It has been awhile since the Sensei's Divining Top ban in Legacy, but because we have fewer large Legacy events compared to formats like Standard and Modern it has taken awhile for the new format to shake out. The last couple of weeks saw a few different larger Legacy events though. Eternal weekend had an 11 round main event and then the SCG Open in DC had its normal 15 round main event as well as an 8 round Classic on Sunday.

At this point, I think it is safe to say that Grixis Delver is the objectively best deck in the format. In addition to putting two copies into the Top 8 at Eternal weekend, Grixis Delver was 16 of the 123 decks that day two’d the SCG open and converted into eight top 32 spots.

Grixis Delver has not been the only Delver deck to put up results recently though. A blast from the past, that was mostly pushed out of the format by Top + Counterbalance, has been making a resurgence. Temur Delver had a Top 8 finish at the open and a second place finish at Eternal weekend:

Temur Delver ? Legacy | Ryan Lesko, Top 8 SCG Open

• Creatures (11)
• 3 Tarmogoyf
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 4 Nimble Mongoose

• Instants (25)
• 1 Dismember
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 2 Spell Snare
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Daze
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Stifle

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Chain Lightning
• 1 Preordain
• 4 Ponder

• Lands (18)
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 3 Tropical Island
• 3 Volcanic Island
• 3 Wooded Foothills
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Wasteland

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Winter Orb
• 2 True-Name Nemesis
• 1 Seal of Fire
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 2 Pyroblast
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Vendilion Clique

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Temur Delver ? Legacy | Eric Vergo, 2nd place Eternal Weekend

• Creatures (11)
• 1 True-Name Nemesis
• 2 Hooting Mandrills
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 4 Nimble Mongoose

• Instants (25)
• 1 Dismember
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 2 Spell Snare
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Daze
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Stifle

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Forked Bolt
• 1 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Ponder

• Lands (18)
• 3 Tropical Island
• 3 Volcanic Island
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Wasteland

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Abrade
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 1 Grafdigger's Cage
• 1 Pithing Needle
• 3 Pyroblast
• 1 Rough // Tumble
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Submerge
• 1 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 True-Name Nemesis

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For newer Legacy players, this deck will look rather foreign, but it certainly has plenty of history behind it before these events. This was arguably one of the best decks in Legacy before a deck that played sweepers and locked people out of playing spells became the best deck in the format. With Miracles no longer the force that it once was, I think Temur Delver could be poised for a comeback. Let’s take a look at why.

First and foremost, Temur Delver has always been one of the best decks in the business at saying “no” early and often:

While Wasteland is technically a land, it is effectively a Stone Rain that takes up a land drop for the turn in this deck. In conjunction with Stifle, Temur Delver can often keep it’s opponent’s land count fairly low to make sure soft counters like Daze stay live longer in a given game.

Speaking of Daze — free counterspells like Daze and Force of Will are especially deadly in a tempo shell like this. In addition to disrupting faster decks like Storm, Daze and Force of Will simply serve to say “no” to our opponent’s cards over and over again while our efficient threats beat them down.

Speaking of threats let’s take a look at some of the threats Temur Delver players:

Delver of Secrets needs no introduction. Cheap mana cost, evasive body, quick clock, and in a pinch pitches to Force of Will — this human insect does it all in Legacy. Nimble Mongoose however is a card that has not seen much Legacy play recently. This card is also fairly cost efficient and eventually becomes a body that deals damage fairly quickly. The real reason Mongoose is a threat in this deck, though, is because it has shroud. Not only does Mongoose deploy for a cheap cost, but it does not require resources to protect it once it is in play.

While not nearly as much of a stranger as Nimble Mongoose to the Legacy format, Tarmogoyf is not nearly as popular as it once was. That being said, it still does a lot of things we want to do in Temur Delver — namely providing a large body for a fairly resource efficient price. Often a 4/5 or larger for just two mana, Goyf is a good rate as always. However, Tarmogoyf is fairly susceptible to removal like Fatal Push and Abrupt Decay because of its cost.

The Temur Delver list that finished second at Eternal Weekend chose to not play any Tarmogoyfs at all, instead choosing to play two copies of Hooting Mandrills. While I like the idea of Hooting Mandrills a lot in theory — dodging common removal is great — Delve comes with a real cost in this deck. Because our Mongeese want threshold, deploying this threat will likely make our other ones worse.

This past weekend, I played Eric’s 2nd place list from Eternal Weekend to a Top 8 finish in the MTGO Legacy Challenge. While this was a shorter event, the six rounds of swiss that I went 5-1 in gave me a few pieces of insight into Temur Delver in the current Legacy format. First and foremost — Hooting Mandrills was often as awkward as it looks on paper. I had one match against a Delver /Burn deck with Eidolon of the Great Revel where costing six was a huge boon, but outside of this Mandrills did far more harm to my Mongeese than it did good.

Next was that Eric’s plethora of one-of sideboard cards left some to be desired in a few cases. While Blue decks like this have a lot of selection to find their sideboard cards, I think we really want multiple copies of higher impact cards. Specifically, I found myself wanting access to more copies of Surgical Extraction and Rough // Tumble during the event.

Finally — even though we call this deck Temur Delver — Nimble Mongoose is secretly the best card in the deck. The fair matchups in Legacy almost always come down to the last threat standing and Nimble Mongoose is very good at staying alive, especially when backed up by counter magic.

With all of these things in mind, I think my next adventure into testing Temur Delver will be something along the following lines:

Temur Delver ? Legacy | Jeff Hoogland

• Creatures (12)
• 1 Vendilion Clique
• 3 Tarmogoyf
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 4 Nimble Mongoose

• Instants (22)
• 1 Spell Snare
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 3 Stifle
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Daze
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Lightning Bolt

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Preordain
• 2 Chain Lightning
• 4 Ponder

• Lands (18)
• 2 Flooded Strand
• 2 Polluted Delta
• 3 Tropical Island
• 3 Volcanic Island
• 4 Wasteland
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Dismember
• 2 Abrade
• 1 Grafdigger's Cage
• 2 Flusterstorm
• 2 Rough // Tumble
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 2 True-Name Nemesis
• 2 Pyroblast

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In addition to combining a few of the ideas of the successful lists, we looked at above there are a few other innovations in here borrowed from past iterations of this archetype. First, you will note I’ve chosen to relegate Dismember to the board. While Dismember is useful for killing larger threats like Gurmag Angler, it is a dead draw against the combo decks of the format. By playing a sixth Burn spell in the main deck, we keep our removal count the same, while having less dead cards Game 1 against combo decks.

Next is the singleton copy of Green Sun's Zenith. While Green Sun’s is often used to enable toolbox style decks in Legacy, in this deck it essentially has one purpose: Find Nimble Mongoose. As I mentioned above Nimble Mongoose is easily the best threat in this deck, so playing a “5th” copy of it is reasonable, even if it costs us two mana to get into play.

Finally, the sideboard is now mostly two-ofs as opposed to the sprinkling of one-ofs found previously. I have put cards in my sideboard because they are good and I want to find them with some consistency.

Wrapping Up

The last thing I wanted to address before finishing today is playing a deck that is depending on the graveyard as a resource in a format full of Deathrite Shamans. The thing to keep in mind about Temur Delver is that none of our threats are exceedingly powerful. The reason this Temur deck is reasonable is not because of its board presence, but because of its ability to deny its opponent their board presence.

By this, I mean that Deathrite Shaman really is not any different than other threats our opponent’s can be playing out. Our goal is to keep our opponent’s board clear, so we do not really care if that means Dazing a Deathrite Shaman on one, or some other threat. We just want to use our disruption to keep the opponent’s board clear while we beat them down.

While I would be surprised if Temur Delver is objectively more powerful than Grixis Delver, I think Temur is attacking the format from a different enough angle that it might be a reasonable choice in the format instead of Grixis. Personally, I know I need to log a few more matches with this revived archetype before I can fully come to a conclusion in one direction or another.

What do you think about Temur Delver in the wake of Top being banned from the format? Will it become a force to be reckoned with again, or will it fade back into obscurity after this small flash in the pan? Let me know in a comment below!

Cheers,

—Jeff Hoogland