The Delver deck type, which is
currently dominating every pro tour since it's becoming in late 2011
has been held highly as one of the best decks to ever have been made.
But is this true? Of course a turn two 3/2 with flying is amazing,
but it's getting to that point which makes Delver an insufficient
deck. If one can't rely on a Ponder to rig their next turn, they have
an, at minimum, 1/3 chance of having their Delver flip, as the deck
runs at least twenty instants and sorcerys in the sixty card deck.
Having to rely on luck of the draw, as with Miracles, makes Magic a
game less about skill, and more about luck. I have personalty built
and tested three Delver decks, one being my own, the other being
Gerry Thompsons “Meta breaker”, and finally the nineteen land
Delver deck that won a pro tour a few weeks ago. With all of these
decks I realized that if I didn't get set up with something within
the first three to four turns, I was hosed hard. What good is a
Delver against a 6/6 Titan? Or a Mana Leak against someone with ten
or more land? Sure I can use a Snap Caster to re use my graveyard,
but this in turn weakens the Rune Chanters Pike and causes me to miss
plays in order to make sure my opponent cant make theirs. There are other color splashes of Delver, including red/blue which can
stomp hard as long as it gets it's Bonfire of the Damned and Delvers
out, which continues to show that it's a deck that needs luck, rather than skill.
With the introduction of Restoration
Angel, one is now able to flash in and bounce a Snap Caster already
in play to get a second effect off him, and for four mana, a ¾ flier
with flash is good in itself. But in a deck that relies on a card
that needs a chance effect to flip itself and is also reliant on a
single mana color needing to splash into a second to even run
Restoration Angel, it makes little sense besides being a saving grace
for a Go for the Throat or Tragic Slip.
Going back to the whole “speed”
issue, one will notice that if they don't get a nigh perfect hand,
they won't stand a chance in the long run after their first few
turns. If you cannot get at least one Delver out and flipped by turn
two or three, you will be sitting still attempting to Gitaxian Probe,
Thought Scour and Ponder yourself into any creature or other removal
spell what so ever. There are times where you can hold off your
opponent, yes, but that doesn't negate the other amount of time where
you are doing absolutely nothing but milling and killing yourself,
which makes the deck unreliable. Yes, the deck is known for it's
extremely good opening hand draws, but as with every deck if you
don't get a hand with at least a land and a Delver you are going to
be sitting pretty for a while.
I'm currently personally sold on my
Esper Sun Titan build for a multitude of reasons, but the main one
being that it is able to hold back and stomp Delver. As long as I
have three land, I can play Lingering Souls to block, Forbidden
Alchemy to dump and pull, Lilliana to kill, Image's to copy, the list
goes on. I will most likely, but not always, be able to hold out past
the mana leak range and get out my Gideons, Titans, and Elesh Norn.
Even if Delver manages to get itself into gear and get three flipped
Delvers coming at me for nine, I always have a Day of Judgment handy
to stop them in their tracks. Delver has too many answers being run,
and it makes the deck almost meta unreliable. Even Wizard of the
Coast have told that Delver decks have a 50/50 chance of winning
because there are so many of them being played, and with that high
amount comes decks such as mine which are meant to destroy Delver
where it stands.
Maybe some day there will be a Delver
deck that can beat past the luck of the draw that the deck relies on
so heavily. But with the 2012 core set and Ponder rotating out within
the next three months, that just seems highly unlikely. Without
Ponder, the deck is almost nothing. There's no way to cheat the draw,
as Ponder is the only way to get past the 1/3 chance that Delver
needs to function. But this is just me ranting, what do I know?
