Regarding my FNM experience:
1. Four Treasure Cruise is correct. You aren't guaranteed to see multiple or even ANY copies, so maxing out on the card improves the chances of seeing it. You can drop a copy or two in SB games if you suspect Rest in Peace.
2. I am not so sure that Thoughtseize is better than Hymn. Not every opponent is going to be playing a deck that's soft to the effect, and you'd still rather have Hymn against most non-Blue decks. I think we can probably get away with running 19 lands, but maybe 20 lands + 3 Hymn is the way to go. Seize did fine, but I think I'm going to go back to Hymn for the time being. Maybe stay with 19 lands but drop the 4th Wasteland.
3. 1 Liliana is okay with 4 TCruise to find the lone copy. Plus, as a 3-drop in a 19-land deck it's not something you want to see early most of the time.
4. I never had an issue with Tarmogoyf/DRS + Cruise. I was able to refill the graveyard shortly after each Cruise so they never really suffered much from the card. This is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.
5. Delver actually feels like the worst card in the deck. I am seriously considering dropping it for something else. We are playing a midrange deck (at least in comparison to other UR or RUG), and while a double Delver draw is nuts, I don't like how we don't have Burn to actually close out a game once you get the opponent in single digits. So I am considering dropping the tempo angle for something else...
This is one of the most popular decks in the format. I'm surprised there isn't a thread for it on here! All I see is stuff like "BUG Delver" and "UWR Delver"? What are these decks?
Here's a recent list that did well at the SCGNJ tournament:
Stephen Mann, 5th place, Sultai Delver
(http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14751&iddeck=109242)
Creatures [12]
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
Instants [17]
1 Sultai Charm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
Sorceries [9]
2 Treasure Cruise
3 Thoughtseize
4 Ponder
Planeswalkers [2]
2 Liliana of the Veil
Lands [20]
1 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
2 True-Name Nemesis
1 Dismember
2 Golgari Charm
2 Spell Snare
2 Submerge
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Life from the Loam
Very interesting idea with cutting the Delvers. A local has been playing BUG Delver with Stifle and Hymn fairly successfully. It seems awful since you're stranding cards in hand with Stifle and then Hymning them, but turns out they're both just very disruptive and good on their own. So running with both ideas, here's a list I did some testing with against lordofthepit playing Shardless BUG:Originally Posted by wcm8
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Treasure Cruise
4 Stifle
3 Daze
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Liliana of the Veil
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
// Sideboard
2 Spell Pierce
1 Envelop
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Disfigure
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Golgari Charm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Creeping Tar Pit
After the games it was very clear that you're right 4 Cruise is right. The deck was surprisingly good, and I feel like I got a bit unlucky in some preboard games in not drawing my cantrips or creatures or removal. Strix is insanely good against this deck, but Deluge out of the board was a great answer, maybe it should be main, and maybe there should be multiple. In one game I got to cast Cruise 3 times, and had threshold again a turn later. Stifle was insane on the play, and decent on the draw against Shardless. I might continue testing a list like this. I'm not convinced by Gitaxian Probe, probably it should be a Disfigure and a Cruise. Another land is reasonable too.
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I was very skeptical with the 4 TC's but i ran a gauntlet and damn 4 is the right number
I was never unhappy to see it.
However, we do need to address the issue with how to deal with opposing TC's since we use all of our gy to draw, which makes depend on their gy for our goyfs.
Right now the 3 best creatures in the meta are Delver, DRS and Goyf. Having them in a BUG shell that will always have 1 or 2 mana open after turn 1 and will sit on 2 mana until the mid-game is pretty powerful.
My argument for going with counters instead of discard is that the way the meta seems to be stacking up the discard is beginning to look pretty frail after the first couple of turns. You can't use it on their turn when they're casting things designed to gut you like a trout and these days that includes refilling their hand, which it didn't used too.
Look at my build as a half-tapout build that taps out half it's mana every turn to play timely removal and cheap under-costed threats and then holds half it's mana for the opponent's turn.
He's probably not talking about the Counterspells (which are pretty mediocre) but the really bad cards like Repeal, Psionic Blast and Ensaring Bridge.
Tom? Is that you? I thought you were going to go work on DnD?
How did you feel with the threat count in this deck? Seems rather light but I'm assuming Treasure Cruise makes that less of an issue than it'd otherwise would be.
In regards to Legacy:
Repeal really isn't bad in this list. It's big card advantage against the people trying to remove our threats. I drew 5 cards on Friday night and saved 4 creatures in the process in 5 games. Repeal invalidated Smallpox (hard), Swords to Plowshares, and Lightning Bolt x2.
If you see it as a way to return the opponent's creatures and things then it's a mediocre card even though it replaces itself in the process but it usually gets played to put your own thing back in hand very cheaply and it causes really annoying card advantage swings for the opponent who thinks he has things counted out when he doesn't.
I saved 2 Delvers and 2 DRS and got to play all of them back out in addition to drawing another card.
If you're not trying to save a 1cc or 2cc creature then you lose so much tempo putting it back into your hand that it's probably not worth the play. A flipped Delver comes back forand draws a card and then it lands on the board as a Delver of Secrets the same turn, since your opponent will wait for Delver to flip to kill it most of the time and take it out during the attack phase.
If you think Counterspells are mediocre in this meta you haven't had anybody Dig Through Time on you yet. Just wait, you'll get there.
On the topic of trying to preempt opposing treasure cruises, I really have to chime in on the notion that dimir charm's stock has risen in the current metagame.
Prior to the printing of treasure cruise I ran a miser's copy and was always very impressed with it. The number of powerful sorceries and creatures that it deals with has already been pointed to in recent posts. Now, however, it is likely indeed that we are going to be staring down opposing treasure cruises as well. The charm costs 2, granted, and you will sometimes find yourself in situations where you simply can't justify holding up the mana for hopes of countering a cruise instead of progressing your board, but the charm is significantly more flexible than envelop, particularly because it kills many creatures that are run side-by-side treasure cruise, namely: deathrites, swiftspear (on your own turn, at least, since even a reactive spell only puts its power to 2), unflipped delvers, young pyromancers, and stoneforge mystics if and when UWR delver adopts the cruise.
Further still, the often despised 3rd mode actually gains marginal utility via performing a reasonable thought scour impression. I imagine this to be a weak argument in its own right, and it will not be a mode you want to jam just in the interest of being cute or being unnecessarily aggressive in hoping to maximize your cruises, but it will no doubt come up more often than it used to. It used to be viable just when you were desperate and needed to dig into a relevant topdeck, or if an opponent main-phased a sensei's top (which means, almost always, that they are trying to stick a JTMS) and you wanted to screw their draw.
The only qualm I have with dimir charm is that it does not hit dig through time, although envelop doesn't either, and I suspect - at least until dig through time lists get more of the limelight - that treasure cruise is bound to be the more ubiquitous of the two delve spells.
Dig Through Time is the most powerful spell I've seen since Ancestral Recall. It's not quite the same power level because it only gets you +1 card and it relies on delve but when you can actually cast it it's better than AR. 2 out of the next 7 and garbage on the bottom is just a killer effect on the opponent's end phase. I had Miracles go hellbent against me because he thought DTT was going to kill him. I countered the Force and was staring at 4 cards in hand to zero for him the next turn. I looked at 25 cards between the DTT at end of turn and the end of my first main phase.
That's just ridiculous dig. Didn't find the win but that's just luck. I had somewhere between 30 and 35 cards in my library when I began the run and missed on the two win-cons despite looking at 25 overall.
In every circumstance where you used Repeal, a counter of some sort would've been superior, especially against Smallpox. You were card neutral in the other cases, but even "losing a card" by countering the removal spells is better than running something narrow like Repeal because a counter (in this case, I'm primarily thinking of Spell Pierce and Daze) is more flexible. As for Counterspell, leaving UU up on your opponent's turn is a big cost because the deck isn't configured around casting spells for UU. If you want a 2 mana (mostly) hard counter, Negate and Mana Leak are better because they allow you to counter off of U.Repeal really isn't bad in this list. It's big card advantage against the people trying to remove our threats. I drew 5 cards on Friday night and saved 4 creatures in the process in 5 games. Repeal invalidated Smallpox (hard), Swords to Plowshares, and Lightning Bolt x2.
If you see it as a way to return the opponent's creatures and things then it's a mediocre card even though it replaces itself in the process but it usually gets played to put your own thing back in hand very cheaply and it causes really annoying card advantage swings for the opponent who thinks he has things counted out when he doesn't.
I saved 2 Delvers and 2 DRS and got to play all of them back out in addition to drawing another card.
If you're not trying to save a 1cc or 2cc creature then you lose so much tempo putting it back into your hand that it's probably not worth the play. A flipped Delver comes back for
If you think Counterspells are mediocre in this meta you haven't had anybody Dig Through Time on you yet. Just wait, you'll get there.
The miser's Dimir Charm is one of my favorite cards to draw. I can't think of a time where I had it and wished it was something else. The fact that we just got a juicy new target for it makes it that much better. I got to use the third mode twice in testing yesterday - once to clear two lands that I had Brainstormed back (and incidentally turn on Treasure Cruise for U) at my opponent's EOT, and once to snag a Top (and to my surprise, an Entreat) my Miracles opponent had flipped.
As for Delver being the weakest card - I like the Delver-less lists aside from the fact that it's a slower deck that continues to run Daze. I think that without Delver you lose the only reason for running a card that is straight garbage after turn 4 in almost all games that aren't about killing quickly with Delver.
On a more constructive note, I've done a few games of two-fisted testing with the Delver-less list wcm8 posted, but -4 Daze, -1 Ponder, +2 Snacaster Mage, +1 Dimir Charm, +1 Pierce, +1 Land. I'm thinking about Mana Leak over Pierce since this makes the deck even less about tempo, but Snapcaster has been amazing.
I wrote a long reply to this listing specific examples of where Repeal was superior to most Legacy counter spells and then I realized that until you actually played the card you wouldn't really understand what it does. Delver of Secrets and Deathrite Shaman are two of the strongest cards in Legacy right now. The ability to save them and replay them and not give up a card in the process is really strong in most matchups. They're nightmare cards for the opponent. They cost next to nothing to cast and have an out-sized effect on play once they're active. Think about it.
The most-played removal spells in Legacy all require counter backup to resolve successfully if you have a Repeal in hand. That includes Abrupt Decay.
People don't need to play Repeal, Ensnaring Bridge and Psionic Blast to know they're bad cards and have no place in competitive BUG Delver lists. We can read the cards.
Tom? Is that you? I thought you were going to go work on DnD?
I dunno, when I get my Delver or DRS Jace-bounced, I'm pretty upset even though I haven't lost a card per se. Both Delver and DRS need a turn to set up. You are losing a lot of tempo when they get bounced. Bouncing my own guy just to blank Abrupt Decay (since that's the only card that can't be addressed by regular counterspells) sounds unbelievably weak.
STP aside, I'd rather play Golgari Charm for the regeneration mode to 'counter' removal. That way you also have a sweeper for the somewhat ubiquitous X/1 threats in the format. Repeal is actually a pretty decent card and I've played it to good effect in Modern, but it's not something I'd really consider for a BUG Tempo list. I'll grant that there are some scenarios where it's great, but it can also be dead quite often.
Psionic Blast is interesting since I do think the lack of Burn is a reason why BUG never feels quite as 'tempo-y' as its Bolt-slinging cousins, but I don't know if 3cmc makes the cut here. It's something I *would* actually consider testing. Intriguing.
Dimir Charm: Great discussion on this one. The poster who brought this up was absolutely correct about it being useful in a format with lots of small creatures + Treasure Cruise (and is also a fair beating against Miracles and miscellaneous combo decks.) Maybe this could work as a 2-of.
Lots of cards to think about. Coming to a 'perfect' list is pretty much impossible, and there is value in running singletons of a lot of the cards being discussed. I think we *should* maintain the internal consistency of BUG and run 4 copies of the most important cards, but there is some wiggle room to allow for alternatives.
Also wanted to mention, Delver is a necessity for BUG Tempo with Daze. If you drop it, you are obviously going to move into a more midrange/control direction, which is a discussion for another thread.
edit: Dimir Charm is great. Maybe this is the card that takes the Hymn/TSeize slot??
Last edited by wcm8; 10-05-2014 at 09:21 PM.
I'm usually pretty happy when my Delver or DRS gets bounced by Jace. There are many worse things that he can be doing to you and if he keeps bouncing eventually things break down. That said, there's a difference between having an opposing permanent bounce your delver and doing it yourself in response to removal or to be able to block and also keep it and get another card in the process.
The gist of the argument is that there are very few things that BUG Delver can be doing after turn 3 or so that are better than playing a Delver or DRS. Preserving the ability to do that without incurring card disadvantage, and in fact causing the opponent to have card disadvantage is pretty powerful overall.
I'm already playing 9 counters. It's not like Repeal is worse than counters 10 and 11 because really it's not. Would it be worse than counter 8 and 9? You could make that argument and I wouldn't feel pressed to try to refute it. Would Repeal be worse than Abrupt Decay 3 and 4? Most definitely.
The question I still haven't completely answered to my satisfaction at this point is whether the 2 main list Spell Pierces are better than 2 Dazes. I believe they are because half the time I'm on the draw game 1 and the Dazes definitely are weaker on the the draw. There are times when I am sitting on a Delver and a Spell Pierce in my opening grip on the play when I really wish I had a Daze instead. I sit on a blue source in that situation and wait until turn 2 to play the Delver. It's better than losing the Delver to a 1-on-1 trade.
I believe that other than Counterspell, Ponder and Brainstorm there is no card in the list that is dead less often than Repeal. That's because it cantrips in addition to doing something that is tempo-y at worst and quite effective at times.
I'm going to take this to 1 in the main and leave it there. I don't ever want to have 2 of these in the opening hand although I'm perfectly willing to carry 1 until the bitter end if I have too. The reach is good to have. There are so many games where BUG gets the opponent down low and has trouble finishing.
I'm probably going Golgari Charm as the replacement although I am also considering a main list Toxic Deluge or Pernicious Deed.
Maybe a 2/2 split, but I can hardly imagine running 3-4 Charm.
I cannot really understand why there is no earnest discussion in any of the Delver threads on Dig through Time versus Treasure Cruise. It seems as if everyone is saying: It worked for UR Delver and also Treasure Cruise only costs
Modern style UR Delver is a 17 land deck, plays more cantrips like Gitaxian Probe and thus draws way more threats compared to Team America. As it has less land and more threats Treasure Cruise is a better card in that deck.
For Team America which plays 19-20 land and Deathrite Shaman and less cantrips I think the effect "look at the top 7 cards and choose 2" is a lot stronger than "draw 3 cards".
It ensures you draw 2 threats or Force of Will & blue card or whatever sideboard card you are looking for.
Now someone will point out: You have to pay
First: you can play this card in your opponents turn and that alone is very strong. It makes it so you can pay
Second: Once you are able to delve 4-6 cards in Team America you will surely have 2-3 lands 2 of which should be blue.
I think the two draw spells will push all decks into more midrangy fields if you cannot use the cards like UR Delver as burn.
ATM I play this:
4x Abrupt Decay
2x Bayou
4x Brainstorm
4x Daze
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Delver of Secrets
3x Dig Through Time
4x Force of Will
4x Hymn to Tourach
2x Liliana of the Veil
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Polluted Delta
3x Ponder
4x Tarmogoyf
1x Tropical Island
4x Underground Sea
1x Verdant Catacombs
4x Wasteland
Sideboard
2x Disfigure
1x Dismember
2x Golgari Charm
2x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Notion Thief
1x Pithing Needle
2x Spell Pierce
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Sylvan Library
1x Vendilion Clique
On another note: Could we shave a land for a fetchland?
Chalice on 1
You have to payNow someone will point out: You have to pay
More seriously, I don't expect to have UU more than like two thirds of the time around turn 3-4 against a Wasteland deck. Also 1 vs 2 is a big difference in playing around Daze. Those are independent of tapping out or not. And let's be real, Team America taps out most turns if things are going well.
Also nice double Bayou, triple double-blue spell manabase. Although to be fair, it's not realistic to play 4 Hymns and 2 Lili without the two Bayous.
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