A primarily black/ green splash blue DELVE deck for the new standard environment.
This deck, plays primarily on Sidisi, the Brood Tyrant's ability to generate 2/2 tokens at an absurd rate. The name of the game is to make sure that Sidisi can safely attack by killing bigger opposing creatures with efficient kill spells or by using combat tricks. The primary win condition is to win outright on the board by killing big blockers (or all blockers) and overwhelming with zombies.
Each delve spell in the deck is almost always cast for its minimal cost and it is perfectly plausible to have murderous cut online by turn 3 and dead drop online by turn 4 or 5.
This deck priorities creatures because Sidisi needs all the creatures she can to have the best chance of getting a free 2/2 zombie. The chance of getting a zombie from a Sidisi mill trigger in this deck is around 79% (with 24 creatures).
Everything which isn't a creature spell is a way to control the board to ensure Sidisi isn't outgunned when attacking. Sidisi should be played as early as possible and turned sideways almost every single turn.
[b]Main Board Removal Suite[/b]
Murderous Cut is your go to kill spell. Go forth and kill.
Sultai Charm is a kill spell which is usually relevant. Also good for enchantments and at worst it's a card draw spell.
Doomwake Giant is able to clear out x/1s but can be played to ensure that Sidisi and other attackers are bigger than blockers. It can even be sneakily flashed in with Chord of Calling for an even bigger blow out effect.
Dead Drop is a very efficient spell and can usually be cast for 4 mana or less. This deck has enough removal to ensure that your opponent will rarely get more than 2 creatures on the board so this card really adds a kick whilst they're down.
[b]Utility Spells[/b]
Jace, the Living Guildpact. Jace is an interesting one. He can essentially be counted as removal as more often than not he comes into play and simply bounces your opponents biggest creature, allowing Sidisi + others to attack. On his second turn he can then tick loyalty up and started filtering cards and making zombies through Sidisi's mill effect. He is very flexible and will usually be well protected behind walls of zombies and a Nyx Weaver
Chord of Calling makes this deck possible. You can pull out whichever creature you need to match the situation and it essentially doubles as extra copies of Sidisi, if you haven't yet drawn her the old fashioned way.Great Chord targets are Doomwake Giant to suddenly change combat phases in your favour, Ob Nixilis, Unshackled to capitalize on death or to punish opponents searching their library (fetch lands!), Rakshasa Vizier to capitalize on the fact that sometimes your opponents will exile your entire graveyard - thanks for the 20/20 creature! That said, sometimes you simply need to find Pharika or a humble Satyr Wayfinder to progress your boardstate.
Empty the Pits is a good finisher though it can be sided out in more aggressive matches. It's not the kind of card you want to see early on but it is very good when it is milled into the graveyard with a nyx weaver. Weaver can pull it back for 3 mana and you can cast is for 4 mana. Only costs 7 in total for a spell, which when timed correctly, just wins games.
[b]Delve Enablers[/b]
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is obviously the biggest delve enabler in the deck - of course she has a big target on her head and there's plenty of delving to be done so she'll need some help.
Nyx Weaver is absolutely insane in this deck. Milling for 2 each turn is very useful as it can generate additional zombies but also after 2 turns or so Nyx Weaver can be an exceptionally useful tool to fish removal spells back out of your graveyard and cast them cheaply to continue the obliteration of your opponents creatures. Grabbing any card from the graveyard is exceptionally powerful. Ideal targets for this are Empty the Pits, Murderous Cut or Dead Drop
Satyr Wayfinder is a good delve enabler and can help you out when you've drawn short of lands. I will emphasize that our ideal turn 2 play is Sylvan Caraytid if we have one in our opening hand but the satyr also does a fine job of filling the graveyard. The Satyr is the first one to jump in the way of x/1 attackers too!
[b] Unsual Cards [/b]
Pharika, God of Affliction is a powerhouse in pushing through stalled boards. She can generate deathtouchers and has a good chance of having the seven devotion needed to be a creature in this deck. Use Chord of Calling to flash her out in front of attackers too or to trigger Doomwake Constellations... Remember - she creates Snake Enchantment Creatures at instant speed!
Kheru Lich Lord is able to pull creatures from your graveyard - and you will have exiled all the creatures you don't want to pull out using delve spells. Ideally, Chord of Calling for him on your opponents end step so that he gets immediate use in reanimating a creature.Is he strictly more vulnerable to removal than the Whip of Erebos? Yes - but remember that we need creatures in this deck and the advantage of summoning using Chord of Calling means that we only have to run a single copy whilst we would more likely have to run several copies of Whip of Erebos which is in our sideboard.
[b] Sideboard [/b]
The sideboard has gone through a lot of revamps. It needs to have options to get ahead of all the most successful decks in standard right now; Green/black devotion, Jeskai Aggro/burn, Abzan midrange, Blue/Black control, and Mardu planeswalkers.
I picked cards which had most applicability to all of these matchups.
Whip of Erebos is good for gaining back life in the race against fast decks like Jeskai burn. With the number of tokens that Sidisi creates, you can outrace these decks with a whip on the field.
Negate counters planeswalkers and can also help avoid some of the removal/ counterspells of the Blue/Black Control decks. Even if Sidisi only survives one additional turn that's another zombie that they have to clean up.
Garruk, Apex Predator is one of the more questionable sideboard cards. He's in the right colours and is suited for games which go long such as against Mardu planeswalkers/ Green/black devotoin or Abzan Midrange.
Setessan Tactics is there to take out ramp/devotion enablers for ramp/devotion decks. It may also be sided in against the mirror match or aggro decks as an additional way to clean up multiple little creatures.
Polymorphist's Jest is insane in standard right now and I'm very tempted to mainboard these somehow or put more in the sideboard. Because Auras and Counters are not commonly seen in standard it does reduce practically everything to be a 1/1 blue frog - even sarkhan, mantis rider. This should be sided in against evasive decks such as Jeskai aggro/burn but also against big fatty decks such as green devotion.
Reclamation Sage is perfect if you know the opponent has 3 or more enchantments in their deck. It's a removal spell which you can Chord of Calling for and you end up with a 2/1 creature. That's value. Kill coursers in green decks or try and smash the Jeskai Ascendancy Combo.
Unravel the Aether is for non-creature gods. This is for your Purphoros's and Athreos which risk killing you. Also use this to smash the Jeskai Ascendancy combo/ enchantment based strategies.
Spiteful Blow is almost entirely for killing Nythos based decks. In these matchups they generate so many creatures if less unchecked so this is one of the many two for ones which you can use against green devotion decks and kill the biggest creature plus destroy Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in the same spell. Such value but very limited usage.
Dig Through Time is a reliable delve spell for helping you get to the right answer. If you've sideboarded in but only have a few answers to the opponents deck then you can use this spell to find the card quicker. Don't forget that Nyx Weaver and Jace are constantly card filtering for you so this is why this deck doesn't need many more card advantage engines usually!
