Budget UR Delver
Deck Help forum
Posted on Feb. 18, 2014, 11:09 p.m. by twospires
The Best Way to Delve for Secrets... Playtest
Casual
SCORE: 7 | 0 COMMENTS | 462 VIEWSI've been playing around with this deck for a while, and I've always been underwhelmed with Omenspeaker . Every time I draw her it's a letdown. Unless I get convinced otherwise, I'm going to cut them. So here's the question: What is best to add in? I think I want more creatures, but I don't know what? Augur of Bolas , maybe? Is there another good, cheap creature that should be here?
I'm also a little iffy on the Izzet Charm and removal/counterspell suite. Let me know if you have any good ideas regarding that. Thanks for helping!
Augur of Bolas is the better card. Scry 2 is nice, but it doesn't beat Draw a card. With 27 instants and sorcery in the deck, the likelihood of your top 3 containing one is pretty high.
That said and what it sounds like you're running into is that a cantriping/scrying 1/3 isn't what the deck is looking for. Delver decks like this are primarily tempo decks. Your basic gameplan is to stick a threat and then protect it and disrupt your opponent. A 1/3 is really only useful to gum up the ground in face of heavy aggro.
Cards you could consider replacing them with Frostburn Weird - plays defense well but also attacks well with extra mana available. Phantasmal Bear - 2 power for 1 but it turns every spell into a removal spell, Vaporkin - 2 power evasion for 2, level-up creatures can also be good Skywatcher Adept / Hada Spy Patrol and Young Pyromancer puts out a ton of utility and pressure.
More expensive options would include Grim Lavamancer , Snapcaster Mage and Grimoire Thief .
February 19, 2014 3:56 a.m.
I have been leaning more toward Augur of Bolas While there is a chance of not getting anything, it will usually get a card, which is huge. That's one of the things I don't like about Omenspeaker : I'll scry something I want and then have to wait until next turn to actually draw it.
And, really, the main reason that these cards are in there is because they were in the UW Delver decks, so they must be good, right? I'm thinking they were an answer to BR Zombies and Pod. So I think I can go ahead and remove them fairly safely.
Most of those creatures don't seem terrific in the deck, mainly because I don't have too much mana sitting around. I want to leave it up for counters and Bolts. Young Pyromancer is fantastic but it's even more expensive than Grim Lavamancer , so that's kind of out, which is really sad. I also don't want to rely on Phantasmal Bear as a beater, because anything can kill it. Should I maybe go with more Spellheart Chimera s or Invisible Stalker s?
Thanks for the help!
February 19, 2014 10:05 a.m.
There is a pauper deck that I've built, that I think is the best way to do delver inexpensively. But it has a completely different goal than your deck. It's purely offensive (in all senses of the word), it uses Kiln Fiend and Nivix Cyclops as your main attack engines, with a bunch of cantrips and damage spells to turn the fiend and cyclops into very destructive forces. It's possible to swing for lethal on an opponent turn 3. Delver of Secrets Flip really just is there to draw removal and be a turn 1 threat.
The meat of the deck after the 12 creatures is 4 of each Assault Strobe , Apostle's Blessing , Artful Dodge , Ponder , Preordain , Lightning Bolt , Gitaxian Probe and 2 Mutagenic Growth with 18-20 land You do as many as possible in a turn, to swing for tons. I don't have the deck list put up on here, but this is pretty much it.
February 19, 2014 10:16 a.m.
Me and my friend built that deck once, and I want to take this in more of a traditional Delver direction, as an aggro-control deck. I've played that deck before myself and it's just not very enjoyable since it either wins or loses by the fourth turn every single game. That's not what I want to play here. Thanks for the help, that's just not the direction I want to go. In that deck, Delver is almost useless and it becomes just a Kiln Fiend deck.
February 19, 2014 10:31 a.m.
I ended up cutting all of the Augur/Speakers and the singleton Invisible Stalker to switch over to 4 Spellstutter Sprite . Even though I don't have any other faeries in the deck (I'm debating Pestermite ), it can work as a (very) soft counter. If not, a flash flier can be pretty good on its own.
Does this sound like a good idea?
February 19, 2014 6 p.m.
With your heavy equipment package, Spellstutter Sprite is not a terrible idea. I use them in a UR Modern list and will sometimes play them out at 1/1 flyers to suit up with a sword. Granted that format has a lot of cheap spells so it's easy to get extra value off them.
February 19, 2014 6:22 p.m.
That's my thinking. I don't need a lot in the way of creatures, I just need something that can hold a Pike, and Spellstutter Sprite does as well as anything. I can even play it during an opponent's end step to give it pseudo-haste. It seems like it might be the way to go here.
Thanks for all the help, Slycne!
twospires says... #2
OK so I've heard to just make a cold switch to Augur of Bolas . Is this the right move, or is that just because it's "better" than Omenspeaker ? That won't make it "good", necessarily.
February 18, 2014 11:52 p.m.