Pauper Delver deck that I want to play in an upcoming casual tournament. It's a lot like the mono-blue matchup Chris Davis plays (look up Pauper Daily events at ChannelFireball), except this runs Delvers to speed up the kill-con.
Errant Ephemeron
doesn't do it for me, sorry to say, as he's slow and easily countered. So Delver of Secrets
has to pull his weight, but with the amount of spells I'm running I think he's an easy flip and more aggressive board presence.
Spire Golem
is just a boss; a good blocker and evasive attacker which only costs less and less as the game progresses.
I don't have any Gushes, which I replaced with Ponders, altough I would like a mix of both. Gush is the better spell I think, but Ponder serves a slightly different purpose so I don't want to lose it. Also looking to get 2 of the cycle lands (
Lonely Sandbar
) so I can drop another Ponder and add the Gitaxian Probes that are in my Storm deck atm.
I only have the 2 actuall Counterspells, which is why I'm running 2 Mana Leak. Also wondering if Force Spike is worth it. Currently they're in the sideboard against very quick matches, playtesting has to show if they would outperform Essence Scatter and Negate. Especially against Delver and Zoo, where
Piracy Charm
will probably do more work. Then again, against Storm, Pump and Ramp, I guess counterspells do more.
The rest of the sideboard includes
Echoing Truth
and Propaganda against Empty the Warrens, extra Negate against burn decks, the 3rd
Serrated Arrows
for now (against Zoo) and the 3rd Into the Roil should be replaced by an extra
Echoing Truth
. I think I'll be up against ramp-Eldrazi, RDW, more Delver, Pump Infect and Zoo as the most aggressive / dangerous matchups.
My other option in this tourney is to play A Pauper Storm, but I think I'd have trouble against Ramp and anything blue running counterspells if I can't storm off on turn 2. This deck has a bit more reach for the long game, I feel.
I'm also still looking for some answer to ramp-Eldrazi (except ofc the counterspells) and some sideboard advice! Any and all ideas are welcome!