Format Changer
Deck Help forum
Posted on June 12, 2012, 3:48 p.m. by bman5604
As we all know delver base decks have become the staple and are clearly the best decks in standard format (if you dont think so quit kidding yourself) it makes up for 60% of the meta and will not lose steam until everything rotates so expect to see a s ton more delver decks until Return to Ravnica on October 5, 2012.
With that said what beats delver. To be more precise What card beats delver. Many have said nothing beats delver like a turn 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben . As good as she is Gut Shot takes her down in dramatic form as well as the 4x Phantasmal Image in sideboard to stop the time walk queen from being to much of a issue. Then people say well Thrun, the Last Troll does good work as well.... with that said the have 4x Phantasmal Image they can bring in to make that card useless.
So what really hurts delver decks? how about hex proof? Well duh hex proof creatures are defiantly hard for them to mess with. That being said they have access to a flashing angel that will fall out of the sky and kill most hex proof creatures in Restoration Angel that being said lets use one that gets big in a hurry.
So with out further a dew I bring you deck:delver-breaker It can will beat delver and is geared to beat most other match-ups. Any suggestions would be awesome and appreciated.
comes back
I think Delver decks are strong, but I don't think they are the "best deck" by any means. Delver has nothing on Caw-Blade (which was the best deck last year, and that's a fact) and it will never warrant a banning like Caw-Blade did.
Delver's not invincible. I find Wolf Run Ramp to be more versatile in that it deals with a wider range of decks better than Delver can. And FYI, R/G Aggro is pretty much the meta's answer to Delver decks. They're designed to beat it.
leaves again
June 12, 2012 4:48 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #4
I saw it too zandl I just didn't say anything lol
Also, left a comment on your deck. In a nutshell I find the fest way to beat delver is to just plain be faster. Now, I agree with zandl that wolf-run is very versatile however just coming from a meta where almost everyone "net decks" I can tell you that the top 3 types of decks where I was were delver, wolf-run ramp, and U/B control in that order. Delver is normally faster than wolf-run ramp to the point where when wolf-run was resolving their first titan they were already looking at an equipped Insectile Aberration Flip and at that point there wasn't usually much they could do. (This only was not the case when wolf-run had a Galvanic Blast in those first 3-4 turns.) U/B control does really well v.s. both of those decks however it falls apart if they get hit for too much in the beginning stages of the game. Keep in mind that almost EVERYONE ''net decked" the top decks and just bought them so we saw a LOT of the pro tour meta on our FNMs.
June 12, 2012 5:27 p.m.
Agreed that everyone in there own right takes ideas and makes it there own. Which you should do as a magic player. And no r/g aggro is no longer the answer to delver. Thats why the meta consist of 3.70 % g/r aggro decks. if it is so good against delver why dont more people play it. It is much better then wolf run easily but with that said it still isnt the answer. The only deck that has proven to beat delver has been esper control which now makes up for 8% of the meta. The only deck that literally can aggro out a delver deck is zombies. which is the worse match-up for delver out side of esper control. And even then is completly beatable on games 2 and 3.
@zandl Yea i wasnt saying all time for standard. Dont get twisted. Was saying for the current standard.
June 12, 2012 6:08 p.m.
I know. I wasn't trying to say all-time, either. I was just saying that there really isn't a top deck right now, unlike how Caw-Blade dominated Standard a year ago.
June 12, 2012 6:13 p.m.
I disagree and there are a ton of pros who say the same.
June 13, 2012 1:05 a.m.
Ohthenoises says... #8
Not sure about decks other than zombies not being able to outrace delver. I do it all the time, granted it's a homebrew, but there are plenty of decks that can outrace it given the creatures/spells we have to work with currently. R/W Humans or Naya Humans if built "correctly" can outrace delver by leagues. (I'm talking about putting you at 7 health after turn 3.)
June 13, 2012 1:16 a.m.
Delver is certainly the most popular deck, but saying it's the "top deck"? That's insinuating that it beats everything consistently. It simply doesn't do that, and obviously so if Solar Flare keeps beating it to first place in each SCG: Open tournament.
Large tournaments like SCG: Open are also terrible indicators of what are really the best deck out there. Probably 90% of attendees at those tournaments are copy-cats, not innovators. They see the decks that do well in the week or two before whatever they go to and build those, tweaking only a few cards (if at all). Some saw that the new build of Delver (involving Restoration Angel ) swarmed the Top 8 at one tournament (and only because it was designed to beat the expected meta at the tourney) and everyone thought it was unbeatable. Since the tournament scene is so saturated Delver decks, it's hard for other decks to be represented in Top 32 lists just because of the sheer number of people playing U/W Delver. This leads to a misrepresentation of the other decks, making it appear as though the other decks simply aren't as good.
In reality (like at a competitive FNM, for example), the same 75 cards will be easily thwarted by a large amount of decks, assuming 70% of the decks aren't U/W Delver.
Delver will be defeated and there will be a new deck by the time rotation occurs. I can all but guarantee it. That's how Standard works.
June 13, 2012 1:38 a.m.
Ohthenoises says... #10
@zandl "Probably 90% of attendees at those tournaments are copy-cats, not innovators." This is EXACTLY what I hated about my meta in NC. Everyone "net decked" and no one was playing original ideas. (Although I blame the prize payout not the players. [One pack per person if there were >16 players and one pack per round won.])
June 13, 2012 1:44 a.m.
I play delver religiously have been since illusions was the big thing. With that said i really dont feel that there is a deck out there that can give delver a harder time then zombies and esper control. Both which are completely beatable if you sideboard properly. And if you dont think it is the best deck in the format what are you suggesting is?
June 13, 2012 1:45 a.m.
totally agree with the copy-cats Hell i do it for the most part I know what i will see week in week out at my local fnm so i know what needs to be in my sideboard So that might be the only thing different.
June 13, 2012 1:48 a.m.
Ohthenoises says... #13
He is saying that there are a few decks that are all fairly even with none of them having a true upper hand (so to speak): delver, esper control, and r/g. Delver just has a larger "fan base" because of the press it has. Statistically if 80% of the people at an event run delver then it should stand to reason that the top 10 should consist of nearly 8 delver decks.
I look at delver as a "glass cannon" in that it's really powerful when it goes off but it has to have the right operating conditions. (That's just a personal insight.)
June 13, 2012 1:50 a.m.
I'm suggesting that there isn't a "best deck". Fair and simple.
Mono-Green beats Delver hard, by the way. Delver literally can't do anything against Dungrove Elder except hope to Mana Leak it. Strangleroot Geist is difficult to deal with when your only removal is Vapor Snag (and, most of the time, isn't worth it). Thrun, the Last Troll is only stopped by Phantasmal Image , which is usually only in the side-board.
Any mono-Green will have playsets of the first two and likely 2x Thrun main-board, though I like 3x.
Again, I'm not saying Mono-Green is the best because it beats Delver, that it's even the best at all, or that it wins every time against Delver. It's just another deck that beats it more often than not.
My point about misrepresentation at larger tournaments still stands, though. Delver's a good deck, but it's simply just not as strong or prevalent as Caw-Blade was in last year's Standard. It won overwhelmingly once in a meta not prepared for it, so people freaked out and thought it was the Second Coming of Jesus.
I feel like you may have never played against Caw-Blade in the weeks leading up to the Jace/Stoneforge banning. If you had (and experienced how oppressive it was), I think your views on Delver wouldn't be so weighted.
June 13, 2012 1:56 a.m.
I wasn't playing competitively at the time, but I remember some of my older friends who were and hearing them cursing Necropotence until the cows came home.
Back to the original discussion, here's something I've wanted to bring up to support my position but kept forgetting to do until now.
Standard is always "figured out" by a few weeks after the last set in a block is released. The dominating decks of two summers ago (Jund, Eldrazi Green, anything with Vengevine ), the dominating deck(s) of last summer (Caw-Blade and sort-of Valakut), and the dominating decks of this summer (Delver, R/G Aggro, Esper Control) are all locked in by the time June rolls around. They may look a bit different from the beginning of June to the end of September, but the premises are the same.
With the exception of the first Standard banning since Mirrodin (the old one, mind you), all of the decks shift in a sort of rock-paper-scissors fashion and each rotates in and out of being the most prevalent and played deck. It's nothing new to Standard. This is just Delver's time to be the rock that smashes the scissors. Paper will make a come-back, though, and so on and so forth.
zandl says... #2
"So with out further a dew..."
...
leaves
June 12, 2012 4:42 p.m.