So for the past few weeks, we have looked at some of the bigger Top 8s from around the country, and while each seems to have that one unique thing about it, the more we change, the more we stay the same. Each week, Delver has dominated nearly half of the Top 8, making the exploration of the format a bit stale and slow. Rather than seeing eight new decks each week, we are lucky if we get to see one or two, and four of the lists tend to be within five cards of each other. So, because of this gross trend, I decided to be a bit defiant today. Today, we are going anti-Delver.
I decided to scour the web in search of just that. Of all of the big events last weekend, the Grand Prix were not Standard, and the tournaments that did feature the format once again favored Delver and its kin, like the midrange decks that do everything Delver but Delver itself. So, I decided to try my best to find the least Delver-ry Top 8 I could find, and feature it.
Any Top 8 big enough to hit the internet would be all I required. I found the Top 8 I settled on straight out of Roswell Georgia. The event: Platinum Level TCQ hosted by TCGPlayer. There was not a single Delver, or Delver twin, in the entire Top 8! That spells hope for the future, and as such, today we are going to cover the lists and look for the reasons they excel against Delver in whatever way they can.
To begin, a list worthy of a trophy!
Wolf Run Ravager
J.T. Henricks
Platinum TCQ – Roswell, GA – 6/24/12
Standard
Wolf Run has been all over the place. At times it has been the best deck, while at other times, it has been the bridesmaid to an insect. The deck started as a solid two colors, then broke out into a rainbow of different options. It has dipped into white and blue, and it has gone black and then gone back. All that said, the original can still put up some results.
As noted before, we are going to primarily focus on the tools that each list has to combat Delver, and J.T. has quite a few. Six cheap sweepers in the form of Slagstorm and Whipflare help to make sure that the Delver player does not get off to too good a start, taking out [card delver of secrets]Delvers[/card] and [card geist of saint traft]Geists[/card] with ease—getting worse once the Angels start dropping down. Pillar of Flame also helps here, at least against those Delver players still packing Delver.
The big innovation with this list comes in the lands. Traditionally, Wolf Run decks use the [card kessig wolf run]namesake card[/card], along with Inkmoth Nexus, to provide a late game win condition as well as inevitability. But this winner, knows that Delver is packing Vapor Snags, Restoration Angels, and Gut Shots, making that plan less than reliable. What is reliable though, is Cavern of Souls. Instead of messing around with more traditional options, J.T. cut most of the norm for a bunch of Caverns, increasing his chances in any Delver-esque match up. Glimmerpost also compliments this plan, giving just enough life back to race, but that is more intended for aggressive decks.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Kelley wanted to remind us that the deck can still be built with a third color in this semifinalist’s list:
Wolf Run Naya
Jeremy Kelley
Platinum TCQ – Roswell, GA – 6/24/12
Standard
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Jeremy decided that six sweepers was also the number he wanted to go with, but with the addition of white, he increased the raw power level of said sweepers by changing them to Day of Judgment and Bonfire of the Damned. While slower than the sweepers from the winning list, these at least deal with problems like [card restoration angel]Angel[/card] and Sword-wielders. But beyond those, Jeremy also has the effective [card elesh norn, grand cenobite]Elesh Norn[/card] in one of his Titan slots. A lack of Cavern of Souls might have that looking suspicious, but when it does resolve, it is about the best thing you can be doing against Delver.
Timely Reinforcements help to insure you will be making the late game as well, which is a nice feature to have, especially with the inclusion of Gavony Township. The mana base is much more traditional than the first, and truthfully, the number of tricks this deck has up its sleeve against Delver is minimal. It really just wants to hammer home powerhouse plays turn after turn, and Jeremy managed to do just that.
Next up, we have a pair of Esper control decks with a different approach to the model in our finalist alongside one of the Top 8 competitors:
Solar Flare
Michael Fricks
Platinum TCQ – Roswell, GA – 6/24/12
Standard
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There is always a lot going on in these multicolor control decks, so let’s isolate cards that are particularly good against Delver to get a better idea:
That isn’t many cards once you take a look at it. It may be unfair to not include cards like Go for the Throat or Doom Blade on this list, but those cards are just so generic that it is tough to rationalize them as Delver hate. Though in the above list, even the more generic cards like Lingering Souls, were certainly chosen with Delver in mind. Pretty much all of these cards have been used against Delver at one time or another, so I am going to focus on the most obscure of them: Torpor Orb.
Torpor Orb is a card that has never really been used to fight Delver before, but with the deck often being played Delverless these days, it actually makes a lot of sense. You get to shut down Snapcaster Mage, Blade Splicer, and Restoration Angel, all of which are pretty strong. In that way, Torpor Orb actually can sort of effect the board. Now, it makes sense to see it in low numbers, as the card is not good when you have fallen behind in any way; as well as the fact that you have your own 187 effects—but it is certainly an interesting direction to take Delver hate.
Esper Superfriends
Andrew Schneider
Platinum TCQ – Roswell, GA – 6/24/12
Standard
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Right away you can see a definite swing in how these two control decks want to end the game, but the Delver hate is the important thing. Let us once again isolate it:
1 Mortarpod
2 Curse of Death’s Hold
4 Lingering Souls
3 Despise
Again, there are other good cards, but these are the exceptional or unique ones. This list is a bit interesting, as it looks to do two main things to Delver decks: First, it wants to take care of the early aggression that a Delver provides by killing it asap. It does this through Mortarpod or Tragic Slip, and wants to really relieve the pressure from turns 1-3. At this point in the game, Delver’s midrange stuff kicks in, but we have answers there too.
Despise is actually really interesting in that it takes out Restoration Angel preemptively, or at least makes them play it at an inopportune time. It is nice to lead turn 5 off with Despise, and when they play the Angel they have in response to blank Despise, you have simultaneously gotten them to both tap out and add an additional creature to the board, only to catch them with a Day of Judgment.
Planeswalkers tend to be weaker against a deck like Delver, due to the high number of fliers and evasive damage the deck provides. As a result, Andrew had to turn to other big blows to carry him out of the late game. Curse of Death’s Hold is that type of card, as it presents a crippling effect for the Delver player, even if it doesn’t actually kill anything. Consecrated Sphinx is another good answer here, although primarily post-board once the Delver player has removed their Vapor Snags.
Which leads us to a deck that finds itself even better off than that against the best [card vapor snag]Unsummon[/card] in Standard:
UW Superfriends
Mike Hahn
Platinum TCQ – Roswell, GA – 6/24/12
Standard
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Here we have the same concept as above, only eschewing black in favor of a better manabase and 4 Ghost Quarters. That being said, this list might break our theme a little bit, because this legitimately looks like it has a terrible Delver matchup.
Your big cards against them are seven different Wrath variants, which you need to draw and resolve with some regularity, as they are your primary weapon against the deck. If Delver gets the chance to counter your first two Wrath effects, it looks like this list will just fall too far behind too quickly.
Cards like Blue Sun’s Zenith, Karn Liberated, and Entreat the Angels are far from good against a traditional Delver deck. What it looks like Mike was doing though, is intentionally slow his deck down not to beat traditional Delver, but to beat the new age Delver lists that want to be going over the top of traditional Delver as well. When you remove your [card delver of secrets]Delvers[/card] for Blade Splicers, Day of Judgment suddenly spikes in value. This list wants to prey on that sort of thing, as well as other decks going bigger than Delver, but is not going to be very good against an actual aggro-control deck.
Naya Aggro
Fred Poesel
Platinum TCQ – Roswell, GA – 6/24/12
Standard
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And then we arrive at one of the more popular non-Delver decks of the current Standard metagame. Aggro Naya is a little interesting in that it does not focus on heavy hitting hate cards against Delver, but rather shapes a game plan that is good against the deck through small advantages throughout the curve. Cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Sword of War and Peace are not specifically intended to beat Delver, but they sure are good against it!
From Strangleroot Geist to Phyrexian Metamorph, to Restoration Angel to Bonfire of the Damned, Naya has something potent at every point in the curve. If Delver ever taps down, or falls behind, the Naya deck can pounce. Even in a fair game where there is some back and forth between the two decks, the Naya deck gets to produce more consistently scary threats turn after turn, while the Delver deck is going to draw some of its weaker creatures in the late game, more often.
Even when the two decks get into race situations, Naya has quite a bit of burn to pull ahead where only multiple Vapor Snags are going to do much at that point for Delver. Some of the one-ofs in this particular list seem a bit strange, and other lists will have different configurations, but the archetype as a whole is still favored here.
-Which transitions us into an archetype that has been a little under the radar, out-shined by its own tribe even in the BR Zombies lists, but here we see it putting up a strong finish:
UB Zombies
Joe Jesperson
Platinum TCQ – Roswell, GA – 6/24/12
Standard
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Zombies looks to take the good archetype approach to the Delver matchup as well, rather than have insane silver bullets. With eight one-drops, some decent removal, and Phantasmal Images, Zombies is able to both take the offensive, and still maintain control of the game for the first few turns of the game. The Delvers and Snapcasters will be being picked off while the Gravecrawlers continue to march, and the Geist of Saint Trafts meet their Clone.
Joe did go out of his way to include some cards that were tailor-made for the Delver match up though. Geth’s Verdict is still a card, and a good one, albeit difficult to cast. I found myself playing it during the early days of Delver to take out Geists and Stalkers, but these days Angels will do just as well. Cavern of Souls also makes an appearance again. Zombies really needs to resolve Geralf’s Messenger in this matchup to do well, as cards like Vapor Snag and Gut Shot are just bad against it at that point, unless you can’t afford the reinvestment of mana. Bloodline Keeper also is served well by the addition of Cavern of Souls.
But, as we have learned the past few weeks, Zombies can take many forms, for example, that of Birthing Pod:
Zombie Pod
Jacob Montano
Platinum TCQ – Roswell, GA – 6/24/12
Standard
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This list has much of the same goal in mind against Delver as the previous deck, but it adds a spicy element in Birthing Pod. Birthing Pod may not look like it helps out against the UW menace, but think about the effect on the game after it resolves. At that point, Delver is in a load of trouble as they are tasked with countering every creature you play, or else watch it grow into something bigger, and they likely cannot do much about outside of their crutch: Vapor Snag.
The deck is still going to rely on its removal and aggressive draws to beat Delver, much like the UB Zombies list. Phyrexian Metamorph is going to step in and act like Phantasmal Image, while a main deck Manic Vandal looks for his own food in the situation. I imagine that the consistency of the UB build offers a better Delver matchup than the inevitability of Pod, but both are interesting choices if you don’t want to be packing Angels and Insects this weekend.
Wrap Up
Delver is clearly not dead, and will continue to make its presence known in Top 8 after Top 8, but there is hope—and there are options for those that do not want to play such a deck. M13 might help with that even more, as some of the spoilers look pretty awesome so far. Luckily for us, we get to take a break off of Standard next week most likely, as we will probably be discussing the results from the Grand Prix in Atlanta, which happens to be Legacy. I am excited for the event and hope to see everyone there. Thanks for reading!
Conley Woods
