Modern development philosophy is that everyone gets undercosted powerful effects every so often; even if Blue is the least creature-focused color, Blue is the color of aggressive evasive guys (I.e., flying costs less in Blue than in other colors that get flying at common) and as of the last color pie shift, of illusions which are undercosted for their fragility (Similarly to how Black gets undercosted guys that have some onerous drawback and Red gets undercosted guys that have low toughness). Delver makes total sense in Blue on almost every level, to me, and in many ways, Delver just makes the "Fish" mono-blue aggro decks that have been viable in Legacy for ages possible in Pauper and Standard. If anything might deserve a ban in Pauper, it's probably broken-ass enablers like Gush and Brainstorm, or maybe every god damn land-untapping mistake from Urza's block.
There is a very significant, onerous cost to having Delver of Secrets in your deck: You're limited in how many creatures you can play. The threat density in Delver is very low, and cheap, card-advantage generating removal just destroys more aggro-oriented Delver decks, because they just can't put pressure on an opponent very well if they can't stick and protect their early threats. Besides, the metagame seems to have compensated for the card and is now perfectly healthy. Here's the latest daily:
Mono-blue Post (4-0)
Mono-blue Delver (4-0)
"Dead Dog" Mono-green aggro (3-1)
Mono-blue Delver (3-1)
Mono-green Infect (3-1)
"Rats" Mono-black control (3-1)
Mono-green Post (3-1)
White Weenie (3-1)
Izzet Post (3-1)
Izzet Post (3-1)
So, two decks showed up more than once in the lists. Only one of those uses Delver. If anything, Cloudpost is a much more oppressive card than Delver is, and even then, this looks like a very healthy metagame to me. We went through a week where everybody was playing Delver, then the collective adapted...
Notice: Blue is the most played color on that list (5/10), and presumably, most or all run Gush. Dead Dog can pretty much only thrive in a controlling/disruptive meta, since it chews up decks that try to stop it.
Gush needs to go, though I think Delver is fine. Delver, unfortunately, did manage to break Legacy. We're probably gonna see Delver, Snapcaster Mage, or Brainstorm eat a ban there. The fact that delver is even considered to be in the same area of power as those cards is unsettling for me.
Wait...is that...Mono Green Post? I've played against it before, it never seemed to be any good though.
And, only one deck ran Gush, and it ran only one copy! Post decks, mono-blue or otherwise, don't consistently play enough Islands for Gush to be good, and they really don't want to be bouncing their mana anyway.
And yes, Blue is very powerful, but it's not to do with any one card. The only card that the Delver decks have in common with the Post decks is Counterspell (And Island, which I have to point out is totally broken). The decks are totally different; all five colors see play; there are two mono-blue decks that have been making a strong showing, and every other deck is either multi-color or non-blue. The match-ups against Delver are totally different from the match-ups against Mono-blue or Izzet Post. I don't think Blue is a problem in this format, and it's certainly better than Legacy, where playing non-blue is almost a novelty. Aggro, control, combo and tempo are all viable. Decks run the gamut from superfast to superbig. I don't think this metagame is even one tenth as degenerate as, say, Modern was last year.
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Any given metagame will STRUGGLE to be as degenerate as Modern ever was, tbh. At every point in it's lifespan (save for the post 12post, but pre combo bans) there has been at least one degenerate strategy (Hypergen/Elves, 12post, assorted combo, Zoo), and even the current format isn't exactly the healthiest (primarily Bant, Pod, and Storm).
One of them ran a single gush, actually. It's not a good card for post decks, which are too busy putting down their broken cloud/glimmer post lands to get many islands into play.
Yeeeerp. Honestly, we could just erase all the land-untapping mistakes from Urza's block and be done with it - no Cloud of Faeries, no Snap, and suddenly, Delver decks have to play fair again, instead of "Play a threat, untap my mana, counter your spell WITH a threat, draw cards without paying mana, untap, bounce my counterspell/threat by playing an uncounterable, hasted threat that draws me cards..."
People are overly-focused on Delver. Delver just gave a quality one-drop to a Faeries deck that was already doing exceedingly well just off the interaction between Cloud of Faeries / Spellstutter Sprite / Ninja of the Deep Hours.
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For what it's worth, I was drawn to the format recently because I thought it was diverse and "fair" compared to, say, Legacy or Vintage.
Compared to pretty much ANY format, Pauper is probably one of the healthiest. The power levels are high, but the nature of commons is inherently opposed to degenerate strategies. The tier 1 is pretty much as large as the entire tier 1/1.5 roster for the last year has been for legacy.
Yeah, we've had recent 3-1 and 4-0s in the past month or so from (to my recollection):
Mono-red Goblins
Mono-red burn
Storm (mono-red and three-color grapeshot/empty the warrens)
Storm (uwb temporal thingy)
Storm (UG temporal flux with land enchantments)
Blue Delver
Blue 8post
blue/red 8post
blue/black 8 post i think
green 8 post
green weenie horde stompy (1 and 2 casting cost creatures and pump spells)
green infect
white weenie
blue/red with blue/red creatures and clout of the dominus
white/green arma cloak (both efficient creatures and hexproof)
white/black tortured existence/auramancer
Mono-black control
Affinity
That's 18 different decks pretty much off of the top of my head.
I did list MBC there. The u/r deck is basically a delver aggro deck with the steam hoppers and so on in place of bears and stitched drakes; I don't think the version that placed a few times even had red mana in it.
The white/black tortured deck has been in there more lately (though a green/black placed in a couple events yesterday); it's much more control-oriented and less of a beatdown deck than the green/black one. I should probably post about it here; it's been all over the tourney practice room lately. It munches creature-based aggro decks (4 dead weight, 4 spitters, and 4 stinkweeds sees to that) and makes MBC cry, is surprisingly solid against u/r post, but dies horribly to affinity and greenpost. Haven't played enough against storm to have a good sense there.
I did list MBC there. The u/r deck is basically a delver aggro deck with the steam hoppers and so on in place of bears and stitched drakes; I don't think the version that placed a few times even had red mana in it.
The white/black tortured deck has been in there more lately (though a green/black placed in a couple events yesterday); it's much more control-oriented and less of a beatdown deck than the green/black one. I should probably post about it here; it's been all over the tourney practice room lately. It munches creature-based aggro decks (4 dead weight, 4 spitters, and 4 stinkweeds sees to that) and makes MBC cry, is surprisingly solid against u/r post, but dies horribly to affinity and greenpost. Haven't played enough against storm to have a good sense there.
I think I've only played against green post and affinity once in all my times playing Pauper tourneys.
STILL HATE BLUE!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Might give that white/black deck a try next week. Tired of getting shafted by hydroblast/weatherseed fairies.
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A single color with draw, counterspells, and now aggro dudes is just too much. Phantasmal Bear was fine - this is pushing it over the limit.
There is a very significant, onerous cost to having Delver of Secrets in your deck: You're limited in how many creatures you can play. The threat density in Delver is very low, and cheap, card-advantage generating removal just destroys more aggro-oriented Delver decks, because they just can't put pressure on an opponent very well if they can't stick and protect their early threats. Besides, the metagame seems to have compensated for the card and is now perfectly healthy. Here's the latest daily:
Mono-blue Post (4-0)
Mono-blue Delver (4-0)
"Dead Dog" Mono-green aggro (3-1)
Mono-blue Delver (3-1)
Mono-green Infect (3-1)
"Rats" Mono-black control (3-1)
Mono-green Post (3-1)
White Weenie (3-1)
Izzet Post (3-1)
Izzet Post (3-1)
So, two decks showed up more than once in the lists. Only one of those uses Delver. If anything, Cloudpost is a much more oppressive card than Delver is, and even then, this looks like a very healthy metagame to me. We went through a week where everybody was playing Delver, then the collective adapted...
Gush needs to go, though I think Delver is fine. Delver, unfortunately, did manage to break Legacy. We're probably gonna see Delver, Snapcaster Mage, or Brainstorm eat a ban there. The fact that delver is even considered to be in the same area of power as those cards is unsettling for me.
Wait...is that...Mono Green Post? I've played against it before, it never seemed to be any good though.
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And, only one deck ran Gush, and it ran only one copy! Post decks, mono-blue or otherwise, don't consistently play enough Islands for Gush to be good, and they really don't want to be bouncing their mana anyway.
And yes, Blue is very powerful, but it's not to do with any one card. The only card that the Delver decks have in common with the Post decks is Counterspell (And Island, which I have to point out is totally broken). The decks are totally different; all five colors see play; there are two mono-blue decks that have been making a strong showing, and every other deck is either multi-color or non-blue. The match-ups against Delver are totally different from the match-ups against Mono-blue or Izzet Post. I don't think Blue is a problem in this format, and it's certainly better than Legacy, where playing non-blue is almost a novelty. Aggro, control, combo and tempo are all viable. Decks run the gamut from superfast to superbig. I don't think this metagame is even one tenth as degenerate as, say, Modern was last year.
...ONE ran Gush? ****.
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People are overly-focused on Delver. Delver just gave a quality one-drop to a Faeries deck that was already doing exceedingly well just off the interaction between Cloud of Faeries / Spellstutter Sprite / Ninja of the Deep Hours.
Compared to pretty much ANY format, Pauper is probably one of the healthiest. The power levels are high, but the nature of commons is inherently opposed to degenerate strategies. The tier 1 is pretty much as large as the entire tier 1/1.5 roster for the last year has been for legacy.
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Mono-red Goblins
Mono-red burn
Storm (mono-red and three-color grapeshot/empty the warrens)
Storm (uwb temporal thingy)
Storm (UG temporal flux with land enchantments)
Blue Delver
Blue 8post
blue/red 8post
blue/black 8 post i think
green 8 post
green weenie horde stompy (1 and 2 casting cost creatures and pump spells)
green infect
white weenie
blue/red with blue/red creatures and clout of the dominus
white/green arma cloak (both efficient creatures and hexproof)
white/black tortured existence/auramancer
Mono-black control
Affinity
That's 18 different decks pretty much off of the top of my head.
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The white/black tortured deck has been in there more lately (though a green/black placed in a couple events yesterday); it's much more control-oriented and less of a beatdown deck than the green/black one. I should probably post about it here; it's been all over the tourney practice room lately. It munches creature-based aggro decks (4 dead weight, 4 spitters, and 4 stinkweeds sees to that) and makes MBC cry, is surprisingly solid against u/r post, but dies horribly to affinity and greenpost. Haven't played enough against storm to have a good sense there.
I think I've only played against green post and affinity once in all my times playing Pauper tourneys.
STILL HATE BLUE!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Might give that white/black deck a try next week. Tired of getting shafted by hydroblast/weatherseed fairies.