Welcome one and all to my weekly column on standard and what I'm currently playing. As of right now, I plan on this to be a biweekly column to appear on Thursdays so that I can provide you with a deck list prior to FNM that you can sleeve up to play.
Now onto the list after the break!
I did not come up the list I'm about to talk about today. While not a direct netdeck, the 75 I sleeved up for FNM is based on Michael Jacob and GerryT Esper Delver list that was streamed prior to the Starcity Games Invitational. The deck can still achieve blazingly fast starts of old while have more resilience to mass removal and Curse of Death's Hold.
Delving Souls
Main Deck:
3 Blade Splicer
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Intangible Virtue
4 Lingering Souls
4 Mana Leak
4 Ponder
2 Runechanter's Pike
4 Thought Scour
4 Vapor Snag
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Evolving Wilds
3 Glacial Fortress
6 Island
1 Plains
4 Seachrome Coast
1 Swamp
Sideboard:
1 Blade Splicer
2 Celestial Purge
1 Dissipate
1 Divine Offering
2 Intangible Virtue
1 Negate
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Steel Sabotage
2 Timely Reinforcements
I love this deck. Delver is the style of deck I enjoy to play for multiple reasons: I'm playing the aggressor; the decision tree is complex, which makes playing the deck much more rewarding; honestly, I just have fun. The last deck I had this much fun with was back in Zen/Scars standard when I played Kuldotha Red (which while being an awful deck provided many priceless reactions).
This version is much more resilient than the standard Delver deck. Lingering Souls is indeed insane and plays around mass removal quite well. With Virtue and Pike, the deck is able to play quickly like the normal Delver lists while being able to grind out matches. Blade Splicer is extremely good right now in a meta filled with zombies and Go for the Throat. The first strike is able to tangle with Geist of Saint Traft and the Zombies quite well, and with a Virtue out can win games by itself.
Main deck, there is very little that I would change for my local meta, but on the bigger scale I think there are one or two card choices that can be changed. While Thought Scour was fantastic for me in every game, I think it is correct to go down to 2 copies main with Gut Shot filling the other 2 slots. Delver is starting to see a resurgence, although the deck never disappeared, and with Naya Pod a strong player Gut Shot takes care of opposing Delvers and mana dorks.
I do believe there are some changes to the sideboard that can be made. The main exclusion that I was questioned on was 0 phantasmal images. Simply, I did not have access to any and would immediately place them in the board. Sorin did nothing for me in board and can see replacing them with 2 Images. The extra virtues in board can be cut, although I liked the idea of showing Pike G1 to side them out G2/3 for the extra virtues to get the one up on my opponent. I'd like an extra purge for sure and possibly a Sword of War and Peace. If I was to enter an event this weekend, the board I would have would be:
Sideboard:
1 Blade Splicer
3 Celestial Purge
1 Dissipate
1 Divine Offering
1 Intangible Virtue
1 Negate
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Phantasmal image
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Steel Sabotage
1 Sword of War and Peace
2 Timely Reinforcements
I hope, fellow reader, that you have gotten some insight into the deck and perhaps want to sling these cards at your next FNM. I must stress this point: to get better with Delver, you HAVE to play matches. I'm sure you're thinking 'Well of course, to get better at magic I have to play more magic. Seems obvious.' With Delver, this is the point to the extreme. Because the decision tree is so advanced, you need to already have made decisions in playtesting to guarantee that you make the correct lines in the game. This deck is the Faeries of this format in that every match is winnable IF you can assess the situation and make the appropriate plays.
Best of luck and leave me feedback on how I can improve this column and what you would like to see in the future!
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