[Deck] U/R Delver

[JDK]

I don't want to stop you from playing cards you like. I do however want this thread to be a place for serious discussions about UR Delver without recurring questions about mediocre card choices.

Price of Progress is a really good card in many matchup, especially considering the high amount of duals and utility lands in the decks to beat. The downside of it is that you will almost always suffer 2-4 dmg too and that your opponent will try to play around it, once he has seen it. So PoP often gets boarded out after G1.

I am currently trying 2 in the MD myself (possible 3rd) to make use of it while lessening the amount of dead draws (it's just a dead card against e.g. Spiral Tide).
You have to find the right mixture for your meta though.

[jares]

You got me there. But you can't stop me from playing Fiend at the local store just for kicks! Anyway, my Snapcasters arrived in the mail...

To that I would attest, as Kiln Fiend is definitely a fun card - I even tried Flame Jab in my fun deck, and it works wonders! I myself have tried to "break" the card, but unfortunately, I saw for myself that it's just not a card that should dictate how a deck is built or played (at least competitively). There used to be Burn builds that also used the card, as Burn's game play is rarely affected by the presence of a Kiln Fiend, but even those days are long gone.

Have fun!

Kind Regards,
jares

[BigBopper]

I like that the discussion of Kiln Fiend came up. I did test it myself already some months ago and have to say, that it didn't convince me. Honestly, he's a 1/2 that only gets bigger, when you have a full hand. and yeah you can spent your whole hand for a single attack with lethal damage and eat a removal. And if you have the counter in hand, the damage might not be lethal and you might not see removal to counter it. But if you go for the flame dog for the fun of it, I'd play Lava Dart.
you can also not compare Delver with Fiend, since Delver usually hits turn 2 for 3, while fiend earliest gets to attack turn 3 for whatever you played. You also need to play your bolts during your turn... And you need to handle each mother of runes with that guy. I would also never say a brainstorm is wasted, when used to flip Delver. I mean the positive side effect is, that you may trade cards from your hand and be even able to set up a thunderous wrath at the same time.

Conserning Thunderous Wrath, I've seen him from 0-4 times in those decks. I think we should play him. 4 is too many, since you don't want it in your opening hand and you don't wanna see multiples either. Currently I'm playing two but also a Fireblast along, so maybe something around 2-3 might be the right number...I'd like to get feedback on that.

I also saw the results of the SCGopen and actually I'm surprised to see that many snapcasters. I'd play vexing devil over him every day. Usually Snapcaster is a 3cc Bolt turn 3 or later. Devil either eats removal, trades positively/crashes for damage or is a Lava Spike for 4 damage. Better than Snapcaster for this deck to my believes.

I also saw weird things with PoP happen. With all that burn running around, I'd say nearly everyone prepares for that. Playing around duals, boarding Leylines (white) or CoP:red... Also he's a 2 drop and Spell Snare gets it. So why not playing Sulfuric vortex? It's an entchantment, that's hard to get rid of, it makes in 2 turns as much damage as most PoPs and it handles Jitte and Batterscull for you automatically.

One more issue is the kind of counter they play. I can understand to play daze and Spell Pierce in terms of speed for that deck to take care of creatures and removal, to run over your opponent. But I can't see winning vs. ANT/Tes or Spiral tide with non-hard counters, and seriously if I didn't wanna improve my combo matchup, I'd play regular burn all day long. Surprisingly the deck not running FoW ended up better than all the ones without. ???

[MD.Ghost]

One more issue is the kind of counter they play. I can understand to play daze and Spell Pierce in terms of speed for that deck to take care of creatures and removal, to run over your opponent. But I can't see winning vs. ANT/Tes or Spiral tide with non-hard counters, and seriously if I didn't wanna improve my combo matchup, I'd play regular burn all day long. Surprisingly the deck not running FoW ended up better than all the ones without. ???

@Combo: First, you haven´t a FOW in every starthand, it is a "miracle" that FOW will beat combo, yes you have a chance to prevent turn 1 game over plays, but every good combo player will discard/chant you enough and they have 1-3 turns to sclupt a winning hand. To fight back you need a counter for discard/chant and for the following combo spells, with FOW you need 3-4 blue cards... with daze and spell pierce you need 1-2 mana and 2 cards. As a controlplayer i know, that FOW isn´t the best card and auto-win against combo, sure you have a chance to prevent a hasty combo opponent to smash you in the first turns, but i didn´t see why FOW should be an auto include in UR Delver Decks.

Spell Pierce and Daze mostly do the same job, no pitch requiered so you can use your cantrips for nasty 5 danage miracle spells and burn the combo player as fast as possible.
Flusterstorm or Mindbreak Trap is the way to play with UR Delver against combo to support your maindeck countersuite with minimal ressources. Most good comboplayer suggest that you should pack enough hate (which means that a maindeck countersuite isn´t enough) or ignore this matchup (which means you can also play burn )

@snapcaster with 18-19 lands i think he is to slow, you need 3-4 mana for his service

@against anti-burn sideboards: hey this decks can have some counters and a blue splash to bounce nasty leylines or enchantments

[SupREME-10]

I am retaining my FOW for for now, as Hard counter is required vs Combo. I still like Spell Snare over Spell Pierce though so I am running 3x MD. Daze is seaming weak to me though and I may trim it to a 2-of as well.

I like the discussion on Thunderous Wrath and I agree that 2-3 will be the right number (I am thinking 2 with 1-2 Fireblast as well).

In regard to Snapcaster vs Vexing Devil... well I only have 2x Vexing at present so my research is flawed; but I have been liking an even split of 2-2 with the Grims going to 3 in the deck (4 guides, 4 Delvers still). I would love to hear more from others on how things are working for them with Vexing Devil though.

Oh and Pop left my deck a while back, too many guys just work around it; thus S-Vortex or P-Pillar have been on my test list for a while (Both are ok but the Vortex being ahead and thus I am running 2 MD).

I am still running a stupid/weird mana base though, as I am missing a Volcanic Island. so 3 Mountian, 3 Island, 3 Volcanic, 3 Wasteland, and then the Fetches. It has been working well though so far.

[BigBopper]

I can see the points of all so far. I agree that snapcaster is too slow and also flashbacking a Spell Snare/pierce won't win you the game, since you should be winning by turn 4-5 anyways or you won't at all. Most decks out there enable their deck in these rounds and you can't control them like this enough, you need to play T(h)resh for that. The only opportunity we have, is playing faster. A deck with that many overpowered one drops looks like a U/R version of zoo to me, but that's fine. Herefore I'd still love Daze to keep the tempo on my side.
That's what I'm thinking of so far:

Manabase (18):
3x Volcanic Island
3x Mountain
1x Island
4x Scalding tarn
4x Red Fetch
3x Blue Fetch

Creatures (14):
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Goblin Guide
4x Vexing Devil
2x Grim Lavamancer

Sorceries (8):
4x Ponder
4x Chain Lightning

Instants (18):
4x Brainstorm
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Thounderous Wrath
1x Fireblast
3x Daze
4x Spell Pierce

Entchantments (2):
2x Sulfuric Vortex

Sideboard (15):
2x Smash to Smitherens
3x Flusterstorm
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Chain of vapor or Echoing Truth
2x Pyroblast
3x Submerge

Comments/Suggestions welcome

[Vandalize]

I can see the points of all so far. I agree that snapcaster is too slow and also flashbacking a Spell Snare/pierce won't win you the game, since you should be winning by turn 4-5 anyways or you won't at all. Most decks out there enable their deck in these rounds and you can't control them like this enough, you need to play T(h)resh for that. The only opportunity we have, is playing faster. A deck with that many overpowered one drops looks like a U/R version of zoo to me, but that's fine. Herefore I'd still love Daze to keep the tempo on my side.
That's what I'm thinking of so far:

Manabase (18):
3x Volcanic Island
3x Mountain
1x Island
4x Scalding tarn
4x Red Fetch
3x Blue Fetch

Creatures (14):
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Goblin Guide
4x Vexing Devil
2x Grim Lavamancer

Sorceries (8):
4x Ponder
4x Chain Lightning

Instants (18):
4x Brainstorm
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Thounderous Wrath
1x Fireblast
3x Daze
4x Spell Pierce

Entchantments (2):
2x Sulfuric Vortex

Sideboard (15):
2x Smash to Smitherens
3x Flusterstorm
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Chain of vapor or Echoing Truth
2x Pyroblast
3x Submerge

Comments/Suggestions welcome

-2 Pyroblast -1 Flusterstorm +3 Price of Progress. PoP is awesome in this deck.

[rxavage]

I'm thinking of changin my U/R list to something like. Dave Sheils said thunderous wrath was the worst card in his deck so I decided to try reforge the soul to refill an empty hand and temporal mastery because an extra attack phase could be devastating with this line up.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Vexing devil
3 Grim Lavamncer
4 Goblin Guide
4 Brianstorm
2 Ponder
3 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain lightning
3 Lava Spike
2 Price of Progress
2 Fireblast
1 Reforge The Soul
1 Temporal Mastery
4 Scalding tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Volcanic Island
2 Island
4 Mountain

[jares]

I have been messing around with the following configuration in testing Thunderous Wrath and trying to maximize it, and I would certainly say that this build has been loads of fun at the very least:

//Creatures = 12
[4x] Delver of Secrets
[4x] Goblin Guide
[4x] Vexing Devil

//Burn Spells = 17
[4x] Thunderous Wrath
[4x] Lightning Bolt
[4x] Chain Lightning
[3x] Fireblast
[2x] Magma Jet

//Utility = 13
[4x] Daze
[4x] Brainstorm
[4x] Ponder
[1x] Preordain

//Lands = 18
[4x] Volcanic Island
[2x] Mountain
[1x] Island
[4x] Scalding Tarn
[2x] Wooded Foothills
[2x] Arid Mesa
[1x] Bloodstained Mire
[1x] Polluted Delta
[1x] Misty Rainforest

I also tried a version with Grim Lavamancer, but I found the tempo of this version to be more apt for a Miraculous Wrath.

The configuration looks crude, but the idea was to use the cantrip effects to do the usual filtering, and to also setup Thunderous Wrath whenever possible. Surprisingly, I've rarely encountered the scenarios where I expected Thunderous Wrath to be annoyingly dead, as the presence of Brainstorm in the deck was enough to smooth things out. I expect these scenarios to happen every so often, so it might really just be a matter of testing it some more.

Vexing Devil was also surprisingly effecting in supporting the game plan, though I would have to note that it's still an inferior Turn-1 play to Delver of Secrets or Goblin Guide.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has had the chance to test something similar.

Cheers,
jares

I've tried playing around with Temporal Mastery in the flex slots (Magma Jet, Preordain), and so far it has been so-so, probably because I might already be packing too many Miracles in the deck.

I've thinking of adding [2x] Grim Lavamancer in those slots, as this creature has always been a steadying factor in the decks that have used it, though Price of Progress might really be the card that I'm looking for (though I'm leaning towards keeping the average CMC as low as possible).

I'd be interested to know if anyone might have had positive results from using Temporal Mastery.

Cheers,
jares

[atropos]

I'd be interested to know if anyone might have had positive results from using Temporal Mastery.

Same here. Good call, jares. It'll be interesting to see which miracle cards find their way into U/R Delver although it appears that Thunderous Wrath is a 2- or 3-of.

[JDK]

2x Grim Lavamancer are in my list as well, because he can be devastating without any setup (you almost always have enough cards in your graveyard - unless the opponent is boarding in against your Snapcaster). Most opponents have to deal with him, because he is basically a one-sided targeting Vortex.

As for Temporal Mastery, I am still not convinced. Wrath should do more in the average case, as I have stated in the controversial thread about "breaking Mastery".
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ath#post639454

Sidenote: Unfortunately German Volcanic Islands saw a pretty hefty increase in market price (bought two for 55€ each in January and now they cost 70+), which is why I am hesitating to buy my third (and fourth). Yeah, I could buy English ones, but I don't want to mix them (not for style, but for possibly giving away information). :/

[jares]

2x Grim Lavamancer are in my list as well, because he can be devastating without any setup (you almost always have enough cards in your graveyard - unless the opponent is boarding in against your Snapcaster). Most opponents have to deal with him, because he is basically a one-sided targeting Vortex.

As for Temporal Mastery, I am still not convinced. Wrath should do more in the average case, as I have stated in the controversial thread about "breaking Mastery".
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ath#post639454

Good to know that others' testing have similar results.

Sidenote: Unfortunately German Volcanic Islands saw a pretty hefty increase in market price (bought two for 55€ each in January and now they cost 70+), which is why I am hesitating to buy my third (and fourth). Yeah, I could buy English ones, but I don't want to mix them (not for style, but for possibly giving away information). :/

The thing about dual lands is that the prices for these will only keep on rising, so it would be best to buy yours NOW!

Cheers,
jares

[JDK]

Yeah you are probably right, but I am still hoping for a good offer. ^^

As for your flex slots, I strongly recommend to play Spell Pierce instead of Preordain and Magma Jet. 8 Cantrips ist enough and the counters help overcoming the weak points of the deck (namely threats like Jitte and fast combo decks).

[alderon666]

Why not play Shattering Spree instead of Smash to Smithereens? I've had my artifact hate countered enough times and lost the game to Jitte/Batterskull. Plus you get a hate card against Affinity, MUD, etc. It's even cheaper than Smash to flashback with Snapcaster. Seems like, at least, a metagame option.

[Eksem]

I played this to 4-0 tonight:

2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Goblin Guide
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage

3 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain Lightning
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress

20 lands (4 basics, 4 duals, 12 fetch)

Match 1 vs Enchantress (2-0)
He has fairly cold hands and worse draws. I even won through a Leyline game2. Game 1 double Thunderous Wrath makes his life total go away.

Match 2 vs Goblins (2-1)
In game 2 I draw like shit (double artifact hate against 0 Vials, double PoP against 0 nonbasics, and like 6 lands or whatever). The other two games Grim Lavamancer and numerous Thunderous Wrath eradicate his team and his life total.

Match 3 vs Food Chain (2-0)
I burn out his team with Grim Lavamancer, hitting with dudes and hold the combo off with counterspells. I finish him with Thunderous Wrath.

Match 4 vs Tempo RUG (2-0)
He gets me fairly low and tempoplays me with a number of wastelands va clumsy mana, but double Thunderous Wrath turns the tide. The next game is basically the same.

Most agressive deck I have played in a long time.

[JDK]

Why not play Shattering Spree instead of Smash to Smithereens? I've had my artifact hate countered enough times and lost the game to Jitte/Batterskull. Plus you get a hate card against Affinity, MUD, etc. It's even cheaper than Smash to flashback with Snapcaster. Seems like, at least, a metagame option.

Shattering Spree is dead against Chalice at one and it is a sorcery (I often want to react at artifacts with instant speed).

@Eksem
Grats!

[Greenpoe]

Shattering Spree's replicated copies are unaffected by Chalice @1.

[troopatroop]

I've been testing 1 Pyrokinesis with 3 Thunderous Wrath, and I've liked it alot. Since Wrath is starting to prove itself, why not play the red pitch spell? It'd give us a way to use them without Brainstorm.

[JDK]

Shattering Spree's replicated copies are unaffected by Chalice @1.

Thanks for the info! I'd still play Smash over Spree, because of the instant speed and the 3 damage (in a "normal" meta). However, I might consider a split.

[Brushwagg]

Replicate is the reason to play Shattering Spree over other options. The 3 damage is tagged on Smash is alright but I'd rather make it harder to have my hate countered.