[Deck] Team America (BUG Delver)

[Manipulato]

Well hello beautiful...

With DS & Stalker already in the deck I think removing 4 cards is too unconsistent/suboptimal. Plus we wanna keep some cards in the grave for Goyf & its quite bad in the first 2 turns of the game. I think Smother or Go for the Throat or something would be better if you wanna play such a card. Another disadvantage is that it a nearly dead card against GY hate like RIP/Spellbomb etc...

Greetings

[wcm8]

Well hello beautiful...

Nah, doubtful. For one thing, it doesn't kill creatures on turn 1, which is often critical in matchups where you'd even want a dedicated creature removal spell. For another, it's a non-bo with your DRS, Goyfs, and obviously Tombstalker (if running them). Opposing Rest in Peace and whatnot also make it un-castable. Disfigure, Submerge, Darkblast, and Dismember are going to remain the main SB removal options. Maindeck, Abrupt Decay and Liliana are going to stay the most versatile/powerful choices.

It would have been a more realistic consideration at 2B. 4B is just way too steep.

[Zion Burger]

Hello, all. I spent the past weekend in St. Louis in the StarCity Games Legacy open playing a list very similar to Peter Ingram's from the invitational top 8 in Somerset. I placed 45th, losing to two burn decks and one death and taxes match. I really liked the options here versus the stock 20~ land lists, and I'll go over why I think so.
Without further ado, here's the list I ran:

4x Delver of Secrets
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Deathrite Shaman
3x Dark Confidant
2x True-Name Nemesis
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Daze
3x Stifle
3x Force of Will
2x Spell Pierce
1x Disfigure
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Wasteland
3x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island

SB:
2x Divert
2x Thoughtseize
1x Flusterstorm
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Pithing Needle
1x Vendillion Clique
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Golgari Charm
1x Disfigure
1x Force of Will
1x Spell Pierce

My Record over nine rounds of swiss:
2-1 Sneak and Show
1-2 Death and Taxes
2-1 ANT
0-2 Burn
2-1 The Mirror (someone was running a very close 75)
2-0 Death and Taxes
0-2 Burn
2-0 Charbelcher
2-1 Rug Delver

I liked Dark Confidant in the majority of situations I drew it as it either drew removal that would be pointed at delver or Deathrite Shaman, or just let me run away with the game.The downsides were the possibility of flipping Force of Will, (Game one can suddenly become un-winnable, despite the fact I didn't flip one all day, I have lost games because of this in testing), drawing multiples in an opening hand and little other threats, and his horrible tendency of just sitting there. Greatness at any cost applies a little too heavily here, but I feel like he shines against other Decks to Beat except Elfball. 17 creatures also adds threat density against Death and Taxes, and Dark Confidant really helps us keep up with their onslaught of creatures. Against Shardless, it helps us close the gap a little bit between their ancestral visions, as they can just reload after we'd normally resolve a Hymn to Tourach.

At first, I liked the idea of having stifle in the same way that RUG Delver tempos through player's lands with it, and occasionally I stifle-wasted people into the ground with a Deathrite Shaman on the board, then played a slew of threats. Other times it turned Stoneforge Mystic into a squire or bought me a time walk when an opponent tapped out to equip something. It also counters Ancestral Vision pretty solidly. However, I feel like it's only marginal against combo decks, as Hymn to Tourach does a better job dismantling their plan two random cards at a time except versus Charbelcher. It might just be better played in a known metagame.

The last card I'd like to mention is Divert. Between opposing Hymn to Tourach, burn spells, removal, and being the only possibly "counter" to Abrupt Decay, this card over-performed for me in a lot of match-ups. I often got to send lava spikes back to their caster, Submerged an Insectile Aberration, and pushed an Abrupt Decay onto an opposing Tarmogoyf. I wanted to live the dream of diverting a cascaded Ancestral Vision, but it hasn't happened yet.

Overall, I think this version should be considered. Whether or not it's "better" than the version playing more lands, Liliana of the Veil, and Hymn to Tourach is yet to be determined, but after playing the mirror, I'm certain it'll show up again.

[eostby]

A slight curiosity as someone who is trying to put a build together: Assuming I'm trying to build the 4 Wasteland, 4 USea, 2 Bayou, 1 Trop manabase, given the Khans announcement, should I just try to grab the 9 cheapest fetches in the BUG colors, or is there a strategic reason to have the 3/3/3 (or a different) split besides Pithing Needle?

[Dragonslayer_90]

A slight curiosity as someone who is trying to put a build together: Assuming I'm trying to build the 4 Wasteland, 4 USea, 2 Bayou, 1 Trop manabase, given the Khans announcement, should I just try to grab the 9 cheapest fetches in the BUG colors, or is there a strategic reason to have the 3/3/3 (or a different) split besides Pithing Needle?

When people try to get cute with surgical extraction and target the first land of yours that hits the graveyard. I don't think this or the pithing needle dilemma should affect your choice on what fetches to buy unless you're not too strapped for cash. Saving money should be prioritized.

[Zion Burger]

A slight curiosity as someone who is trying to put a build together: Assuming I'm trying to build the 4 Wasteland, 4 USea, 2 Bayou, 1 Trop manabase, given the Khans announcement, should I just try to grab the 9 cheapest fetches in the BUG colors, or is there a strategic reason to have the 3/3/3 (or a different) split besides Pithing Needle?

I think people also like to keep their opponents on the guessing game of what deck you're playing by the turn one fetch into dual land. Verdant Catacombs into Bayou > Deathrite Shaman is about five, maybe six different possible decks.

[Thorhammer]

Clearly you want the lands that have flavor text about dragons...

[ESG]

A slight curiosity as someone who is trying to put a build together: Assuming I'm trying to build the 4 Wasteland, 4 USea, 2 Bayou, 1 Trop manabase, given the Khans announcement, should I just try to grab the 9 cheapest fetches in the BUG colors, or is there a strategic reason to have the 3/3/3 (or a different) split besides Pithing Needle?

I agree with the others. I don't think there's a big enough in-game advantage to merit shelling out a bunch of extra cash just to run a slightly better split. Finish the deck first, then worry about optimizing. That kind of detail is way less important than putting together a solid sideboard for your area.

[YamiJoey]

I think that playing 4 Mistys is the biggest advantage, as it's the most played fetch we can run. Deltas are also used in combo, so you can get away with those. Catacombs telegraphs our deck quite well. Delta -> Sea -> Ponder can put the frighteners on people.

But it's not going to matter a lot. Get the ones you cn afford, or like the most. For me, it's 4 Judge Deltas, 4 Catacombs. Playing BUG stinks because we only have access to two Judge lands. (Delta/Waste)

[Esper3k]

I actually like Misty the least.

Verdant lets you pretend to be Jund on T1 (I play 4). Sometimes you can still get people with Verdant -> Underground Sea -> Daze.

Polluted Delta lets you pretend to potentially be combo on T1 as well as being the pimpest fetch :)

[YamiJoey]

Catacombs -> Sea is very telling of being on BUG. Most combo lists want Blue fetchlands, with the exception of Reanimator. Misty -> Go puts them on you playing Stifle a lot of the time.

So I suppose it also depends on your list. I currently play Stifle, so I probably want to cut down on Mistys.

[Jeremy]

So, I was able to sleeve back again after a while in a decent size tournament
Last time in an 8-round with BUG Delver I went 4-1 then losing to myself with a stupid mistake

Now, the metagame wasn't looking so appealing (elves, burn), so I tried different decks (Shardless Bug, Canadian, Miracle), panicked again, then the night before re-sleeved the deck I was more confidant in, screw the rest.

Also, it has been a long time I wasn't on the good side of variance on a big event, like 2011, http://www.tipo1.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=26528), so I think I owed some

Decklist

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
1 Dismember
3 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Liliana of the Veil
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Dark Confidant

SIDE

1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Enginnered Explosives
2 Disfigure
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Misdirection
1 Force of Will
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Flusterstorm
1 Jace the Mind Sculptor
1 Life from the Loam
1 Golgari Charm


209 people on Tarmogeddon 10

Milan people, where some of the best Miracle players live, wouldn't come to Padova for a big Modern there. Elves, D'nT, Burn were expected in large numbers, Canadian and tempodeck generally lacking, Miracle was present (in fact, got to finals) but not so much as I could think
Maindecked Jitte to remove&gain life, I saw it really often.

Turn1: Christian with UW blade (delver, snapcaster, SFM, Clique&TNN)

I know him and his kind of deck as he is a local player
Game 1 he tries to stay away from my denial fetching double basic island, but remains out of white so he couldn't remove a fast delver+tarmo. Once he is on white with SFM, I discard bskull.
Game 2, we get to topdeck with empty boards, he goes TNN, CLique, TNN, I go to three lands. Ponder looking for charm/deluge/EE finds nothing
Game 3, I rape him with tempoplay

Turn 2: Memories of The Times with MOST (Zenith-manadorks and strange creatures) - should be in the source

Game1: he mulls to 5, I get into DRS->Tarmo-> jitte equip->gg
Game2: 2nd turn meddling on decay, I shuffle two of them on Brainstorm to topdeck Disfigure after shuffling. He can extend, with fauna needled but 3 dorks+tradewind+scryb ranger seal the game
Game3: again he mulls to 6 I think, 1st round delver flipping, many spot removal and two mass (EE and golgari) rape him

Turn 3: Matteo with Imperial Painter

Probably the game I played best sunday. He played reeeally slow with top, called the judge sometimes, but he wasn't unsporty, only hellish slow.

Game 1: quick delver, wasted sol lands to avoid blood moon quick, decayed moon when cast, on the last turn he mills me but I have just cast DRS which deals last damage in my upk
Game 2: 1st moon ->decay Magus ->i have 2 DRS, 1 land in gy and 1 dismember as out; 2nd magus + imperial on revoker->GG
Game 3: quick Tarmo and decay on Top (which he misteriously didn't put on top because he wanted the cards in order) makes 2 swings before ensnaring. I misdirect the bolt on DRS on him, then play Clique when he's on 3 cards and only 1 colorless in pool to gain an attack for 3. On the very last additional turn I am able to deal the last 2 dmgs with DRS

Turn 4: Marco with Merfolks

I see jitte all 3 games.
G1 I'm racing but double nemesis wins the race when he topdecks lord
G2 I win on delver with jitte
G3 he counters my jitte but he's slow against my Tarmo. 2 drs would win the race, but in combat after submerging Tarmo he vials a Revoker and f..ks me-ponder into brainstorm into find something doesn't work - he also had active FOW

Turn 5: a silent guy with RW Goblins

G1: leads with land Lackey. My hand has 2 decays but no 1-drops. I ponder into nothing, he attacks, drop warchief and wastes me. Split concede
G2: Quick beater with Jitte, he makes some huge mistakes like falling into daze with active skirk-prospector. Deluge for 1 kills his board and I get the game
G3: he mulls to 7, I don't notice until he plays a lackey and count his cards. I call the judge, he would give him game loss, but he's a poor player and not a cheater. I say the judge I don't belive it was intentional, but he has to mull to 5. Double delver and golgari charm seal the game fast

Turn 6: Gino with Death and Taxes

G1: quick delver, he's manascrewed after I remove the fast threat with seize, never finds a STP and dies
G2: this turn was my mistake. Kept 1-lander, went delver->sunlance, Seize->something, then he rishandans me out with my DRS and ponder stuck in hand
G3: discard quick creature, play tarmo, get jitte, kill him

In 3 games he never found a STP...

Turn 7: Roberto "Bob" with Jund

I heard today is his day. After G1 I could easily believe so
G1: his seize removes me a piece, kills my four threat with 2 bolts and 2 punishing without recursion (I wasted him), then he drops some BBE and lily
G2: We go both into topdeck with 3 mana. He lands Lily, I discard DRS and keep brainstorm. Next turn I find Loam+decay with Bstorm, waste him away of green, discard by lily a land, waste 2nd time, when I draw brainstorm I loam into 3 lands, ancestral with BS/dredge and slam Tarmo, lily and he concedes before I drop the jace on my topdeck
G3: he mulls to 6. I keep 7 with delver, tropical, brainstorm, misdirection, 2 wasteland and sthg. else. He lands (5) seize (4). I misdi pitching delver, then find 2 seize, tarmo, lily. This leads me to the skilled 1st turn wasteland win..

I thought I could ID into Top because I was on table 3. Instead, I'm paired with a friend, Loris, who's on Elves and the last game killed a 1st turn show-n-tell griselbrand dropping Worldspine Wurm.
We agree on 20% split, because I feel I can't win

G1: I win dice roll, he mulls to 5 or 6, I go DRS into seize+ tarmo into decay into liliana. I'm able to make a race.
G2: Keeps 7, I don't see hate, I die quite fast
G3: he goes to 5, my hand was delver delver DRS needle land land something, probably ponder. Turn 1 delver, he DRS, I have the thought and make needle on DRS. He sadly reveals 2nd DRS in hand, then 2 delvers beat harder than drs and quirion ranger.

I'm in as 2nd in swiss

In top8

Me
Miracle (playable)
TES (playable)
Sneak&show (playable)
Infect (don't know but probably playable)
2 elves (hardly winnable)
1 jund (bad mu)

I got paired with elves.

G1 I try the fast race, force his first mana elf, probably my mistake was to drop delver T1, Tarmo T2, decay T3 and tarmo T4. had I decayed the wirewood simbyosomething and got (at least) one more tarmo attack, probably I had won, because he stucks my ground and the turn before dying of DRS he finds the natural order
G2 things go naturally, and after a delver and some resistance, he Behemots me away.


I omitted to say that I also mulliganed a lot on sunday, but always necessarily, to find more playable hands. I boarded out many times a bayou and eventually a wasteland when wasn't so necessary (most, painter, elves). Played all cards in the board except flusterstorm, but It was fine because it would have been there for non-artifact combo and maybe some miracle counterwars.

Won some negative MUs on luck but also on skill or opponent mistakes, as my imperial painter opponent admitted he learnt way more from this game than from many wins. He kept supporting me during the whole tournament even if I just met him today, very nice guy.

Quite satisfied with the list, jitte isn't the best choice but a necessary meta call. I think Italian metagame looks shady in the future for the deck, but, who cares, as long as my delvers flips the turn after I drop it

Hope to be able to answer to your questions, if you have some

Bye
Massimo/Jeremy

[YamiJoey]

http://mythicspoiler.com/ktk/cards/hootingmandrills.jpg

Hooting Mandrills
5G Creature - Ape
Delve, Trample
4/4

Call me crazy, but we used to play the significantly more expensive and harder to cast Tombstalker. Could this have a place? I get that 'Stalker has flying, was a little more powerful, and that Goyf is usually a 4/5 and beats this up, but we don't often care about enemy Goyfs with our 4 Shamans, and if we're moving away from the BB Spells, this could do a lot of work in the Stifle builds. 4 Shaman, 4 Delver, 4 Goyf, 2 Mandrills seems like a solid base for a much more aggressive BUG Delver deck.

[Sturtzilla]

Greetings All!

I guess my hot streak ended. This week at locals we played four rounds. I lost to Adam with Sneak and Show (0-2), lost to Rysuke? with 12 Post (1-2), won against Ashley with Burn (2-0) and won against Tom with Oops All Spells (2-0). The deck was basically the same as the last two postings. Admittedly, I think I got greedy in game three against 12 Post and got punished for it. Details are very specific but given the top of my library and what he had in hand an extremely aggressive line would have likely won me the match. A slightly more conservative line seemed better at the time. Alas that is Magic though.

As I increase the number of games played with the Hymn build, I just feel more and more that that card has gotten to be too slow. I cast them against Sneak and 12 Post and they just didn't seem to matter. These are match ups where early 2-for-1s should be great. Maybe I drew a little poorly or maybe my opponents drew well. I may do a little tweaking. Hope to have a more exciting report for you guys next week.

[wcm8]

I'm more interested in Treasure Cruise (7U, Sorcery, Delve, Draw 3 cards). I think this would be a nice singleton (or maybe 2-of) to run. It's not that tough to reach threshold with this deck, and mid-late game casting it for 3 or 4 is doable. It's probably sided out against decks running Rest in Peace, but damn if it doesn't give you a big edge elsewhere. And unlike Ancestral Visions, you don't have to run Agent or wait a bunch of turns for it to fire.

So:

20 lands
12 creatures (4/4/4 goyf/delver/DRS)
4/4 daze/FoW
4/4 ponder/bstorm
4/4 hymn/decay
2 liliana
1 sylvan library (or 2nd treasure cruise... though Sylvan is busted in many matchups)
1 treasure cruise

90% of the time DRS is eating cards from your opponents graveyard, so there's few instances where this would be problematic to cast. I see no obvious downside to fitting at least one into the deck.

[wcm8]

http://mythicspoiler.com/ktk/cards/hootingmandrills.jpg

Hooting Mandrills
5G Creature - Ape
Delve, Trample
4/4

Call me crazy, but we used to play the significantly more expensive and harder to cast Tombstalker. Could this have a place? I get that 'Stalker has flying, was a little more powerful, and that Goyf is usually a 4/5 and beats this up, but we don't often care about enemy Goyfs with our 4 Shamans, and if we're moving away from the BB Spells, this could do a lot of work in the Stifle builds. 4 Shaman, 4 Delver, 4 Goyf, 2 Mandrills seems like a solid base for a much more aggressive BUG Delver deck.

Dodges Bolt and Abrupt Decay too. This could be a decent option to increase threat density. However, remember Hidden Gibbons is a card too. I don't think TA really suffers from running only 12 creatures, and for creature slots 13-14 you have the option of Dark Confidant, V. Clique and TNN. Not sure that running another vanilla beater is worth it, especially when Tombstalker is probably the best option if that's your goal.

[Esper3k]

Catacombs -> Sea is very telling of being on BUG. Most combo lists want Blue fetchlands, with the exception of Reanimator. Misty -> Go puts them on you playing Stifle a lot of the time.

So I suppose it also depends on your list. I currently play Stifle, so I probably want to cut down on Mistys.

If you're going to try and trick someone, this is assuming you're not going to crack your Catacombs until their turn to Brainstorm / Daze in response to something.

http://mythicspoiler.com/ktk/cards/hootingmandrills.jpg

Hooting Mandrills
5G Creature - Ape
Delve, Trample
4/4

Call me crazy, but we used to play the significantly more expensive and harder to cast Tombstalker. Could this have a place? I get that 'Stalker has flying, was a little more powerful, and that Goyf is usually a 4/5 and beats this up, but we don't often care about enemy Goyfs with our 4 Shamans, and if we're moving away from the BB Spells, this could do a lot of work in the Stifle builds. 4 Shaman, 4 Delver, 4 Goyf, 2 Mandrills seems like a solid base for a much more aggressive BUG Delver deck.

Not a fan of it myself for the drawbacks you listed. Could be better in the Stifle lists, I agree, but I think at that point in the game, you won't get as much value from Stifle anyways.

I'm much more interested by Necropolis Fiend, myself. He's a little more expensive than Tombstalker with a pretty nuts ability. Activating it for 2 kills most creatures in Legacy.

[ESG]

Greetings All!

I guess my hot streak ended. This week at locals we played four rounds. I lost to Adam with Sneak and Show (0-2), lost to Rysuke? with 12 Post (1-2), won against Ashley with Burn (2-0) and won against Tom with Oops All Spells (2-0). The deck was basically the same as the last two postings. Admittedly, I think I got greedy in game three against 12 Post and got punished for it. Details are very specific but given the top of my library and what he had in hand an extremely aggressive line would have likely won me the match. A slightly more conservative line seemed better at the time. Alas that is Magic though.

As I increase the number of games played with the Hymn build, I just feel more and more that that card has gotten to be too slow. I cast them against Sneak and 12 Post and they just didn't seem to matter. These are match ups where early 2-for-1s should be great. Maybe I drew a little poorly or maybe my opponents drew well. I may do a little tweaking. Hope to have a more exciting report for you guys next week.

I side out Hymns against Belcher and All Spells and bring in any blue cards in my board because I know my plan is mull to Force of Will. Turn 1 combo decks and Sneak and Show are both matchups where Thoughtseize is better than Hymn, but Hymn is still strong against Sneak and Show. Spell Pierce is also good in these matchups. Either or both would be good out of the sideboard. I run Envelop in my board, so that comes in. For All Spells, all grave hate comes in even though they could be transforming into Belcher. The deck is powerful but isn't consistent, so I don't devote any special slots to beating it. If I needed to do that, I would run Mindbreak Trap or Faerie Macabre.

12 Post is a 50-50 matchup. The mono-green version is somewhat unfavorable due to the added threat of Dark Depths. Can't win 'em all. Better luck next time.

[KobeBryan]

This is just an idea.

Delver is by far our worst creature. I know.

Maybe we can swamp delver out for that new green dude since it puts a beating on TNN as well as other creatures in the format minus goyf.

Since this eats up our 1 drops, we can replace the hymn, which people are already complaining about, for 4 thoughtseizes so it gives us more turn 1 plays.

[KobeBryan]

http://mythicspoiler.com/ktk/cards/hootingmandrills.jpg

Hooting Mandrills
5G Creature - Ape
Delve, Trample
4/4

Call me crazy, but we used to play the significantly more expensive and harder to cast Tombstalker. Could this have a place? I get that 'Stalker has flying, was a little more powerful, and that Goyf is usually a 4/5 and beats this up, but we don't often care about enemy Goyfs with our 4 Shamans, and if we're moving away from the BB Spells, this could do a lot of work in the Stifle builds. 4 Shaman, 4 Delver, 4 Goyf, 2 Mandrills seems like a solid base for a much more aggressive BUG Delver deck.

I would not take out those 2 flex slot creatures. Those creatures are usually the vendillion clique, tombstalker, and dark confidant. These are utility creatures and for matchup purposes.

If you want to fit the new guy in, i would suggest you take out beaters in that slot.