Gold Digger [UWr Delve Control]

[alphastryk]

@alpha -

do you find two plains gives you trouble sometimes? I have been running 1 plains, 4 islands and trying to back off the white a little bit. I still run moat+baneslayer, 4 stp and a single verdict. The reason i have been running this way is I find that this deck can use FOW quite aggressively and i want to be sure i have blue cards, as well as I want to be sure i can count on having 4 u up at any one time for the wonderful play of dig+counterpell (or dig+clique or cs+clique, etc.) Are you able to make such plays with 4 blue consistently? The reason I ask about the 2nd plains is because last tournament i ran into a problem vs blood moon (in burn) where i had baneslayer in hand but could not fetch for the plains i needed...so i had to waste a beb on blood moon which ultimately lost me the game.

Also, I'd like to endorse Venser. I run a karakas instead of academy ruins because i run a single venser in place of council's judgement (to avoid too much white). I prefer venser for many reasons: he is blue, he avoids spell pierce, he remands, he can take care of almost anything judgement can and more (except true name, although venser can remand him), he is an instant, he can save your own cards, he's great vs equipment, and karakas+venser can be devestating. I've even bounced venser with karakas to pitch to FOW here and there to counter that key spell. Not many opponents see that one coming with only 1 card in hand. Sure, it's not the most efficient play, but when you need it it works. One bad thing is moat+venser, but even in that situation he usually does his job anyways, attacking was never his forte.

The second plains is the worst land and gets boarded out against non-wasteland decks fairly often. You absolutely need it against anyone trying to disrupt your mana though. I would never want another basic island though - I'd play a 4th Tundra before that. The UUUU scenario doesn't tend to come up against anyone that can pressure your mana, so you can just get duals - I don't board in Clique very often, only against Miracles, some Stoneblade variants, and Combo. There's almost always a correct play anyways - just sit on the Dig / Clique if you can't protect it. (or throw it out as bait to resolve something on your turn).

I'm not playing a Council's Judgment or a Venser, just 2x EE, Verdict, 2 Pyroclasm, 4 Stp, Moat. Ruins + EE is incredible and I would never cut it from this deck. Venser seems really suspect when I'm considering trimming Jaces - that's how many REBs there are these days. It is worth noting that I always hated Venser in Miracles too though.

Reading some of the other discussion, I'd love to try a FoF, but the format right now is pretty fast and I don't want to get caught with a 4 mana spell that gets pierced and blasted.

[serendib]

has anyone considered the following cards as one or two copies ?

- Glen Elendra Archmage (she is a boss vs control decks)

- Cunning Wish: gives access to what we cannot give an unswer maindeck such as recursions (surgical extraction)

[Philipp2293]

edit: is punishing fire a viable option, both as a control tool and alternative wincon?

Yes, it's a very viable control tool, I've been playing Punishing Fire in blue control shells since forever and it's working fine most of the time. 2 things you have to keep in mind: You need to drastically increase your land count to fit the Groves, since they are bad basic mountains and the deck becomes more mana hungry.
The 2nd issue is that actually siding in gravehate might become an option for your oponent, since you now run 2 gravebased engines.

If it's working as a wincon? I'm currently testing this exact question on MODO. Atm I'm running something that feels like the UW Elixir of Immortality Std deck from last season, which basically won by looping Sphinx' Revelation after Elixir activations (not sure how interested you are in other formats). I've currently cut my last Jace from the deck (even though it felt nice to replay a Jace which has been killed 3 times). So my only "wincon" that are left are Punishing Fires and the oponent decking himsself. It works very nicely to chain Fact or Fictions and DTTs together, also the Digs have the nice effect of clearing your GY of stuff you don't wanna draw anymore, so after the first Elixir activation your deck is stacked with gas.

On MODO, playing this deck is actually a bit troublesome from a technical POV, since your oponent likely won't conceede because chances are real that you might time out (never happened to me, but I'm very used to handling Punishing Fire mechanics on MODO). Also, I understand this is not everybodys kind of deck, but by running only "1" dedicated wincon (which many people who don't know how the deck operates likey will ignore) you can actually stuff your deck with counters, cantrips and removal. But this is going a bit far, if you want to discuss this please send me a PM.

[BlackStarDeceiver]

What are your thoughts on 3 Misthollow Griffin + 1 Manipulate Fate for the finisher slot? Did not come up with this myself, saw it on stream, but so far is does not seem to bad, especially in a list with 2 Misdirection i guess.

[jedi_gof]

I have been toying with the misthollow wincons my self, my problem though is pretty much that it takes up too many slots really. I have not given up on it yet, and will keep attempting to make them work, but am getting convinced it is too cute and space consuming.

[Higgs]

Lol, Misthollow Griffin is awesome. A player in my area was bashing face with it in Vintage! The problem is you can basically kill it and it stays dead. Plus 3 power isn't good enough to be a main threat.

[Philipp2293]

I'm not sure what you mean with "it stays dead". If it get's countered or killed with non RFG removal, you just have more DTT/TC fodder with a huge upside. If it eats a STP, well, also not a problem. That said, I tried a Griffin configuration some weeks ago, with plenty of Izzet Charms as well, but I didn't like it a lot. Maybe someone has a decklist from the streamed build?

EDIT: Mr. Kiblast, please clear your inbox so that I can reply ;)

[Holly]

Its been some time but I finally had the opportunity to play again for a handful of games.
Deceided to run some more experimental slots (Slice n Dice instead of the second Pyroclasm maindeck), cutting down the 7th delve-spell to make room for the 2nd Fof, cramming in 2 Spell Snares (which were surprisingly good).

Played 2 pre-board games against elves, first one a turn 3 Slice n Dice brought me back into game and gave me control. Second game I was on the backfoot pretty much all the time but managed to stabilize at 1, thanks to a DTT finding me my 3rd and last stp to get rif of his DRS.
2-0, though here I really felt the cutting of the 4th Pyromancer & the 4th StP, but I guess postboard it gets much better.. besides Choke & Discard he doesn't have a whole lot to bring it while I get more mass removal & Priests cutting down dead cards.

Played against Miracle going 4-0 (2 preboard, 2 postboard)
1 Game I "cheesed" him out via t2/t4 pyromancer, I would've lost if he had found a Terminus but I was stuck on 2 lands without cantrips and a hand full of StP's so I had to go for it.. All 3 other games I pretty much felt in charge all the time, always having at least 1 counter more in hand than he does and my card draw is superior.

Also 2 more games (preboard) against BUG-Control
The second game doesn't really count.. he's stuck on 1 land for 3 turns which puts him way to far behind.
The first game I really felt my lack of Pyromancer's and he has been able to kill 2 of them, as he killed all my 3 Snapcasters.. so the last Pyromancer had to do it and got there, Decay is a bitch if you're looking at a hand of 6 counters..


Pyromancer has been as awesome as before, though I really want to test the other winconditions, too.
SFM, Baneslayer, Elspeth are all on the list..as is some wackier stuff like Keranos..

[thefreakaccident]

I see you guys all running lightning bolt over forked bolt. Is that even correct? With decks like pyromancer/delver/elves, forked will pretty much always have more value. At the very least it kills squires, and I don't know of that many relevant critters with a backside of 3 specifically.

I would run True-name nemesis before I ran pyromancer in this deck for sure. It fills the requirements. It's a wall, it's a lategame finisher. And last but not least, it doesn't get hosed by forked bolt. It'll also play around your own engineered explosives for the most part.

[klaus]

I see you guys all running lightning bolt over forked bolt. Is that even correct? With decks like pyromancer/delver/elves, forked will pretty much always have more value. At the very least it kills squires, and I don't know of that many relevant critters with a backside of 3 specifically.

I would run True-name nemesis before I ran pyromancer in this deck for sure. It fills the requirements. It's a wall, it's a lategame finisher. And last but not least, it doesn't get hosed by forked bolt. It'll also play around your own engineered explosives for the most part.

Hey Freak,
fair points. Here's my two Pence:
Forked Bolt VS Lightning Bolt: obviously I do see the benefits of Forked Bolt, however sorcery speed alone makes it an auto-exclude imo. You are correct about the fact that there are few critters with a x/3 butt, but being able to kill a Jace via Bolt actually saved my butt (pun intended) on several occasions.
I'm still not super happy with Bolt, as it just doesn't really fit this decks philosophy.
That being said, we should still evaluate Sudden Shock at one point. If the meta continues being infested by YP, it's certainly worth a shot. That SCG top8 UR Landstill list definitely proved its value.

TNN - I've tested and basically discarded him for good. While he does exactly what you mention there's one thing he lacks: being able to close the game quickly if need be and YP does exactly that, while also being a better wall most of the time. Yes, he's vulnerable and he definitely doesn't yet feel like the perfect finisher for this deck, but he accomplishes things efficiently. Let's face it: there will never be an EtA-style spell for this archetype and that's the one thing I miss most about Miracles. CB + Top is sweet, but GoldDigger counters most things like a pro anyway.

_
@all: what are your recent findings? Curious about your input.

[HSCK]

Has anyone been seeing some of the MODO decks? Crucible, 2-3 PWs, and Top?

[klaus]

Has anyone been seeing some of the MODO decks? Crucible, 2-3 PWs, and Top?

Why Crucible?
Makes no sense, at first glance at least...

[HSCK]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...ily-2014-12-27

Adopting Wasteland Crucible plan it seems.

[Philipp2293]

This looks like generic UW Control, since I count 0 Delve spells. No that I want to trash it, just not sure it belongs in here.

EDIT says: Thx @ HSCK - Now this looks quite interesting - 2 Slice and Dice, wow.

[HSCK]

TKC55's deck has 3 DTT, the UW control deck is similar but doesn't have DTT.

[klaus]

@list:
At that point I'd cut Crucible for Top #3 and swap Banelsayers for EtAs and then be inclined to run CB MD alongside Terminus

[Flojo82]

I think Monastery Mentor is a Perfect Card for this Deck.

[DuKeLiO]

Has anybody tried the Cuneo from GP NJ version? I saw it on videos and liked it. It seems like Elspeth is very good like finisher, it is very resilient. Also liked the snapcaster + Concil's Judgement aproach as removal (also loved the F/I in the original list).
I will try it this weekend, or at least include some of this ideas to test it.

[AnziD]

Thoughts on Monastery Mentor as a Pyromancer replacement? Also though not as powerful as Brainstorm, Ponder, or Preordain, has anyone tested Thought scour in this deck?

[AnziD]

For what it's worth, made an extremely different brew with this deck and just 4-0'd a daily.



R1: Some guy accidently submitted a standard deck. 2-0 bye
R2: All-in Reanimator. 2-0
R3: Reanimator. 2-0
R4: RUG Delver ft. Goyf, Swiftspear, YP, and Delver. 2-0.

Deck is pretty sweet. The sideboard is super trash right now, but I definitely do enjoy the 3rd top and 4th CB. Not sure if Entreat/Jace are good enough - the idea here is to have better win condition for the Stoneblade matchups. Since this deck doesn't handle True-Name well at all, I figured why not just go over it. As far as the mainboard goes, I'd probably cut the Preordain and Probe for Thought Scours, though surprisingly I have yet to run into graveyard issues. The reason for this is that I rarely cast DTT for just 2 mana. This is good because it relaxes the pressure on the GY and allows me to keep extra cards in for Snapfodder. Manabase probably needs work too, but I'm not really good with those kinds of things.

Other thoughts... Forked bolt was spectacular, especially in tandem with Snapcaster Mage. In my last match I was facing down a Pyromancer, a couple tokens, and a Grim Lavamancer. Forked Bolt + Snapcaster allowed me to take care of all 5 permanents. Lightning bolt would not have done the same. Thanks to the earlier comment for the Forked bolt vs Lightning bolt analysis - it makes total sense for this control styled deck to play the card that maximizes options, which I think right now is Forked bolt. Young Peezy was also a boss, but there was an awkward moment where I had a hand full of permission and my opponent wasn't doing anything so I could only clock him for 2 points a turn.

To anyone who can build decks well, I would be delighted to see what kinds of improvements you can make! Tomorrow I'll most likely enter a daily after upgrading the cantrips.