[DTB] U/R Delver

I've been testing various mixes of grim lavamancer, snapcaster, clique and young pyro in place of stormchasers and TBH I think they're just too slow and durdly. You need to rebuild the whole deck around them so I'm returning the stormchasers as they fit with the theme of being very aggressive and they are very useful to pitch for force or just to get a threat on the board vs a chalice or sanctum prelate.

I've also tried thunderous wrath and it is great TBH. I have dropped dismember from my side in favour of thunderous main because it's just better in almost all cases and gives you the same ability to take out a larger creature like a goyf or batterskull germ if needed, but crucially it further enables that explosive early game. This feels doubly important when the meta is so heavy in decks that we don't want to let stretch out the game and get ontop of us like Miracles and D&T that we just want to close out by turn 3 or 4 wherever possible.

I am highly tempted to use a couple of forked bolt in place of chain as well. Seems like it would be good against D&T and vs mentor tokens in miracles and wide decks like elves. Will give it a try this week as I'm trying to finalise my board for tournament on Saturday (FWB trop top prize which would be a big boost to being able to finish the deck properly so I can play it in sanctioned events).

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Originally Posted by Smuggo

I've been testing various mixes of grim lavamancer, snapcaster, clique and young pyro in place of stormchasers and TBH I think they're just too slow and durdly. You need to rebuild the whole deck around them so I'm returning the stormchasers as they fit with the theme of being very aggressive and they are very useful to pitch for force or just to get a threat on the board vs a chalice or sanctum prelate.

I've also tried thunderous wrath and it is great TBH. I have dropped dismember from my side in favour of thunderous main because it's just better in almost all cases and gives you the same ability to take out a larger creature like a goyf or batterskull germ if needed, but crucially it further enables that explosive early game. This feels doubly important when the meta is so heavy in decks that we don't want to let stretch out the game and get ontop of us like Miracles and D&T that we just want to close out by turn 3 or 4 wherever possible.

I am highly tempted to use a couple of forked bolt in place of chain as well. Seems like it would be good against D&T and vs mentor tokens in miracles and wide decks like elves. Will give it a try this week as I'm trying to finalise my board for tournament on Saturday (FWB trop top prize which would be a big boost to being able to finish the deck properly so I can play it in sanctioned events).

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If you want to maindeck forked bolt, isn't fire/ice a more versatile option?
for sideboard options its fair because you can side it in for that effect, but in the maindeck it can suite a more flexible roll

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Originally Posted by gieli0

If you want to maindeck forked bolt, isn't fire/ice a more versatile option?
for sideboard options its fair because you can side it in for that effect, but in the maindeck it can suite a more flexible roll

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More flexible yes but also more mana and the deck runs so tight on mana I'm not sure it's practical. One of the main targets you want to use forked bolt on is Thalia and with fire//ice you're paying 3 mana for that which really slows you down.

I would imagine Fire // Ice with DnT in mind is more to dodge Prelate on 1, right? I can see Fire // Ice's merits: it's blue, an instant, can replace itself. But two mana and one less damage than Chain Lightning could be prohibitive. Have people run this card consistently in the past? Is it indeed too clunky?

And good to know about the durdle-iness of the heavier Lavamancer/Pyro builds. I think the allure of this deck is its speed, so if I'm gonna durdle, I'd probably just play BUG midrange and get access to more powerful cards.

Probably too cute but could be sweet: any love for a miser's Mutagenic Growth? Saves all your dudes from Bolt; a free, instant speed 3 damage if on a Prowess creature; has the "gotcha" factor. Maybe in place of the fourth Probe, I dunno. #spitballing

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Originally Posted by pateuglow

Were you on the play vs Burn? I find that matchup to be not favorable myself.

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No i've been on the draw both games.
Game one i won with exactly 1 life left, if he had drawn a single Fireblast instead of a second Lava Spike i would have lost. He had a very creature heavy hand while i had tons of bolts and a Reveler to finish the job. Game 2 he had to mulligan and kept a medicore hand. I believe the MU to be about 45-55. Being on the play matters a ton here in my opionion too.

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Originally Posted by Jonny Tempel

No i've been on the draw both games.
Game one i won with exactly 1 life left, if he had drawn a single Fireblast instead of a second Lava Spike i would have lost. He had a very creature heavy hand while i had tons of bolts and a Reveler to finish the job. Game 2 he had to mulligan and kept a medicore hand. I believe the MU to be about 45-55. Being on the play matters a ton here in my opionion too.

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I've linked your initial report in the tournament report-section. Maybe you could edit it with some more details of your MU's?

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Originally Posted by Chatto

I've linked your initial report in the tournament report-section. Maybe you could edit it with some more details of your MU's?

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Wow nice thank you! I'm not sure our FNM counts as a meanilgful event though ;)

I will do my best trying to remember those 2 games.
Game 1 we both keep our hand. I've got a Delver, a Daze, a Bolt, a Chain Lightning, a Ponder and 2 fetchlands.
He goes turn one guide attack. I draw another bolt, play a fetch and pass. Guide attacks me, i let the trigger resolve to reveal another land, draw it and the bolt the guide fetching for a basic mountain. He plays a Grim Lavamancer and a Rift Bolt. I drew a force, played another fetchland, cracked it for an island, played a Delver and killed the lavamancer with a chain lightning. He plays an eidolon, double bolt my face (suspended rift Bolt + normal bolt) and passes back. I believe i drew another fetchland. Used Ponder to reveal yet another Chain Lightning, a Bedlam Reveler and a Gitaxian Probe. Played another land and killed the Eidolon, swinging for 1 with Delver and passing back. He plays Lava Spike and passes (me at 3 life). I reveal Probe, play it for 1 to find Bedlam Reveler, attack with flipped Delver and pass. He goes for another eidolon wich i force (going down to 2). Then i play reveler, discard my last land, draw force, ponder and another probe. Its quickly over from there as his next 2 draws where land and Fireblast which i counter with a force falling down to 1.

Sideboard was like:
-2 Price of Progress
-2 Gitaxian Probe
+ 1 Spell Pierce
+ 1 Force of Will
+ 1 Sudden Demise
+ 1 Flusterstorm
(I've no idea if my sideboarding was correct here)

Game 2 he mulliganed to five while i had a similar hand with 2 Bolts, 2 Lands, 1 Ponder, 1 Stormchaser Mage and 1 Daze.
He played a land and suspended a riftbolt. I drew delver, play a basic island + delver and pass. He Rift bolts the delver and plays an eidolon which i daze. I drew a force, play a fetch and pass. He goes for a lava spike to the face and another eidolon which i bolt eot after fetching for a volcanic. I play a stormchaser and attack, then pass. He draws a land a passes. I reveal Thunderous Wrath, play it, play ponder to find another Land + Force, Bolt his face and attack for a total of 12! damage. He plays a swiftspear and then proceed to draw a land and a single Price of Progess which isn't enough despite the fact that i had backup FoW anyway.


I have to admit i got lucky here, especially game two where my opponent just had a slow hand combined with bad draws and hope i remebered most of those games correctly.

Went 4-0 (or rather 3-0) with UR Guide yesterday after having a good result in a bigger tournament with ANT on Sunday.

My list for reference:

4 Goblin Guide (mvp)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Monastery Swiftspear
2 Stormchaser Mage

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Daze
4 Force of Will

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Chain Lightning
2 Forked Bolt
2 Price of Progress
1 Thunderous Wrath

16 lands

SB:
2 Sulfur Elemental
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Vapor Snag
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Spell Pierce (will cut them)
1 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Pyroblast
2 Electrickery
1 Flusterstorm

Rd1 Bye

Rd2 DnT 2:1
Game 1 is a no-game because he mulls to 4 but still has 2 lands, swords, thalia. Luckily, I can daze his Swords on my Guide, fork bolts his Thalia, force another Swords at some point and have enough Burn to finish the game.
Game 2, I keep a mediocre one-lander, he wastes me and plays Mystic on Batterskull and we go to game 3, where I have a decent start and draw both Sulfur Elemental to deal with his board.

Rd3 BUG+r Control 2:1
That's the 4c goodstuff deck without Delver. I can't remember the first game but I think I win on the back of Goblin Guide and burn spells, and Dazes. He outvalues me in game 2 rather quick and loses game 3 because he gets stuck on Badlands and I kill/counter his two Deathrites before he scoops it up.

Rd4 Shardless BUG 2:1
I mulligan to 6 and keep a sketchy hand with the basic mountain, Swiftspear and F.Bolt. I never draw another land...I am not sure what happened in game 2 but I guess I had more dudes and struggle to flip a Delver, Vortex did some work here. In the last game, he has an early Goyf but I have Delver, which gets Decayed, and two Stormchasers that gets the job done with some burn spells.

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Originally Posted by CabalTherapy

Went 4-0 (or rather 3-0) with UR Guide yesterday after having a good result in a bigger tournament with ANT on Sunday.

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Something I hadn't considered with Guide is the interaction with PoP - it can (sort of) make your PoPs better I suppose.

I haven't seen GG run in many lists lately.

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Originally Posted by pateuglow

Something I hadn't considered with Guide is the interaction with PoP - it can (sort of) make your PoPs better I suppose.

I haven't seen GG run in many lists lately.

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It may but I am sure that the difference is negligible.
For me it is important to play a guy on turn 1 and pressure the opp right from the start. The guide is the best
creature for that plan. I tried the generic lists with Bedlam Reveler before but most of the time it's not great, stuck in hand
or doesn't make value at all. Plus, Stormchaser is too slow sometimes but I am fairly satisfied with two copies right now.
I am definitely not an expert here but this set up fits my playstyle; at least in the context of UR.

Guide was the MVP for the second time in a row.

IMO the effect where Goblin Guide gives your opponent land is overstated - the land that it puts in their hand is one that they were going to draw the next turn anyway, so it doesn't specifically help them make that next land drop. It can help make future land drops after that one, though, just by virtue of drawing them into more total extra cards, some percentage of which are extra lands.

All that said, CabalTherapy has convinced me to give it a go :). I'm always looking for ways to get the creature count up to 14 to deal with decks that can remove our creatures early. Sleeved up this for LGS tomorrow:
4 Delver
4 Swiftspear
4 Stormchaser
2 Guide

Man, I love how people are picking this deck up, and are constantly tuning/ trying different angles! Keep it up!

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Originally Posted by paradigm72

IMO the effect where Goblin Guide gives your opponent land is overstated

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Guide does not help your opponent to make land drops. It helps them to draw more business cards instead of lands. I see this as big drawback.

The approach of sticking a threat T1 consistently is very important in this deck (even though there are lists which performed lately demonstrated it is not a given).
Therefore playing Guide is making sense.
When Swiftspear was first spoiled, people were praising it as the new red Tarmo and took out GG in favor of the 1-drop-Prowess.
Fact is that both also work great together and the card drawing effect has more or less impact depending on the MU. Decks like Lands-type and Heavy-Manipulation-type (such as Miracle for instance) are benefitting a lot from the card drawing effect Guide induces. Against other decks, the downside of revealing a land is not really an argument against the Goblin. Yes, every now and then, your opponent may draw an additional card. But most of the times, the card reveal will "give you intel" more than "give a free draw to your opponent", which I personally see more as a pro than a con.


The biggest issue at the moment running Delver / Guide / Swiftspear is the risk of facing a Chalice@1 T1 or T2 which hoses the deck pretty badly.
In this respect running other threats like Snapcaster / Stormchaser / TNN / Young Pyro is very interesting, each having their own strengths and weaknesses.

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Originally Posted by jattra

Guide does not help your opponent to make land drops. It helps them to draw more business cards instead of lands. I see this as big drawback.

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It's the same dillema Burn has, yet it's still core-creature. GG has proven itself in the past, and I believe in a hyper aggressive version of this deck you can opt for him. I do believe Mage is potentially better, albeit a bit slower, if only because it can turn your cantrips into damage, and is a flyer.

EDIT: it seems rocco111 and I have similair thoughts about GG , and Mage.

I'm not sold on Guide. Yes he is aggressive but he doesn't gain anything from our cantrips and offers our opponent pseudo card advantage.

While we share some similarities with burn, we are not burn we are a tempo deck with the aim of putting down cheap threats and stalling our opponent's board with cheap removal and free counterspells, and using cantrips as a source of both consistency and damage. We don't control the tempo of the game by potentially offering our opponent card advantage. It's also particularly bad against miracles as they can just top a land to the top and dig deeper next turn which, given the OPness of that deck, does not seem wise to me.

Going so frontloaded also denies us the ability to remain a threat in the late game and a chalice or prelate on 1 is basically gg if 10-12 of your creatures have CMC 1 and almost all your burn and cantrip costs 1. Personally I feel more comfortable with two late-game threats in the form of Reveler and TNN in my board.

If you're finding Guide is working for you then that's cool, but I'd be interested in how it does at a larger event like a GP as I'm not sure it has the consistency to beat out a large and varied field over many rounds.

For my tournament on Saturday I think I'm definitely going for the two forked bolt plan. In almost all cases it has played largely the same role as chain lightning, which is to take out a problematic creature. Since most creatures that are in bolt range are actually only toughness 1 or 2 anyway (things like delver, DRS, Mom, etc...) it can kill them as well as chain and it also gives you the chance to send 1 damage to the face in many situations which is really nice.

Just a small correction: Sanctum Prelate on 1 does not prevent Goblin Guide at all. In fact, your prowess creatures are worse under Prelate than Guide is.

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Originally Posted by jattra

Just a small correction: Sanctum Prelate on 1 does not prevent Goblin Guide at all. In fact, it's the opposite. Your prowess creatures are much worse under Prelate than Guide is.

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Yeah you're right, that's me forgetting the actual text. For some reason I thought it worked exactly the same as Chalice.

Hi guys!

I haven't played a league with my deck since it's mostly for funsies, but I fine tuned it and am honestly a bit shocked by the power level UR Delver posesses. I mean I remember it from the TC era where I started playing, but this deck still feels very similar. It's brutal how the simple "burn" plan works out when backed up by FoW and Daze!

Here's my current list:

12 Creatures:
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Stormchaser Mage

32 Instants & Sorceries:
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain Lightning
1 Forked Bolt
2 Price of Progress
1 Fireblast
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
1 Set Adrift

16 Lands:
2 Island
1 Mountain
3 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire

Sideboard (15):
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Vapor Snag
2 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Smash to Smithereens
2 Rough/Tumble
2 Sulfuric Vortex


About some card choices:

I cut the Reveler alltogether. He just was sooo clunky whenever I drew him and was really only good vs. Miracles. There he was weird post-sideboard though because sometimes I'd have to give up REBS in my hand should he resolve. I'm currently trying out [Set Adrift] which looks pretty good on paper and fits the tempo-aspect of the deck more. Having a maindeck answer to Chalice, Counterbalance and Angler, if only for a turn, is sweet. 1 turn is a lot of time when playing this deck!

I really like the Rough/Tumble in the sideboard, they're just great against a lot of decks. I don't consider Goblin Guide partly because of the powerlevel of this card and because I want my Dazes to be as good as possible (they're already mediocre, but necessary).

The Vendilion Clique I tried turned out rather poor, it got stuck alongside Reveler in my hand way too often. Not playing Shaman and having to Daze really didn't help casting it. Also against decks I struggled and wanted it against (Miracles, S&S) it just got pyroblasted more often than not. I enjoy not having 3-power things that get pyroblasted (looking at you, TNN) and hence also prefer Sulfuric Vortex against Lands and Miracles. Fair matchups are favorable enough that I don't need a TNN there.

The Vapor Snags might seems weird, they're mostly there for 2 reasons though: Lands can play around PoP sometimes and just create a quick 20/20. And BR reanimator doesn't play FoW, so bouncing their big dude is a very real problem for them. Also Turbo-Depths is a thing. The only Delver deck I like it against is Grixis because they have Anglers as well as Delvers.

I like Tormod's Crypt over something like Surgical Extraction because it triggers prowess exactly when I want it. With Vapor Snags I don't feel like I need the t1-otd answers for BR reanimator. While I love Surgical in Grixis due to Therapy, Shamans and the reactive playstyle Tormod's Crypt just does one thing and does is nearly perfect which suits this deck very well.

For only playing 8 counters I was surprised how good this deck can fare against combo once you tune the sideboard a bit. I still want 4 FoWs in the main because combo are some of our harder matchups. Since the "fair matchup" sideboarding should be fairly obvious I'll talk about the boarding against combo a bit:

B/R reanimator:
-2 PoP
-1 Forked Bolt
-3 Chain Lightning
+2 Vapor Snag
+2 Tormod's Crypt
+2 Flusterstorm

U/B reanimator:
-2 PoP
-1 Forked Bolt
-3 Chain Lightning
-1 Set Adrift
+2 Pyroblast
+1 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Tormod's Crypt
+2 Flusterstorm

(UB reanimator could draw 7 with grizzeldaddy and FoW my bounce spell, UB can't)

ANT:
-2 PoP
-1 Forked Bolt
-1 Set Adrift
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Tormod's Crypt

TES:
-2 PoP
-1 Forked Bolt
-1 Set Adrift
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Rough/Tumble

Only ANT relies on the gy, TES has ETW (hehe) besides Ad Nauseam (also pretty mediocre against UR in general)

Sneak & Show:
-2 PoP
-1 F-Bolt
-1 Fireblast
-1 Set Adrift
+2 Pyroblast
+1 REB
+2 Flusterstorm

Fireblast is propably the worst of the burn spells because it's hard to rely upon when you're attacking for potentially lethal because they play FoW/Flusterstorm.
When you look at the boarding for Storm and S&S you can see why I only want 1 F-Bolt, it's because I want all my bolts to deal 3 damage postboard in my combo matchups.

I'm actually confident enough in my list that I'll give it a shot at a league these next days, I'll give you a report on how it goes, no matter how much I lose :tongue:

I was also thinking about Set Adrift but I rather prefer something I can cast at instant speed. I want to use it against lands.
BTW: what do you guys think about Reality Shift in SB against lands, S&S, reanimator and maybe eldrazi? Is it insane?