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Force tokens are sac'ed at the beginning of your upkeep so you get 0 damage for 0 mana and 2 cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by rufus
Not such a good deal IMO.
Guide-Beast is a meme card.
Why would you play a creature in slight that you don't want to play for the first few turns to not gimp yourself.
Soul-Scar Mage can at least be used to cut something Goyf or Angler shaped to size to allow your dudes to get more hits in without trading.
Gah, I misread it, and thought they stuck around until the end step.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoid
That would make the card almost playable and we can't have red have a good card in a cycle.Quote:
Originally Posted by rufus
Why would you think red gets a burn spell when blue gets another Force? Overpowered.Quote:
Originally Posted by rufus
Those cards do all fit in here, though. This might be the only deck that can, but those are the most aggressive one drops in the format.Quote:
Originally Posted by rufus
Most RUG Delver lists these days are on 10-12 crestures, 2-3 Oko, and 19 lands. So you're looking at around 26-28 instants and sorceries in those lists, which is basically the same amount I'm on. The biggest difference is that I'm not running Ponder, but it's honestly not that big of a deal. My Delver's still flip frequently enough to be worth it, and I can still upkeep Brainstorm to help too. I also prioritize casting Akoum on turn 1 over Delver in most cases.
I am able to properly support Akoum and Swiftspear, and the card disadvantage from Guide is worth it. The goal is to deal 20 damage as fast as possible, and those 4 creatures are the best ones at doing so.
Ghitu Lavarunner is not consistent enough for me. I want to be casting creatures on turns 1 and 2. If Probe was still legal, it could be a legitimate replacement for one of the other four, but alas. Daze and Fireblast are my only free spells, and I see no reason to run other subpar free cards to enable it.
Wayward Guide-Beast is far more interesting, especially in my list with Akoum, and could be a serious contender for one of the slots. Trampling past a flashed in Coatl is a real thing, and returning a land can combo excellently with both Akoum and Brainstorm. I'll be keeping this one on my radar for sure.
Do you think there are any merits to adding G into the deck for mandrils / pumpspells like become immense /scale-up etc?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanni
Only need 1 green source.
The third color splash is not worth it. I tried it before to splash white for Steppe Lynx a couple of years back.
I'm not really a fan of pump spells, but if I were to run one, it would be Mutagenic Growth, which doesn't require green (or any) mana.
Yea was wondering the same thing...pumps are the fastest way to get to 20dmg though the risk is very high if opponent has any removal at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanni
I myself have been playing UR prowess since after TOP was banned, with the recent addition of arcanist + sprite to replace soulscar/stormchaser.
It's a really rigid list and very consistant...been try to innovate with thunderous wraths and addition of green for scale up combo with arcanist but they were not reliable enough. It makes the manabase less consistant and you rarely have the window/time to play the pumps.
Not sure if you would consider this sligh but i find that the list plays wells and is highly aggressive.
16lands
tarns x4
blue fetch x4
red fetch x1
volcs x 3
island x 2
mountain x2
14creatures
-delver x4
-swiftspear x4
-sprite dragon x3
-arcanist x3
30 spells
-bolts x8
-cantrips x10
-fow x4
-daze x4
-snag x2
-fireblast x1
-growth x1
Sideboard
-pyro x3
-abrade x2
-pillar x2
-surgical x2
-borrower x2
-volley x1
-fon x1
-null x1
-cage x1
Quick note: TBH, i find the aggressive approach nowdays to be much weaker against control decks where they play so many basics. Prowess was really powerful when POP is good.
The UR Delver deck is a perfectly good deck that regularly makes Top 8, but it's a different deck.
Sligh doesn't want any 2cc creatures, excess cantrips, Force of Will (maindeck), Wasteland, etc. Sligh wants to overload the opponent's removal with aggressive one drops, and wants a high density of burn spells to close the game out. The deck is basically a cross between UR Delver and Burn.
In UR Delver, you're trading speed and redundancy for control elements. This is going to improve your combo matchups, but is going to make the fair matchups more difficult. You certainly have game against everything in the field, but there are no lop-sided matchups.
On the other hand, Sligh has a more difficult game one against combo, having to race them (but does go up to 4 Daze and 8 Force postboard). However, Sligh has lop-sided matchups against most of the fair decks, which tend to be a larger portion of the field.
Where UR Delver can struggle against Miracles, 4c Snowko, D&T, etc, Sligh pretty much annihilates those decks.
The extra cantrips improve card quality, but they do so at the cost of tempo. The Forces (and Wasteland) help improve tempo, but they do so at the cost of gas. So you run cards like Arcanist and Sprite to compensate for the gas, but now you're entire game plan is much slower at dealing 20 damage. You are much more dependent on dealing damage with your creatures beyond the first few turns of the game, and you are far less likely to get under the opponent's more powerful cards.
Again, I'm not knocking UR Delver at all, but it's a much different deck than Ru Sligh.
My current Sligh list, for reference:
R/u Sligh
Lands (18)
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Arid Mesa
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Volcanic Island
2 Mountain
2 Barbarian Ring
Creatures (16)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Akoum Hellhound
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Goblin Guide
Spells (26)
4 Brainstorm
2 Light Up the Stage
4 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
2 Forked Bolt
2 Fireblast
Sideboard (15)
4 Force of Will
4 Force of Negation
4 Smash to Smithereens
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pithing Needle
Hanni, how has UR Sligh been performing against the current top decks?
That's pretty close to the version of UR that I have too, posted on the last page. Yeah it's evolved from the more aggressive Prowess version of UR Delver, but Hanni doesn't consider that Sligh.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blacksummer
Our lists differ by only a few cards:
-2 FoN
-1 Fireblast
-1 Thunderous Wrath
-1 Arcanist
-1 Soul-Scar Mage
-1 Fiery Islet
+3 Sprite Dragon
+2 Snag
+1 Growth
+1 blue fetch
It has gotten worse without POP, so we need more explosive burn through other sources. I've experimented with Fireblast and Thunderous Wrath.
The maindeck I had was good in more degenerate combo metas (Breach, storm, companions) and was tuned for that but not as good against control.
Snag is good in this meta and probably deserves a spot in my list. Sprite Dragon looks strong, but I don't like that it can't be bigger than 1/1 until turn 3. It slows things down. I was trying to speed up the clock a bit, but that involves running some high-variance cards.
Our SBs are close too. (3 Pyro, 2 Borrower, 2 Surgical, 1 Volley, 2 artifact kill)
I have Smash to Smithereens instead of Abrade in the SB, because there are already 8 bolts main so there shouldn't be as much need for Searing Spear, but getting the free Lava Spike off the artifact kill is good for racing.
Pillar is a good idea, more aggressive than the counters I board in for combo.
Anyway, I don't want to derail this topic too far off UR Sligh.
Is PoP even playable anymore?
I used to love this card but with Snoko and other more basic centric decks around, it seems not good enough
@Hanni :
With that SB what do you take out vs combo?
Since you want to board in 8-10 cards, do you still have enough pressure with all the forces?
You guys are welcome to discuss the UR Delver list in here, but you are right that I don't consider it Sligh. Sligh is a pure aggro deck, where those versions are basically aggro/control.
I used to run Price of Progress, but there are just too many basics these days that render it too unreliable. It could definitely find a way into the sideboard for the matchups where it's strong, but I wouldn't run it in the maindeck anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoid
The deck still has enough pressure postboard against combo, although the consistency of the fundamental goldfish turn does go down. Still, killing by turn 4 should be fine with all of the countermagic.
I typically cut the weaker burn spells first, like Forked Bolt and Rift Bolt. Forked Bolt only deals 2 damage, and the 1 turn delay on Rift Bolt is oftentimes the difference between dealing lethal and losing.
Beyond that, I used to cut Price of Progress in my old list, but since I don't have it anymore, the cut is probably some creatures. The point to running 16 creatures is to flood them against fair decks to overload their removal, but since most combo decks don't have removal, we should be able to safely cut down on them.
While I would prefer to cut Delver, since the flying is less relevant and it's the least consistent at dealing damage, we need them for the blue spell count.
Goblin Guide will end up being the cut. Giving the combo opponent free card draw can be very bad. Sometimes Guide can deal more damage overall than Swiftspear depending on the hand, but usually Swiftspear is more explosive. Akoum may be slightly higher variance, but it has the potential to deal the most damage by turns 3-4.
So to fit in the 8 Forces, I'd cut 2 Goblin Guide, 4 Rift Bolt, and 2 Forked Bolt.
I wouldn't bring in Surgical Extraction against combo matchups where it's not being used as graveyard hate, like Sneak and Show, because we're not playing to the long game.
If I need Surgical Extraction or Pithing Needle, in addition to the 8 Forces, the he next cuts would either be more Goblin Guide, or Light Up the Stage. I'm still not 100% sure on this yet. Going down to 14 creatures should consistently give us 2 creatures drawn naturally by turn 2, where going down to 12 is 1 creature drawn out of every 5 cards, but maybe we need the extra gas from Light Up the Stage to compensate for the card disadvantage of the Forces and reduced amount of burn maindeck? I'm leaning towards cutting the Light Up the Stage, but maybe that's wrong.