because Delver of Secrets was a mistake. R+D didn't realize how powerful it would actually be. they whiffed on it.
i agree with you that it is frustrating, but i wouldn't read this as a long term trend. its an anomaly, not a conscious decision.
To be fair, almost all of us dismissed the card at first. Even the pros had only lukewarm things to say about it. It took a month or two before Delver was incorporated into any semblance of a contemporary Delver deck. Delver of Secrets was created first and foremost as a top-down flavor card. Very few realized it had any use outside of limited.
Snapcaster Mage on the other hand is intentionally pushed and is one of the best creatures now. Yes, it is above the curve for a standard creature. However, realize that Snapcaster Mage is a one-time event and we will be waiting a long time before another blue creature of this caliber comes along.
why is the current game dominated by a deck that uses a blue creature as a beatdown tool.
whats next, a blue lightning bolt? a blue hymn to tourach?
This is about the third thread you're involved with explicitly stating you dislike blue. Its a splash color at best.
Delver is a mistake and SCM was suppose to be red, but its originator had to have it be blue. Delver also isn't a dominating deck, its just the most popular.
I'd rather lose to a 3/2 for U that requires 1/3 of the deck to be instants and sorceries than a constant wall of counterspells. Get rid of mana leak, nerf the counters, force snapcaster to higher casting cost targets and everything evens out.
Then we need to be prepared for them to admit to another mistake: Jace's Phantasm. R&D gave blue a dragon. Sure it has to jump through some hoops, but it's in the color now known for milling effects *cough*Thought Scour*cough* or the new one Mind Sculpt.
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Then we need to be prepared for them to admit to another mistake: Jace's Phantasm. R&D gave blue a dragon. Sure it has to jump through some hoops, but it's in the color now known for milling effects *cough*Thought Scour*cough* or the new one Mind Sculpt.
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I don't think Delver is a great creature on his own. With that said, there's no denying that he's an excellent creature beside a wall of cantrips, most especially Ponder (and Brainstorm in Legacy, but that's a different thread) to fix draws and filter instants and sorceries to the top of the deck. Without a fixer like that and Thought Scour, he's a high-risk, high-reward dude that's really kind of a dud. Once rotation hits, I expect him to be a lot weaker, though not outside playability.
I'm split on Jace's Phantasm, though I do expect it to be played in Delver Mirrors in the board for the next couple months until rotation.
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Jaces's Phantasm is pretty bad. Unlike delver you have to use bad cards for it to work. Milling is already the worst strategy in magic but you have flash back, reamnimator, and snapcaster.
If you really think blue has the best creatures then something must be off about your local meta. Just some creatures I currently consider to be much more annoying than Delver: Gravecrawler, Geralf's Messenger, Strangleroot Geist, Zealous Conscripts, Restoration Angel, Wurmcoil Engine, and etc.
Yeah its not so much that delver is the best creature, so much that Delver is the (or one of the) best decks. My current vote for best creature is Restoration Angel, which is in many different kinds of decks.
You can read about the design of Delver when it was first spoiled on the mothership. It originally said creatures, not instants and sorceries. They thought "creatures" was too powerful.
The 3/2 stat with flying is the real issue with this card. When it was spoiled the first deck I designed was UW with Delver, Snap and Geist. It was untuned and I never started playing it until it evolved out of the Illusions Aggro deck and Todd Anderson did all the hard work making a good list, but those creatures together were insanely powerful. They also all get stronger with instants and sorceries, blue's buff.
Either way this card was absurdly powerful in any form it existed in during development. Take that as you will, but this card was not a 'mistake' - it was clearly designed with power in mind.
The thing is blue is becoming more of an aggro/evasion color and losing a lot of its control and combo magic that made it so famous back in the day.
This is fine if wizards can get it to work in standard, but when you combine new blue with the blue in the old days, you end up with decks that can run almost all blue cards and still have answers for everything while running the best creatures.
For example, look at Innistrad Block Constructed. Delver and Snapcaster are hardly played at all. Why? Because there are not that many great blue instant and sorcery cards in the set. Blue is actually the least popular color in that block despite getting 3 insane creatures (Delver, Snapcaster, Geist).
But put those cards in legacy, alongside Force of Will, Brainstorm, and Daze and suddenly you have stupidly powerful aggro/tempo decks, not unlike standard delver variants.
why is the current game dominated by a deck that uses a blue creature as a beatdown tool.
whats next, a blue lightning bolt? a blue hymn to tourach?
now now .... one must learn tolerance
Blue is not dominating, it's putting up the most results but it varies from event to event what deck is the best. This week Zombies beat Delver in the finals, so how does that go into the figuring eh?
are you guys serious about Jace's Phantasm? that card is pretty narrow/bad. its no delver.
It isn't Delver, but it is a 1 drop blue creature that can be bigger than it should be. I have been testing it and can say I really like it and have found it to be strong in a pox build, run out their resources and slam it down as a dragon that can be protected, I also only run thought scour for mill and JP gets big fine. It fills a much different role than delver does, and does it well.
Delver just isn't the end all be all. He's just a 2 toughness, simple enough to take out with a LIST of cards. In the delver deck he's nice yes, but thats like saying gravecrawler is the BEST card. Yeah, hes wonderful in his deck.
Basically stop whining or stop playing the game. I mean, magic is what magic is, take or leave it.
Problem with delver is what he is standing next too.
Blue is supposed to be a reactive, slower color. Delver is exactly what it is not supposed to be. That in an of itself is fine every once and a while, sometimes breaking the color pie can be fun and balanced (not always)
Problem with the card is really when you put him next to other cards. Red which is supposed to be an aggressive color with aggressive small creatures does not have delver. They have reckless waif which is totally inferior to delver. To flip it you have to not play spells, which is what red wants to do, unlike blue who wants to play instants. It does not have evasion, and can be transformed back either by you or your opponent.
take a look at modern. Nactal was banned for being too powerful as a 3/3 for G, but it was a 3/3 that required you play land that dealt damage to you and play 3 specific colors, so its use was much more narrow in scope. Nactal is banned in that format but delver is not.
Move over to legacy. Delver is on par with what is considered to be the most aggressive creature ever printed, goblin guide. After 3 turns Delver is out damaging your opponent without any risk of giving your opponent card advantage of any sort. If the game goes longer delver can singlehandedly take it home for you and in legacy you can protect it.
Combine the fact that he is in the same color as snapcaster, which can take delvers so called weakness in that you have to use a bunch of instants and turn it into pure advantage. Also factor in that they share 2 subtypes.
I am actually one of the few people in the camp that believes delver should be banned and just regarded as a mistake. No it is not game breaking and no it is not a broken card, but it is an out and out mistake and it is a balance issue and there is precedent for banning it, at least in standard and modern.
Snapcaster is at least less likely to take the game on the ground in 10 turns and if it is the only viable blue creature it plays more like a regrowth for blue, which is probably fine. Paired with delver it becomes problematic.
Giest is likewise more in flavor for white blue than delver is for blue.
Giest is likewise more in flavor for white blue than delver is for blue.
I'm sorry, but I completely disagree with this. Blue and White got a Hexproof Ball Lightning with flying that isn't sacraficed at the end of the turn. Or it's a Char that's suspended for a turn with no damage done to yourself.
Posts like these make me honestly question how anyone can claim that
A) Delver as a deck isn't the best deck in the current standard card pool
B) Delver is the best deck by a margin in any given field
C) Your "amazing matchup" against Delver is anywhere near 50%
I'm sorry, but I completely disagree with this. Blue and White got a Hexproof Ball Lightning with flying that isn't sacraficed at the end of the turn. Or it's a Char that's suspended for a turn with no damage done to yourself.
Yea it is just like ball lightning, Except without haste or trample with an easier casting cost than triple red and 2 bodies instead of one which are individually easier to block and also a legend. Not a comparison I would make.
Blue is the hexproof color (or at least in league with green for that) and white is the small efficient damage dealer color, and it also seems to be the color that has creatures that bring friends (blade splicer, Attended Knight, captain of the watch). I think that geist is way more in line with those 2 colors than a 3 power, 1 cmc flyer in a color that used to have to pay 2U just to get a 2/3 that couldn't block non flyers which was considered playable at times. For 1 blue mana, top of the totem pole used to be a flying men or a 1/1 ground creature with an activated ability that would sometimes be strong.
why is the current game dominated by a deck that uses a blue creature as a beatdown tool.
whats next, a blue lightning bolt? a blue hymn to tourach?
aka Prey Upon
i agree with you that it is frustrating, but i wouldn't read this as a long term trend. its an anomaly, not a conscious decision.
To be fair, almost all of us dismissed the card at first. Even the pros had only lukewarm things to say about it. It took a month or two before Delver was incorporated into any semblance of a contemporary Delver deck. Delver of Secrets was created first and foremost as a top-down flavor card. Very few realized it had any use outside of limited.
Snapcaster Mage on the other hand is intentionally pushed and is one of the best creatures now. Yes, it is above the curve for a standard creature. However, realize that Snapcaster Mage is a one-time event and we will be waiting a long time before another blue creature of this caliber comes along.
This is about the third thread you're involved with explicitly stating you dislike blue. Its a splash color at best.
Delver is a mistake and SCM was suppose to be red, but its originator had to have it be blue. Delver also isn't a dominating deck, its just the most popular.
Secondly, The mosquito isnt a problem by himself, its giving blue a creature like that on top of everything else that is the problem.
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I'm split on Jace's Phantasm, though I do expect it to be played in Delver Mirrors in the board for the next couple months until rotation.
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Modern:
- GW Birthing Pod(?)
Legacy:
- UWR Delver
The 3/2 stat with flying is the real issue with this card. When it was spoiled the first deck I designed was UW with Delver, Snap and Geist. It was untuned and I never started playing it until it evolved out of the Illusions Aggro deck and Todd Anderson did all the hard work making a good list, but those creatures together were insanely powerful. They also all get stronger with instants and sorceries, blue's buff.
Either way this card was absurdly powerful in any form it existed in during development. Take that as you will, but this card was not a 'mistake' - it was clearly designed with power in mind.
This is fine if wizards can get it to work in standard, but when you combine new blue with the blue in the old days, you end up with decks that can run almost all blue cards and still have answers for everything while running the best creatures.
For example, look at Innistrad Block Constructed. Delver and Snapcaster are hardly played at all. Why? Because there are not that many great blue instant and sorcery cards in the set. Blue is actually the least popular color in that block despite getting 3 insane creatures (Delver, Snapcaster, Geist).
But put those cards in legacy, alongside Force of Will, Brainstorm, and Daze and suddenly you have stupidly powerful aggro/tempo decks, not unlike standard delver variants.
Blue is not dominating, it's putting up the most results but it varies from event to event what deck is the best. This week Zombies beat Delver in the finals, so how does that go into the figuring eh?
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It isn't Delver, but it is a 1 drop blue creature that can be bigger than it should be. I have been testing it and can say I really like it and have found it to be strong in a pox build, run out their resources and slam it down as a dragon that can be protected, I also only run thought scour for mill and JP gets big fine. It fills a much different role than delver does, and does it well.
Needs moar Delver.
Basically stop whining or stop playing the game. I mean, magic is what magic is, take or leave it.
Blue is supposed to be a reactive, slower color. Delver is exactly what it is not supposed to be. That in an of itself is fine every once and a while, sometimes breaking the color pie can be fun and balanced (not always)
Problem with the card is really when you put him next to other cards. Red which is supposed to be an aggressive color with aggressive small creatures does not have delver. They have reckless waif which is totally inferior to delver. To flip it you have to not play spells, which is what red wants to do, unlike blue who wants to play instants. It does not have evasion, and can be transformed back either by you or your opponent.
take a look at modern. Nactal was banned for being too powerful as a 3/3 for G, but it was a 3/3 that required you play land that dealt damage to you and play 3 specific colors, so its use was much more narrow in scope. Nactal is banned in that format but delver is not.
Move over to legacy. Delver is on par with what is considered to be the most aggressive creature ever printed, goblin guide. After 3 turns Delver is out damaging your opponent without any risk of giving your opponent card advantage of any sort. If the game goes longer delver can singlehandedly take it home for you and in legacy you can protect it.
Combine the fact that he is in the same color as snapcaster, which can take delvers so called weakness in that you have to use a bunch of instants and turn it into pure advantage. Also factor in that they share 2 subtypes.
I am actually one of the few people in the camp that believes delver should be banned and just regarded as a mistake. No it is not game breaking and no it is not a broken card, but it is an out and out mistake and it is a balance issue and there is precedent for banning it, at least in standard and modern.
Snapcaster is at least less likely to take the game on the ground in 10 turns and if it is the only viable blue creature it plays more like a regrowth for blue, which is probably fine. Paired with delver it becomes problematic.
Giest is likewise more in flavor for white blue than delver is for blue.
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I'm sorry, but I completely disagree with this. Blue and White got a Hexproof Ball Lightning with flying that isn't sacraficed at the end of the turn. Or it's a Char that's suspended for a turn with no damage done to yourself.
Posts like these make me honestly question how anyone can claim that
A) Delver as a deck isn't the best deck in the current standard card pool
B) Delver is the best deck by a margin in any given field
C) Your "amazing matchup" against Delver is anywhere near 50%
Yea it is just like ball lightning, Except without haste or trample with an easier casting cost than triple red and 2 bodies instead of one which are individually easier to block and also a legend. Not a comparison I would make.
Blue is the hexproof color (or at least in league with green for that) and white is the small efficient damage dealer color, and it also seems to be the color that has creatures that bring friends (blade splicer, Attended Knight, captain of the watch). I think that geist is way more in line with those 2 colors than a 3 power, 1 cmc flyer in a color that used to have to pay 2U just to get a 2/3 that couldn't block non flyers which was considered playable at times. For 1 blue mana, top of the totem pole used to be a flying men or a 1/1 ground creature with an activated ability that would sometimes be strong.
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