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Main » Articles » Delver

Delver

Jarvis Yu
Posted on April 2, 2012
 Reddit

You want to win Standard tournaments? To win a Standard tournament, you first must know your enemy. In this case, public enemy number one is Delver.

Delver at the StarCityGames Invitational took twelve out of the sixteen top slots in addition to posting a great showing at the Grand Prix in Kuala Lumpur (four out of the Top 8, and with Yuuya Watanabe winning the whole thing).

The four W/U Delver lists from Kuala Lumpur are extremely similar, so I will take Watanabe’s as an example:

"Watanabe’s W/U Delver"

This is extremely close to Matt Costa’s list from Grand Prix: Baltimore with the major changes being the removal of Gitaxian Probe and the cutting of Sword of War and Peace from the maindeck. He also moves to the full four Thought Scour in tandem with a third Runechanter's Pike. I’m not sure if I understand the addition of Dungeon Geists since I always found it to be extremely clunky. Gut Shot makes a lot of sense with the rise of Birthing Pod decks, which are extremely reliant on their mana creatures. Mutagenic Growth lets you unexpectedly force through more damage or save a Geist of Saint Traft from Slagstorm. The most likely explanation for Watanabe removing Gitaxian Probe was that he felt that the metagame would be skewed enough toward aggressive decks and that he could figure out what was going to happen based on body language. I would not cut my own Gitaxian Probes, but the reasoning makes some sense.

Cards are good against this deck include Slagstorm and Whipflare—their only answers are Mana Leak or Mutagenic Growth. If you have access to Ancient Grudge, I wouldn't mind boarding in one or two (but no more than that), although a lot of the Delver players I have spoken to say that they would board out most of their Equipment against R/G decks in general. Curse of Death's Hold is strong here—Watanabe doesn't have access to Jace, Memory Adept or Batterskull to punish you for tapping out for it.

Humans-Delver played by Nick Spagnolo in the Top 8 of the StarCityGames invitational:

"Nick Spagnolo’s Humans-Delver"

A hybridized deck like this was first played by Sam Black in Grand Prix: Orlando. The idea is to have more aggressive 1-drops to make sure you can curve out every game in a threatening manner. Gather the Townsfolk does double-duty to transform Delver of Secrets and pump Champion of the Parish. Mikaeus, the Lunarch is an interesting late-game card (to pump your tokens). I don't mind having one large threat in Delver maindecks now (Consecrated Sphinx and Batterskull have also seen play as one-ofs in maindecks), and Mikaeus fits that role here. I'm not sure I really understand the one-of Runechanter's Pike since there isn't an Invisible Stalker to hook it up to, and I think I would rather have a Sword of War and Peace or a Gut Shot. Two Negates and three Mana Leaks make some sense—this deck is better at fighting creature mirrors, and Negate doesn't become dead in the late-game. I am not thrilled by the prospect of playing this list of Delver, but I recognize it has some really sick nut draws.

Spirits-Delver played by Javier Arevalo in the Top 8 of the StarCityGames Invitational:

"Javier Arevalo’s Spirits-Delver"

This list is half the Sam Black Spirits deck and half the Costa Delver list. Hedging like this isn't the worst, but I don't really like the mana curve here (look at all of those 3-drops), and only three Vapor Snags seems a bit questionable. Dismember is a better Gut Shot in these black-based Delver lists . . . except that it's definitely worse at killing Birds of Paradise when you also want to play a Delver on turn one. I'm not convinced you need Sword of Feast and Famine or Spellskite anywhere. Sever the Bloodline seems mostly worse than Ratchet Bomb.

W/U Delver played by Alex Majlaton played to the Top 16 of the StarCityGames Invitational:

"Alex Majlaton’s W/U Delver"

Alex Majlaton and I worked some on this seventy-five for the weekend before when he defeated me in a seventy-four-card mirror match in an Invitational Qualifier. Since that weekend, he had cut an Invisible Stalker and Geist of Saint Traft for two Blade Splicers, which are much better on defense against other aggressive decks. This list is extremely solid and doesn't really have bad matchups against anything except that it can potentially be swarmed by aggressive decks. To that end, I'd like to see Ratchet Bomb somewhere—I think the card is extremely underrated at the moment, and it gives a lot of game against the Lingering Souls variants of Delver.

W/U Delver played by Caleb Durward to the Top 8 of the StarCityGames Invitational:

"Caleb Durward’s W/U Delver"

There are some interesting card choices here for Caleb. Spectral Flight makes sense in a world where people are attacking your Equipment. However, boarding the Equipment doesn't make much sense by that point. Consecrated Sphinx is a great one-of to dig yourself out of holes that you can't normally find a way out of. Think Twice lets you play a slightly grindier game (it took the slot of the second Thought Scour), and Mental Misstep gives you a slight leg up in mirrors or against Birds of Paradise decks. I'm not sure how I feel about maindeck Dissipate since it is mediocre in the mirror match in my experience, but he was probably just hedging against control and ramp decks there.

What are the take-away lessons here?

There's a lot of room for innovation and variation in Delver lists, so simply attacking Delver of Secrets/Insectile Aberration is not enough. (This is why when I hear people say Daybreak Ranger is the best card against Delver, I feel that they are misanalyzing what is actually happening. It is certainly a reasonable card, but I don't think it's the best. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite takes that role, although it costs a ton of mana to resolve against Delver.)

Pay close attention to what cards your opponent plays in Game 1 to get an idea of what potential cards he has in his deck (if you see Dungeon Geists, he is probably close to the Watanabe list, and so forth).

If you choose to play Delver, you can adapt your deck to beat almost any card assuming you have a good read on what other decks people will bring to the Standard tournament.

As usual, you can contact me on Twitter @jkyu06 or leave a comment in the forums here.

P.S. I was going through old chat logs, and I found some nice quotes!

 

 

Quotes:

23:36 [@Peebles]> wasn't sarkhan the mad insane

[me] I'm crushing the momir

[slearch] I'm crushing a more luck-based format...extended

[AntonJ] why can't we just vote on who drafted the best deck to determine the winner

14:57 [Peebles1] play whatever awiy is playing against

14:57 [Peebles1] and complaining about

[Seeker] I don't like the quantum interpretation of game state :(

[Arivia] I got a science credit for ELVIS SIGHTINGS

TAGS articles, standard, constructed, analysis, deck lists, jarvis yu, type 2, delver

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