Spooky season is upon us, and what better way to celebrate than talking about one of Magic's best horror-related mechanics, Delirium! Delirium, which first showed up in the two-part Shadows Over Innistrad/Eldritch Moon block, is a mechanic that gives your cards a bonus under the condition you have four or more different card types among cards in your graveyard. Similar to Madness, Delirium was a mechanic chosen for the Shadows block to reflect Emrakul's slow and sure corruption of the minds of Innistrad's inhabitants. Delirium is a grindy, yet powerful mechanic that takes some set up, but can reap you some sweet rewards.

What is Delirium?

Delirium is an ability word that centers around reaping a benefit if you meet the condition of having four or more different card types among cards in your graveyard.

For example, Traverse the Ulvenwald with no cards in your graveyard is just a one-mana way to grab a basic land. However, say you have a creature, artifact, enchantment, and land card in your graveyard, you'll be able to search for any land or creature card instead.

Delirium is an effect that only gets better the longer the game goes. The more you can fill your graveyard with various card types, either by naturally having your creatures die or by casting spells, or by self-milling, the faster you'll get to reap the rewards of your Delirium cards.

It's worth noting that to get to Delirium as fast as possible, you can play both cards that can self-mill or find ways to put cards into your graveyard that have not one, but two card types on them.

For example, Wild-Field Scarecrow is a great Delirium enabler, as it is both an artifact and creature. What's important about the design of this card, however, is that it can also sacrifice itself, giving you an easy way to add two card types to your graveyard.

History of Delirium

Delirium was first introduced as a brand-new mechanic in the set Shadows Over Innistrad, which was released in April of 2016. It was also a main mechanic in the following set, Eldritch Moon. In the lore, the block follows the return to Innistrad, as Jace investigates suspicious events on the plane, while its population becomes warped and maddening. The secrets he uncovers lead him to Nahiri's terrifying plan to bring Emrakul to Innistrad. Delirium was featured in this set as both a graveyard-centric mechanic, a callback to mechanics from original Innistrad, but also as a way to hint at Emrakul's maddening influence over the plane.

Delirium was also a core mechanic of the next set in this block, Eldritch Moon, which featured Emrakul's emergence into the plane and subsequent warping of the plane into a Lovecraftian horror:

Since its original printing, Delirium has shown up as a mechanic in only a few other Magic sets, Modern Horizons 2 and 3, and Duskmourn: House of Horror.

Delirium Decks

Delirium has shown up in a variety of Constructed decks over the years. In Standard, a Golgari Delirium deck was highly popular, utilizing cards like Ishkanah, Grafwidow, Grim Flayer, and Mindwrack Demon. In Modern, some Jund Midrange decks utilized Traverse the Ulvenwald in Tarmogoyf decks, playing cards like Tarfire for an additional card type (tribal) to hit card types in the graveyard. Traverse the Ulvenwald has also made an appearance in various iterations of the popular Abzan Greasefang Pioneer deck, a deck focusing on Greasefang, Okiba Boss and Parhelion II.

Funny enough, one of my favorite Standard decks I've ever played was a Delirium deck! Back in Shadows Over Innistrad Standard a friend brewed a sweet Bant Delirium deck for a Magic Invitational event, and while I failed to make day two of that event piloting Golgari Delirium, I decided to build my friend's deck to play the 5k the next day. This deck is a thing of beauty. It was not only expertly built and highly synergistic, providing great "toolbox" options, but it was also just a blast to play and I was able to catch multiple opponents off-guard.

Bant Delirium | Shadows Over Innistrad Standard | Roman Fusco

• Creatures (16)
• 1 Bruna, the Fading Light
• 1 Gisela, the Broken Blade
• 1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
• 1 Linvala, the Preserver
• 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 3 Tireless Tracker
• 4 Primal Druid
• 4 Thraben Inspector

• Instants (4)
• 1 Immolating Glare
• 3 Dissenter's Deliverance

• Sorceries (14)
• 1 Descend upon the Sinful
• 2 Nissa's Renewal
• 3 Fumigate
• 4 Spring // Mind
• 4 Traverse the Ulvenwald

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Quarantine Field
• 4 Cast Out

• Lands (21)
• 6 Forest
• 2 Island
• 3 Plains
• 1 Irrigated Farmland
• 1 Lumbering Falls
• 2 Evolving Wilds
• 2 Scattered Groves
• 4 Fortified Village

• Sideboard (9)
• 3 Negate
• 1 Essence Scatter
• 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 2 Declaration in Stone
• 1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk

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By hitting Delirium with creatures that acted mainly as chump blockers (Thraben Inspector and Primal Druid) and Spring // Mind (two card types) I was able to get insane value against various midrange creature strategies with Delirium cards like Descend Upon the Sinful and using Traverse the Ulvenwald for major threats like Gisela, the Broken Blade, and Bruna, the Fading Light. I was able to catch my opponents by surprise with this defensive strategy that had access to a wide range of threats and win conditions, and I ended up making Top 8 of that event.

Delirium in Duskmourn, House of Horror

I'm sure by now you've taken a gander at some of the horrors lurking in Magic's next horror-themed set releasing soon, Duskmourn - and with it returns Delirium once again!

With a set covering a wide range of horror tropes, Delirium seems like a great mechanic to bring back to not only fit some of the horror themes, but to provide a fun, grindy mechanic to this set. From a Limited perspective, I think Delirium provides great value to any Magic set. It's a mechanic that really rewards you for crafting your deck in a specific way, and finding avenues to fill your graveyard with a diversity of cards to get some great benefits.

In Duskmourn specifically, there are lots of ways to quickly fill your graveyard, including the newest mechanic, Manifest Dread.

Similar to the original Manifest mechanic, this version gives you the choice of one of the top two cards of your deck, meaning you can easily dump a card type that's usually hard to get into your graveyard to begin with, like land or artifact. With enchantment cards, Manifest Dread, and various other ways to enable graveyard filling, there will be lots of opportunity to benefit off Delirium in this set.

Overall, Delirium is one of my favorite Magic mechanics of all time, and it's one that I welcome in any Limited or Constructed environment. Delirium challenges you as a player to think critically not only as a deckbuilder, but as a player as well. By including a swath of card types in your deck, and having ways to smartly fill your graveyard, you can gain some pretty powerful benefits on your creatures and spells by hitting the four or more different card type requirement.