English Voodoo (BUG Delve)

[theBloody]

ENGLISH VOODOO

http://i.imgur.com/EdSQyD9.jpg?1http://i.imgur.com/qkzzDhz.jpg?1http://i.imgur.com/FMPA66e.jpg?2

A young boy puts a feather into his mouth...

Hello everyone. I'm posting here a deck that I think is promising. The deck is build upon two ideas: to abuse delve mechanic in BUG colors and to make Stubborn Denial works. Side effect here is to naturally make opponents Tarmogoyf weaker.
I have to admit that this is a crude alpha version which needs further testing. I just couldn't resist to post it because I have enjoyed it very much.

The decklist

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Putrid Leech
4 Gurmag Angler

4 Force of Will
4 Stubborn Denial

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thought Scour

4 Dig Through Time

4 Abrupt Decay

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

SB: 4 Thoughtseize
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Disfigure
SB: 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 2 Liliana of the Veil

The deck here (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=15554&iddeck=115705) gave me the direction. Thanks!

Basic gameplay
T1 Deathrite or Ponder/Brainstorm if you have Thought Scour to follow up in upkeep. T2 Leech + mana up for Stubborn Denial. T3 Gurmag + Stubborn Denial backup. Generally I don't recomment to play Gurmag without FoW / Stubborn Denial ready. If you know you are against combo, sure. If you have Dig in hand and cards to fill graveyard again, sure. But if there is real chance to get sworded right away and you can affort to wait a little, just wait. No reason to lose your graveyard + creature.

Some card choices
The deck wants 8 creatures with power 4 or greater. Gurmag is very good. Leech is just fine. I would swap him but I couldn't find anything better. Two mana 4/4 not depending on graveyard, thats what I wanted here.

Stubborn Denial - Hard counter for 1 mana. Mainly to fight Digs but also let you win counter wars, counter planeswalkers, answer t3 combos and much more.

Thought Scour - Quick graveyard filler (food for Dig, Gurmag, Deathrite). The worst spell in a deck along with Leech but the necessary one (at least that is how I feel now). You play it blindly only if you have to (against quick combo, when you need Dig/Gurmag/Deathrite online as soon as possible and so on). Ideally you play it after Brainstorm/Ponder so you make sure to not mill out cards you want to find. Please note that chance to mill a card you want is greater than chance to draw it (milling 2 cards, drawing 1).

Dig Through Time - Gurmag has casting priority. Dig is here to reload our hand. So once your hand is empty or you have to find something quickly or you have nothing better to do, it is time to Dig.

Thoughtseize - For combo and decks where you want to trade 1 for 1 so you side out Forces (Jund).

Darkslick Shores - It is substitute for Undergound Sea. Sea is better, no doubt. There are some border situations where Shores shines though (against Choke, Merfolks, maybe something else?) so I'm sticking with it at the moment.

I'm short on time now so I'm stopping here. I will update the primer in future after more testing is done.

[theBloody]

I took the deck to local five rounder, ended 4:1. Matchups were:
R1: RUG Thresh - 2:0
R2: Mono G Elves - 2:1
R3: bUrg Tempo - 2:0
R4: Jund - 1:2
R5: Big Red - 2:1

Ad R1: Deathrite + delve to weaken his goyfs, Stubborn Denial to counter Submerge on Gurmag.
Ad R2: Golgari Charm mvp.
Ad R3: Deathrite + delve to weaken his goyfs. Stubborn Denial to counter Dig Through Time.
Ad R4: G3 I have attacked with Gurmag. He attacked with Rabblemaster creating second token. I got low on life so eventually I have to chump Rabble with Gurmag only to got overruned with goblin tokens. I should have played more defensively. Also Choke is quite powerful card, uh.
Ad R5: Emrakul's attack left me with 1 life and Deathrite on board. Played Gurmag next turn and got there.

[jrsthethird]

Don't forget to mention the other cool tricks you can do with Thought Scour against Miracles or in conjunction with Thoughtseize.

Against Sensei Top --> Terminus:
If your opponent is tapping Top to draw a card and you have a good idea that he's doing it to draw Terminus with the Miracle cost, you can Thought Scour them in response to the Top trigger and force them to mill the Terminus instead. They'll draw a random card (well, the only card left they would know from Top), and you'll save your board without using a counter.

Against Top in general:
If they tap Top to draw a card, you can mill them with Scour top get rid of the top for good. This can be done in the middle of a Monastery Mentor Prowess loop, or just whenever you get priority and the Top is on board.

Thoughtseize --> Brainstorm in response:
Frequently players will save their best cards from Thoughtseize by Brainstorming and hiding them on top of their library. Simply choose a card, and then Scour them after you've seen their hand to get rid of 2 cards that were probably better than what you did grab.

[haxorz]

Don't forget to mention the other cool tricks you can do with Thought Scour against Miracles or in conjunction with Thoughtseize.

Against Sensei Top --> Terminus:
If your opponent is tapping Top to draw a card and you have a good idea that he's doing it to draw Terminus with the Miracle cost, you can Thought Scour them in response to the Top trigger and force them to mill the Terminus instead. They'll draw a random card (well, the only card left they would know from Top), and you'll save your board without using a counter.



This is only useful if your opponent only has W available, otherwise they can simply respond to your Thought Scour by activating Sensei Divining Top's first ability in order to put Terminus third from the top. Then the Thought Scout mills two cards, then their Top's second activated ability resolves, then they draw Terminus and you are sad :(

[jrsthethird]

This is only useful if your opponent only has W available, otherwise they can simply respond to your Thought Scour by activating Sensei Divining Top's first ability in order to put Terminus third from the top. Then the Thought Scout mills two cards, then their Top's second activated ability resolves, then they draw Terminus and you are sad :(

Didn't catch that. You can still mill the Top after the Terminus resolves though.

If you're in a position after they Brainstorm and you know/think they put Terminus on top to draw naturally/with cantrip (no Top) you can mill it though.

[theBloody]

Thanks for input guys. Didn't think about Thoughtseize/Thought Scour interaction. I'm glad that Thought Scour gets little better.

On the other news I have tested deck against Death and Taxes. Preboard they are clearly favorites because the deck nearly can't beat active Mother of Runes. Postboard our chances gets notably better with Golgari Charms. Just watch out for Serra Avenger and Mirran Crusader. Pernicious Deed and/or Toxic Deluge could be good here, but I think that would be overkill.