Taking Izzet Delver out for the Legacy Classic @SCGPHILLY
This week’s article is going to be a bit of a grab-bag of topics. I’ve spent the last 2 weeks testing some different ideas and decks, talking to people about a variety of Delver-related topics, and ended by playing in the most recent Legacy Classic in Philly.
On Forked Bolt
I was asked a number of times if I thought some number of Forked Bolt would be better than Chain Lightning. While Forked Bolt is an excellent card, and at its best is likely better than Chain Lightning, I tend to treat this deck much more like a proactive aggro deck.
Because most of the creatures have some sort of evasion and the Young Pyromancer tokens allow you to get in damage through blockers, late in the game I am prone to using Chain Lightning on my opponents. Seeing how often this comes up for me, the extra damage can make a pretty big difference.
That being said, Forked Bolt is extremely good against X/1s and, with the popularity of Izzet Delver, I think Forked Bolt is likely well positioned in the main deck right now.
On Storm
In practice, this has been one of the most difficult matchups. Storm doesn’t have much trouble playing around a couple of counterspells, especially when there’s a slow clock on them. Delver and Pyromancer have the potential to apply a lot of pressure quickly, but the rest of the threat-base doesn’t. Pteramander has nothing on Gurmag Angler when it comes to applying early pressure.
On top of that, it’s difficult to effectively diversify the range of disruption in an effective manner. Grixis gets access to discard spells, counter magic, and whatever permanent-based hate they’re looking for. This makes it difficult for Storm to put together a game plan that can properly interact with them.
I have been trying to make the sideboard as permanent-based as I can afford to make sure my threats are diverse. This was the impetus for Null Rod at Syracuse , and this week I moved towards Pyrostatic Pillar , courtesy of Bob Huang. They’re not realistically going to be able to win with that in play, and it forces them to have an answer pretty quickly. Having access to 3 Pyrostatic Pillars would be ideal because it is definitely the most powerful hate card we have against them, but it is relatively narrow. I think Storm is going to get more popular going forward with Brandon Osborn’s win at the Classic (Congrats, Brandon!), so this change might be worth the space
On A Splash
I’ve considered 2 different splashes in this deck. The first is Black for discard spells. This would help against a variety of combo decks. As previously mentioned, diversifying the interaction is a key part to effectively handling combo decks, so adding a new dimension is very appealing.
The second is Green for exactly Ancient Grudge. Abrade is fine, and sometimes kills creatures, but with the rise of Red Prison and Trinisphere, I really want to get more mileage out of my artifact removal.
I haven’t had the chance to test either of these yet, but they interest me on paper. I would start by cutting an Island for either a Tropical Island or Underground Sea. I don’t love the idea of cutting an Island, but I like it more than cutting a Volcanic Island. You want access to a reasonable amount of red sources in this deck, and going down to 3 total lands that tap for red doesn’t seem great.
On the 19th land
This has come up in conversation with people a number of times, and I can see the motivation behind it. Young Pyromancer and True-Name Nemesis both want you to have access to more lands-drops, and with Light Up the Stage this deck can use excess mana relatively well compared to other Delver decks. Plus, with Trinisphere gaining popularity you frequently just want to hit your first 3 lands against those decks.
The flip side is that Light Up the Stage finds you more lands to work with. When I have Stage online, I frequently find that I end up with all of my lands in play. Sometimes, I even run out of fetchable lands, but this is acceptable because outside of Stage, the deck doesn’t need that many lands in play. I am concerned that 19 lands might make the deck more prone to flood, and at the same time, cutting an Instant or Sorcery for the land makes Pteramander worse.
Perhaps this is a good place to add in an Underground Sea or Tropical Island for a splash, instead of cutting an Island. For now, though, I don’t think I see a good reason to try an extra land.
On Grixis
I tested this deck quite a bit in the week leading up to the classic. As I have mentioned in the past, I don’t think Izzet Delver is overwhelmingly the best version of Delver and I wanted to do my due diligence to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything on the table. Bob Huang played a version that sported a turbo-Angler gameplan in Syracuse that looked pretty strong to me:
I really enjoyed the way the deck played out, and found that it had a lot of merit, which is a substantial improvement from my previous feelings regarding Grixis. However, I kept getting murdered by Swords to Plowshares, which I think is a pretty big issue. Gurmag Angler has a huge weak point against the UW decks, and I think that’s a pretty poor place to be at the moment. I still hold that Miracles is the best deck at the moment (although, not by that much) and having a solid Miracles matchup is important.
I think Grixis could be tuned to have a good matchup there, and people have been doing that with Bitterblossom. However, I think that weakens the deck overall and makes it really clunky against the rest of the field.
If you don’t expect a lot of Miracles, or if the metagame shifts, I would recommend Bob’s list. I like the way it’s positioned against Red Prison and Storm and it’s a lot of fun. For now, though, I ended up going back to ol’ trusty.
On the SCG Philly Legacy Classic
I ended up going 6-2 in the Classic. This is the decklist I played:
My matches and results were as follows:
Round 1: GW Death and Taxes 2-1
Round 2: Soldier Stompy 2-0
Round 3: Mirror 1-2
Round 4: Mirror 2-0
Round 5: Dredge 2-0
Round 6: Maverick 1-2
Round 7: Elves 2-1*
Round 8: RUG Delver 2-0
Goblin Cratermaker was more of Bob Huang tech, and I really liked it. I suspected Red Prison would be popular, and Cratermaker is really good there. It blocks the Goblin tokens, comes down through a Blood Moon, kills all of the artifacts, and applies a touch of pressure. In addition, it does some weird things in other matchups like kill Emrakul and Reality Smasher, which is pretty sweet. It was pretty good when I just wanted to kill artifacts, and I would definitely consider running it again.
While both of my losses were without question due to my own in-game mistakes, I do think the way I ended up building the deck could have contributed to it as well. As mentioned in the Forked Bolt section, I really win a lot of my games through precise combat and with exact damage. Chain Lightning is much more effective at that than Forked Bolt. Forked Bolt did do some good things against the mirror and Elves, but honestly didn’t help that much against the Mother of Runes decks.
Frequently my plan against those decks is to use evasion to race them. I’ll generally kill a Mother of Runes if I can do it freely, but if I have to sacrifice part of my game plan for it, i’d rather just turn into a pure aggro deck. There’s always a risk to this, as never being able to kill their creatures could turn out badly when a Stoneforge shows up, but I think it pays more dividends than taking a turn off to kill a Mother.
Forked Bolt helps against Mom because if they have 2 X/1s, you can at least kill one of them, but that doesn’t come up that much. Frequently you just have to kill Mom on sight, and in that case, you get an extra damage out of Forked Bolt. That’s certainly nice, but you lose out on the extra damage from Chaining their face.
I played against a lot of X/1s in this event, so Electrickery was pretty impressive. I don’t love it against most Delver decks, but it is effective in the mirror. Young Pyromancer is a key card in the matchup, so being able to handle that is really important.
I saw my RUG Delver opponent playing early in the day and knew they had Stifle, so I played around it in game 1, forced them to move first with their Young Pyro, and was able to take it down from there.
Regarding the Elves matchup, you might have noticed an asterisk. Well, after winning game 1, we get deck checked, and the judges told me I really botched up my decklist. I straight up forgot to add Wasteland to the deck, and just added 3 Chain Lightnings instead of any number of Forked Bolts. There’s no one to blame but myself because I submitted the decklist online the night before in the middle of hanging out with my friends. Clearly I didn’t give the decklist the attention it deserved, and that’s how I got the first decklist error i’ve received in 4 years. I’ll be more careful next time, for sure, but use me as an example of what you should avoid doing!
On the Format Qualifier
My next event is the Magic Online Legacy Format Qualifier this Sunday, and i’ll be testing all week to find a list I feel comfortable with. I’m going to start here:
I know these changes aren’t exciting, but 68/75 cards have still been performing really well. I’m likely going to test some of the lists from the Classic that look interesting, but when it comes to it, I really know what’s going on in this decklist.
I will be trying out the 2 splashes this week, which could lead to some pretty substantial changes, but for now, i’m going to keep moving forward and making sure to tighten up my play.
