[Deck] bUrg Tempo

[AfroSmile]

Hey guys,
after playing to a miserable TA result at my last locals I´m still working on 4c Delver and think it´s still a really viable choice. I just love Lightning Bolt in a Delver deck and the fancy SB cards that red offers you.

Here´s my current list:

14 Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Gurmag Angler

27 Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Spell Pierce

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Sylvan Library

4 Lightning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay

19 Lands
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Thoughtseize
2 Grafdigger´s Cage
2 Pyroblast
2 Golgari Charm
1 Fire Covenent
1 Forked Bolt
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Null Rod
1 Life from the Loam
1 Sylvan Library

I know that many people play stifle in this deck and it has his place in this archtype for sure but I personally just dont like the card from my canadian days, so I play it the way like during the DTT area.

Instead of 4 Stifle I play 2 Gurmag Angler, 1 Abrupt Decay & 1 Sylvan Library which are all more powerful on its own.
Currently I´m not 100 % sold on the 2 Anglers MD, I´m unsure if I should play 2 TNN instead because of Miracles, DnT & Blade decks in general. If I remove the 2 Angler I definitly have to cut the 1off Bayou and must add a 9th fetch because otherwise the mana could get to fragile but at the moment I enjoyed the Bayou alot. Will test it and then we see.

Any other current experiences from turneys? Don´t let this thread die bUrg´ers

Greetings

Until last two weeks, I play a lot. I was in the CDF tournament in France and I was at MKM Prague where I met Tomas Mar and discussed shortly the deck.
With the ban of Dig Through Time and the comeback of TA and Shardless BUG. I think it was worth to play Stifle again. During the DDT area, I wanted to play the deck with Big Black Fish that is decay proof, but Dig was just better. Now Dig is away so my decklist become:

Main deck
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Gurmag Angler (Testing Purpose, 2 seems to be the good number, I think it's ok to consider 4 big beater between goyf, angler and TNN)
1 Snapcaster Mage (Take the place of one big beater, really good in some combo matchup and make sideboard card redondant or with bolt <3)

1 Sylvan Library (Can be replace by something else, but the card is so good)

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Stifle (love it or not, that's the question)
2 Spell Pierce

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Ligntning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay (I think 3 is the good number without dig, but with 19 lands!)

4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands (to be discuss, it feels like it is not optimal with this manabase)

Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
2 Golgari Charm
2 Submerge (1 can be remove for something else)
2 Flusterstorm
1 Surgical Extraction (not good with gurmag, excellent with snapcaster mage => you have to think about nihil spellbomb and snap)
1 Nihil Spellbomb (very good with goyf or gurmag, but not so good with snapcaster => surgical is better with snapcaster)
1 Pithing Needle (good card overall, but can be replace)
1 Maelstrom Pulse (MUST HAVE!!! I recommanding to play it in your sideboard! So usefull in a LOT of matchup, but not in the maindeck because of the mana cost)
1 Forked Bolt (Good with snapcaster, can be replace by something else)
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Vendilion Clique

The deck stills quite good, but is not so strong like in the DTT period. We have to work on the deck to make it comeback in the top tier, but it will be hard.
I know somebody who are trying to introduice Painful Thruth in TA, is it good enough for consideration? In TA, it's ok because the deck is proactive, but in a deck like bUrg it seems really bad. (I think the card is bad in bUrg and in TA. xD)

What the ideal decklist would look like for you?


P.S.: Maybe I can't answer quickly for question on Gurmag or something else. It's quite stressfull period for me. :-/

[Manipulato]

Until last two weeks, I play a lot. I was in the CDF tournament in France and I was at MKM Prague where I met Tomas Mar and discussed shortly the deck.
With the ban of Dig Through Time and the comeback of TA and Shardless BUG. I think it was worth to play Stifle again. During the DDT area, I wanted to play the deck with Big Black Fish that is decay proof, but Dig was just better. Now Dig is away so my decklist become:

Main deck
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Gurmag Angler (Testing Purpose, 2 seems to be the good number, I think it's ok to consider 4 big beater between goyf, angler and TNN)
1 Snapcaster Mage (Take the place of one big beater, really good in some combo matchup and make sideboard card redondant or with bolt <3)

1 Sylvan Library (Can be replace by something else, but the card is so good)

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Stifle (love it or not, that's the question)
2 Spell Pierce

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Ligntning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay (I think 3 is the good number without dig, but with 19 lands!)

4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands (to be discuss, it feels like it is not optimal with this manabase)

Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
2 Golgari Charm
2 Submerge (1 can be remove for something else)
2 Flusterstorm
1 Surgical Extraction (not good with gurmag, excellent with snapcaster mage => you have to think about nihil spellbomb and snap)
1 Nihil Spellbomb (very good with goyf or gurmag, but not so good with snapcaster => surgical is better with snapcaster)
1 Pithing Needle (good card overall, but can be replace)
1 Maelstrom Pulse (MUST HAVE!!! I recommanding to play it in your sideboard! So usefull in a LOT of matchup, but not in the maindeck because of the mana cost)
1 Forked Bolt (Good with snapcaster, can be replace by something else)
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Vendilion Clique

The deck stills quite good, but is not so strong like in the DTT period. We have to work on the deck to make it comeback in the top tier, but it will be hard.
I know somebody who are trying to introduice Painful Thruth in TA, is it good enough for consideration? In TA, it's ok because the deck is proactive, but in a deck like bUrg it seems really bad. (I think the card is bad in bUrg and in TA. xD)

What the ideal decklist would look like for you?


P.S.: Maybe I can't answer quickly for question on Gurmag or something else. It's quite stressfull period for me. :-/

Thx for your answer! Personally I just dont like stifle but that's just me, I really like my current list but I can only speak for a couple of test games so far. I have to wait till our next Legacy event later this month, I will let you guys know how it went.
How were your results at those 2 big events? I'm really interested

[blablub]

Hey all,
is everyone playing the deck right now?

I'm totaly confused about the creature base, i dont know what to play :(, there are so many options.

Something like: 4 DRS 4 Delver 3 Mungo 2 Nemesis; 4 DRS 4 Delver 4 Mungo; 4 DRS 4 Delver 3 Mungo 2 Goyf; 4 DRS 4 Delver 2 Gurmag Angler 2 Nemesis; or maybe the traditial Team America Creature Base or a Delverless Build.

I simply can't decide. Maybe you have a good opinion or other suggetions :)

Another thing is, are there any secret techs for beatings Lands? special Sideboardcards maybe?

[crush]

In my opinion, Gurmag Angler is too good to not be included.. so this leaves you only with the decision which 2/3 drop to pair him with - TNN or Young Pyro.

I play 4 Delver, 4 DRS, 3 TNN and 2 Anglers (with 19 lands and Thoughtseize main deck) and it has been working fine so far.

[blablub]

Cool, im tinkering with the same configuration, maybe 3 Angler 2 nemesis
Do You mind share your list ? :)

[AfroSmile]

Thx for your answer! Personally I just dont like stifle but that's just me, I really like my current list but I can only speak for a couple of test games so far. I have to wait till our next Legacy event later this month, I will let you guys know how it went.
How were your results at those 2 big events? I'm really interested

My result was something like:

MKM Series Prague

BIG TRIAL LEGACY (4-2)
R1: ANT (2-0)
R2: 12 Post (2-0)
R3: Grixis Delver (2-0)
R4: Storm (0-2) => Sometimes, you can really do nothing.
R5: 4c Loam (2-1) => I won game 1. He won game 2. I won game 3 with double delver + Force Back up for anything that can clean the board.
R6: Elves (0-2) => Julian Knab (Big Boss of Elves)

MAIN EVENT LEGACY (3-2 => Drop)
R1: RUG Delver (2-1)
R2: 4c Loam (2-0)
R3: Shardless BUG (0-2)
R4: Sneak&Show (2-1) => It was against an old pro player who were really friendly. I had anything and draw everything I need. :P
R5: Maverick? (0-2) => I don't remember the game and I'm unsure of the deck, but I think it was maverick. I loose first game because I keep an unkeepable hand, but I was too self-confident.
=> Drop

Championnat de France Legacy (CDF)
It is very important that I'm not French. So I cannot take part in the main event and I have to do the side event.

OPEN CDF - Last Chance Qualifier(4-1-2)
R1: BURG Control (2-0)
R2: UWr Stoneblade (2-1)
R3: UWr Miracle (1-1)
R4: Shardless BUG (0-2)
R5: Enchantress (2-0)
R6: Loam (0-2)
R7: UR Delver (2-0)
R8: Merfolk (0-2)

CDF - BIG SIDE EVENT (5-0)
I cannot take part to the main event.
R1: I get the bye. LoL
R2: Oops all my spell (2-1)
R3: 4c Loam (2-1)
R4: Reanimator (2-0)
R5: Storm (2-0) => Weird point: Game 1, took 50 minutes! OMFG!!! Even now, I don't how we did to take so much time.

=> I won the side event (no top8)

Demons of the Alps - FINAL ACT
Then I had Demons of the Alps (http://demonsota.com), it's one of the biggest tournaments in Switzerland! (72 players)

I change my deckles a bit according to my precedent experience.
Main deck: -1 Gurmag Angler +1 True-name Nemesis
Sideboard: 1 Ancient grudge, 1 Bitterblossom, 1 Forked bolt, 2 Flusterstorm, 2 Golgari charm, 1 Maelstrom pulse, 1 Surgical extraction, 1 Nihil spell bomb, 2 Pyroblast, 1 Pithing needle, 1 Submerge, 1 Vendilion clique

DEMONSOTA - FINAL ACT (5-1-1 => Top 4)
R1: I got a bye because I won Demonsota Act 1. (There is some video of me playing bUrg Delver on my YouTube channel MtGSwissEternal: I was playing horribly bad at this moment. I learned a lot in the meanwhile.)
R2: Dark Maverick (1-1) => My opponent played a bit slowly and the third game, I would have killed him next turn. :'( (thanks to bitterblossom)
R3: UW Miracle (2-0)
R4: Shardless BUG (1-2)
R5: Grixis Delver (2-1)
R6: 4c Stoneblade (UWgb) (2-1)
R7: BUG Delver (2-1)

Quart-finals: Storm (2-0)
Semi-finals: Jund (0-2) => I keep in the both games bad hands with not enough pressure.

NEW

Geneva Legacy 6
This weekend I played at another one of the biggest tournaments in Switzerland. (101 players)
I play the exact decklist of Demonsota - Final Act.

Geneva Legacy 6 (5-0-2 => Top 4)
R1: Storm (2-1)
R2: Storm (1-1) => He slow-play and in the game 3, he cannot win. I extract some key spell and we were at a point where my hand was 2x Force, 2x Daze, 1x Stifle and he had no card in hand. He didn't want to concede me. :'(
R3: 4c Midrange (2-0) => Weird 4c midrange based on counter-top and monastery mentor interaction like top and cabal therapy.
R4: MUD (2-0)
R5: Merfolk (2-1) => Really close game
R6: Grixis Delver (2-1) => Featured, maybe I'll post the link when the video is available. I did some mistakes game 1 because I was thinking he was on Storm.
R7: ID against Lightless who wrote this report.

Quart-finals: Storm (2-1) => One of the most incredible game I played in this matchup!

Top4: We split the prize pool because it was late.

[AfroSmile]

Cool, im tinkering with the same configuration, maybe 3 Angler 2 nemesis
Do You mind share your list ? :)

You can see my list in the above posts. 3 Angler is too much I think. The first angler you cast is no problem, the second is OK. The third is a pain in the ass to play. Usually with got that number of angler, you play all your land to cast it and it's not a good play, in my opinion. You want to shuffle back your land with brainstorm.
Actually I think I would play something like 4 Delver, 4 Deathrite, 2 Angler, 2 True-name Nemesis, 1 Snapcaster Mage (I'm really a fan of the little blue boy).
But I don't know what card to remove in my main deck. The third True-Name Nemesis of crush is OK if replacing the snapcaster mage, but the curve become really high. I think it's a loss of tempo.

I have a question:
How do you beat Shardless BUG, Punishing Jund or other BG Midrange decks?
As you can see, in the last five tournaments I always lose against shardless BUG even if it's a bad player. I know we have to be the aggressor with early delver and mana denial, but I feel like even we do that it is not enough to win if the opponent is good.

Game Plan + Strategy:
In the early game, I put the most pressure I can in a tempo mode.
Then I try to trade 1-1 the ressource with counterspell/bolt/decay to arrive in a top deck situation (no cards in hand) and from there I try to put another pressure.
I want to win the game as quickly as possible.

I want to manage the board not the stack. Counter spells usually go out for more board management.

My sideboard for Punishing Jund:
+1 Bitterblossom
+1 Forked Bolt (Deathrite Shaman, Dark Confident, Bloodbraid Elf and sometimes Liliana and Scavenging Ooze)
+1 Maelstrom Pulse
+1 Surgical Extraction (Punishing Fire)
+1 Submerge (In response to a fetch)
+1 Ventilions Clique (Need more creature)

On the play:
-3 Force of Will, -1 Daze, -2 Stifle
On the draw:
-2 Force of Will, -2 Daze, -2 Stifle

My sideboard for Shardless BUG:
+1 Ancient Grudge (For the Shardless Agent and sometimes Baleful Strix => Real pain in the ass)
+1 Bitterblossom
+1 Forked Bolt (Deathrite Shaman, Shardless Agent, Baleful Strix)
+1 Maelstrom Pulse
+1 Submerge
+2 Pyroblast (Jace, the mind sculptor, Ancestral Vision)
+1 Ventilions Clique (Need more creature)

-4 Force of Will (Really bad in the match up)
-2 Daze
-1 Spell Pierce
-1 Stifle

Tricks:
- Stifle can hard counter a suspended Ancestral Vision by counter the triggered ability that lets you play the suspended card.

Can I have your opinion? Solution for these matchups?
Every opinion interests me! Everybody is welcome to express themselves for helping me for these bad match ups.

[Manipulato]

# Afrosmile: What's your current list? How Important or good was Stifle so far?

[tescrin]

# Afrosmile: What's your current list? How Important or good was Stifle so far?

Why are people always trying to drop Stifle..? If you hate it, don't run it. If you like it, run it.

It's a good card that synergizes with Delver decks and is reasonable against combo in a nice variety of circumstances.

[Manipulato]

Why are people always trying to drop Stifle..? If you hate it, don't run it. If you like it, run it.

It's a good card that synergizes with Delver decks and is reasonable against combo in a nice variety of circumstances.

No reason for attacking me! It was a normal question.

[AfroSmile]

# Afrosmile: What's your current list? How Important or good was Stifle so far?

Why are people always trying to drop Stifle..? If you hate it, don't run it. If you like it, run it.

It's a good card that synergizes with Delver decks and is reasonable against combo in a nice variety of circumstances.

I think I will try to answer both questions in one answer.

The problem with Stifle is that it is at the same time a very good card and a very bad card, because of the situational aspect of the card.
It has his place in a tempo shell because it has a huge potential. (It makes you win. )
But depending on the situation, it can stick to your hand and be a very bad card. Because of that it's difficult to say if we want that card in our 75 or not.

Stifle is my favourite card so I will always try to leave a room for it. But I have to admit the 4-of is not what I want now because of the risk to draw 2 stifle.
In a lot of situations, I don't want to see 2 stifle in a game, but I want to draw at least 1 during a lot of match-ups. So actually I play 3 Stifle.

In all of my posted tournament, when I draw and play my stifle, it was really a good card but I did have to many samples of it in my hand.
My deck list didn't change from my last tournament because I don't have a lot of time to play Mtg.

Maybe I didn't write very well my ideas, but if it's not explicit enough: Tell it to me and I will try to improve my text to be clearer.

[Manipulato]

I think I will try to answer both questions in one answer.

The problem with Stifle is that it is at the same time a very good card and a very bad card, because of the situational aspect of the card.
It has his place in a tempo shell because it has a huge potential. (It makes you win. )
But depending on the situation, it can stick to your hand and be a very bad card. Because of that it's difficult to say if we want that card in our 75 or not.

Stifle is my favourite card so I will always try to leave a room for it. But I have to admit the 4-of is not what I want now because of the risk to draw 2 stifle.
In a lot of situations, I don't want to see 2 stifle in a game, but I want to draw at least 1 during a lot of match-ups. So actually I play 3 Stifle.

In all of my posted tournament, when I draw and play my stifle, it was really a good card but I did have to many samples of it in my hand.
My deck list didn't change from my last tournament because I don't have a lot of time to play Mtg.

Maybe I didn't write very well my ideas, but if it's not explicit enough: Tell it to me and I will try to improve my text to be clearer.

Hi,
I know what Stifle does and when it´s good but just wantend to hear your experience from the last events, thx for your answer.

Greetings

[AfroSmile]

Hi,
I know what Stifle does and when it´s good but just wantend to hear your experience from the last events, thx for your answer.

Greetings

Stifle did their job as usual. Give headache to storm player and destroy the opponent manabase. And they did well.
Snapcaster mage is incredible with stifle or bolt. xD

[Agrippa91]

Hi guys!
New to TheSource, but been playing Legacy for like 3 years now after having watched it a fair share.
I'd like to show you guys my take on bUrg-Delver with the following list I've been tweaking since the banning of DTT:

Mainboard:
12 creatures:
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Nimble Mongoose

8 cantrips:
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder

16 counters:
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
2x Spell Pierce
2x Spell Snare
4x Stifle

6 removals:
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Abrupt Decay

18 lands:
4x Wasteland
2x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
2x Volcanic Island
4x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand

sideboard:
1x Pithing Needle
1x Null Rod
1x Forked Bolt
2x Dread of Night
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Divert
1x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Dismember
2x Golgari Charm
1x Ancient Grudge

All the following statements are my opinion only, but I hope you can follow me nontheless:

Why I like this deck more than Grixis-Delver:
Having started from UR-Delver making the evolution of real-Grixis to green Grixis I can say that Young Pyromancer without Dig through Time just isn't the same. You just can't snap him off a DTT together with a Ponder or Therapy, instead he becomes a horrible topdeck. Not to speak of the countless times I've lost because I got 2-for-1ed by Forked Bolt/Golgari-Charm/Jitte/whatever with 2 YP or 1 YP and an unflipped Delver out. Controlling their hand via discard also doesn't prevent them from topdecking like a champ (e.g. into Tarmogoyf, Jitte or YP-hate).
Grixis also often times tries to cast the cantrips when they're really not that hot, only to get tokens or hoping to draw into discard (you really look stupid when you brainstorm in reponse to your opponent going off and hit Cabal Therapy).

Why I like this deck more than BUG-Delver:
I have played with a BUG-Delver proxy a fair share. While I thought at first that red doesn't really offer anything BUG doesn't have with the addition of a stable mana base and discard I first thought BUG was just superior. There're several reasons this is wrong imo though:

1. red is more efficient:
It's simple: Forked Bolt, Ancient Grudge, Bolt, Pyroblast are all not good because of their effect, but because of their cost-efficiency. This is important in Legacy overall, but even more important when playing with Delver.

2. discard+counters isn't superior to counters:
On paper it looks great: You have Force of Will, Daze AND discard? Well, that's enough to win against combo most of the time, no doubt, but imo there're some major disadvantages over straight counters that may not seem intuitive at first:

2.1 Having only a restricted amount of mana allows you to only cast a certain amount of cards each turn. You can either choose to spend mana to discard or keep up mana to counter. Also the opponent often times has to play around your open Deathrite, but not when you're already tapped out because of casting discard.

2.2 Your brainstorms are better by a siginificant margin. While BUG is pretty much forced to fire off Brainstorm as soon as possible to find discard, we can hold it and cast it at the last possible moment even when our opponent is already trying to go off, making it as best as possible.

2.3 A higher blue-count affects our Force of Wills. BUG often gets stuck with no blue cards besides FoW or only one cantrip they can't fire then. We play 40% more blue cards (28 instead of 20), making Force of Will AND Brainstorm (you can cast more often) better cards.

Why no Tarmogoyf or Gurmag Angler?
From my YP-days I know just how clumsy multiple creatures can be. I think that ALL of my creatures are superior to Tarmogoyf. Nimble Mongoose is an MVP in matchups going from Miracles to RUG to Stoneforge-decks to 4c-loam to lands. It's ridiculous how many games I've won because I was able to stick it on the board and only counter/remove threats that bother it, making a whole bunch of my opponent's removal useless.
As a nice side-effect I have no Spell Snare targets (since mostly Delver plays Spell Snare most of the times also postboard). Also Abrupt Decay is always a tempo-disadvantage for them because they always spend one mana more than I did.
The disadvantage is that Goyf is a quicker clock than Deathrite, I tend to be more controlling in many matchups anyways though (since unlike RUG I have efficient answers to petty much everything) so I don't regret my choice of not having spent 500 bucks.
Knowing how good Gurmag Angler is against BUG I'd still rather have 4 Nimble Mongoose than 2 Gurmag Anglers, that's why I have none of them.

How this deck plays out:
No Tarmogoyfs/YPs allows me to keep open mana a lot. I love stifle and besides Mongoose it's an MVP in many matchups:
- It makes Jitte/sword AND Batterskull bad choices for Stoneforge to fetch.
- Besides Tarmogoyf (which I have Spell Snares and Abrupt Decays for) Liliana is a big problem. Oh wait, i have stifle.
- Snapcaster, Miracle, Cascade, Suspend-trigger, even stifling punishing fire-triggers so I can exile it with Deathrite is viable sometimes! I run 4 and only cut them in matchups that don't run Fetchlands, but that's what the sideboard is for, isn't it?
- last but not least, against decks that attack your manabase really hard with Life from the Loam it buys a LOT of time by stifling Wastelands which can be key. Against other stifle-decks I run them defensively a lot of times, though it's of course key to keep your opponent off a color, too at times.

You might realize that unlike other builds I only run 6 duals, 2 of each. Thing is I love stifle a lot and already played a TON against RUG-Delver (which a friend of mine has). Thing is that between Stifle and Deathrite it's really rare from me to get two of the same lands wasted. Besides Stifle the combo of Daze and Bolt/Brainstorm/Decay saves my lands a surprising amount of time (why do I always have a brainstorm in hand? See above).
Even when I get manascrewed I often times manage to run away with Mongoose and Force/Snare backup, making it impossible for my opponent to come back.
My manabase only allows me to play 2 Abrupt Decays confidently though, the 2 Spell Snares help complement them a lot though imo.
I have a third in the board, but only board it in against decks that don't have 4 Wastelands and cantrips to find them.
But that way I still allowing me to have 4 answers to Chalice once it hit the board which is quite imporant considering my deck is almost mono-1-drops

So yeah, I love Mongoose and Stifle, but hate that RUG can't deal with Jitte, Chalice, Counterbalance and Tarmogoyfs mainboard once they're on the field, so here I am.

Feel free to discuss and disagree with certain points I made, I'd be glad to share and exchange opinions with you!

[crush]

Welcome to the boards,

The list you posted is actually the original idea and first version of BURG Delver - i.e. RUG Delver shell with added black, replacing Goyf with DRS and added Abrupt Decay to help with G1 threats that RUG Delver cannot beat.

The deck is very resiliant, very lean and a blast to play. It crushes combo and control decks (imo), but seriously lacks firepower vs tempo and midrange decks. Contrary to your finding I do not believe 2 Decays + 2 Snares are enough to fight against a deck with 4 Goyfs. Also 2 Decays and 4 Stifles will not prevent a Batterskull to come online eventually (since this deck is not able to close out games fast enough).

This is my experience with the deck - I am not trying to dissuade you from trying out the list, it might work out in your meta.

Goose requires a special mention, as it is my favorite creature also, but unfortunatelly the printing of TNN, Angler and Mentor have pushed it out of the radar as far as I am concerned. Again, it is still great if you expect to be faceing mostly Miracles and Lands.

[Agrippa91]

Oh, now you mention it I kinda remember reading about the origins of the deck when I was brewing around with an almost similar version. It only feels strange because many decks actually tend to play Goyfs now which is better at racing. He is defninitely better at matchups like Merfolk and Death and Taxes because he's able to put on a clock fast and is a really good wall.
To the 2 Snares 2 Decays against Goyf: I should've specified that I mean this against decks that don't run discard to take these cards away (mainly RUG) or that don't have Brainstorms to find many Goyfs (Jund).
So yeah, against BUG in all variants I really need the additional Abrupt Decay and Dismember out of my Sideboard, especially Divert helps with my reactive gamestyle.
To the Stoneforge: All the lists (even UWR-Delver) count as control as far as I'm concerned, so Mongoose is just really good. Preboard I pretty much only need to force the True-Names if he doesn't have a quick Delver-draw, postboard Golgari Charm is just a beast against Stoneforge-decks.
What I meant with the equipment is that there's no general weakness to a specific equipment like RUG has in Jitte/Swords or BUG in Batterskull. Actually casting Batterskull around Daze is pretty unlikely and only happens if I like don't draw a Goose at all and they remove every single threat I play with swords/bolt.

What I like about this list is that I still have a pretty good chance at defeating delver-hate-decks like lands and 4c-loam (I like being able to defeat everyone if I have a good draw and play better than them).

To the strenghts of this deck:
- I agree that Combo is a really good matchup, it's a Delver-deck with Bolt overall.
- Thanks to Goose, Decay and Stifle I also agree that the U/W/x Control-decks are favorable. Golgari Charm and Pyroblast help postboard here.
- Contrary to your opinion as far as I've tested it also is really good against other Delver-decks besides BUG which is just slightly more fairer, giving me a headache often times, especially preboard. YP just has a really hard time against Golgari Charm and Forked Bolt while RUG struggles to stick Tarmogoyf. Also Deathrite is a beast in Delver matchups. Overall however these matchups are only slightly favored, but one of my favorites to play.

Even matchups imo include:
- Jund. Goose especially helps giving us wins against removal-heavy hands.
- 4c-loam. Though they have a Chalice, 4 ways to deal with it postboard + 4 Forces really do an awesome job here. Like in Jund Mongoose helps against Decays and Punishing Fire a lot here.
- Merfolk and Elves. Preboard we're losing most of the time, but a lot of removal in the sideboard helps us because we play cantrips and they don't.
- 12post/MUD. It always depends on opening hands most of the time (FoW, Decay, Wasteland). What we lack preboard they lack postboard though.

Unfavorable matchups:
- Death and Taxes, especially in the first game. Golgari Charm, Forked Bolt and esp. Dread of Night give us an awesome post-board though.
- lands. Well, we're still the best Delver decks against them with like a 30-40% win chance (?). Here as against 4c-loam I like to board out all my soft permission and using my stifles only to counter Wastelands and stage activations, sometimes Punishing Fire when I can get it with Deathrite.
- Nic Fit/Maverick. Unfortunately we can't play engineered explosives or Perish. We have some really nasty hate, but need to close out the game fast or manascrew them. Stifle helps against Veteran explorer, but not much.
- Both BUG-versions . We have ways to deal with Tarmogoyf and Deathrite efficiently, but it's just not always there, postboard we get additional ways to deal with Tarmogoyf. One of our worst matchups which lies in the nature of the deck.

Given that, I still feel that bUrg has always a decent chance of winning, even in the unfavorable matchups just because we have powerful sideboard cards thanks to our four colors. Having Golgari Charm, Pyroblast AND cantrips to dig for them just feels awesome!
On the other side this deck definitely doesn't get many free wins besides manascrewing your opponents once in a while so you have to play tight. That's exactly what I love about playing magic though, so yeah. I love this deck

[crush]

Here is a list I came up with which looks really promising, but requires additional testing. I welcome all comments and/or suggestions.

--- creatures [10] ---
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Gurmag Angler

--- instants [26] ---
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Spell Pierce
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Burst Lightning

--- sorceries [6] ---
4 Ponder
2 Painful Truths

--- lands [18] ---
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island

The idea is really simple, use only the best creatures available. Play tempo/control. Reload with P.Truths when out of gas. Worked wonderfully in the few matches I tested it.
The Burst Lightning is for opposing DRS mostly - could be a dismember, but this one gives you some additional reach as well.

[Agrippa91]

Hm, that looks interesting. I actually think you could get away with only playing 10 creatures, it could get really hard against Swords-Snapcaster-decks though. Against Miracles it could be that you're just not fast enough? DRS always seems really slow to me in this matchup.
That all would require some testing of course, but two things that bother me are:
- The burst lightning. Is the instant speed really that much better than Forked Bolt? I imagine it's important in situations where you otp lead with a fetch or volcanic and he plays a deathrite as his first creature of the turn. Personally I like to wait during my turn to kill the DRS even in this scenario though to play around Daze. That is if you only have one removal spell. Then again, if you had another Bolt, why wouldn't you cast that one instant-speed?
- The Painful Truths seem much better in a tap-out-version with Discard. It just feels weird to me to play Spell Pierces and Stifles with these 3 mana sorceries.
The creature base is really good though, allowing you to hold up mana very often. It's kinda soft to Liliana though, don't know how big of a deal this is in your meta.

A general sideboardplan would also be nice. What cards do you really plan to bring in? Do you just not play Young Pyromancer because you want Golgari Charm so bad?

[Manipulato]

Hi,
Tomas Mar top 8ed with the following list in a 170 people event in Frankfurt Germany...

BURG Delver
Tomas Mar

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Snapcaster Mage

2 Painful Truths
1 Kolaghan's Command
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Spell Pierce

3 Wasteland
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand

SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Forked Bolt
SB: 1 Diabolic Edict
SB: 1 Submerge
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Envelop*

Really interesting & innovative list, I think. The 2 Painful Truth & the 1 Kolaghans Command are discussable, I know that those cards are really powerful and super strong but I'm not sure if 4c Delver is the right place for those cards, Midrange decks Shardless, Jund, Junk, Esper etc are better places in my opinion.
Gurmag Angler is also currently to good not to play & as a 2off better than Tarmogoyf especially against those BGx decks.

Does anybody know what Tomas Vlcek (10th place) played at that turney, he's known for playing 4c Delver too I think, would be great to get his list too.

[tescrin]

Why I like this deck more than BUG-Delver:
I have played with a BUG-Delver proxy a fair share. While I thought at first that red doesn't really offer anything BUG doesn't have with the addition of a stable mana base and discard I first thought BUG was just superior. There're several reasons this is wrong imo though:

2. discard+counters isn't superior to counters:
On paper it looks great: You have Force of Will, Daze AND discard? Well, that's enough to win against combo most of the time, no doubt, but imo there're some major disadvantages over straight counters that may not seem intuitive at first:

1 Having only a restricted amount of mana allows you to only cast a certain amount of cards each turn. You can either choose to spend mana to discard or keep up mana to counter. Also the opponent often times has to play around your open Deathrite, but not when you're already tapped out because of casting discard.

2 Your brainstorms are better by a siginificant margin. While BUG is pretty much forced to fire off Brainstorm as soon as possible to find discard, we can hold it and cast it at the last possible moment even when our opponent is already trying to go off, making it as best as possible.

3 A higher blue-count affects our Force of Wills. BUG often gets stuck with no blue cards besides FoW or only one cantrip they can't fire then. We play 40% more blue cards (28 instead of 20), making Force of Will AND Brainstorm (you can cast more often) better cards.

@1
You've been playing/watching legacy for 3 years and this is your conclusion? You want two forms of interaction with combo or you're *really* dead to certain cards or playstyles. You never spend mana on FoW or Daze in the early game unless your hand is pure garbage. Discard also gives information that makes your Brainstorms better. Further, Discard can do things like take a Decay out of an opponent's hand; leaving your 12-14 threat deck less vulnerable to removal. For example, they have 3 lands and cast Dark Ritual. You're SOL. Discard would've bought you a turn (probably) rather than sitting on a dead card. Similar arguments can be made about Xantid Swarm, Decay, and the like. You are entirely wrong about this line of thinking.

That doesn't mean you can't make it work, RUG is still a fantastic deck. Even so, they're cold to a lot of cards and they require a higher skill cap unless they run Probe, because they can't see what is going on.

@2
This is significantly ill-reasoned. First, you assume that just because you waited, you're in a better position. If they grab thoughtseize where you are forced to grab Spell Pierce; they are in a vastly more powerful position than you due to knowledge of the opp's hand and that it's not a dead card in the scenarios outlined above (3 land/petal rit, Swarm, Defense grid, Decay, need I go on?) Just because you cast Brainstorm at instant speed when you're behind doesn't mean you're in a better position. Your knowledge of the board state is only advanced a single card further than your comparison, but their knowledge of the opp's hand is several cards higher than yours.

@3
I guess? They'll have to use FoW less often because they have Discard to supplement it. They also have a *much* higher clock than you, meaning you'll have to deal with an extra turn or two of the combo deck, implying that you will FoW more often and less successfully IMO. You also disingenuously forget to mention that all your combo interaction is weak to REB, making you much worse against SneakShow or Painter, for example.


That said, I'm not arguing that BUG is superior; merely that your arguments here don't work.