spells doing well. If I recall, Adam Prosak Top 8-16ed an SCG Open and then it has never again put up results. I would love to know if it has had more success than that. Shoot me a PM if you turn anything up. Additionally I was not speaking to the validity of Rogues or Four Horsemen... so I am not sure what that has to do with anything. The second being that we should get back onto the topic of BUG configurations, sideboards, reports... and other things BUGy.

Here you go: http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14079&iddeck=103567. Now stop BUGging us about irrelevant decks! :tongue: lol. jk jk. I don't think my friend Sturtzilla meant to call people stupid for playing decks like Oops all spells. I think initially he was just carrying on the hilarious rant about the deck he spewed to me on the way home from our lgs on Tuesday. Even glass cannon decks like oops and belcher can put up results every now and then with the right metagame and pilot. Our lgs metagame is probably not the best for such a deck and the fact that the pilot of the deck at our lgs is not particularly good doesn't help either.

Anyways, I'll steer the thread back in the right direction. I know I said I'm taking a break from delver for a little while and I am, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about different ways to play BUG Delver. Currently, in my free time I've been testing a stifle list:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
2 True-Name Nemesis
3 Stifle
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Wasteland
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Sylvan Library
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Thoughtseize
1 Bayou

SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 Marsh Casualties
SB: 1 Sylvan Library
SB: 3 Disfigure
SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Engineered Plague

With what little testing I've done I feel like the deck has a lot of play and flexibility, but seems a tad underpowered compared to tap out lists. I think to answer to this problem I sense is actually upping the threat count a little more. I'm thinking of a threat suite similar to John Wiley's so that means bringing Dark Confidant back. I may even cut True-Name though since it doesn't seem as good as I want it to be. Also, one thing to note is that this deck is soft to a resolved True-Name Nemesis preboard. In otherwords I guess I'm missing Liliana of the Veil. Maybe it's possible to play 1 or two in the main? What do you guys think?

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

I am currently running 3 Dark Confidant in my deck, and I have no desire to remove them. I like the speed that BOB offers with the interactions with Sylvan Library and Brainstorm. The deck just seems faster and deadlier.

[Sturtzilla]

Here you go: http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14079&iddeck=103567. Now stop BUGging us about irrelevant decks! :tongue: lol. jk jk. I don't think my friend Sturtzilla meant to call people stupid for playing decks like Oops all spells. I think initially he was just carrying on the hilarious rant about the deck he spewed to me on the way home from our lgs on Tuesday. Even glass cannon decks like oops and belcher can put up results every now and then with the right metagame and pilot. Our lgs metagame is probably not the best for such a deck and the fact that the pilot of the deck at our lgs is not particularly good doesn't help either.

Thanks for the link. :cool: I was not at all calling people stupid. I was calling the deck stupid... for that matter I still am calling that deck stupid. If a deck loses consistently to a single counter spell or piece of discard... it probably doesn't really belong in Legacy. Take that nonsense to the casual tables. Take this all for what that is worth as it is only my opinion. You were basically hyperventilating during said rant.

As for the proposed list... when I was playing Wiley's list, I really liked Confidant and was much less thrilled with TNN. I think TNN has uses but I think due to CMC and card advantage I would go with Robert. TNN is chunky... and makes me sad in combo match ups. :cry:

[YamiJoey]

My current deck:

Permanents: 15
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Sylvan Library
4 Tarmogoyf
2 True-Name Nemesis

Spells: 25
4 Brainstorm
2 Disfigure
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Daze
4 Force of Will

Lands: 20
4 Wasteland
9 Fetchlands
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island

Sideboard
1 Deathmark
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Golgari Charm
1 Life from the Loam
1 Dismember
1 Pithing Needle
1 Bitterblossom
1 Jace Beleren
1 Liliana of the Veil

The deck feels so powerful post-board, but I'm wondering what I can do to help it feel more like it's executing a plan in G1. It seems to just be screwing around making Creatures and attacking with some countermagic support. I get that's what the deck is, but it doesn't feel like RUG Delver just making them unable to play Magic, and it doesn't feel like it used to before I played Stifle where I could outgrind Jund. Should I be cutting the Stifles for some discard, and cuting a TNN, or both? I used to have one main, one board. I love my game 2's, especially against the slower decks - I'm not sure I can lose that - and Vs Combo the deck's super powerful because it's Delver. Should I just be cutting Stifles from this build? They've sort of felt awkward.

I'll cut Stifles. :(

[Dragonslayer_90]

The deck feels so powerful post-board, but I'm wondering what I can do to help it feel more like it's executing a plan in G1. It seems to just be screwing around making Creatures and attacking with some countermagic support. I get that's what the deck is, but it doesn't feel like RUG Delver just making them unable to play Magic, and it doesn't feel like it used to before I played Stifle where I could outgrind Jund. Should I be cutting the Stifles for some discard, and cuting a TNN, or both? I used to have one main, one board. I love my game 2's, especially against the slower decks - I'm not sure I can lose that - and Vs Combo the deck's super powerful because it's Delver. Should I just be cutting Stifles from this build? They've sort of felt awkward.

I'll cut Stifles. :(

I had similar issues and feelings with my similar list posted above. What I did to change that is Cut the TNNs for a couple Dark Confidants. In initial testing I seemed to have liked this change a lot. Our deck does not abuse TNN as well as the Stoneforge decks so it often just feels like blue troll ascetic with some more upside. I think Dark Confidant is probably better than TNN for this deck in many respects so maybe cut TNN for Dark Confidant in your list as well? Also, it maybe worth fitting in some thoughtseizes as a proactive complement to Stifle.

[YamiJoey]

Is there room for cutting the TNN's and a Stifle for a Thoughtseize, then? Does that look like a deck to you?

[Dragonslayer_90]

Is there room for cutting the TNN's and a Stifle for a Thoughtseize, then? Does that look like a deck to you?

With your configuration I would worry that the deck would not have enough threats making those changes. The reason that Team America typically plays 14 creaures as opposed to RUG's 12 is because we do not have any untargettable creatures like Mongoose except for the occasional two-of TNN so we have to make up for that by having some more threats. I have known people to only play 12 actual creatures in Team, but they also usually have Liliana of the Veil maindeck in addition to Sylvan Library, which are threats in a different sense. Maybe try cutting the TNNs, a Stifle, and either move a force to the board or cut a land for Three Thoughtseize and either another Sylvan, Tombstalker, or Dark Confidant. I've been getting by with 19 lands with no three drops in my main deck. At least when not playing Liliana of the Veil maindeck I feel fine with 19 lands.

[Teknique]

Decided to play Team America at SCG Atlanta after placing 20th (6-2) at SCG Syracuse with a very similar list.
Ended up placing 17th in Atlanta, going 7-2. I'm not going to post match details because I didn't take many notes, nor do I have much time to think about it and write it up now. I can try to answer any specific questions you may have though.

List:
Creatures: (16)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Dark Confidant
2 True-Name Nemesis

Spells: (26)
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
3 Stifle
3 Spell Pierce
3 Force of Will
3 Ponder
2 Disfigure

Lands: (18)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea

SB:
2 Thoughtseize
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Disfigure
1 Golgari Charm
1 Marsh Casualties
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Krosan Grip
1 Sylvan Library
1 Force of Will
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Divert

Matches by Round:
1 (W): Miracles (2-1)
2 (W): UB Tezzeret (2-1) Had punishing fire package, not sure if that's standard for the deck.
3 (L): Maverick (0-2) I misplayed a few times, but it was just murder anyway.
4 (L): Tin Fins (1-2) G3 I have cage in play and thoughtseize his AD. Next turn he draws the 2nd AD, kills cage, kills me.
5 (W): Infect (2-1) G3 he almost gets there with a lone hierarch. Infect has a lot of play, and the results obviously show it
6 (W): UR Delver (2-1)
7 (W): Team America (2-0) I think this was also a stifle build
8 (W): MUD/Welder (2-0)
9 (W): RUG Delver (2-0)

For those who are curious, my losses in Syracuse were to Gerard Fabiano on Shardless BUG, and John Wiley in the stifle build mirror.

I've played miracles since before it was a real deck, but lately wanted a change of pace. This was only my 3rd event with the deck (ATL, SYR, and 1 Local) and I've never played the discard version, so I can't provide too much insight, but this deck is a lot of fun and I think a very solid competitor.

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

Quick question, how did you feel about the Dark Confidant and True-Name Nemesis in the playlist, and how they performed???

[Teknique]

Quick question, how did you feel about the Dark Confidant and True-Name Nemesis in the playlist, and how they performed???

Bob is great. The flavor text is apt. He is valuable as both bait (to clear removal and allow beaters to get through) and as a self contained engine and clock, which I'll happily throw any of the other creatures under the bus to clear the way for bob. He's never bad unless you're a turn away from dead. I can see the argument for Wiley and others starting to run 3, but I think 2 is sufficient.

TNN is in my opinion the worst card in the deck, and I'm not sure it's necessary other than to have more threats and increased blue count. It's always underwhelming when I cast it, and the matchups where it seemed best (Delver mirrors) is when you're least likely to be able to cast it, or resolve it. It usually just feels like a waste of a turn. This build is more reactive and tapping out for a 3/1 is less than stellar. Honestly, I cast it more times as counter bait so I could immediately drop drs + bob/goyf/sylvan the next turn and win.

[carnifex]

I don't think anyone could argue that the thesis might be overblown, in the end (the author admits that he may be overzealous). But this article is interesting:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29337_The-Most-Dangerous-Cards-In-Khans-Of-Tarkir.html

It's select so it should be free for those without premium membership.

What do people think about his claims regarding the impact of Treasure Cruise on BUG Delver?

[FoolofaTook]

I don't think anyone could argue that the thesis might be overblown, in the end (the author admits that he may be overzealous). But this article is interesting:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29337_The-Most-Dangerous-Cards-In-Khans-Of-Tarkir.html

It's select so it should be free for those without premium membership.

What do people think about his claims regarding the impact of Treasure Cruise on BUG Delver?

What exactly do you want to pull out of your list for a Sorcery speed draw 3 that you'll probably feel pressed to tap out for on turn 3 fairly often?

If I saw easy pulls from the list to get Treasure Cruise in it would be no problem but I'm not pulling Ponder for it and after that you're removing business for reload and that's usually a bad deal.

Without the 2-4 Ponders your odds on casting Treasure Cruise in a timely manner are pretty low.

[Dice_Box]

There are better options over that thing. Library, Bob, Sign in blood...

[AngryTroll]

I'm running the standard list (2 Tombstalker, 1 Library, 1 Liliana), and I'm going to test -2 Tombstalkers, -1 Library (+1 Library in the board) for 3 Treasure Cruise. It should at least prove interesting; it's always at least fun to test potentially good new cards.


What exactly do you want to pull out of your list for a Sorcery speed draw 3 that you'll probably feel pressed to tap out for on turn 3 fairly often?

I don't think you'd ever want to tap out on turn three for Treasure Cruise. I assume that the best use of the Cruise is as the last card in your hand.

[FoolofaTook]

I'm running the standard list (2 Tombstalker, 1 Library, 1 Liliana), and I'm going to test -2 Tombstalkers, -1 Library (+1 Library in the board) for 3 Treasure Cruise. It should at least prove interesting; it's always at least fun to test potentially good new cards.



I don't think you'd ever want to tap out on turn three for Treasure Cruise. I assume that the best use of the Cruise is as the last card in your hand.

So here's the question: do you really think that Treasure Cruise on turn 5 is going to be worth as much as Tombstalker on turn 3 in terms of actual victories?

The problem I have with Treasure Cruise is that the second one you draw is never going to be much more than Force fodder. This makes having 3 of them in the list problematic. The first one isn't going to solve any problems for you until the game state is advanced enough that holding onto it for all that time has been a negative factor overall.

How is holding Treasure Cruise for 4 or 5 turns going to be superior to actually playing a Ponder on turn 3 to get the thing you need or to shuffle away the dreck you'd draw otherwise? How is it going to be superior to using Ponder on turn 1 or 2 to fix a draw that lacks just one thing and would be only a marginal keep without Ponder? 2 lands in your opening hand and the opponent has a Wasteland and you'd be struggling despite all the business you drew without Ponder.

Ok, then try to fit Brainstorm, Ponder and Treasure Cruise in a BUG list and not wind up short on business too often as a result.

The first two cards listed are fixers that you can look at alongside other cards in your hand and make the adjustment for what is missing. The third is card advantage late but it can't be used to fix the hand or account for things that might be missing. That's why I think people will wind up tapping out for Treasure Cruise often as soon as they can and despite the game state. It's going to be sitting as an amorphous card advantage device in their hand at the expense of real value and the pressure is going to be heavy to realize that advantage and hope the tap out is not a critical problem.

I've been looking at Treasure Cruise and wondering if it's the replacement for Brainstorm. It's sorcery speed and it's arguably stronger card advantage however that's all it is: card advantage. If Brainstorm were to go away Treasure Cruise is one of the cards people would look hard at to try to replace the value.

[zerzab11]

You're not really thinking of replacing Brainstorm, are you? This makes me cry... :cry:

@Topic: I don't think an argumentation, in which Treasure Cruise is a bad card, because players do play it bad, will help any further. I like the comparation with Stalker though. No one needs to play this card desperately on turn 3, although there might be situations where tapping out early might be the best play. In the lategame this card get's (based on my initial testing ~ 30 games) so much value, it's crazy. Against Miracles f.e. it's so much better than a Stalker, finding additional threats (because often, it doesn't matter if you play Goyf/Stalker/Delver/...) and cards (what makes the difference against control^^). Drawing lands isn't a problem either, as it makes your lategame Brainstorms to Recalls. I think Treasure Cruise will find its home as a 1-2 of in Team America variants, making an all time star and demon sadly fade out ;)

[FoolofaTook]

I'd never replace Brainstorm. It's the best card in the format and a primary reason to play blue multicolor lists.

I think you're right that Treasure Cruise will find it's place as a 1-of in a lot of lists. That's where the value is, as a late game reloader that gives you some play when top deck draw-go is the alternative. If you're not running JtMS you should put him in first though. He gives you play and he wins games when he resolves in a stalemate.

[eostby]

The only Khans card that seems potentially likely to slot into BUG Delver is the 4B kill spell with Delve, imo, and only as a replacement for Dismember in the lists running that. Nothing else jumps out as bonkers enough to make the cut.

[Sturtzilla]

Greetings All!

Dragonslayer_90 and I played some legacy locals again this week. We both ended up in the money. I think he ended 4th and I ended 5th (I think 5th was the last place for payout; alas tiebreakers). He has been trolling around playing some non-BUG Delver decks... I am glad he is having success and learning other decks, but I am still very happy with BUG Delver. Here is my list for reference.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
1 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Dimir Charm
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Force of Will
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
1 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Disfigure
1 Null Rod
2 Golgari Charm
1 Engineered Plague
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Zur's Weirding
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

I have really been happy with the maindeck comprised of cards that are "never potentially dead" when playing an unknown opponent. Shaving maindeck Disfigure and Spell Pierce really makes the deck feel very proactive without losing much ground in any particular match up. I played against Dan with 12Post, winning (2-0); Brendan with Merfolk, losing (1-2); Ian with Miracles, winning (2-0), and Tom with Oops All Spells, winning (2-1). After my rant a week or so ago it is worth mentioning that I only lost to Oops All Spells as I could not draw a hand with a colored source in Game 1 until my 4 card hand... sometime that happens and sometimes they will get ya.

I will say probably the best thing that I got to do was resolve Zur's Weirding against both my 12Post opponent and my Miracles opponent. It was absolutely back-breaking for them. They were forced to pay life to keep from giving me good cards, quickening my clock; while I was able to keep them off of win conditions or ways to stabilize. I was thoroughly impressed with the card. Both opponents actually seems to enjoy the Weirding subgame of saying yes or no to any given draw even if it did hose them. I was a bit iffy about this card as a sideboard choice; however, if you expect Miracles and/or combo decks that don't really come after you life total (12Post, High Tide, Sneak and Show, Omnishow, maybe some flavors of storm) this card is really worth checking out.

I would like to take a second to chime in on some items from Khans of Tarkir. Everyone seems to be looking at the following cards:

Murderous Cut
Hooting Mandrills
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time

Murderous Cut is probably going to see some Legacy play as it give our deck a means to kill creatures like Griselbrand and other non-Emrakul, the Aeons Torn-fattys that Abrupt Decay can't. I don't think it is an outright replacement for Disfigure in our current shell as we will not be able to reliably cast it on turn 1-2. As for its distinction from Dismember, they both will have situations were each is superior. Time and metagame variation will probably determine which you should run.

Hooting Mandrills is interesting but our deck probably isn't in the market for a trampling 4/4 for a :g:. I think that is a great price but what are you going to cut for it? Goyf is usually bigger and more easily and consistently cast. It also makes a higher percentage of your threats soft in some manner to graveyard hate.

Treasure Cruise is the card that I see as the most interesting. I am not going to claim that it is an auto-4-of... but Drawing 3 cards for :u: is awesome (see Ancestral Vision... it has an entire deck built around it, TC is more flexible). Who cares if you don't get to do it until turn 4-5. As for diluting your deck, many lists are running a few weird flex cards already (see Sylvan Library and Dimir Charm in my list above). The connection people seem to be failing to understand between Treasure Cruise and Tombstalker is a fundamental one. Tombstalker is a permanent and is terribad in multiples, while Treasure Cruise is a spell and meh to okay in multiples. This means a cast Cruise is +1 for your next Cruise delve. Also if it resolves, you are drawing three cards which can be spent quickly (if even needed) to facilitate another Cruise. The way I see it is that a Cruise should normally get you to +2-4 for your next Cruise. If you only play 2-3 enabling them should be easy. The problem will be they are going to be poor in the face of grave hate.

Dig Through Time I am not too excited about. Intuition is probably just better in almost every case. There maybe be dedicated control decks (BUG and Miracles [with no RIP]) that can take advantage of searching for a particular answer plus any additional card. I don't see it being super great in our deck though. As usual thanks for reading!

[AngryTroll]

So here's the question: do you really think that Treasure Cruise on turn 5 is going to be worth as much as Tombstalker on turn 3 in terms of actual victories?

This is exactly the question that will need answering. As I see it the list has about four flexible slots, usually some combination of Liliana, Sylvan Library, and 2 threats (either Tombstalker, TNN, or Dark Confidant). If one does want to add Treasure Cruise without cutting threats, Tombstalker will need to be replaced with either TNN or Vendilion Clique. I could try -2 Tombstalkers, -1 Library for +2 Treasure Cruise, +1 Clique.

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

Here's the question you need to ask, would you rather play a turn 5 Treasure Cruise or a JtMS?

[btm10]

That's a misleading question - first, it assumes that you're binning exactly 1 card/turn and tapping out for Treasure Cruise. Second, it totally ignores the fact that you have the option of playing one or more of the spells you draw off of TC - or even another spell before it - if you've been able to put enough cards in the graveyard to Delve for more.

[phazonmutant]

Here's the question you need to ask, would you rather play a turn 5 Treasure Cruise or a JtMS?

Treasure Cruise, because I rarely have 2UU, but I very often have 1U and 6 cards in grave. It allows you to both refuel and deploy threats on the same turn.

I tested a 6 game set in the mirror (just what my friend had on him) and got a good feel for the card. My list was the same as from Columbus (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=68947), -1 Tombstalker, -1 Clique, -1 Library, -1 Pierce for +3 Cruise and +1 land (I've been feeling better with 20 lately).

Every turn after turn 3, it was the exact card I was hoping to draw. Most mid/late games (turn 4+) I could have cast two for the full Delve on the same turn. The couple times I did draw it, I was able to just completely dominate. For example, one game we jockeyed back and forth with Hymn - on the play, he Hymned me with Deathrite in play. I hid my Hymn and a cantrip with a Brainstorm. I Hymned him. He passed, I Decayed Deathrite. I dropped Goyf, he Decayed it. I Delvecestral'd and dropped a Delver and a Deathrite. He lost.

I was paying attention, and only rarely would I have been able to cast Jace (it's difficult to keep UU in the Wasteland mirror, much less 4 mana), and if I did, most of the time it would just be bouncing a Goyf then Brainstorming. I'm not sure that's better than drawing 3 then killing Goyf or playing your own on the same turn.

[KobeBryan]

I don't see why you guys would run Treasure Cruise.

1. It kills our DRS
2. It kills our goyfs
3. we don't run Probes to fill the gy faster
4. we become even more dependent on the graveyard as we already are.

[FoolofaTook]

Here's the question you need to ask, would you rather play a turn 5 Treasure Cruise or a JtMS?

This is an easy question in most cases but if you're digging for an answer to something the Treasure Cruise might be better. That's because JtMS won't save you against multiple creatures and you won't be able to cast your sweeper the turn you play him.

I agree that putting Treasure Cruise into a list that does not already include JtMS is probably not a good choice. There are few things that BUG can do on turn 4 or 5 that are as potent as resolving JtMS.

[phazonmutant]

This is an easy question in most cases but if you're digging for an answer to something the Treasure Cruise might be better. That's because JtMS won't save you against multiple creatures and you won't be able to cast your sweeper the turn you play him.

I agree that putting Treasure Cruise into a list that does not already include JtMS is probably not a good choice. There are few things that BUG can do on turn 4 or 5 that are as potent as resolving JtMS.

The cards do different things, and have vastly different costs. Even casting Jace is not something this deck is set up to do (2 Bayous + 4 Wasteland is a good clue), much less protecting him (no Strix, only 4-5 removal spells).

Ancestral Recall is something every blue deck is set up to do. If your cards are good, more of them is better. It's really that simple. Using Wasteland helps cast Treasure Cruise. Using Wasteland hurts casting Jace. Trading off creatures and spells does nothing for Jace. It actively fuels Treasure Cruise. Do you see a difference here?

[FoolofaTook]

The cards do different things, and have vastly different costs. Even casting Jace is not something this deck is set up to do (2 Bayous + 4 Wasteland is a good clue), much less protecting him (no Strix, only 4-5 removal spells).

Ancestral Recall is something every blue deck is set up to do. If your cards are good, more of them is better. It's really that simple. Using Wasteland helps cast Treasure Cruise. Using Wasteland hurts casting Jace. Trading off creatures and spells does nothing for Jace. It actively fuels Treasure Cruise. Do you see a difference here?

If you're not playing Goyf and DRS I definitely see a positive difference. If you're playing both you really would be better off adding the singleton Jace and knowing that you had a real answer for the long game in the list. BUG Delver goes to control mode a lot more often than RUG does and almost as often as Patriot.

Drawing a Goyf or DRS off of a suddenly empty yard isn't promoting as much value as it seems.

[Teknique]

If you're not playing Goyf and DRS I definitely see a positive difference. If you're playing both you really would be better off adding the singleton Jace and knowing that you had a real answer for the long game in the list. BUG Delver goes to control mode a lot more often than RUG does and almost as often as Patriot.

Drawing a Goyf or DRS off of a suddenly empty yard isn't promoting as much value as it seems.

By the time you're in the mid/late game, your opponent's yard is probably sufficient. Unless you're both on the treasure cruise plan, then it still helps because you get more cards, and more men, and you build a bigger board. I'm not sold yet either, but I'm not going to dismiss it before I give it a decent chance to prove itself.

Didn't a lot of people think playing deathrite and goyf together was going to be nonsense and horrible too? (I realize that 1 vs X to 7 cards being removed is a big difference, but you see what I'm saying).

[FoolofaTook]

Treasure Cruise will be worth testing but it makes us weaker against almost every other blue list out there. We're one of the few blue lists that play both Goyf and DRS and both will suffer from playing Treasure Cruise and from the opponent's Treasure Cruises.

BUG Control will get more benefit from Treasure Cruise than we do because most of those lists forgo the Goyfs. RUG will get more benefit from it than we do because almost all of those lists forgo DRS. Patriot will get the best bump from it because no Goyf and no DRS and they're most often in the controlling mode as it is, the mode that Treasure Cruise really helps.

The lists that Treasure Cruise is really going to help are UG Infect and Miracles. It's like a dream card for both lists. UG Infect because they fill their yard extremely fast and their main weakness is how hard it is to reload if you can answer them early. Miracles because they go so long that Treasure Cruise will be a perfect draw for them with the added benefit of removing fodder for DRS - which is a card they hate.

[btm10]

RUG can't play Treasure Cruise because they run fewer lands than we do, don't run Liliana (who provides a more or less constant stream of cards in graveyard), and they probably wouldn't be able to keep Goose Threshed after Delving.

[ESG]

Oy. It's surprising how much people want to dismiss this card.

* Tarmogoyf is a threat regardless of Delve. Your opponent still has a graveyard, and it's easy enough to preserve one card type if you're Delving and need that card type to buff Goyf. If Delve made Tarmogoyf appreciably worse, then no one would be running Tombstalker in the same deck.

* Deathrite Shaman can still eat spells in the opponent's graveyard. Also, if you've drawn three cards, it's easy to start refilling your own yard.

* Jace doesn't flip Delver of Secrets. Treasure Cruise does. This card can be played earlier than Jace and has a less restrictive color cost. Jace draws you one card; this draws you three.

* Nimble Mongoose has been lagging for a while, so I wouldn't be surprised if RUG lists dropped some or all copies for Treasure Cruise and either True-Name Nemesis or more burn spells. The BURG deck has a lot in common with RUG and would love to jam Treasure Cruise.

* A lot of decks will be playing either Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time. No one is saying that BUG Delver will be the deck to best utilize these cards, only that the cards are good.

[btm10]

Of Delver variants, BUG will probably be the happiest with Cruise. My point above wasn't that Cruise was bad, it's that RUG is a bad home for it and that BUG has several aspects that make it quite useble. I can't comment on Mongoose vs. Treasure Cruise in RUG because I've never played RUG, but the cards do want opposing things, and it seems that making RUG an attractive home for Cruise would fundamentally alter the deck by slowing it down.

[Esper3k]

I actually think UWR would probably like Treasure Cruise the most. It doesn't care about it's graveyard at all on top of having all those cheap removal spells to throw.

[FoolofaTook]

* Nimble Mongoose has been lagging for a while, so I wouldn't be surprised if RUG lists dropped some or all copies for Treasure Cruise and either True-Name Nemesis or more burn spells. The BURG deck has a lot in common with RUG and would love to jam Treasure Cruise.



If RUG likes Treasure Cruise they'll drop Nimble Mongoose for something like Young Pyromancer. I don't think they're going to go with another 1cc burn spell because they're right on the pressure curve as it is and they'll be short permanents to keep the pressure on.

BUG is still going to get hurt worse than most of the other blue lists because DRS and Goyf are two of the best cards in the list in terms of cost vs effect. The argument that the opponent's GY will make up the difference just doesn't fly if Treasure Cruise is a real thing. The opponent will be playing it also in that case and removing the one card in their list that really gets hurt by delve, whatever that is.

What all the delve cards are really aimed at in my opinion is making it easier for people to proactively remove their own GY for worthwhile effects when all the GY is doing is helping their opponent in some way. That it might also finally kill off threshold as a playable mechanic is just icing on the cake for WotC. They've been trying to figure out a way to kill off threshold quietly for years now, with DRS as the most obvious device.

The insane thing about what they've done here is that they're going to totally blow up the Khans Standard in the process. They've pushed people towards blue and control with the two blue delve spells and they did it at the same time they reprinted the fetches, which is going to make yards meatier than they've been in a while. I expect we'll see a 10-12 fetch list in here somewhere steamrolling a lot of things WotC would rather have had playable in the meta.

[YamiJoey]

You realise that Fetches, aside from how they work with Courser, are crap in Standard, right? Worse than Checklands in 90% of situations.

That aside: Shaman does work against Delve. If we land an early Shaman against someone with Delver cards, it becomes ab even bigger target than it is right now. If we can eat 2-3 cards with a Shaman, we set them back far enough.

[KobeBryan]

If RUG likes Treasure Cruise they'll drop Nimble Mongoose for something like Young Pyromancer. I don't think they're going to go with another 1cc burn spell because they're right on the pressure curve as it is and they'll be short permanents to keep the pressure on.

BUG is still going to get hurt worse than most of the other blue lists because DRS and Goyf are two of the best cards in the list in terms of cost vs effect. The argument that the opponent's GY will make up the difference just doesn't fly if Treasure Cruise is a real thing. The opponent will be playing it also in that case and removing the one card in their list that really gets hurt by delve, whatever that is.

What all the delve cards are really aimed at in my opinion is making it easier for people to proactively remove their own GY for worthwhile effects when all the GY is doing is helping their opponent in some way. That it might also finally kill off threshold as a playable mechanic is just icing on the cake for WotC. They've been trying to figure out a way to kill off threshold quietly for years now, with DRS as the most obvious device.

The insane thing about what they've done here is that they're going to totally blow up the Khans Standard in the process. They've pushed people towards blue and control with the two blue delve spells and they did it at the same time they reprinted the fetches, which is going to make yards meatier than they've been in a while. I expect we'll see a 10-12 fetch list in here somewhere steamrolling a lot of things WotC would rather have had playable in the meta.

No one in RUG is even talking about Treasure, cuz its a lousy card in that deck. Same with this deck.

The only decks i see playing this card would be something like Miracles, UR burn, omnitell or UWR

[SansSerif]

No one in RUG is even talking about Treasure, cuz its a lousy card in that deck. Same with this deck.

True, the RUG thread is much too caught up in Hooting Mandrills, which is another mediocre card that I doubt will see widespread play.

I am interested to see what (if any) play Stubborn Denial will see. I think it could be a decent card in BUG decks running Tombstalker as an excellent way to protect it's own threats while also acting as a hard counter against control decks in the late game. Nothing is worse than holding onto a Spellpierce while your opponent casts STP or Terminus with a ton of land untapped.

[T-101]

I'm also eager to see how Stubborn Denial pans out. My gut tells me it won't be as good Spell Pierce, because it requires a Stalker or a medium sized Goyf.

If the spell isn't Ferocious, it's around the same power level as Force Spike. I've never seen Force Spike cast in Legacy.

That said, you are absolutely right about it being the worst when you have Pierce in hand and they Terminus your board with 2 or 3 extra up.

[phazonmutant]

I'm also eager to see how Stubborn Denial pans out. My gut tells me it won't be as good Spell Pierce, because it requires a Stalker or a medium sized Goyf.

If the spell isn't Ferocious, it's around the same power level as Force Spike. I've never seen Force Spike cast in Legacy.

That said, you are absolutely right about it being the worst when you have Pierce in hand and they Terminus your board with 2 or 3 extra up.

I'm going to go with your gut on this one. Envelop is the card to counter Terminus and Infernal Tutor.

The biggest thing that people are missing with "who will be a better cruise deck" is the strategic angle. Just as Vision facilitates the grindy midrange plan Shardless adopts, Cruise will back up the midrange strategy that BUG Delver often assumes (falls back on?). This deck topdecks better than almost every deck and is designed to get to that point. Cruise helps there. Uwr and RUG are not trying to get into topdeck wars.

[FoolofaTook]

I'm also eager to see how Stubborn Denial pans out. My gut tells me it won't be as good Spell Pierce, because it requires a Stalker or a medium sized Goyf.

If the spell isn't Ferocious, it's around the same power level as Force Spike. I've never seen Force Spike cast in Legacy.

That said, you are absolutely right about it being the worst when you have Pierce in hand and they Terminus your board with 2 or 3 extra up.

If Stubborn Denial was a complete counter it would be a 2-of in Legacy lists playing Tempo and probably bring the total counters to 9 or 10 depending on how many FoW were being played. As a non-creature counter it won't see play at all.

[Teknique]

Tested with cruise last night against UWR (with cruise), Tezzeret (with dig), and BURG many games both on play and draw. Switched to the list phazonmutant outlines below, but stuck with 19 land. This was also my first experience playing this deck with discard. I left the most relevant sentence from Greg's post.

I tested a 6 game set in the mirror (just what my friend had on him) and got a good feel for the card. My list was the same as from Columbus (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=68947), -1 Tombstalker, -1 Clique, -1 Library, -1 Pierce for +3 Cruise and +1 land (I've been feeling better with 20 lately).

Every turn after turn 3, it was the exact card I was hoping to draw.Card's absurd. I also immediately noticed that this deck is now almost always control, and hopes to play in the midgame. My plan wasn't to jam and get there asap, it was to prevent my opponent from playing for a few turns until I could have a full grip and they had nothing. Then you just dominate. I only lost 1 or 2 games to BURG and that was strictly due to flooding.

Hopefully, this week I'll test a stifle list with cruise (my preferred playstyle to discard), but the synergies between lili + cruise, and hymn ensuring your goyfs are huge and deathrites active may be too much to pass up.

[FoolofaTook]

Tested with cruise last night against UWR (with cruise), Tezzeret (with dig), and BURG many games both on play and draw. Switched to the list phazonmutant outlines below, but stuck with 19 land. This was also my first experience playing this deck with discard. I left the most relevant sentence from Greg's post.
Card's absurd. I also immediately noticed that this deck is now almost always control, and hopes to play in the midgame. My plan wasn't to jam and get there asap, it was to prevent my opponent from playing for a few turns until I could have a full grip and they had nothing. Then you just dominate. I only lost 1 or 2 games to BURG and that was strictly due to flooding.

Hopefully, this week I'll test a stifle list with cruise (my preferred playstyle to discard), but the synergies between lili + cruise, and hymn ensuring your goyfs are huge and deathrites active may be too much to pass up.

Ask yourself how this will play if both players are playing it. Goyfs small(er), DRS (inactive), etc. It's a double-edged sword. You'll have it in your hand some games and not want to play it because your opponent has already delved and you're going to have to shrink your Goyfs back down to 1/2 or 2/3 to play it. Your DRS will now compete with your Goyfs. Your opponents will selectively delve to keep your Goyf small and prevent your DRS from doing one of the two things you'd ideally like to do.

It's a trap unless you can find things to draw that aren't GY dependent in some way or you are in a suddenly toothless mirror match.

If you don't delve then your Goyfs will still be 80% size at minimum assuming you can manage the opponent's DRS. You won't get completely blown out by a list that resolves RiP.

[Teknique]

Ask yourself how this will play if both players are playing it. Goyfs small(er), DRS (inactive), etc. It's a double-edged sword. You'll have it in your hand some games and not want to play it because your opponent has already delved and you're going to have to shrink your Goyfs back down to 1/2 or 2/3 to play it. Your DRS will now compete with your Goyfs. Your opponents will selectively delve to keep your Goyf small and prevent your DRS from doing one of the two things you'd ideally like to do.

It's a trap unless you can find things to draw that aren't GY dependent in some way or you are in a suddenly toothless mirror match.

If you don't delve then your Goyfs will still be 80% size at minimum assuming you can manage the opponent's DRS. You won't get completely blown out by a list that resolves RiP.

You keep putting it down and it doesn't seem like you've tested it. Which is fine. I'd like to play against the staunch disbelievers in cruise at a large event and blow them out when I've drawn 6+ more cards than them...

I made a point of saying that the UWR list I played against was running cruise. I, as well as other people who have actually played cruise mirrors will keep telling you, it just doesn't matter. Unless there is a RIP in play, there are graveyards and shaman and goyf are active. Even in the situations where your goyf is down to a 2/3, you don't give a shit, because you have 6 cards in hand, probably 2/3 dudes on board, and your opponent has nothing but lands. And guess what, next turn you have 4-5 cards in the yard anyway and your goyf is big again. Like I said, the deck stops caring about speed (ala big goyfs) and assumes complete control. You have the time to ping them to death.

You act like casting a treasure cruise removes all graveyards from the game and stops more cards from going in...Stop theory crafting when people are telling you that the card is the real deal, and actually test it. Then maybe your posts will be constructive and help the deck move forward.

[YamiJoey]

I've been more in on the Cruise plan as of recent, too. I'm going to be cutting back to the Discard + Countermagic nonbo deck that somehow works, and jamming Liliana and Cruises. Ever since I decided to just jam together a quick control list that made Cruise work I've been more and more interested in both it, and Dig Through Time. I'll be playing a lot more Legacy, and Magic in general now that my friend has his own place, so I'll be playing a lot of games with a lot of different configurations that I've never really had the opportunities to test before now. Sadly, however, it seems that UW Control is still the best deck in the format, so my absolutely beautiful BUG Delver deck will probably stay in its box for most tournaments. :(

[FoolofaTook]

You keep putting it down and it doesn't seem like you've tested it. Which is fine. I'd like to play against the staunch disbelievers in cruise at a large event and blow them out when I've drawn 6+ more cards than them...

I made a point of saying that the UWR list I played against was running cruise. I, as well as other people who have actually played cruise mirrors will keep telling you, it just doesn't matter. Unless there is a RIP in play, there are graveyards and shaman and goyf are active. Even in the situations where your goyf is down to a 2/3, you don't give a shit, because you have 6 cards in hand, probably 2/3 dudes on board, and your opponent has nothing but lands. And guess what, next turn you have 4-5 cards in the yard anyway and your goyf is big again. Like I said, the deck stops caring about speed (ala big goyfs) and assumes complete control. You have the time to ping them to death.

You act like casting a treasure cruise removes all graveyards from the game and stops more cards from going in...Stop theory crafting when people are telling you that the card is the real deal, and actually test it. Then maybe your posts will be constructive and help the deck move forward.

I've tested it in BUG Delver, primarily against RUG Tempo. Still testing but I think a singleton TC in my list is probably a good idea. He hated the card with a passion because when he and I were both running 3 (and then 2) his list suffered pretty horribly from the dual delves going on. Nimble Mongoose is *really* bad alongside Treasure Cruise. Goyf is not what you want him to be in games in which both sides delve, particularly when you delve first and your opponent gets to selectively delve after you. If they delve out creatures, instants and lands after you've delved heavily for your TC the Goyf is really small, like 2/3 at the end of that.

[wcm8]

T. Cruise is REAL.

:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:
EVERY TIME I CAST IT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaiSHcHM0PA

Alright, so the hyperbolic statements surrounding T. Cruise are getting kinda silly. But guess what? Play 4 of them in Team America and you've just made the best deck in Legacy even better.

I've done about 3 days worth of testing with 4x Treasure Cruise. It slots perfectly in this deck. Running the full playset is correct, at least for the time being for the following reasons:

-You ALWAYS want to cast it. Playing 4 copies means it shows up with fairly good certainty right at about the time you can play it (whether for 1, 2, or even 3+ mana). Although running only 2-3 copies is 'safer', this is a card that does a lot towards helping you win the game, and isn't dead in multiples like, say, Sylvan Library is.
-If you get stuck with multiples early, there's no problem with pitching it to FoW or avoiding the issue entirely via Ponder/Bstorm
-This deck has an easy time filling the graveyard to cast multiple copies. The card itself also helps fuel future castings
-It makes actual strategic sense in this deck. Tap out early on, throw everything you got at the opponent, and then refuel with this card to start the onslaught all over again in the midgame. Since BUG is a hybrid control deck that veers more towards playing a midrange game in comparison to its Stifle-toting brethren, the card advantage is perfect for this deck. I think UWr will also see similar adoption, but RUG will probably have to reconfigure its threat base if it decides to play Delve cards like this
-It hardly interferes with DRS or Goyf. You're generally using your opponent's GY for them.

To all current naysayers: seriously, test it out. I doubted it at first as well. Unlike red herring cards like Temporal Manipulation, Cruise doesn't require massive amounts of setup and simply rewards you for playing Magic -- much like Tarmogoyf. Until people start hating on this effectively, there is no reason not to be playing this card. It gives TA the power of BUG Cascade, without having to run junky enablers or forego Daze and whatnot. I think it's also reasonable to consider running a few more singletons in the list since with all the card draw, it'd be easier to actual see those sort of cards.

Rest in Peace is a card that will likely be seeing a LOT more sideboard play. But with 4 ADecay and 2-3 Golgari Charm, that is really just more of a speedbump than an actual impediment to our strategy. Plus, I'd much rather the opponent be playing a bunch of non-threatening Sideboard cards instead of things that actually kill us.

[KobeBryan]

T. Cruise is REAL.

:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:
EVERY TIME I CAST IT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaiSHcHM0PA

Alright, so the hyperbolic statements surrounding T. Cruise are getting kinda silly. But guess what? Play 4 of them in Team America and you've just made the best deck in Legacy even better.

I've done about 3 days worth of testing with 4x Treasure Cruise. It slots perfectly in this deck. Running the full playset is correct, at least for the time being for the following reasons:

-You ALWAYS want to cast it. Playing 4 copies means it shows up with fairly good certainty right at about the time you can play it (whether for 1, 2, or even 3+ mana). Although running only 2-3 copies is 'safer', this is a card that does a lot towards helping you win the game, and isn't dead in multiples like, say, Sylvan Library is.
-If you get stuck with multiples early, there's no problem with pitching it to FoW or avoiding the issue entirely via Ponder/Bstorm
-This deck has an easy time filling the graveyard to cast multiple copies. The card itself also helps fuel future castings
-It makes actual strategic sense in this deck. Tap out early on, throw everything you got at the opponent, and then refuel with this card to start the onslaught all over again in the midgame. Since BUG is a hybrid control deck that veers more towards playing a midrange game in comparison to its Stifle-toting brethren, the card advantage is perfect for this deck. I think UWr will also see similar adoption, but RUG will probably have to reconfigure its threat base if it decides to play Delve cards like this
-It hardly interferes with DRS or Goyf. You're generally using your opponent's GY for them.

To all current naysayers: seriously, test it out. I doubted it at first as well. Unlike red herring cards like Temporal Manipulation, Cruise doesn't require massive amounts of setup and simply rewards you for playing Magic -- much like Tarmogoyf. Until people start hating on this effectively, there is no reason not to be playing this card. It gives TA the power of BUG Cascade, without having to run junky enablers or forego Daze and whatnot. I think it's also reasonable to consider running a few more singletons in the list since with all the card draw, it'd be easier to actual see those sort of cards.

Rest in Peace is a card that will likely be seeing a LOT more sideboard play. But with 4 ADecay and 2-3 Golgari Charm, that is really just more of a speedbump than an actual impediment to our strategy. Plus, I'd much rather the opponent be playing a bunch of non-threatening Sideboard cards instead of things that actually kill us.

What are you taking out to play this as a 4 of?

[phazonmutant]

T. Cruise is REAL.

:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:
EVERY TIME I CAST IT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaiSHcHM0PA

Alright, so the hyperbolic statements surrounding T. Cruise are getting kinda silly. But guess what? Play 4 of them in Team America and you've just made the best deck in Legacy even better.

I've done about 3 days worth of testing with 4x Treasure Cruise. It slots perfectly in this deck. Running the full playset is correct, at least for the time being for the following reasons:

-You ALWAYS want to cast it. Playing 4 copies means it shows up with fairly good certainty right at about the time you can play it (whether for 1, 2, or even 3+ mana). Although running only 2-3 copies is 'safer', this is a card that does a lot towards helping you win the game, and isn't dead in multiples like, say, Sylvan Library is.
-If you get stuck with multiples early, there's no problem with pitching it to FoW or avoiding the issue entirely via Ponder/Bstorm
-This deck has an easy time filling the graveyard to cast multiple copies. The card itself also helps fuel future castings
-It makes actual strategic sense in this deck. Tap out early on, throw everything you got at the opponent, and then refuel with this card to start the onslaught all over again in the midgame. Since BUG is a hybrid control deck that veers more towards playing a midrange game in comparison to its Stifle-toting brethren, the card advantage is perfect for this deck. I think UWr will also see similar adoption, but RUG will probably have to reconfigure its threat base if it decides to play Delve cards like this
-It hardly interferes with DRS or Goyf. You're generally using your opponent's GY for them.

To all current naysayers: seriously, test it out. I doubted it at first as well. Unlike red herring cards like Temporal Manipulation, Cruise doesn't require massive amounts of setup and simply rewards you for playing Magic -- much like Tarmogoyf. Until people start hating on this effectively, there is no reason not to be playing this card. It gives TA the power of BUG Cascade, without having to run junky enablers or forego Daze and whatnot. I think it's also reasonable to consider running a few more singletons in the list since with all the card draw, it'd be easier to actual see those sort of cards.

Rest in Peace is a card that will likely be seeing a LOT more sideboard play. But with 4 ADecay and 2-3 Golgari Charm, that is really just more of a speedbump than an actual impediment to our strategy. Plus, I'd much rather the opponent be playing a bunch of non-threatening Sideboard cards instead of things that actually kill us.

Awesome to see I'm not shouting into the wind here! :cool: What's the list you're testing with?
But overall, agreed with every one of your points. A rare occurrence for me... In particular, I agree that Rest In Peace probably isn't as bad for us as it seems. If every white deck is jamming RiP, it actually makes Charm better. Previously it was hard to bring in several in the *blade matchup because they only have a couple of X/1 creatures and no enchantments. It was hard to bring in against Miracles because they have very few X/1s you care about and you can play through CB and RiP, and it's not good to have too many reactive cards in the matchup. But if those decks are relying more on RiP to beat us, then Charm's equity goes up - our plan A is stronger and we can stop their answer to it.

[btm10]

I really don't get why anyone is naysaying at this point. TC and DTT are both great and nearly every person who has tested them has come to this conclusion, which is a strong indication that it's not just because someone is running hot. TC probably better in the Stifle shell because it has less midgame air (cf. drawing Hymn against a hellbent opponent), but that's my preliminary thought rather than something that's been borne out by testing.

[hobart]

Speaking of the Stifle lists this is the one I've been testing with cruise:

Spells: 29

4x Daze
4x Brainstorm
4x Abrupt Decay
3x Force of Will
4x Ponder
2x Treasure Cruise
3x Stifle
2x Disfigure
2x Spell Pierce
1x Spell Snare

Creatures: 13

4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Tarmagoyf
1x Vendilion Clique


Lands: 18

4x Wasteland
3x Polluted Delta
3x Verdant Catacombs
2x Misty Rainforest
3x Tropical Island
3x Underground Sea

Sideboard: 15

1x Force of Will
1x Marsh Casualties
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
2x Grafdigger’s Cage
1x Dread of Night
1x Engineered Plague
1x Disfigure
1x Sylvan Library
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Divert
1x Thoughtseize
1x Chill
1x Krosan Grip

And it's been really good! I started with a list very similiar to Teknique's, and decided the most obvious cut for TC was the Dark Confidants (even though they were great in the deck before). I'm lovin it, but the only problem is that I like drawing TC so much I'm thinking of going up to 3 (maybe dropping a ponder to do so). Also, it's always great to get the spell count higher when playing with Delver. I still think the "best" TC decks will be the blue cantrippy ones that are completely not dependent on the graveyard otherwise, stuff like UR Delver, but the card is just so good that until there is a shift in meta or more hate that it definitely fits in some of the BUG builds.

[wcm8]

-1 Spell Snare
-1 Disfigure
-1 V Clique
+2 T. Cruise
+1 FoW

The 4th Force was likely cut from your list because of Dark Confidant, now that he's dropped there's no reason not to go back up to 4. Snare seems random as a 1 of, and I wouldn't really want Clique if you're only running 18 lands.

2nd Disfigure just because with Cruise you'll be ripping through your Library quickly enough that in G1 you will probably be able to find enough removal.

[infiniteJ]

-1 Spell Snare
-1 Disfigure
-1 V Clique
+2 T. Cruise
+1 FoW

The 4th Force was likely cut from your list because of Dark Confidant, now that he's dropped there's no reason not to go back up to 4. Snare seems random as a 1 of, and I wouldn't really want Clique if you're only running 18 lands.

2nd Disfigure just because with Cruise you'll be ripping through your Library quickly enough that in G1 you will probably be able to find enough removal.

Agreed. 4 force of will is absolutely correct with treasure cruise. I wouldn't be surprised if the correct number of force of wills was 5 or even 6.

-IJ

[Teknique]

-1 Spell Snare
-1 Disfigure
-1 V Clique
+2 T. Cruise
+1 FoW

The 4th Force was likely cut from your list because of Dark Confidant, now that he's dropped there's no reason not to go back up to 4. Snare seems random as a 1 of, and I wouldn't really want Clique if you're only running 18 lands.

2nd Disfigure just because with Cruise you'll be ripping through your Library quickly enough that in G1 you will probably be able to find enough removal.
I think I would rather cut the 4th Abrupt Decay over the 2nd Disfigure, and leave all other changes you mentioned. On 18 lands, I want to be able to cast the removal that I'm searching for on the same turn, and have higher turn 1 shaman kills.

Snare seems fine in the discard builds in place of some number of pierces/other things because its going to counter the only cards that we'll be caring about (RIP, opposing hymns, etc) which will likely be in higher numbers once the cruise takes off (sorry), and pierce loses value because they will be pitching the most expensive cards (cards you want to pierce) to fow your hymns and cruises anyway. In the stifle builds, pierce is just better bc you're on a much better mana denial plan.

[Dragonslayer_90]

TC probably better in the Stifle shell because it has less midgame air (cf. drawing Hymn against a hellbent opponent), but that's my preliminary thought rather than something that's been borne out by testing.

I'm not saying I completely disagree with you as I haven't testing to determine if a stifle build or hymn build is better in terms of BUG Delver running TC. However, I think you're over emphasizing how dead hymn can be. If pretty much every Delver deck is going to run TC, Hymn will actually be less dead than usual since people will still have cards in hand going into the late game with everyone reloading with TC. From what testing I've done Hymn actually helps you fight oppossing TC's without running narrow graveyard hate. Whether the stifle build or the tapout hymn build is better at running treasure cruise, more testing and tournament results will be needed for that so I'll leave that to the future to decide.

[FoolofaTook]

This is the list I tested initially:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Abrupt Decay
2 Disfigure
1 Golgari Charm
1 Dimir Charm

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Treasure Cruise

4 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea

I was only happy with the results because the friend I was testing with was playing RUG and really unhappy with his results. I replaced a couple of situational counters and clique with Treasure Cruise initially. I would not take Ponders out of an 18 land list. I think that's one of the keys here. Ponder is very hard to replace in the shell without bumping the lands up some. It was hard not to put a singleton Dimir Charm in also because the third ability is relevant in a Delve list and it's a way to randomly screw with Miracles also, which is a nice bonus.

This is what I wound up at after 5 or 6 matches:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf

3 Abrupt Decay - 4th will be in SB
2 Disfigure
1 Dimir Charm - 2 Golgari Charm in the SB

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Treasure Cruise - still not sure on this, played 1 and 2 and not sure which is better
2 Life from the Loam - fills the GY again fast for Goyf and DRS, makes wastelock a possibility and gets back Volrath's

3 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Disclaimer: I will try to fit Volrath's into any Loam shell that has really good creatures that might get milled by. It tested ok in 2 matches but it is a 19 land list and I'm pretty likely to remove it again if I start seeing it in the opening 3 draws too often.

[TheHeff]

I'm intrigued by Treasure Cruise as well, although I have yet to jam as many games with it as I would like. Is it reasonable to cut 2x Tombstalker, 1x Abrupt Decay (to board) from the stock list for 3 Treasure Cruise? Four seems too many and two seems to few, at least in my initial testing. Card's bonkers good though :)

[hobart]

I'm not loving 3+ T.Cruises in this deck. I've already ended up with 2 situations (in not many games) where I had 2 stuck in my hand and not enough resources between mana and graveyard to cast either of them efficiently. These games were against opposing Deathrites (not uncommon in Legacy). So with those results combined with that fact that RIP now will make more of our cards dead, I'm sticking with 2 for now. That being said when I'm in topdeck mode with no cards in hand it's always the card I want to draw. Also, I still believe that in the cantrippy and completely graveyard independent decks (ie UR or UWR delver) this could be a 3 of since they won't expect or really care about a card like RIP .

[thefreakaccident]

I would only run one in this version of delver TBH. It will always be difficult to handle in multiples, so why not just have one? Not consistent, but it's not a consistent card.

[phazonmutant]

I would only run one in this version of delver TBH. It will always be difficult to handle in multiples, so why not just have one? Not consistent, but it's not a consistent card.

Will it? I haven't found that to be the case. Have you tested it at all?

[iostream]

I'll just chime in to add one more vote to the pro-Treasure-Cruise camp. 4 Cruise felt great in a variety of matchups, although there were a few games where drawing 3 of them in the early game was indeed awkward - never had problems finding uses for 2 early cruises with 4 Brainstorm and 4 Forces in the maindeck. It might be better to just run 3 instead of 4 to mitigate this, but it's good enough that it might be better to just run 4.

If this catches on and Cruise becomes as ubiquitous as Force of Will or something, then I think that Tarmogoyf's value will indeed be severely hit. I'm not sure what BUG will do then. It might be good to think about Young Pyromancer shells at that point (U/R or four-color).

[Dragonslayer_90]

I'll just chime in to add one more vote to the pro-Treasure-Cruise camp. 4 Cruise felt great in a variety of matchups, although there were a few games where drawing 3 of them in the early game was indeed awkward - never had problems finding uses for 2 early cruises with 4 Brainstorm and 4 Forces in the maindeck. It might be better to just run 3 instead of 4 to mitigate this, but it's good enough that it might be better to just run 4.

If this catches on and Cruise becomes as ubiquitous as Force of Will or something, then I think that Tarmogoyf's value will indeed be severely hit. I'm not sure what BUG will do then. It might be good to think about Young Pyromancer shells at that point (U/R or four-color).

Or Grixis so we can still run Deathrite Shaman, unless that's what you mean by four color with green just being for DRS life gain in the main deck :tongue: I'm on the fence about treasure cruise, though I'm leaning towards the pro treasure cruise camp. I think Deathrite Shaman is still infinitely playable if TC becomes ubiquitous but unsure about what happens to Goyf in that type of environment. Having Goyf in a TC mirror can really suck sometimes.

[FoolofaTook]

Goyf is never going to be bad. It's possible you'll have some matches where you want to side him out but odds are good you'll also have things you really want in for those matches.

I win games through RiP all the time as this is one of the sideboard strategies that D&T uses against BUG and Jund. RiP theoretically shuts down Goyf and DRS (and Punishing Fire in Jund) but really it just makes both lists do other things for a few turns until they've found Abrupt Decay. If a list wants to durdle around for a few turns instead of killing me I'm really happy to do that with either BUG or Jund. Thalia and Thalia #2 really suck. Mother of Runes active really sucks. RiP just sits there waiting for me to find an answer.

[spector14]

Hi guys!
I would like to bring BUG Delver to a big tournament Italy, then from 9 rounds, only it was a while since I played it, exactly when she left True Name Nemesis, in fact I played the list of classical Signorini, so many 4x, 2 and Stalker the sylvan library!
Now I see that the list has changed from how I remembered it! Stifle and spell pierce in place of hymn and Liliana of main! Then confidant and nemesis replace the stalker!
So the list of Signorini has become obsolete? if the answer is "yes" what would be a list ideal for testing and to lead to a big tournament?