Greenless RUG Delver

[ThiefSlayer]

Hey guys,

I've been having an idea which I'm not sure if fits here, or in UR Delver or in RUG Delver. Anyways, I'm bringing this to a new topic to avoid changing the main thread of those.

I've got this idea because nimble mongoose is just really bad with treasure cruise, and goyf is becoming less consistent (even though it's still really strong). It's a new approach to RUG Delver lists without the green, replacing the mongoose and goyf for swiftspear and young pyromancer.

The hardest thing here is to combine the reactive game plan of RUG Delver with the proactive type of game swiftspear and pyromancer require us to have.

I've used this last decklist of RUG Delver as base:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=76804

And here is my suggestion:

CREATURES
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Monastery Swiftspear

COUNTER
3 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle

CANTRIP
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Gitaxian Probe
3 Treasure Cruise

BURN
2 Forked Bolt
4 Lightning Bolt


LANDS
3 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire

SIDEBOARD
2 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
1 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Pithing Needle
1 Force of Will
2 Submerge
2 Grim Lavamancer
3 Grafdigger's Cage


I took off 2 spell pierces and 1 fow to have space for 3 treasure cruises, replaced the green for the red creatures and left 1 of each basic on the manabase (with more lands to search for island because it's more essencial to have blue to daze and stifle)

Some things to consider: This deck has 2 more lands than UR Delver and also Stifle as a reactive spell, which replaced 6 pro-active spells. This is what makes me not really sure about the creature base, as they use to require more proactive spells.

I don't see it space for more than 1 of each basic land, as it has only 14 colored lands, there would be too much risk of getting mana screwed. Maybe it would be nice to play 4 Volcanic Islands, but I guess 3 of them with 2 basics is enough. You wanna fill up your graveyard fast for treasure cruise and also shuffle for brainstorm, ponder and delver triggers.

I left only 3 Treasure Cruises as it's not as fast as UR Delver for filling up the graveyard and it also has only 3 FoW to use TC as pitch for in the early game.

I've had an idea of using Kiln Fiend against combo decks, as it allows UR Delver to win on turn 3 and they dont have removal, so that you have a faster kill gameplan. But I guess I would play it as a sideboard option, there are too many interactions with the board in the meta.

I still dream of playing Nivmagus Elemental with flusterstorm in a consistent decklist. Replacing dazes with flusterstorm and YP or Swiftspear with Nivmagus would be an idea also, if someone would try making a list that works this way. Also, the fact that you should have untapped mana for stifle makes it more viable to leave mana up for flusterstorm in a deck that plays this agressively.



Anyways, I will try this decklist on a small championship and post here the results, wheter they are good or not. I would appreciate some comments about the decklist.

PS.: I didn't put much thoughts about the sideboard as it varies depending on the meta and I'm still not sure which route the deck will addapt better at.

[Lemnear]

So you simply took the old UR Delver, mixed it with the current iteration and don't realize WHY Stifle+Wasteland got replaced, but even cutted down Probes and TCs despite the OBVIOUS, aggressive interaction with Swiftspear & Pyromancer? In short: you squeezed reactive cards into a deck with active-aggressive threats which require you to play many spells in your turn.

I don't even want to comment in the threads title...

[ThiefSlayer]

So you simply took the old UR Delver, mixed it with the current iteration and don't realize WHY Stifle+Wasteland got replaced, but even cutted down Probes and TCs despite the OBVIOUS, aggressive interaction with Swiftspear & Pyromancer? In short: you squeezed reactive cards into a deck with active-aggressive threats which require you to play many spells in your turn.

I don't even want to comment in the threads title...

"For "unfinished" decks: For new or relatively untested decks and ideas which require further development or optimization. Once a developmental deck has been fully optimized, it can be moved to the Established Decks Forum by a moderator. A writeup including card choices and basic strategy is required."

The creature base doesn't need to stay the same. The topic is for a new kind of deck with the playstile of RUG Delver, and swiftspear/pyromancer sounded like good cards. It was a mistake to put swiftspear in this decklist as it has a reactive gameplan. But even in a reactive kind of deck, pyromancer sounds pretty good to me.

I created this thread because I don't think nimble mongoose and goyf are worth a green splash in this meta full of TC. Maybe goyf is, but I wanted to stick to this kind of gameplan without having to get rid of TC, which nimble mongoose does.

I didn't see any way to make my idea clearer in the title than "greenless RUG delver", as the playstile remains the same...

Thank you for the feedback, I'm replacing swiftspear for Nivmagus and daze for Flusterstorm. May be a long shot, but I wanna see it working:

CREATURES
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Nivmagus Elemental

COUNTER
3 Force of Will
4 Flusterstorm
4 Stifle

CANTRIP
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Gitaxian Probe
3 Treasure Cruise

BURN
2 Forked Bolt
4 Lightning Bolt


LANDS
3 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire

[FoolofaTook]

How are you going to manage Chalice@1? It's an easy opening play for the lists that play it and other than free counters you have no way to avoid scooping to it.

[ThiefSlayer]

How are you going to manage Chalice@1? It's an easy opening play for the lists that play it and other than free counters you have no way to avoid scooping to it.

Nivmagus and Pyromancer can benefit of countered spells. Nivmagus has to already be there so that he doesn't get himself countered by the chalice, but pyromancer can pass through it.

As now flusterstorm is going all to the MD, I think it would be good to play 2 shattering spree in the SB, as the copies are not countered by the chalice, and if you play like the original and 3 more copies, you can let one resolve and remove the others to buff Nivmagus. I think I just forgot chalice, as most artifacts in my meta are SDT and the SFM package, which I handle with the pithing needles and the vortex.

[ThiefSlayer]

I've played today, just some thoughts about this list:

The match against storm is ridiculously good for us, as theres 4 fluster, 4 stifle and 3 FoW, and against show and tell it was slightly better for me.

Against UR Delver I got 2-2 with a friend of mine, but I've seen some huge misplays on me (I'm used to the usual UR Delver playstile)

Against decks without efficient removal nivmagus should be protected at all costs. You may not stay with an unbuffed nivmagus against lightning bolt without having ways to buff it in response. The nivmagus/fluster combo is bananas.

The current list with some changes:

CREATURES
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Nivmagus Elemental

COUNTER
3 Force of Will
4 Flusterstorm
4 Stifle

CANTRIP
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Gitaxian Probe
2 Gitaxian Probe Adding 2 more probes
3 Treasure Cruise

BURN
2 Forked Bolt Taking it out
4 Lightning Bolt

LANDS
3 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire

SIDEBOARD
2 Divert Put them in flusterstorm's place, feel like they will be amazing protecting our creatures (nivmagus, mainly)
2 Pyroblast
1 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Pithing Needle
1 Force of Will
2 Submerge Took them off, don't think that green creatures - goyf mostly - are that big of a deal with nivmagus buffed and pyro's tokens
2 Shattering spree Passes through chalice, hard to counter and also the copies may be eaten by Nivmagus
2 Grim Lavamancer Putting forked bolt in it's place, won't do anything if get removed before untap and is a nonbo with TC
2 Forked Bolt Took them to the sideboard as probe is bananas on this deck and it's not always that good
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Grafdigger's Cage Took one out
1 Clout of the Dominus Wanna try it, will still talk about this

Now I realized I can use Clout of the Dominus in this deck. Besides nivmagus, it can also make Delver a 4/3 flying shroud creature, which is reeeeally hard to handle in most cases! I just wonder if it would become less consistent with it... saw some old lists where there were these 3 creatures and clout of the dominus, and it sounded pretty strong. Will try it initially in the SB against decks with spot removal (StP and decay mainly)

Anyways, will be testing this in a small champ on thursday and post again. Don't know if it has chance of becoming T1, but the fact that it has a chance of being playable makes me really happy.