Since KTK was spoiled, all eyes fell straight upon the new delve mechanic. However, people have mostly focused on TC and Hooting Mandrills, and seem to forget that black also got 2 toys: Shambling Attendants and Sultai Scavenger.
Now, in order to play those, you must play U, since all the best self-mill cards are in that color. In fact, with delve, cards like Careful Study, Mental Note and Thought Scour become Dark Rituals with a kicker, which is pretty based.
On the other hand, playing with your graveyard also enable plenty of synergies and mechanics:
- Delve (duh)
- Retrace (Oona's Grace and Raven's Crime)
- Flashback
- Regrowth-like spells (Return x card from your gy to your hand). In particular, my new favorite card: Grim Discovery.
Grim Discovery is a card that is often overlooked, but really shines in a self milling type of deck. Not only it makes discarding to Careful Study or Retrace easier, but it also allows us to run fewer creatures and more instants and sorceries. And more spells makes Delver Happy.
NOTE: Sideboard is only a placeholder and doesn't reflect the decks performance or matchups.
Scavenger often comes as soon as T2 (t1 island -> mill spell, t2 -> mill spell, swamp, scavenger). There's, however, no possible play to dump it in t2 to follow up a t1 delver, even if you play Dream Twist (which is a pretty interesting card btw).
The land and creature count may seem too low, but in my tests, with half the deck being card draw, I've never had much problem finding them. I'm not running fetchlands, as I have found they make the deck much slower than it needs to be and I don't need those to feed delve, but I'm still not 100% sure on the current manabase.
I'm not sold on the killspells list either. Crippling Fatigue looks really tempting, but hitting BB might not be worth it. Ghastly Demise, OTOH is a real MVP here.
Finally, I wish there were efficient ways to get value from instants and sorceries in the graveyard. I wish snappy were here.
I was hoping someone would post a U/B version of this archetype since we already had the U/G thread.
I feel like you really should go for Crippling Fatigue as part of your removal package with Ghastly Demise. The best thing about Fatigue is you want it to get to the GY, so if you mill it then that's good! If you mill Disfigure or Diabolic Edict, then they are only good for Delving. Maybe 4 Demise and 3 Fatigue can really give you a strong removal game if you can find the space for 1 extra removal card.
Grim Discovery is a nice card here since it gives you some nice card advantage while recovering some lands and threats that might have been milled. I agree that it is often overlooked, but it can be an all star in this style of deck.
I feel the land count is pretty good, especially since you pretty much curve out at 2 lands. That's one thing that's amazing about Delve, it keeps your curve low while still giving you a lot of value. I would, however, like to see Evolving Wilds in the deck since it can help fix you mana AND fill up your GY. Maybe cut 2 Backwaters or even switch all of them out for Wilds.
Archaeomancer is the snappy for Pauper, but the cost and double Blue is tough to pull off for this deck, so it might not be what you want. Mnemonic Wall has an easier cost, but is even higher on the curve than Mancer. Déjà Vu is also an option, but it can only grab sorceries. Overall, I think you have to just accept the fact that you'll be losing some card to milling and not worry about finding the space for these options.
Have you considered Forbidden Alchemy for the deck? Or perhaps 3 mana is too high for the effect?
Great idea for the Zombie sub-theme! Ghoulcaller's Chant is a fantastic card in this type of deck. Nameless Inversion is an underrated removal spell in this format, while the Attendants are highly resilient due to their toughness.
If you'd go for a more controlling build that focuses on clearing the field of threats and finishing with a Shambling Attendant, then I'd go all in on the removal and self-mill suite.
If you don't opt for the Zombie route I'd have at least 4 more efficient beaters that aren't reliant on Delve since you already have 8 Delve cards. I would also try to fit in more counters like 3 Mana Leak and a Exclude, which protect your low beater count while contributing to filling the graveyard.
Now, in order to play those, you must play U, since all the best self-mill cards are in that color. In fact, with delve, cards like Careful Study, Mental Note and Thought Scour become Dark Rituals with a kicker, which is pretty based.
On the other hand, playing with your graveyard also enable plenty of synergies and mechanics:
- Delve (duh)
- Retrace (Oona's Grace and Raven's Crime)
- Flashback
- Regrowth-like spells (Return x card from your gy to your hand). In particular, my new favorite card: Grim Discovery.
Grim Discovery is a card that is often overlooked, but really shines in a self milling type of deck. Not only it makes discarding to Careful Study or Retrace easier, but it also allows us to run fewer creatures and more instants and sorceries. And more spells makes Delver Happy.
An early draft of the deck would look like this:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Sultai Scavenger
Self Mill (11)
4 Careful Study
4 Thought Scour
3 Mental Note
Disruption (9)
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Prohibit
1 Raven's Crime
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Disfigure
4 Treasure Cruise
4 Ponder
4 Grim Discovery
Lands (20)
10 Island
6 Swamp
4 Dismal Backwater
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Dead Weight
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Duress
2 Echoing Decay
2 Shrivel
2 Hydroblast
NOTE: Sideboard is only a placeholder and doesn't reflect the decks performance or matchups.
Scavenger often comes as soon as T2 (t1 island -> mill spell, t2 -> mill spell, swamp, scavenger). There's, however, no possible play to dump it in t2 to follow up a t1 delver, even if you play Dream Twist (which is a pretty interesting card btw).
The land and creature count may seem too low, but in my tests, with half the deck being card draw, I've never had much problem finding them. I'm not running fetchlands, as I have found they make the deck much slower than it needs to be and I don't need those to feed delve, but I'm still not 100% sure on the current manabase.
I'm not sold on the killspells list either. Crippling Fatigue looks really tempting, but hitting BB might not be worth it. Ghastly Demise, OTOH is a real MVP here.
Finally, I wish there were efficient ways to get value from instants and sorceries in the graveyard. I wish snappy were here.
I feel like you really should go for Crippling Fatigue as part of your removal package with Ghastly Demise. The best thing about Fatigue is you want it to get to the GY, so if you mill it then that's good! If you mill Disfigure or Diabolic Edict, then they are only good for Delving. Maybe 4 Demise and 3 Fatigue can really give you a strong removal game if you can find the space for 1 extra removal card.
Grim Discovery is a nice card here since it gives you some nice card advantage while recovering some lands and threats that might have been milled. I agree that it is often overlooked, but it can be an all star in this style of deck.
I feel the land count is pretty good, especially since you pretty much curve out at 2 lands. That's one thing that's amazing about Delve, it keeps your curve low while still giving you a lot of value. I would, however, like to see Evolving Wilds in the deck since it can help fix you mana AND fill up your GY. Maybe cut 2 Backwaters or even switch all of them out for Wilds.
Archaeomancer is the snappy for Pauper, but the cost and double Blue is tough to pull off for this deck, so it might not be what you want. Mnemonic Wall has an easier cost, but is even higher on the curve than Mancer. Déjà Vu is also an option, but it can only grab sorceries. Overall, I think you have to just accept the fact that you'll be losing some card to milling and not worry about finding the space for these options.
Have you considered Forbidden Alchemy for the deck? Or perhaps 3 mana is too high for the effect?
This last comment is more of a stretch/brainstorming idea. It would be interesting to have Shambling Attendants over the Scavenger, then Nameless Inversion and Ghoulcaller's Chant in this deck to have strong recursion of removal and threats along with CA. If we can find another Zombie with good GY interaction then we'd have a nice sub-theme for the deck. Maybe Armored Skaab, Necromancer's Assistant, Putrid Imp or Screeching Skaab.
Great idea for the Zombie sub-theme! Ghoulcaller's Chant is a fantastic card in this type of deck. Nameless Inversion is an underrated removal spell in this format, while the Attendants are highly resilient due to their toughness.
If you'd go for a more controlling build that focuses on clearing the field of threats and finishing with a Shambling Attendant, then I'd go all in on the removal and self-mill suite.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
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