Originally Posted by Contract Killer
The land still type decks that I've been playing against is American, it's a very strong control type deck. I think I'm just not countering properly against it just because he seems to always have the upper hand. Thank you for this by the way, it's extremely helpful just because i'm not entirely just which cards to be looking to sideboard.
Since I picked up the deck, I have had trouble deciding which decks to take out stifle against, since almost every deck has an important stifle target. Any advice on which decks should I value stifle more against?
I have a friend who plays UWR land still and it's definitely not an ideal match up but still better than BUG landstill. Pyroblast is king here because their late game finishers are going to be Geist of saint traft, TNN or JTMS. Similar to Miracles the game is bound to go long so making sure you only counter what needs to be like standstill TNN, Geist and jace is key. Despite how promising pyroblasting a brainstorm looks they could just be baiting you so that their swords, standstill, tnn etc will resolve. This is how I would board against them with probably the most rounded maindeck/sideboard you could run:The land still type decks that I've been playing against is American, it's a very strong control type deck. I think I'm just not countering properly against it just because he seems to always have the upper hand. Thank you for this by the way, it's extremely helpful just because i'm not entirely just which cards to be looking to sideboard.
54 stock with 2/2/2 forked bolt, snare, pierce
sideboard
2 pyroblast
1 red elemental blast
2 flusterstorm
2 submerge
2 rough
2 grafidgger's cage
1 ancient grudge
1 krosan grip
1 vendilion clique
1 sylvan library
OTP:
- 2 forked bolt unnecessary unless you see them running a stoneforge package which would be unusual, but it's a fringe deck with many different variants.
- 4 force of will
+ 2 pyroblast
+ 1 reb
+ 2 flusterstorm not amazing or mvp here, but it helps resolving counter wars which is important
+ 1 sylvan library great card engine in this match up especially since our life total doesn't matter too much.
If they're on geist of saint traft again it's a fringe deck and the lists will vary a lot then siding in rough as an answer is reasonable.
OTD:
- 2 pierce It's not at its best on the draw, but I still think daze holds value in beating early standstills or TNN that they try to jam.
- 2 forked bolt
- 1 stifle
- 1 daze both stifle and daze lose value on the draw but neither I would say is worse or better than the other.
Stifle is just a very high risk high reward card that has been up for debate about whether it should be in the deck to begin with for about as long as RUG Delver has been around. There are some decks that taking it out is just almost immediate listed below. Most of the time though it's just in a vague area where you'll might want to shave 1 copy and a daze or 2.
Merfolk OTP it might be worth keeping in if they're running fetches + wasteland. OTD shaving or cutting all is reasonable since you're not likely to hit fetches and at that point it's just protecting our lands from their 4 wastelands
MUD stifle does just about nothing here. You might get to blow someone's forgemaster trigger out of the water but aside from that it doesn't really do anyting.
Burn it's really bad here again OTP it might be worth it since tier 1 burn runs a full set of fetches and you can "counter" rift bolt. OTD I would definitely cut in favor of more counterspells/extra threats. Oh and a heads up if you win game 1 against burn watch out game 2 for ensnaring bridge. They sometimes bring it in against us and we can't beat that with out some artifact hate or on the stack. It's still not worth warranting a slot for revelry or grudge on the hunch, but if you see it game 2 bring in grudge game 3.
Reanimator I guess OTD I would cut it just because how fast they are. We need all the counters we can get against them and OTD stifle is just too slow/lack of targets for just fetches and maybe their 2 animate deads.
Elves stifle is pretty bad to be honest. Then again most of our deck is bad against elves. It's somewhere between daze and stifle being our worst card against them. Daze is definitely out against them OTD, but even OTP daze feels bad. Stifle isn't much better, but at least we can hit their fetches and possibly save ourselves from a craterhoof trigger.
Despite stifle being sometimes "dead" or card disadvantage it still has major tempo applications for us even OTD. Any decks running lili it's an added I guess pseudo counter if they rely on her to deal with goose. Decks with stoneforge mystic it can time walk their batterskull which they probably need to stabilize also giving us another chance at finding removal for stoneforge. Even against combo like Show and Tell or storm they still need lands and if they have trouble trying to get their lands resolve through a stifle then they might have less counter/hand disruption to protect their combo. OTD it sort of does nothing, but still interacts with a lot of fair decks (bug delver, maverick, D&T, UWR delver etc) and mid range decks (esper blade, deathblade, Shardless bug, Miracles, etc). I usually shave one and maybe a daze OTD depending on the deck, but it's still an integral part of our game plan. One of the best local legacy players I know attributed cutting stifle to this "cutting stifle is like switching from a good plan A to usually a worse plan B".
Here's a really good article about RUG delver and particularly stifle and how it plays in the deck:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...er_Primer.html
While I don't agree with how much Drew down plays stifle he raises some really good points. The most important of such I think is not letting stifle force you into making bad plays. Between holding up stifle turn 1 and playing out a threat the correct choice is almost always a threat. Once we get a creature on the board we can start controlling their board state, but if we try to do it in the other way around stifling a fetch actually doesn't help us much. Unless we have pressure to capitalize on them losing their land and their tempo then we actually didn't gain much tempo ourselves.
The other thing I don't like about his article (which I'm not sure if Miracles was even that popular at the time or still in it's infancy) he didn't go over stifles implications against terminus/entreat. Even if we're not countering terminus it still forces the miracles player to put it back on the top of their library somehow. At which point they either have to burn 2 turns setting it up with brainstorm or they have jace out in which case we're in bad shape to begin with. My point is if we have an active goose and keep them off of resolving terminus to deal with than the Miracles player is losing their window to stabilize and fast.
Drew also points out in that article that it's atrocious OTD. It's definitely at it's worse their, but it's still interacts with many important cards we care about more than I think he values the interaction at. Just understanding when to shave a few copies here and there over other cards comes with practice. There's no real easy explanation as to when to cut stifle, shave or keep it in it just comes with playing the deck and gaining experience.
Hi everyone, I'm new to Legacy, I've always wanted to play it, and I finally was able to start playing the format on magic online. I started with a u/r delver deck with treasure cruise, that splashed for Tarmogoyfs, and since cruise got banned, I started making RUG Delver, as it looked good to me, and I was close to owning everything already.
This is the list I've been playing:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Forked Bolt
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Spell Snare
1 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Pyroblast
2 Rough/Tumble
2 Submerge
1 Krosan Grip
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ancient Grudge
1 True-Name Nemesis
I've been doing pretty well with it, and have beat a wide variety of decks. I also have another list saved where I try out new sideboard and main deck configurations.
Cards that I've been trying are: Sylvan Library, Divert, and Teferi's Response (the latter of which I feel won't end up being that good).
That list seems ok except for the singleton Gitaxian Probe. Probe's utility is in having it in your opener to make our early sequencing better. The downside of probe is drawing it mid to late game usually isn't that good, and it makes our brainstorms and ponders worse since it's a "mystery" card. I would say for probe to be useful run 3. I've seen some lists run 2, but again I think it's just running 3+ or none at all to maximize it's potential.
I've tried Sylvan Library maindeck and it's ok or horrible depending on the match up. It's really good against combo, miracles and ok against some of the slower mid range UWR, esper and deathblade builds. The issue is it's too slow against other fair decks and effectively does nothing the turn we play it. Rather than advancing our boardstate it's a win more card that helps us get further ahead. I wouldn't say it's unplayable, but just that depending on your match ups it's either going to be amazing or just something to shuffle away with brainstorm.
Divert I've tried running in the board shortly after TNN came out and UWR delver with TNN was the big kid on the block. They have 8 removal spells so it seemed like it might be worthwhile out of the board. After testing it though it's just to conditional and corner case. I think my best result with it was swinging in with Goyfs against jund him having only 3 mana up after tapping for lili the previous turn. He was going to punishing fire one of my goyfs after he blocked with his, but I diverted it back at his goyf :D. I can also tell you right now Teferi's Response will be god awful.
The only things I would really change with that sideboard is take out the TNN (this may be more of personal preference). Unless there's a lot of miracles switch out the Vortex with something like another pyroblast/reb. The spell pierce out of the board I'm not a huge fan of seeing as where we want it most will be against combo and flusterstorm is just better for that purpose so I would just up flusterstorm to 2.
People in a legacy facebook group mentioned that someone played Teferi's Response on camera at an scg event. I had enough bot credit to pick one up without spending a ticket, so I picked it up. Divert I haven't even been able to use yet.
The list started with three probes. I cut down to two, then one. I guess I should just make a choice of either three or none. It's great at helping me know how to sequence my plays, as you said, plus it helps turn on threshold faster. The reason I cut it was I wanted to make room for the extra spell pierce and spell snare. I had games where I was doing great, and then they played a Goyf or SFM that I didn't have an answer for, I felt like spell snare was a good choice. And it has done well.
I think i'll save a list with no probes, and one with three, and take turns practicing with them to get a feel for what I want to be running.
The decks I've had the most trouble with are Death and Taxes, and Elves. I've since added a sulfur elemental to the sideboard. I keep winning one of the games against D&T, but they always seem to get me in game three. The Burn deck has beaten me a few times as well.
Thanks for the advice!
P.S. Since Treasure Cruise has been banned, and the ban took effect online, the metagame breakdown on mtggoldfish has gone back (i assume, as I'm new) to not having one deck take up a significantly larger portion of the percentage of decks. Right now, ANT and Miracles are listed on top. I have to assume that I'm more likely to be facing those top several decks more, and adjust my sideboard accordingly.
you could just cut probe entirely....
edit: I play 0 probes and 2 spell snare
That's the other issue I've had with probe because even if you see something a mile away sometimes you still can't stop it. Many times I would see goyf or Liliana or something and then start digging for our only real answer for goyf force couldn't find it and then lost because theirs resolved.
As for D&T again it's a bad match up and that's something we just have to live with. The sideboard I listed above is the best you could really do against them without sacrificing slots against other decks. We just have to play really tight against them because they have so many must answer cards. On the bright side there's so many minute triggers they have to manage unless the player is good it's easy for them to make mistakes. Remember legacy is all about just not playing as bad as your opponent.
Elves again just a bad match up. I would almost go as far to say that if we lose game 1 we almost lose the set. Elves is just that powerful otp against us that if we lose game 1 and we do manage to win game 2 game 3 will still be absurdly hard. This is another deck that's really hard to play (I would rank it in the top 3 difficulty wise) so there's plenty of people that punt games away with it. Our best bet against them is for rough to dig us out after they extend out a bit and net some two for ones along with a forked bolt or two.
Miracles and ANT are both fairly tough match ups for us and the opponent. They just take a lot of planning and knowing how to play them. ANT I would almost say is harder than miracles because if the opponent is good they're definitely favored. To be perfectly honest just keep practicing those matches a lot there's no easy way to learn them just repletion.
With Miracles, I have beaten much more than I've lost to. I'd have to go look at my record to be certain.
It took me a while to get the hang of piloting this deck, but I think I'm advancing pretty well.
I write articles for puremtgo, and I wrote about my experiences playing the deck. I feel like a lot of times, I don't want to Jam a creature turn one, I'd rather hold up Stifle if possible. Once I started doing that, instead of just playing a delver turn one and having it die to something, I saw my win percentage climb.
I don't get to choose what I practice against, because I'm playing online, I also play at irregular times (whenever I happen to have the chance, basically). So I've only faced D&T twice, and elves twice. Both times I played D&T I managed to win one of the games pretty easily, and lost game three.
Thanks for the advice. I wish I'd started playing this format sooner, it's by far the most fun I've ever had playing constructed magic.
Online I could definitely see that holding up stifle turn 1 is reasonable if you have a second land. The issue I have is everyone at my LGS knows I play RUG Delver lol. With that being said I just kind of gave up on holding up stifle turn 1 since everyone knows that if I play land pass I have it and they'll either play non fetch or just wait to play around stifle. Personally I value playing out a turn 1 threat more than holding up stifle.I feel like a lot of times, I don't want to Jam a creature turn one, I'd rather hold up Stifle if possible. Once I started doing that, instead of just playing a delver turn one and having it die to something, I saw my win percentage climb.
I don't get to choose what I practice against, because I'm playing online, I also play at irregular times (whenever I happen to have the chance, basically). So I've only faced D&T twice, and elves twice. Both times I played D&T I managed to win one of the games pretty easily, and lost game three.
Thanks for the advice. I wish I'd started playing this format sooner, it's by far the most fun I've ever had playing constructed magic.
I just don't think the value of trying to get free wins is higher than the disadvantage of them playing out something other than a fetch and play like bayou into deathrite. They could also play basic island/plains into top in which case holding up stifle is dead. It could be a tempo mirror and they do underground sea/volcanic into delver in which case we're really behind. Then again I might just be going over my own experiences of trying to hold up stifle when everyone knows I have it lol. I will admit when it does work it makes the game so much easier.
Is there anyway of quantifying the outcomes of holding stifle? I know experience know this by feel but I think it could still be really useful. Obviously we can not do this precisely but what does everyone think?
There's no real way to calculate the possible ups and downs of keeping stifle live turn 1. The best way to look at it is that while it may hit their fetch if they don't fetch what's the outcome. Some of the basics rules of thumb I consider are as follows:
Don't hold stifle up if you only have 1 colored land
Don't hold stifle up if you have delver in hand with a way to protect it (even without a way of protecting it playing it out turn 1 is still right I think)
Don't hold stifle up turn 2 over playing out a goyf if it's your only threat in hand. We have to get our feet on the ground sometime and if we have to play goyf it's still better turn 2 than 3 as the game is going to go longer and thus in their favor.
Like I said in an earlier post gaining tempo off of stifling a fetch is only helping us if we have pressure. This is akin to how in a lot of Jacob Wilson's videos he makes the comment that "if they wasteland me here I'm fine because I have a threat out and they don't" or something along those lines. The point is if the opponent wastelands you and you have lets say 2 duals a delver/goose and they then have 1 dual then it's definitely in our favor. They're forfeiting their land drop to slightly hinder our mana even though we can operate on one mana and it doesn't help them deal with our threat. Despite them being behind 2 land drops because of the stifle if they have more lands it doesn't matter. I mean I guess I might just be down playing stifle's value turn 1 because it hasn't helped me in years. There's a number of deck types that either have really good turn 1 plays that make holding up stifle bad or having a threat is more important:
Jund, bug delver, shardless bug all have deathrite to play turn 1 and if they don't have a fetch it's horrible for us
D&T well we might as well have punted seeing as they will just play out vial pass same with merfolk
Miracles has enough lands and answers to our threats the game will go very long. We need to get a threat out asap and our mana denial isn't even that good against them.
Combo has many turn 1 plays that invalidate this probe/duress (storm), island followed by ponder (SnT).
I'm not saying it's bad it's just very high risk high reward. It can either end great with us playing out a threat turn 2 followed by a wasteland turn 3 or they can play bayou deathrite go. We could hold up stifle and just see island top go. I will point out if you're doing well in a legacy tournament lets say round 3 and you're 2-0 any other people that are doing well will probably have scouted you. If the other people know how to play against stifle then holding it up is just really bad. They will immediately play out any duals/basics first and then we just wasted time. I tend to be a pessimist in general, so this might just be my opinion/conditioning because of my LGS with everyone knowing I play stifle. It's just do you consider holding up stifle turn 1 better than playing out a threat/pondering to find a threat if we don't have one. If you do think holding up stifle is better than any of the scenarios I listed above are just par for the course of how things can go sideways real fast if we take that line of play.
I can see what you are advocating, and I do agree it is similar to getting wasted with a delver in play. Going through old posts of this thread I have seen a lot of discussion of the 7/8 bolt builds. It seems pretty strong and I will be testing 54 + 4 Chain Lightning + 2 Spell Pierce. I'm planning on doming people with unused mana and burn. I'm also learning this deck in general so I doubt I will have any new news.
Ok so I was gold fishing and wanted to get some advice. Say I'm on the play and our opening hand is: Delver, Volcanic, Stifle, Force of Will, Lightning Bolt, Brainstorm, and Wasteland. We open with Volcanic into Delver our ideal T1, if our opponent plays a one mana removal we are basically always forcing it right? As for what to remove I am really conflicted if my opponent is playing a decent number of fetches.
Last edited by Alix444; 02-07-2015 at 11:14 PM.
Played in my third Legacy 8-man today at my LGS. I am still playing Daniel Olivieri's list from the Legacy Open at SCG Atlanta. I went 3-0 again beating MUD, Lands, and Death & Taxes.
Round 1: MUD (2-0)
Game 1: I get two Delvers going. I Daze my opponent's Grim Monolith, Waste his Cloudpoast, and Force his Metalworker. Delvers get there.
Game 2: My opponent gets Chalice of the Void on 1 on T1. I land two Goyfs. I Daze his Lodestone Golem and Daze his Kudoltha Forgemaster. Goyfs get there.
Round 2: Lands (2-1)
Game 1: I get two early Delvers. He gets Punishing Fire/Grove of the Burnwillows going and gets rid of my Delvers. I land a Goyf and a Goose and have lethal on board. He Intuitions for Glacial Chasm. I Brainstorm into a Wasteland and swing for the win.
Game 2: My opponent gets Chalice of the Void on 1 on T1 and eventually gets Crucible of the Worlds/Wasteland going. I concede the game with 2x Delver, 2x Nimble Mongoose, 2x Brainstorm, 1x Ponder, and 1x Gitaxian Probe in my hand and no lands in play.
Game 3: T1 I Force his Chalice. T2 I play Goyf. He Gambles for another Chalice but discards it. T3 I play TNN. My opponent scoops.
Round 3: Death & Taxes (2-0)
Game 1: I Forked Bolt his Mother of Runes. I play Delver and Daze his Thalia. He tries to Plow my Delver on his Turn 3. I Force it. He tries to Plow my Delver again on Turn 4. It resolves. But I Brainstorm into a Goyf and a Goose. He gets another Thalia down, but I pay two to bolt it. Goyf and Goose get there.
Game 2: More of the same.
I have been playing Legacy for a little less than a month. I have gone 8-1 and have won $100 in store credit. I am still amazed at how amazing Legacy is.
Hey guys! Daniel here with a 8-man local tournament report!
List is standard 54 with the following flex slots.
2 Chain Lightning
2 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
1 Gitaxian Probe
Sideboard:
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
3 Pyroblast
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Rough // Tumble
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Flusterstorm
1 True-Name Nemesis
2 Submerge
1 Krosan Grip
Match 1: Miracles (RiP/Helm)
Game 1
I win the die roll, and play a turn 1 Delver. Delver gets swords'd and I play a Gitaxian Probe and see double counterbalance with force backup. I play a Tarmogoyf, and it gets forced pitching a CB. I don't fight over it because I'm scared of the other CB lock. Eventually, I counter the second Counterbalance, and Spell Snare a RiP while goose gets there.
Sideboard
-2 Chain Lightning
-4 Lightning Bolt
-2 Tarmogoyf
+3 Pyroblast
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Krosan Grip
+1 Sulfuric Vortex
+1 Sulfur Elemental
+1 True-Name Nemesis
Game 2
He mulls to 6. My opening hand is Goose, Delver, Krosan Grip, Wasteland, Fetch, Fetch, Fetch. Turn 1 he Enlightened Tutor getting a Top, after fetching a plains. He spins top for 2 turns and doesn't play any more lands. Smelling blood, I Krosan Grip the top, locking him out. Goose makes short work of him after.
Match 2: Burn (RW, with RiP in the board)
Game 1
I get there fast with a turn 1 Delver. I end the game at 5 life.
Sideboard
-2 Chain Lightning (This is one of those matchups where Forked Bolt is better)
-1 Stifle
-1 Gitaxian Probe
+2 Rough // Tumble (I HAVE to kill the Eidelon of the Great Revel)
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 Krosan Grip (for Eidelon and Sulfuric Vortex)
Game 2
3 Eidelons throughout the game really screws me. Even with my heads up play against Price of Progress with 3 duals and a wastland in play of: Bolt you, hold priority, daze the bolt, pay for it, waste my own land, take 2. I can't get enough creatures on board not to get blown out by a Swiftspear + bolt, so I durdle too long and die.
Game 3
I stifle a rift bolt, and Mongoose starts beating. I'm able to get him down to 5, and he plays a sulfuric vortex, which resolves. He plays a Ensnaring Bridge and I spell pierce it. I Stifle the Vortex trigger on my turn, Mongoose takes him down to 2, and his own Vortex kills him.
Match 3 4-Color Land Destruction (No Red)
Game 1
I lose the die roll. He goes turn 1 Delta -> U. Sea -> Ponder. I play a Volcanic and pass, holding up Stifle. Turn 2 he plays another Sea. At this point I'm thinking Storm. I Wasteland him and it gets Stifle'd. BUG Delver maybe!?. Next turn he plays a Bayou and casts Life from the Loam. I'm confused at this point. Then the next turn, he plays a Sinkhole, and I Daze it. I only have my 1 Volcanic, and I spend the next few turns protecting it. Eventually, he gets a wasteland -> Loam online and I scoop after 2 Baleful strix are beating down and I've had no lands for 3 turns. During the game, I saw Top, Jace, and Abrupt Decay.
-2 Force of Will
-2 Chain Lightning
+2 Pyroblast
+1 True Name-Nemesis
+1 Sulfuric Vortex
Game 2
My Stifle/Wastelands are better than his this game. I get Mongoose online and play the you-can't-have-any-lands game. At one point he has 2 Lands, a Delta, and a Top in play. I play a Pithing Needle, and he spins top. Then he says ok. I thought about it for a second, and thought that he was afraid I would name Delta if he drew off Top. I try to next-level and name Delta. It works, and he does nothing for the next few turns with Goose beating down for 1. He plays a Mishra's factory and attempts to block/pump a thresh'd Mongoose. Summoning sickness makes him lose his factory after a judge call. Mongoose gets there.
Game 3
I'm nervous about getting to 3 lands on the draw, but I decide True-Name and Vortex are too good against Decay/Durdle. I slam a turn 3 vortex after protecting my lands with Stifle. I get a Goose down and I'm quickly winning the race. I Spell Snare a Snapcaster and get in for lethal.
Finished 1st after the other top 4 didn't want to play it out.
Overall, I was happy with how the deck played. I put Zuran Orb back in my board because of how close the burn matchup was. Eidelon is the real deal, and if my burn opponent knew the format better, he would have won. I cut True-Name even though I didn't want to. I might put him back in instead of the 3rd Pyroblast, as I don't totally comfortable with only being able to answer a True-Name on the stack. But Pyroblast is so good... GAH.
I think Treasure Cruise's banning made the format worse for us, but we're still strong. Anyway, keep the Goose loose, and live the RUG Delver dream.
Hey Daniel, thanks for the tournament report. It was much more interesting than mine. I just started playing Legacy a month ago. And your sideboard guide really helped me get into the format. So super big two thumbs up thank you!
Can someone provide their experience on something like this? I get very little opportunities to play legacy and gold fishing is sometimes all I get to do.
The main idea with the 8 bolt list came up when TNN was really popular (which it still is but not as much). The idea is that you would just up and over TNN. Basically the math works out that everyone's life total in legacy is 18 based off of either fetches or force. Fortunately 18 works out to 6 bolts or hits with any of our creatures. With 8 bolts + 12 creatures = 20 bolts total and you're essentially running UR delver... with better creatures... and mana denial... just a better UR delver build lol.
So with the hand you said there's a few different things to look at:
Delver, Volcanic, Stifle, Force of Will, Lightning Bolt, Brainstorm, and Wasteland
Ok to be perfectly honest this is just a tough decision and for the most part I would probably just play too conservatively and pitch stifle. On the other hand stifle + wasteland is a powerful combination so pitching brainstorm is reasonable to. There are a few specific decks that I think pitching one over the other might be right or at least have different ways the game would play out.
If the opponent goes flooded strand plains swords they're on miracles which means the game will probably go long. Pitching brainstorm and holding stifle to deal with terminus is reasonable, but they'll probably have a different removal before that. Another opinion would be that they have snapcaster, Vendilion clique, 2-3 more swords and 3-4 terminuses so delver might not get there even with stifle for terminus and saving brainstorm to find trop + threat is another possibility.
Now let's say the opponent goes delta/misty fetch sea/bayou disfigure. This means they're definitely on BUG delver which pitching brainstorm I think would be the best choice. We're going to waste them turn 2 and on top of that we have stifle for an additional fetch. This means they won't get to decay until turn 4 hopefully which will give us plenty of time to draw into more steam. The downside here is if they have force for our stifle and have decay.
If they're on Jund based off of catacomb into badlands then I would probably pitch brainstorm. Again they're a fair deck that has deathrite, decay and goyf. Much like BUG delver our best bet against these decks is to out tempo letting stifle and wasteland get us some free wins. Another key thing here is since they're jund they won't have counter magic g1 meaning if they have another fetch after our waste our stifle will hit gold no questions asked unlike against BUG delver.
The other scenario is they go flooded strand into tundra they could be UWR delver, Esperblade or deathblade. Pretty much all of these decks have some scary high end stuff... well they have TNN lol. So again it comes down to do we want to roll the dice and hope wasteland + stifle gets there or be more conservative and keep brainstorm to dig for more threats.
Both options are right it's just specific matches like BUG delver or JUND it might be better to keep stifle. We just can't interact with abrupt decay so keeping them from getting to the mana is our best bet. Now against miracles pitching stifle might be better because of how many outs they have. I wouldn't say one choice is better than the other they just have differnet advantages and disadvantages based on the match up.
If you're sitting on a single colored land, Delver and Stifle and you go the Delver route and they wasteland your single land you're going to lose most of the time. I guess it depends on what else you have in your hand but Delver, Stifle and Daze or Pierce is not protection for your Delver if they waste your only island on turn 1.
What do you do when you open up fetch, Delver, Stifle, Daze, Brainstorm, Lightning Bolt and another threat on the play? Is that a keep or a toss back and if you keep it do you hold up Stifle to allow you to resolve Brainstorm on opponent's EoT to dig for land?
Except if the opponent probed you and saw you have no other land, turn 1 Wasteland is a really bad play from your opponent, if he/she is already facing your Delver. Sometimes you may lose due to this bad play, but sometimes your opponent just gave you a free Time Walk.
Let's play the reverse game, you are on the draw with this hand: Fetch, Wasteland, Daze, Delver, Ponder, Brainstorm, Stifle. Your opponent starts with Fetch>Volcanic>Delver>Go! Now it is your turn, would you waste your opponent's land?
Assuming I have no idea what deck opponent is playing, I would keep this hand and play Delver on turn 1 after fetching a Volcanic Island. Depending on my opponent turn 1 play, I could Daze it and then keep Stifle/Bolt mana up.What do you do when you open up fetch, Delver, Stifle, Daze, Brainstorm, Lightning Bolt and another threat on the play? Is that a keep or a toss back and if you keep it do you hold up Stifle to allow you to resolve Brainstorm on opponent's EoT to dig for land?
By the way, Brainstorm on opponent's EoT is not a good play. I don't even think you should be desperate at digging a second land, the proposed hand has interaction for a couple of turns and you can wait and see if you naturally draw a second mana source. However, if after a few turns your opponent managed to get rid of your Delver, your only other threat is green and you still haven't found your second land, you may want to use your Brainstorm to find it. But, you should do it during your main phase, since you will see one more card this way.
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