MTG Salvation

Quote from Valanarch »

How is Mentor better against Abrupt Decay and similar removal than Geist? Geist ignores Abrupt Decay completely. Mentor dies to it. Even if it leaves behind tokens, a 3 mana creature is never better against Abrupt Decay than a 3 mana creature with Hexproof. However, I agree with the rest of your post. We are the Delver deck that is hurt the least from the bans, though losing Dig I think knocked us down to tier 2 when we would have been tier 1 if we still had it and Pod was gone.

I didn't fully articulate my thought process. Obviously Geist is better heads-up against Abrupt Decay. However, against the BG/x decks there are times when you simply can't attack profitably because they have too many blockers. Geist also loses heads up to Liliana.

So what I should have said was "Mentor has some advantages against the Abrupt Decay deck". Notably, it can create relevant blockers when you're on the backfoot, and can get around a single blocker on their end pretty easily as well. It also has resilience against Liliana and Lingering Souls, and against their general plan of "kill everything you play". I'm not really sure which card will be better overall against Junk decks, but Mentor is pretty exciting. It's possible that the Pyro/Mentor deck ends up being more of a midrange deck with a slower pace and more card advantage via Cryptics and whatnot. We'll see.

So I definitely think WUR Delver will benefit the most from these bans out of all the Delver variants. Losing Kitchen Finks as a frequent blocker and possibly seeing more Bobs across the table instead bodes well for our favorite Geist. Additionally, Helix and Path get a lot better now that Pod isn't around and we don't need to focus so much on the cheapest most efficient spells to fuel Cruise. Seeing as Burn, Affinity, and Abzan will take up a decent share of the meta, it looks like a good time to be in Red White and Blue colors.

The way I see it, there are two paths we can go down from here. The first is to go hyper-aggro, and perhaps adopt Steppe Lynx again to flood the board with aggressive 1-drops and win as fast as possible. I like this idea, but I tend to think it's still risky.

The other option is to go a bit more midrangey and play some number of Pyromancers, Monastery Mentors, and Geists. It will be hard to choose which 2-3 drops to run from that list of options, but I tend to think the token generators will continue to shine even in the post-cruise format. Monastery Mentor in general looks to be pretty insane, and could easily be good enough to replace Geist or at least relegate him to the sideboard. Mentor is better against Abrupt Decay and similar removal, and having access to 8 token generators really adds resilience to the deck.

Additionally, we got Snapcaster back in the limelight, which makes me even more excited about grinding people out with tokens.

I'll be testing a variety of decks in the coming weeks, but I certainly expect some sort of Jeskai Delver deck to be one of them. Cheers to less Kitchen Finkses and Voices of Resurgence in the metagame.

Quote from TOXICjoker »

Personally I don't see BBE as a huge problem - she dies to every removal spell (which is why rhino is such a problem) and as long as we have a way to gain cardadvantage (cruise ban...) in the mid- and lategame we should be fine.

Philip

Eh. I mean it's not the end of the world, but you might be a bit foggy on how good BBE is. Sure, you can bolt him. But if he brought a Goyf or Scooze or Cat to the party, you're still facing down another blocker/attacker. Goyf in particular is an insane cascade target. Barring that, they probably got a removal spell or discard spell off against you, which is also pretty bad depending on the situation. Rhino + Helix to the face is bad enough, but Helix on your guy is generally harder to come back from. Ditto for any other removal spell.

BBE can be mitigated, and is certainly easier to deal with than Rhino once in play. But it's still a huge thorn for any fair deck to fight through.

Quote from Valanarch »

How bad would a BBE unban be for the more Midrange WUR variants? Would it be worse than Siege Rhino for us?

Probably not, but I think it depends. BBE into Lingering Souls or Lightning Helix would most often be just as bad, but in some situations you won't care what they cascade into as long as they aren't gaining life. I do think BBE is the better card still, but not by much. Not having trample and not guaranteeing an immediate damage swing does mean you often have more time to recover, but at the same time BBE into Goyf or Scooze is pretty gross, and we likely can't deal with that very well either.

In general I'd probably rather see my opponent cast BBE over Rhino on turn 4. It's much less likely that they gain life, and either way the board will swing in their favor, but at least I can block Elf and still Burn them out. The key difference is definitely the lifegain on Rhino, and how much that matters in your average game. It's much harder to Race a Rhino to the finish than your typical BBE cascade I would think. I'd be a little surprised if Bloodbraid came back, but it's an exciting proposition.

Quote from Valanarch »

Honestly, if Cruise and Pod both get banned, I think that that helps us. Dig is easy enough to run in WUR, UR Delver will see less play so the hate for us will decrease, and one of our worst matchups will be gone.

I tend to agree. I would miss Cruise, but the lack of it would indeed give us a bit more room to breathe in the meta space between other Delver decks and the Twin/Midrange U/R decks, which would also gain a bit from a Cruise ban. Losing Pod would obviously be huge, but if that happens we are likely to see an uptick in Burn, Zoo, and B/G decks, so it could be a wash. Either way, I'm all for less Pod, but I'm not wishing any bans on any one at this time. We'll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile I'm sniping up extra copies of Ancestral Vision just in case.

I think there is a chance that both Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time get banned, but I do think (and hope) that it's more likely they let Dig stick around for awhile in the wake of Cruise's absence. I think the most likely candidates for banning are Birthing Pod + Cruise, followed by maybe Ascendancy and Dig. In any case, I'm just going to wait and see what happens before I worry about switching my decks around. Assuming they do ban Cruise but leave Dig alone, than I will switch to a version of Delver that is closer to what Valanarch and co. are running. I will probably still try to keep it as aggressive as possible, but I imagine there will be less incentive to play cards like Thought Scour and Forked Bolt, so there will likely be more room for stuff like Lightning Helix. I might even try out a singleton Isochron Scepter for awhile, just because it's so fun.

If Cruise stays legal, I will keep experimenting with the light splashes of RUG and WUR Delver. I also intend to test out Twin and Scapeshift with Dig Through Time, again depending on what happens this Friday. But regardless of what happens, I'm pretty sure some version of WUR Midrange or Delver will be viable for the foreseeable future. We'll just have to see where the meta ends up after this week's announcement.

Quote from toroks »

I think playing Vapor Snags instead of Path to Exile is a big mistake. We've seen time and time again (not least in Omaha) that snag is not a good enough answer to the Rhinos, Finks, Restos, Wurmcoils, Obstinate Baloths, Primeval titans, goyfs etc. that are running around.

And yet, the only WUR Delver deck that cracked the top 32 was doing exactly that, Vapor Snag over Path. Kinda hard to criticize this choice when we haven't actually seen a deck loaded up with Paths and Helices do as well lately.

Look, I'm not going to tell anyone that their deck choices are incorrect simply because I think another option is better or more competitive in my expected field, or in the grander scheme. If it's working for you, keep it up. Ain't broke don't fix it. Etc.

BUT, I am tired of people debating the proper naming of decks based on a few different card choices. If a deck plays 3 colors, it plays 3 colors, period. I don't really care if you call it WUR Delver or UR/x Geist, it's the same deck.

I realize there is a difference between the GP Omaha list and what most people are used to or prefer playing. And again, if those lists are working out for you, all the more power to you. But if the objectively best list differs from the heavier, more midrangey classic version, than I'm still going to push to recommend those lists and post them up on this forum as leading examples. It's one thing to say "I 4-0ed my FNM with this deck." It's another to say "This guy cashed a GP and is now on the pro tour because of this deck".

Valanarch, no one is disrespecting your list. If I have in the past, I apologize, but it wasn't my intention. However, if I feel that the faster and more streamlined version of WUR Delver (what you call UR/x) is the better choice, and the results back up my hunches, than I'm going to recommend that list over the other options. And my own experience with this deck since the early days of Classic WUR Delver has been that we want to play the fastest and most efficient spells in the format. At the time, Path and Helix were those spells. But Treasure Cruise and Young Pyro and Swiftspear have changed the format, and now there is greater incentive to run even more efficient and proactive spells. Which is why the version listed above foregos the Paths and Helixes that would make the deck more "WUR" in your opinion. Those spells are great, and still do plenty of heavy lifting in this meta, but Mark Hinez is just one example proving they may not be necessary right now.

But the point is, it's still a Jeskai/WUR deck. He might only have 9 spells in the 75 that are white, but he still has to fetch white every game and he still casting Geist of Saint Traft. And yes, the Junk deck was largely separated from the BG/x Souls deck on these threads, but that shouldn't actually dictate what we are allowed to discuss here. I've always had issues with how MTGS names their deck threads, and it's been a battle for ages. But now that we have Jeskai along with Jund to describe our color pies and wedges, I really think it's silly to split hairs. 4color Burn decks might only play one black spell, two white spells and one blue spell, yet they are still 4 colors. Junk Souls is how I would describe the BG/x deck the entire time I played it, regardless of MTGS's naming convention, and I never put Path in that deck either.

In the end, it comes down to placement. This thread is for any Delver deck that plays Jeskai colors, so all versions will be discussed here. As I said in my original post, let's coexist in peace. There's no reason to fight over different versions. Just look at the U/R and RUG Twin thread. They all get along fine.

Quote from Valanarch »

It is a great UR Delver deck, but 3 maindeck white cards and 6 sideboard cards does not make a deck WUR.

LOL.

I'm not going to take the bait on this Valanarch. You can call it what you want. It's a 3-color deck Delver deck, henceforth it is a WUR deck. I'm well aware that your version is much more white-heavy, and it sounds like it's been working out for you, so I'm by no means going to try and sway you that this version is better. It is, however, still a Jeskai deck, and both versions should be allowed to coexist on this thread.

Nice to see we cracked the top 32:




This is my kind of build!

Yeah I tend to think Reality Shift has a worse downside than Path on average. Giving them a 2/2 blocker basically blanks half our threats, and it's even worse if it's a relevant card that they can flip up at any point. Card is definitely outside the box, but it's not much different than Rapid Hybridization in most cases. I don't see it making a huge splash in our deck, as 2-for-1ing ourselves is never ideal, and giving them a land (while often bad) is generally much better than giving them a dude.

Quote from Valanarch »

Admittedly, sometimes it does have a couple green creatures with a mix of white ones, but Geist is still getting in for 8 even if it is blocked by a Wall of Roots or a Birds of Paradise.

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Vapor Snag doesn't stop Geist and you can pay the 2 mana.

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Against some decks you will lose before you can connect twice with Geist, but there are a ton of decks (Pod, Delver, Twin, and BGx being prime examples) that could block it and won't kill you in 2 turns. Emerge changes that.

Vapor Snag stops the Angel, which generally nullifies the power of Geist for a turn, even if you get through with a 2/2 unblockable. Assuming you are racing, 4 damage is pretty significant. And yea you can usually pay the 2 extra mana for Spell Pierce but it limits your ability to cast other spells or defend yourself after your turn is past.

In any case, I won't deny that Emerge Unscathed can be strong against a cluttered board when you have an active Geist. I still like the flexibility of the other options, but there are certainly times where Emerge Unscathed could potentially be game-ending if you can string together the back-to-back attack.

All I said was that I think Emerge Unscathed gets more playable with the addition of Monastery Mentor to the Modern card pool. Just because it might theoretically be AS GOOD with Geist does not mean that it's not better now, due to their being more incentive to play it alongside another 3-drop in our colors. So regardless of whether Emerge + Geist or Emerge + Mentor is the better pairing (subjective material at best), there is probably a greater chance people play Emerge in the future due to the token/Rebound interaction now that we have twice as many token engines looking for spells on the stack.

I get that pushing through Geist for 12 against a field of Elementals or all Green or all White creatures is great. I know that 12 damage is essentially game winning in the 12-bolt Delver/Burn deck. This is common knowledge. I don't necessarily agree that Pod usually has all white or all green creatures, or that Delver won't have a relevant way to interact with the Geist/Emerge combo and mount a lethal counterattack (Spell Pierce or Vapor Snag come to mind). But if that's how it plays out for you, all the more reason for you to keep running Emerge in your version. In my experience, when I'm linking two attacks together for the win with Geist, it doesn't need much support beyond the usual tempo tricks that we have, whether it be bolting a blocker before/during combat, Vapor Snagging something, or otherwise clearing the way for Geist. Usually, Geist is either dealt with or it's game over, or you lose before you have a chance to connect twice due to combo or a counterattack, so I still see Emerge Unscathed as a win-more combination with him. Often he's at his best against a Combo player with no relevant interaction, so it's elementary to attack twice uncontested. If you're in a grindier match, I agree that Emerge can be stellar, but as I've said before I would normally prefer other interaction, since Geist is quite durable on his own without needing the help, and I'd rather my other cards answer different problems beyond just Faltering a blocker. To me, all that changes when my 3-drop pays me twice for saving it from a removal spell or pushing it through blocks, especially when that 3-drop can spiral out of control after a few turns (just like Geist) but doesn't have built-in durability (unlike Geist).

Most likely, Emerge Unscathed (and cycle friends like Staggershock and Distortion Strike) is still going to be a fringe card at best post-Fate Reforged, but there is a small chance it becomes mainstream. For that reason, I'm going to hunt for foil copies of it and all Rebound spells that might be relevant. It's only a matter of time before they go up in value anyway, and Mentor + Pyro is huge incentive to play them again.

What if pod has a redcap and a finks in play? Mentor + Emerge starts looking a lot better there.

My thought is that when you are swinging for the fences with Geist and pushing for 12 damage by turn 5, you generally are uncontested, such as against combo or targeted control, therefore Emerge is less necessary. But when you grinding it out against a creature deck like Pod, Emerge can be a blowout play on defense or offense that just gains you hella value via Mentor/Pyro.

Disagree. Triggering Mentor twice is potentially more value than just pushing through Geist, especially when you are on the defensive. I wouldn't have run Emerge before for the reasons I already memtioned, but with both Pyro and mentor in the same deck, the Rebound mechanic starts to get a lot better.

I'd have to think that Emerge Unscathed just got a lot better too. Might be time to get some foils.