Next month there should be another Prague Eternal. I'm not really sure if I'll be able to participate or not but if I would want to I need a deck to play. Sleeving a legacy deck is not a problem for me as I can put together almost anything from Dredge to Stoneblade. But choosing a deck I'd like to play is difficult since the printing of 'Delver of Secrets'. Since the day I saw it for the first time I knew I would hate this card and I knew that this would define a new legacy. No matter what...games against Delver decks are not usually enjoyable. When I sometimes tried playing such a deck I did not really like playing it either. But maybe I just need to accept the fact that this card exists and make peace with it.
Now Wizards of the Coast is taking it to another level. They printed Moonsilver Swiftspear and TREASURE CRUISE, a common sorcery speed Ancestral Recall. Treasure cruise is just insane no matter in what format and Moonsilver Spear is THE card any Pyromancer or Delver deck needed. I personally hope that they will ban the card. For the time being when I play it and draw three cards of it ..it feels like cheating.
So I guess it did not take long and someone came up with some UR Delver playing Swiftspear and Treasure Cruise. When this deck won something somewhere...it showed up in quite huge numbers in our local game stores. So I ended playing against few of them and I was swearing from the start of the tournament till the end of it. I was playing Show and Tell and some games got to the situation in which I had Emrakul on the table and couldn't win because an army of 1/1s attacked me and I was down to 2 life. The best matchup and game I had was against ANT. But all those Delver games...those games were just annoying. The deck seemed really fast and it countered all it could. And even when I got to the situation where I got all the counter spells out of my opponent's hand he then just played Treasure Cruise and I lost once again. That really seemed unfair.
In the next tournament I participated I played Jund (because I forgot one of each card from Show and Tell in my EDH deck). Jund was slow and inefficient and it lacked any card advantage...oh yeah playing against 4x Treasure Cruise with Jund wasn't a good idea. I even lost to some players who had no idea what to do with their decks and one even forgot to trigger his Young Pyromancers 3 times (2 were on the table...). That game was quite fun in general, because he tried really hard to lose the game. He attacked with his Pyromancers, let some of them die (my Deathrite Shamans were glad to trade) and then played some cantrips (^_~). I thought that I could possibly win this game if I would manage to draw Golgari Charm but well.. I lost anyway after he played few Cruises and I did not see my charm...
After seeing this I decided to try the deck myself and see if I can win some games with it. I played some games against Miracles and BUG Tempo. (I actually sleeved up more decks and proxied the cards I don't have in 12 copies and so on...I might need to mark the proxies to be able to distinguish them fast)
Today I brought UR Delver to a tournament in Najada and I had some really strange games with it (my pool of decks does not count with such matchups - the decks I have are Sneak and Show, ANT, UWR Delver, BUG Tempo, Shardless BUG, Death and Taxes, UWr Miracles, Jund). In Round 1 I played against Tomas Mar's deck. His decks are full of good stuff. It's a 4c goodstuff deck running Delver. I managed to screw t1 and t3 colossaly but Tomas messed it up once too. This helped me stay alive (keep my land and brainstorm) and dig for one Lightning Bolt I needed to finish him off. This should have been an easy victory for me but I messed it up so much that only luck could get me out of it. I drew the Bolt in the last possible turn and so it was time for game two. I tried to stay focused this time and avoid any silly plays. I decided to try Price of Progress in the deck especially for this kind of matchups so I put that in along with Pyroblasts (in the end I couldn't play it, Blood Moon wouldn't help me either though). Tomas played Deathrite Shaman on t1 and t2 and that was the end for me. I was trying to get some Bolts but I only managed to get one and died to that remaining Shaman. The game wasn't even close. In game three I managed to have creatures in play, get rid of Deathrite Shamans and resolve one late game Treasure Cruise. I had it since the beginning but had no time to play it...and it would get countered most probably. Later via Gitaxian Probe I saw his hand and I knew I can play the card finally (no matter what I would have to try playing it). I drew 3 lands of it but the following three cards were 2 Pyroblasts and yet another land. Pyroblast tried to kill Delver but Delver was regenerated by Golgari Charm. This allowed me to attack for 5 though. The next turn I played the second Pyroblast and won the game.
Next round I played against Merfolk. I had no idea what to expect from this match up. I had a slight advantage because my opponent thought that I play Sneak and Show and probably kept a hand against that (I had no idea that he played Merfolk). My opponent started with Cursecatcher. So I played my creatures and waited with my noncreature spells. Another Cursecatcher then showed up so I used Forked Bolt to get rid of them. I played Young Pyromancer, created about 6 tokens and my opponent conceded. In game two I looked at his hand wondering what I'll be doing with it. There was Jitte in play and one creature. I killed it and hoped for another removal because it was more likely I would draw a burn spell rather than Smash to Smithereens. I drew it after some Ponders and Brainstorms and got rid of the creature that showed up next. When I started wondering about third creature that might show up I realized that I don't even need to care about that because I can deal the remaining nine damage before the creature would attack me (Treasure Cruise is what won me the game).
In the third round my opponent accidentally showed me Sinkhole from his deck. So I knew what kind of deck to expect but I did not know how the games would go. I played t1 Delver and flipped it on turn 2. It died to Smallpox later. I managed to draw a land and started looking for something else. After few Sinkholes about 5 Mishra's Factory attacks and some annoying cards I managed to draw another Delver and flip it the next turn. This creature managed to win the game. In the second game it did not look good. My opponent had 2x Sinkhole, Toxic Deluge, Liliana of the Veil, Smallpox in hand. I played Delver of Secrets and tried swinging with it. I only had one land so I tried to dig for another land. When Tabernacle hit the table I wasn't really sure what to do. I decided to keep my land rather than Delver of Secrets. Looked for more creatures and played them one at a time. They all died and then I tried countering as many Sinkholes I could. That's when Liliana hit the board but I already had Pithing Needle ready for her. My opponent countered that with Ratched Bomb and destroyed the needle. So I played another Needle I had and then I was getting hit with Mishra's Factory and stared at Engineered Plague that affected humans. My only way to win was to draw several burn spells. When we were both at 4 life my opponent started to be afraid of Smash to Smithereens and stopped attacking me. That gave me some time to draw something else than Smash to Smithereens that I already had in my hand (I had Lightning Bold and Smash to Smithereens). I played 3 Treasure Cruises, some combination of Brainstorms and Ponders...I probably had something like 15 cards in my library (that contained 2 bolts)...and then I finally top decked the bolt.
In the finals I played against a mono red deck with 8 Pillars and all sweepers there possible are in red. I had to take mulligan which wasn't good either...In game one I did not manage to counter Pyrostatic Pillar and I knew this card would eventually kill me as there is no way getting rid of it. My opponent was stuck at one land though so I tried dealing more damage to my opponent than to me. Well it almost worked out...but I died. His first sweeper that he played was Volcanic Fallout that I couldn't counter and that was more or less it. If I would have drawn a Lightning Bolt I could have tried to deal the 5 remaining damage with it and Swiftspear...(but still I would get hit by Fireblast.) In game two after few mulligans I couldn't do much. There was no way I could win...even though I tried to survive for a while.
So after an eternity I was allowed to win some store credit in Najada and I had to thank the deck for it. Actually today all the games were fun. But it might also be due to the fact that I did not play against any annoying Delver deck. I don't count Tomas's deck because that deck simply does...everything...So I'll bring the UR Delver to another tournament to see how it fares against ... well those Delver decks I did not encounter.^_~.
By STsung
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Monastery Swiftspear
Instant [16]
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
Sorcery [15]
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Treasure Cruise
2 Forked Bolt
1 Chain Lightning
Land [17]
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Polluted Delta
1 Mountain
1 Wooded Foothills
SB:
1 Smash to Smithereens
3 Pyroblast
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Price of Progress
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