It is hard to deny when it comes to Legacy that Wrenn and Six has completely shifted the way the format is played. Even if you look at the results and conclude since Wrenn isn't being played in every winning deck that it's fine to play other decks it is hard to deny how it has changed the very fabric of Legacy. Despite what other decks may be doing well I am going to maintain that playing Delver with Wrenn gives you the biggest push to perform well in an event. Specifically, I'm going to argue that if you want to play Wrenn that you should just be playing Four-Color as well.

Legacy exists in a weird space in Magic as most people who play the format tend to stick to one deck since the barrier to entry is fairly high. Oftentimes this leads to a stagnant format very slow to change. For Blue decks this means homogenization into a singular archetype that excels in any given format. In this case that deck is currently Four-Color Delver. I don't feel 100% confident but Tariq Patel told me the deck is the next coming of Grixis Delver (with Deathrite Shaman) and after playing a few tournaments I can see where he's coming from. The flexibility of the deck allows a wide range of cards to build the best 75 for every tournament. Right now I feel the build below would be good for pretty much every tournament (which one exception which I will get into a bit later).

Four-Color Delver | Legacy | Rudy Briksza

• Creatures (12)
• 2 Gurmag Angler
• 2 True-Name Nemesis
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 4 Tarmogoyf

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Wrenn and Six

• Instants (20)
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Daze
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Lightning Bolt

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Preordain
• 4 Ponder

• Lands (20)
• 1 Badlands
• 1 Underground Sea
• 3 Tropical Island
• 3 Volcanic Island
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Wasteland

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Tormod's Crypt
• 2 Plague Engineer
• 1 Tyrant's Scorn
• 1 Liliana's Triumph
• 1 Pyroblast
• 1 Red Elemental Blast
• 1 Submerge
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Vapor Snag
• 1 Veil of Summer
• 1 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 2 Thoughtseize

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One of the secret benefits to playing Four-Color is access to one of the best Delver cards: Abrupt Decay. Quite often, cards like Chalice of the Void or Counterbalance are a death knell for normal Delver variants. Decay answers them. Decay also lets you do something extremely important and that's make the best use of your mana in Delver mirrors. Trying to play around Daze and Spell Pierce can lead to awkward spots where you have to take turns off. Utilizing your mana efficiently is a hallmark of good Delver play and getting to stress less about resolving removal is important. Since most Delver mirrors revolve around Tarmogoyf and Wrenn, having one card that manages both efficiently is important moving forward.

If your meta is going to be combo filled I would probably lean toward playing Dreadhorde Arcanist before playing Gurmag Angler, but the Zombie Fish ends games quite quickly and is tough for Delver decks and midrange decks without Swords to Plowshares. With combo decks I'll always prefer to have discard in my sideboard and cards like Thoughtseize combined with soft permission will make the matchups easier to maneuver through. A secret benefit is how good Thoughtseize is against the Control and Midrange decks. Being able to shred these decks and playing the tempo game can make a tougher matchup much easier.

Max Gilmore @Maxtortion on Twitter) has been championing a Temur version of Delver that focuses on extracting value from Dreadhorde Arcanist. There are certainly better upsides to playing a pretty clean mana base, and getting to play a spell land (Fiery Islet or Lonely Sandbar) alongside Wrenn and Six gives you the ability to utilize Wrenn as more than just a Crucible of Worlds that can eat small creatures.

NBC RUG Delver | Legacy | Max Gilmore

• Creatures (12)
• 2 True-Name Nemesis
• 3 Dreadhorde Arcanist
• 3 Tarmogoyf
• 4 Delver of Secrets

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Wrenn and Six

• Instants (19)
• 1 Force of Negation
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 1 Spell Snare
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Daze
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Lightning Bolt

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Chain Lightning
• 2 Preordain
• 4 Ponder

• Lands (19)
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 3 Tropical Island
• 3 Volcanic Island
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Wasteland

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Surgical Extraction
• 2 Pyroblast
• 1 Hydroblast
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 1 Force of Negation
• 2 Vapor Snag
• 1 Rough // Tumble
• 1 Winter Orb
• 1 Null Rod
• 1 Destructive Revelry
• 1 Abrade

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One of the big questions revolving which variant to play has to involve the mana.

Good point Max and this leads to an important discussion. I think one of the keys to success with Four-Color Delver is to actually play it like a Temur deck that has a couple Black spells in it. When you factor in that you're playing 20 lands and a full two more Duals than the average deck it's a tiny bit harder to just get Wasted off playing Magic. You will have to work a tiny bit harder to protect your Green sources as you only have three of them as opposed to the four Red sources you have available.

The core of the deck existed as a tempo deck but in reality reminds me quite a bit of the old Delver decks. In essenc,e these Delver decks are actually midrange strategies that have Delver and Daze in them in order to better beat combo decks that have often been issues for the slower Blue strategies. The Delver deck was fundamentally a misbuilt deck (trying to play a deck with expensive spells and Daze or trying to play Delver with a bunch of equipment and creatures), but the end goal was playing a midrange deck that beat up on Delver decks while having the ability to close games against Delver and shift downward into a deck that can interact often. Max's Temur Delver deck also follows this same kind of path. It's essentially a midrange deck with a Delver back up plan. However Max trades out power for consistency. Good pilots can certainly perform with this style of deck, but I'm going to lean on heavier power, especially in the context of Legacy. The big secret here is that I don't think Four-Color is that far away from Temur when it comes to consistency. If the consistency levels are close enough then I'm more inclined to hedge toward that high power level.

The best deck in the format at the moment is actually Depths. While this article is based upon what I believe to be the best variant of Wrenn Delver decks, variants of Depths are fast, unrelenting, and have a new level of consistency thanks to Elvish Reclaimer. Because of this I've considered overhauling my Four-Color sideboard to be more impactful in that matchup. However I don't know if enough people will realize how good Depths actually is and play it. Until then I'm hoping to leverage the sideboard cards I currently have for some good effect.

If you're looking for the right Delver deck to play, it really comes down to preference. How would you like to approach the matchup and what cards are you interested in having for those? For me, I'm going to lean toward playing the high powered Four-Color deck. It has all the tools you could ever need for any metagame and because you have so many colors you can craft a sideboard that beats up on anything.