Craig Wescoe
6/21/2012 10:22:00 AM
Three major tournaments occurred this past weekend: the SCG Invitational, TCG San Diego, and GP Manila. The deck I played in the Standard portion of the SCG Invitational was UW Delver splashing red, primarily for
Bonfire of the Damned. I ended up going 4-4 with it, but my MTGO results indicate that the deck is much better than that (above 75% win rate). Kelvin Chew also finished in the Top 16 of GP Manila with a very similar list of the same archetype. Either he was one of my 39 opponents I played against online last week and decided to switch to my deck for the GP, or he independently arrived at a very similar list to mine (likely the latter). Either way, his strong finish provides further evidence, in addition to my personal MTGO data (presented at the end of the article), that the deck is indeed a strong choice in the current metagame.
Here is the deck Kelvin Chew made Top 16 of GP Manila with:
And here is the deck I played to a 62
nd place finish at the SCG Invitational:
Let's compare the two decks more closely.
His creature suite looks nearly identical to mine:
4
Restoration Angel
4
Blade Splicer
4
Snapcaster Mage
4
Delver of Secrets
Blade Splicer over
Geist of Saint Traft is a close call in UW Delver, and I think Traft is currently winning out by a small margin. While I'm uncertain which is the better choice for UW Delver, I am very confident that
Blade Splicer is better in this version.
Geist of Saint Traft plays offense better than
Blade Splicer, whereas the latter plays defense better. Since the red splash often slows us down a bit, and Bonfire gives us a better way to catch up and turn the corner, we would much rather have a creature that can play both offense and defense well instead of one that can play offense extremely well but defense poorly. Chew and I seem to agree on this point.
The only difference as far as creatures are concerned is that he includes one copy of
Phantasmal Image. This is not a bad call, given the amount of Geist of Saint Trafts, Strangleroot Geists, Blade Splicers, and Elesh-Norn, Grand Cenobites running around. I'm not sure it is necessary in the main deck though. I also experimented with only 3
Restoration Angel and 3
Blade Splicer at times, and either of those choices is reasonable if you're trying to make room for other cards.
The core non-creature spells are the same:
4
Vapor Snag
3
Gitaxian Probe
3
Bonfire of the Damned
3
Mana Leak
The main point of divergence has to do with our ancillary spells. Chew opted to go with cards that make his
Snapcaster Mages better.
Pillar of Flame can kill a
Delver of Secrets whether it is flipped or not whereas
Gut Shot can only kill it prior to flipping. Furthermore
Thought Scour allows for instant speed
Silvergill Adept in addition to filling up the graveyard with more
Snapcaster Mage targets.
2
Pillar of Flame
2
Thought Scour
1
Phantasmal Image
I experimented with
Thought Scour and quickly came to the conclusion that it did not fit in the deck on account of the anti-synergy between it and
Evolving Wilds, more specifically concerning the lone Mountain and lone Plains in the deck. If you
Thought Scour away either of these, then you significantly cut off your ability to provide mana of that color since you not only take out the basic land but also render
Evolving Wilds unable to fetch that color. This is less of a problem with Chew's build since he only runs two copies of
Evolving Wilds (which we will get to next), but the problem is still there.
In order to circumvent this problem, I tested
Twisted Image. It allows the same instant speed
Silvergill Adept line of play but without risking the mana hindrance. While its applications are rather narrow, when it works, it works great! Some of the best uses for
Twisted Image include: hitting a first turn
Birds of Paradise, hitting a
Restoration Angel after it blocks or attacks into ours, taking out a
Spellskite (which comes up more online than in paper magic due to the prevalence of Infect online), and targeting a creature that has been targeted by
Kessig Wolf Run (due to layering, no matter which one happens first, Wolf Run always pumps the creature's toughness). While I ended up cutting it from my list, I like it better than
Thought Scour in Chew's list.
Pillar of Flame, on the other hand, seems kind of sweet. I like the idea of being able to kill either side of
Delver of Secrets. Taking out a
Strangleroot Geist or
Geralf's Messenger once and for all is likewise a nice option to have. I would still rather have
Gut Shot though, for a couple of reasons. First of all, it allows you to go about your business without losing out on tempo, which is particularly important against
Birds of Paradise decks that can catch back up if you give them enough time. Also, it's nearly impossible for either list to get red mana on turn 1, so you're already looking at turn 2 before being able to cast it (which is not the worst thing if you have Island +
Sulfur Falls on the play, but otherwise will keep you from playing Delver and killing their first turn Birds of Paradise). There is also something to be said for instant speed removal, which comes up when facing down
Moorland Haunt tokens, especially in conjunction with a Sword.
Speaking of Sword, my deck was 11-5 in online test matches, including multiple losses to green decks of various kinds, at which point I decided to add two copies of
Sword of Feast and Famine. I then proceeded to win 17 matches in a row with the deck! I'm not sure I'd ever won 17 matches in a row on MTGO, but evidently the swords made a huge difference, especially against opposing green decks. If you decide to run Chew's list over mine, I would definitely recommend adding 2
Sword of Feast and Famine. The most cutable cards from his deck are the Thought Scours, the fourth
Blade Splicer, and the fourth
Restoration Angel.
The other card I ran than Chew did not was one copy of
Divine Offering. Facing down
Sword of War and Peace is not particularly fun, and between 4 Ponder, 3
Gitaxian Probe, and 4
Snapcaster Mage, finding the
Divine Offering is not terribly difficult when necessary. And once you've found it, you can usually cast it twice via
Snapcaster Mage. So the single copy of
Divine Offering gives you added protection against equipment as well as Birthing Pods, two otherwise problematic cards. It also kills a
Golem Token or
Inkmoth Nexus in a pinch.
The differences in our lands in many ways reflect our differences in spell choices.
4
Evolving Wilds
4
Seachrome Coast
4
Sulfur Falls
3
Glacial Fortress
1
Desolate Lighthouse
1
Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
1 Mountain
3 Island
As I already mentioned, I run twice as many copies of
Evolving Wilds as Chew ran. This makes
Thought Scour even more dangerous in my list, but still uncomfortably risky in Chew's list at two copies. We each agree on 4
Seachrome Coast and 4
Sulfur Falls as those are the primary lands you want to draw.
Glacial Fortress is a card I kept going back and forth between 2 and 3 with, and the correct number may even be 1. In the main deck I have
Blade Splicer,
Restoration Angel, and
Divine Offering while in the sideboard I have 2
Hero of Bladehold, 2
Timely Reinforcements, 2
Celestial Purge, and 1
Oblivion Ring. So the disproportionately high amount of white sources in the main deck has to do with the making sure we have adequate white sources post-board. With Chew's three copies of
Cavern of Souls, he can adequately support
Blade Splicer and
Restoration Angel without the additional Glacial Fortresses. Without Caverns, we need more white.
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Speaking of
Cavern of Souls, why did I run zero copies main deck and only a single copy in the sideboard? The answer is rather simple:
Moorland Haunt and
Desolate Lighthouse. Since Cavern cannot help me cast my colored spells, most importantly Ponder, having too many means risking draws where I can't cast my spells on time. Moreover,
Moorland Haunt and
Desolate Lighthouse each require colored mana to activate their respective ability. Given that I really wanted to play these other lands, I decided to omit
Cavern of Souls completely from the main deck. In hindsight, this may not have been the optimal decision, for a few reasons…
In testing,
Desolate Lighthouse was performing very well, allowing me to dig for action in the midgame and draw out of flood situation. This in large part helped keep the 17 match win streak going for so long, since unlike UW Delver, I was not losing nearly as many of the flood games. Throughout those games, I was running two copies of
Desolate Lighthouse and zero copies of
Moorland Haunt because originally I did not have swords and therefore
Moorland Haunt was significantly worse than Lighthouse in the deck. After adding the swords and playing a number of games, I decided to replace a Lighthouse with a
Moorland Haunt. In hindsight, this was bad because Haunt underperformed. I rarely had a sword and nothing to put it on whereas I often wanted to cycle cards or make my creatures uncounterable. So moving forward, I would recommend the following mana base in my version:
4
Evolving Wilds
4
Seachrome Coast
4
Sulfur Falls
2
Glacial Fortress
2
Cavern of Souls
1
Desolate Lighthouse
1 Plains
1 Mountain
3 Island
I'm not willing to give up the last remaining Lighthouse, but I'm willing to cut the
Moorland Haunt and a
Glacial Fortress from the main to make room for two
Cavern of Souls. I would then move the
Glacial Fortress to the sideboard, replacing the Cavern from the board.
As far as the sideboard is concerned, even after nearly 40 matches with the deck online, I still felt like I had plenty of room in the board. I would often only sideboard in a handful of high impact cards and would not want more than one or two copies of whatever cards I'm bringing in. This is in large part because most of the main deck cards are so versatile and useful across matchups that I usually don't have many cards I want to board out. With this said, the one matchup I still do not have a well-tested sideboard plan for is RG Wolf Run. Any general advice from people who have tested regular UW Delver vs. Wolf Run would be appreciated in the forums.
2
Hero of Bladehold
2
Timely Reinforcements
2
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
2
Celestial Purge
1
Amass the Components
1
Steel Sabotage
1
Combust
1
Mana Leak
1
Oblivion Ring
1
Phantasmal Image
1
Cavern of Souls
The
Hero of Bladeholds and Tamiyos were mainly for opposing Titan decks. My thinking was that Wolf Run would have the biggest trouble with that package. I wasn't comfortable running the
Phantasmal Image +
Ghost Quarter plan since that meant they already resolved their Titan. Another strategy I considered but wasn't able to try was siding into
Zealous Conscripts and/or
Act of Aggression. I could use
Restoration Angel to blink the
Zealous Conscripts to hit with their Titan for the second time, thus fighting through their life gain posts. Or I could
Act of Aggression their Titan and then use
Snapcaster Mage to flash it back the following turn, accomplishing the same feat. I still have not come to a conclusion as to which of these plans (or perhaps some other plan) works best. The final option was to run the fourth
Gitaxian Probe and 3-4 copies of
Nevermore in the board. I only faced Wolf Run a handful of times in testing though, so I hadn't come to a conclusion as to which strategy is best. As I said, any help in the forums would be appreciated.
Let's compare my board to Chew's:
1
Celestial Purge
2
Combust
1
Dissipate
1
Divine Offering
1
Mental Misstep
1
Negate
1
Oblivion Ring
2
Phantasmal Image
1
Surgical Extraction
2
Timely Reinforcements
2
Zealous Conscripts
It looks like Chew opted for
Zealous Conscripts over Tamiyo, likely to fill the same role against Titans. I think I like Conscripts because it can also steal a
Gideon Jura, which is very relevant against
Sun Titan decks. I would alternate
Combust and
Celestial Purge though.
Purge is great against Zombies and red decks and the games where you draw it are way easier than the ones where you don't, because of
Snapcaster Mage. I could see
Surgical Extraction being solid against
Lingering Souls,
Unburial Rites, or
Phantasmal Image (targeted by Sun Titan), so one of those gets the nod.
Phantasmal Image acts as additional answers to Titans and Elesh Norns. It works great against these cards and also doubly so in conjunction with
Zealous Conscripts (i.e. copy conscripts and steal the thing for a turn).
Oblivion Ring is a de facto
Celestial Purge against red and black decks while also killing large opposing creatures or
Sword of War and Peace. I'm confidant one is exactly the right number as I almost never want to draw a second one.
Mental Misstep can be sweet in the mirror and I considered running one in the board, but unlike Chew's list, mine already has
Gut Shot for opposing turn 1 creatures, especially for mana accelerants. So Chew's list is in greater need of this utility than mine.
Negate I'm not sure I understand. Many of the decks you would want counters against run
Cavern of Souls and thus you don't want more than 4 total counters against such decks. I can see
Dissipate and
Steel Sabotage being worthwhile, but I'm not sure about
Negate.
If I were to play in a tournament this weekend (and I'm planning to), I would recommend the following sideboard:
2
Celestial Purge
1
Combust
1
Steel Sabotage
1
Oblivion Ring
3
Phantasmal Image
1
Surgical Extraction
2
Timely Reinforcements
2
Zealous Conscripts
1
Glacial Fortress
1
Dissipate
I would highly recommend this deck to any Spike looking to grind out games and win lots of matches by slim margins. For those interested, here are the results of my testing data throughout 39 matches:
UW Delver 9-3
Birthing Pod (Naya/Bant/Rug) 5-1
Esper
Sun Titan 3-0
Defiance Infect 4-1
BR Aggro 2-0
RG Wolf Run 1-1
UR Delver 0-2
UW Midrange 1-1
Everything Else 5-0
Overall: 30-9
Either this list is better than UW Delver in the mirror, or I have become a much better Delver pilot since running sub-50% in my UW Delver mirror testing. Either way, I'm happy with this deck.
Craig Wescoe
@Nacatls4Life on twitter
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