[Deck] Team America (BUG Delver)

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I'm not saying that you shouldn't play it because it can be boarded against. I'm saying playing it alongside options in our decks that share the same weakness just makes our deck even more susceptible to their post board hate, namely RiP. The intention of running this card would be to dig for answers correct? Well we can't do that efficiently against a RiP USING TC so is that really the card you want to run in games 2 or 3?

That's not the intention. Here's an analogy with Shardless: you have to jump through some hoops to cast Visions the same way you have to jump through some hoops to cast Treasure Cruise. Obviously if you're in a tight spot, you would prefer to have Ponder or Brainstorm or Predict or whatever than a naked Visions in your hand. The reason why you play Visions is because it allows you to refill your hand with gas and apply pressure just by dint of the card advantage it produces. Same thing with Treasure Cruise. I'm not trying to cast Treasure Cruise through RiP to look for Golgari Charms - I'm digging for Golgari Charms so that I can bury my opponent with the card advantage from Cruise.

The reason why this is an effect you want in a tempo deck is because you get to play much more mana-efficiently than control decks (like Shardless) and so you can convert your extra cards into an actual on-board advantage very easily. Think about it this way: there used to be a real trade-off between this mana efficiency and the raw power of cards like Ancestral Visions that made Shardless versus BUG Delver a real question. With Treasure Cruise, this trade-off may no longer exist. Delver decks might get to have their cake and eat it too. We don't run 2/2's for 3 or 1/1's for 2. We don't have to cut Wastelands to facilitate our late-game trumps. All of our cards hit harder and earlier, and our early game disruption is far more potent. Now we will also get the raw card advantage that used to be Shardless's unique feature.

Honestly, the argument might extend to all blue decks - many other decks might deform their game plan to support Cruise. Think about Vintage - decks that can play Ancestral Recall do it if they can. The effect is really that strong.

I keep seeing the argument in this thread with people who are saying it's okay to run this along with tarmogoyf feed out like this:

"It's okay that I delve 7 and turn my 5/6 goyf into a 2/3, because I draw 3 cards for one and then I use mana I still have open to cast 2 or three of those spells to make him a 5/6 again."

My question is if that is the argument then what is the entire point of drawing those cards. It's complete poop for your tempo and while it's true BUG can hit the mid game a little better than the rest of the delver decks, it's mid game becomes decreasingly potent when it's primary mid game beater is being neutered by your own deck's tactics.

First, my experience has been that if you TC after combat, you get to refill the grave adequately before your next combat. So typically you're not missing out on very much damage, if any. Second, the cards we are drawing do not have blank text boxes. They are useful for things besides feeding Goyf. Maybe you draw a card that allows you to clear your opponent's Goyf out of the way. Maybe you draw a crucial piece of combo protection that buys you the one last turn you need to deliver the killing blow with Goyf. And so on.

I'm just trying to see the logic in playing this card in BUG Delver, I know it has amazing applications in about a handful of other legacy decks but I don't see it here to be honest without making changes to the deck. Most notably I'd at the very least switch out the goyfs for TNNs, MINIMUM. If you're gonna go into the mid-game more and you want the gas to do it, what's 1 more turn for a beater who isn't affected by the graveyard and who is more difficult to remove? I'd also increase to 1-2 tar pits.

There's a reason that the decks which seems to be making best use of TC are the ones with the lowest curve and fastest threats - it's because you need to dump cards quickly to make it castable in a reasonable timeframe. Delver decks already do this well, but we think that we can do it better, and that it would be worth sacrificing something to lower the curve because drawing 3 cards is so powerful. Raising the curve is the last thing I would want to do if I wanted to maximize TC's potential.

Also comparing the sideboard hate against the 2 decks doesn't make sense, since Pyroclasm doesn't affect how Treasure Cruise interacts with their sideboard plan at all, that's the entire point I was making.

You are totally correct on this point, I was wrong. I will say, however, that my personal experience has been that the hate is not too hard to play through, though. RiP is of course the main offender, and it can definitely be powerful, but it's not unbeatable. After that, though, what is commonly played? Grafdigger's Cage is definitely #2, and it does nothing against TC. One-shot effects like Tormod's Crypt are both rarely seen and ineffective given how fast we fill the graveyard anyway. Surgical Extraction is somewhat better, especially if it strips the TC, but who is running that against us?