There is also a mono blue control list that runs similar cards, but plays extremely differently (they play many more counterspells and many fewer creatures).
actually this isn't entirely true.... while the decks do play different and the other version is lighter on creatures it doesn't get more Counterspells in 98% of the lists. In fact its often the opposite... at first glance both types are even thanks to the Delver list running Spellstutter Sprite, but then Delver actually gets more counterspells because it runs Ninja of the Deep Hours and Snap, which allow for recursion of Spellstutter Sprite. This is the biggest problem with why Delver is so dominate in Pauper (something I am personally unhappy with), it works as heavy aggro, but it ends up also being able to run 11 base counterspells in addition to another 6 ways to replay sprites
1 ticket = $1 from the wizards store... some sellers will sell 1 ticket for $.95
best way to price a deck is using mtgotraders.com which has prices pretty well on par with all.... of all the expensive cards for pauper I'm 90% sure that none of them are in Delver... I'm going to guess it can't be any where near over $10
Actually delver does have some expensive cards that add up to quite a bit. The expensive cards in delver are cloud of faeries, daze, serrated arrows, and hydroblast, with brainstorm also adding a nontrivial amount. Of course remember there are versions of the list that don't run all of these cards, so you might be able to get away with cheaper.
If you look here you can see mtgo-stats's idea of what defines the archetype and how much each card costs from mtgotraders. Their total is about $70 for the average deck (as a sidenote, it looks like daze and cloud of faeries have both gone up in price recently, so this number was probably $60 about a week ago)
Actually delver does have some expensive cards that add up to quite a bit. The expensive cards in delver are cloud of faeries, daze, serrated arrows, and hydroblast, with brainstorm also adding a nontrivial amount. Of course remember there are versions of the list that don't run all of these cards, so you might be able to get away with cheaper.
If you look here you can see mtgo-stats's idea of what defines the archetype and how much each card costs from mtgotraders. Their total is about $70 for the average deck (as a sidenote, it looks like daze and cloud of faeries have both gone up in price recently, so this number was probably $60 about a week ago)
oh wow I didn't realize Cloud of Fae was 5$ each....
I just figured 4x Weatherseed isn't that bad considering Hydroblast isn't budget, and Curfew for all the infect that is running around. I've also found it can be useful against MBC
in this deck, wouldn't it make more sense to run serum visions over preordain? it seems like it would set up delver considerably more consistently. However, this comes at an opportunity cost of being considerably worse while in topdeck mode. Do you guys think this is worth it?
... proceed to crawl up the wall in crab position with your head hanging backwards until you reach the ceiling. Once you are there, start screaming "For the Glory of Satan" while blood seeps out of your eye sockets (bonus points if they land on her desk).
Generally works for me in those kinds of situations.
It might be worth trying, but my guess is that you'll find that the cantrips are terrible for being aggressive, since in the early game they take up most of a turn. In addition, you'll run into all the standard two color aggro deck problems with bad mana. I'd also note that mogg war marshall is not an aggressive creature. It's either two power for 2RR or can only attack for 1 the turn after it comes in. You might want to consider building more around kiln fiend, though I think most of the delver/kiln fiend decks have died because of mana.
Snap is better than vapor snag in pauper. I haven't seen bonesplitter used much in delver decks, don't know that it's necessary - perhaps swap them for another couple of gush? Spire Golem is also an option, although you are running a very light land package.
Hey everyone I am new to pauper but have been intrigued by this format lately. I have been watching some videos and following the threads and want to try a mono blue delver build. Here is a sample deck with a few oddballs.
Vedalken Aethermage is for flash and wizardcycling (delver and spellstutter). Being able to tutor for a creature counterspell or surprise block seems powerful but it might cost too much for this deck.
Stream of Unconsciousness is meant to catch your opponent off guard. I feel like in most circumstances its able to kill an opponent's creature while cantripping and at worst fog with a cantrip for one mana.
Ok, first of all you can't compare gush to stream. Gush is card draw, steam is not - it's just a conditional cantrip. Gush is awesome, 0 mana (or actually a net of +1 mana if you didn't play a land that turn) for 2 cards is never bad. Stream on the other hand....
"I feel like in most circumstances its able to kill an opponent's creature while cantripping and at worst fog with a cantrip for one mana. "
is not true. The worst case scenario is much worse than that - you only have 10 wizards in the deck so it will frequently not cantrip. And -4/-0 on one creature will hardly ever be a fog, more likely it stops one 2/2 while the other 3 get in or whatever. So the actual worst case is that you spent one mana to prevent two damage and did nothing else. It certainly wont' kill an opponent's creature in "most" circumstances - it will often only do that if you have 2+ blocking power, which you often won't (unless you're holding a flipped delver back which is usually going to be bad). Anyway, I don't like the card. You're MUCH better off with preordain and/or ponder (why aren't they in the list already?).
Also, if you're looking for a budget cloud of faeries, you're better off going with zephyr sprite not the pestermite. 3cmc creatures is not where this deck wants to be. I'm also fairly unconvinced on the aethermage (spending 4 mana to get a delver out just seems bad). Another cheap option that could have a place in the deck is bonesplitter which upgrades all of your cheap threats.
I'm not a Delver player but I was wondering why nobody plays Spell Pierce. One of the main lines of play for this deck is to play a Delver and protect it just long enough to kill the other guy. Spell Pierce does this really well because most of the things you need to protect Delver from are removal spells. Being a 1-mana counter seems pretty important, too, cause the deck runs so tight on lands that they can't always leave up mana for Counterspell.
It's also another way to interact with decks that try to do stupid things on turns 2 and 3 like Infect, Storm, Stompy. I've been playing it in another sort of aggro-control deck and it's been pretty sweet. Could be wrong but I never even here this card mentioned in lists of potential counterspells. Just interested in other people's opinions.
Without planeswalkers or strong enchantments, "non-creature spell" doesn't seem worth targeting as opposed to just instants. This may change in the future though.
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Well, the reason Spell Pierce sees so little play is Dispel. In all the MUs you mentioned Dispel is just better than Spell Pierce. Okay, there are a few cards it can't get (Sign in Blood, Lotus Petal, Rancor) but most of them you wouldn't want to counter either way. So that only leaves Rancor which is can't get, but instead it's a hard counter and thus a much better Topdeck as well as being better against Storm.
Not to say Spell Pierce is stricly worse, but it is currently worse than Dispel imo.
That all makes sense. But when I look at Spell Pierce it just seems way more main deckable than Dispel. It seems like every deck has targets for it. I was actually thinking it was closer to Force Spike, initially, but harder to play around. You have to determine whether the number of times Force Spike is dead due to your opponents mana is greater than the number of times Spell Pierce is dead due to a lack of targets. Or maybe it's more than that. Like you were suggesting with your examples, just because you have targets doesn't mean that you're going to get a lot value by countering them.
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Without planeswalkers or strong enchantments, "non-creature spell" doesn't seem worth targeting as opposed to just instants. This may change in the future though.
Yeah, Show and Tell and all those other you-lose cards. I'm probably a little influenced by the "it's played in Legacy so it must be good in pauper" mentality.
Well, even in Legacy and Modern the card comes and goes in playability. The power level is certainly there, it's just that the environment doesn't favour it.
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I'm confused by the almost ubiquitous playing of 4 Brainstorm in every decklist. Is it really a good fit for this deck? It's well known that Brainstorm without a shuffle effect is pretty bad, and we have so few shuffle effects. Without one, Brainstorm isn't card selection at all. We get to pick our next card, sure, but those other two cards - we're stuck with them. There's few feelings worse than Brainstorm trapping yourself out of a game -- where you know what your next 2 cards are, they don't help, and you can't do anything about it.
The obvious upsides are that it's an instant, and you can use it to flip a Delver of Secrets on turn 2. I'm not sure you really should be using Brainstorm to flip Delver turn 2, since it prevents you from having two mana open. So really, the only upside I can see is that it's an instant (and sometimes you can hide a card from discard). Does that really justify the downside that most of the time you're just putting back 2 cards to draw over the next 2 turns?
As far as flipping Delver of Secrets, here are the numbers: Assuming you are running about 20 instants and sorceries (about average), you are on the play and draw 1 or more land, 1 Delver of Secrets and 3 instants or sorceries (slightly above average). You have a 32% chance of blind flipping him turn 2. By turn 3, you are 54% likely to have a blind-flipped Delver. By turn 4, these odds are 70%. The odds stay the same no matter when you drop the Delver, because your average remaining deck is going to contain 33% instants and sorceries no matter how late in the game it is. My experience is that Delver blind-flips after an average of about 2 turns, and the numbers support that.
The way I see it, Delver doesn't need a lot of help. Obviously any spell that improves your odds with Delver are a good thing, but the odds tell me that such a card doesn't need to be exclusively good with Delver. It should be the best card for the deck, not the best card for Delver at the exclusion of the other cards in the deck.
The average deck has 4 "shuffle" effects for Brainstorm. In most decklists, those are exclusively Preordain. Hoping for Brainstorm into Preordain to happen with any regularity is living in Magical Christmas Land. Not only that, it actually marginalizes the value of the subsequently cast Preordrain. If your forcing yourself to bottom the top two cards of your library immediately, then Preordrain is just a cantrip that just happens to let Brainstorm be pretty good. If you're playing a Brainstorm as an instant though, there's no way to keep yourself from drawing the first card you put back. Otherwise you're playing at a sorcery speed, which negates its major upside. Preordrain, then, is still a sorcery.
I'm just having a real hard time imagining Brainstorm actually being any good. Am I missing something?
There are two conflicting conventional trains of thought here: one says that Brainstorm is almost never good without a shuffle effect. The other is that basically every decklist for this deck runs 4 Brainstorm as what seems to be an auto-include. I'm not willing to accept either without questioning, but based on my evaluation, it really seems like Brainstorm is just not where this deck wants to be.
I haven't been running the deck for long, and currently I'm testing it with Preordain and Ponder. Ponder isn't great, but it feels like it's better card selection than Brainstorm. Preordain is just plain one of the best card selection spells available to us, and I love it. I've played against Delver blue plenty, and I've seen them play Brainstorm, and I've always commented that it seems bad.
I welcome any discussion or thoughts you have. If I've missed some important interaction, please enlighten me. What are everyone's thoughts on Brainstorm versus the other one-mana card selection spell available?
I think the best way to answer your Brainstorm question is to ask: What are you using this 1cmc card-slot for?
I think of three main requirements when I look at my mono-blue card-advantage: Flexibility, Tempo, and Digging.
Flexibility Library Manipulation. Brainstorm just does more. Brainstorm puts cards back on top. Whether that's hiding valuable targets from Duress, getting your Delver of Secrets to flip over, or trying to win a Clash, Brainstorm can do it.
Sorcery.Preordain/Ponder are great on Turn 1. They're untenable on Turn 2, or when you're on two lands. (Taking the risk to drop to one-Island is only worth playing my first Delver.)
Digging See ALL three.Brainstorm out-performs Preordain in single-card, desperation "where is my answer?!" digging. (Sidenote, if your answer is at Sorcery speed, Ponder outperforms both.)
Deep Digging. This is where Preordain has an edge. For long-term digging, Preordain is the winner. You don't need a shuffle effect, and it stashes the "losers" out of reach.
I need it now... For immediate deep-digging, Ponder beats out both. You get a chance at 4 cards. (Before the nitpickers: I know it's 3+1*<.....>.)
I'm confused by the almost ubiquitous playing of 4 Brainstorm in every decklist. Is it really a good fit for this deck? It's well known that Brainstorm without a shuffle effect is pretty bad, and we have so few shuffle effects. Without one, Brainstorm isn't card selection at all. We get to pick our next card, sure, but those other two cards - we're stuck with them. There's few feelings worse than Brainstorm trapping yourself out of a game -- where you know what your next 2 cards are, they don't help, and you can't do anything about it.
The obvious upsides are that it's an instant, and you can use it to flip a Delver of Secrets on turn 2. I'm not sure you really should be using Brainstorm to flip Delver turn 2, since it prevents you from having two mana open. So really, the only upside I can see is that it's an instant (and sometimes you can hide a card from discard). Does that really justify the downside that most of the time you're just putting back 2 cards to draw over the next 2 turns?
As far as flipping Delver of Secrets, here are the numbers: Assuming you are running about 20 instants and sorceries (about average), you are on the play and draw 1 or more land, 1 Delver of Secrets and 3 instants or sorceries (slightly above average). You have a 32% chance of blind flipping him turn 2. By turn 3, you are 54% likely to have a blind-flipped Delver. By turn 4, these odds are 70%. The odds stay the same no matter when you drop the Delver, because your average remaining deck is going to contain 33% instants and sorceries no matter how late in the game it is. My experience is that Delver blind-flips after an average of about 2 turns, and the numbers support that.
The way I see it, Delver doesn't need a lot of help. Obviously any spell that improves your odds with Delver are a good thing, but the odds tell me that such a card doesn't need to be exclusively good with Delver. It should be the best card for the deck, not the best card for Delver at the exclusion of the other cards in the deck.
The average deck has 4 "shuffle" effects for Brainstorm. In most decklists, those are exclusively Preordain. Hoping for Brainstorm into Preordain to happen with any regularity is living in Magical Christmas Land. Not only that, it actually marginalizes the value of the subsequently cast Preordrain. If your forcing yourself to bottom the top two cards of your library immediately, then Preordrain is just a cantrip that just happens to let Brainstorm be pretty good. If you're playing a Brainstorm as an instant though, there's no way to keep yourself from drawing the first card you put back. Otherwise you're playing at a sorcery speed, which negates its major upside. Preordrain, then, is still a sorcery.
I'm just having a real hard time imagining Brainstorm actually being any good. Am I missing something?
There are two conflicting conventional trains of thought here: one says that Brainstorm is almost never good without a shuffle effect. The other is that basically every decklist for this deck runs 4 Brainstorm as what seems to be an auto-include. I'm not willing to accept either without questioning, but based on my evaluation, it really seems like Brainstorm is just not where this deck wants to be.
I haven't been running the deck for long, and currently I'm testing it with Preordain and Ponder. Ponder isn't great, but it feels like it's better card selection than Brainstorm. Preordain is just plain one of the best card selection spells available to us, and I love it. I've played against Delver blue plenty, and I've seen them play Brainstorm, and I've always commented that it seems bad.
I welcome any discussion or thoughts you have. If I've missed some important interaction, please enlighten me. What are everyone's thoughts on Brainstorm versus the other one-mana card selection spell available?
You make some very good points overall. While brainstorm is widely regarded as the best card in legacy, that evaluation is no longer sacred in formats without fetchlands, like pauper. Brainstorm is a role-filler in the deck, rarely being particularly good or particularly bad.
The roles that brainstorm fills have been pointed out several times already. In the late game, the brainstorm/preordain combination is a really nice way to get value out of extra lands. Despite this, I still view brainstorm as an overall aggressive card in the deck. As it flips your delvers and lets you draw the card you need in exchange for a bad topdeck later.
Many of the very aggressive lists play 3-4 brainstorms, while many of the controlling, creature-light versions don't play any at all. Personally, I play 2-3 brainstorms in my aggressive deck. I like drawing 1, as it gives me the option to either press my advantage or avoiding flood in the late game. The second brainstorm is pretty redundant and is often just a cantrip.
The number of brainstorms you play really comes down to personal preference, especially since the card has a lot of play to it. I'd recommend trying at least 2 in any aggressive version of the deck, though, as drawing 1 brainstorm has little downside.
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actually this isn't entirely true.... while the decks do play different and the other version is lighter on creatures it doesn't get more Counterspells in 98% of the lists. In fact its often the opposite... at first glance both types are even thanks to the Delver list running Spellstutter Sprite, but then Delver actually gets more counterspells because it runs Ninja of the Deep Hours and Snap, which allow for recursion of Spellstutter Sprite. This is the biggest problem with why Delver is so dominate in Pauper (something I am personally unhappy with), it works as heavy aggro, but it ends up also being able to run 11 base counterspells in addition to another 6 ways to replay sprites
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Legacy
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How much actual money (USD) will it cost me to get an account up and running with a Delver list?
What is the tickets to dollar ratio?
Perhaps Gigadrowse can help fight WW decks?
best way to price a deck is using mtgotraders.com which has prices pretty well on par with all.... of all the expensive cards for pauper I'm 90% sure that none of them are in Delver... I'm going to guess it can't be any where near over $10
Deck List:
BMBCB
UBUB Control/TeachingsBU
Ha! My Pauper UG Post Deck Showed!
Classic
BPoxB
Legacy
GB Eva Depths (Primer By Me) BG
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An Introduction to Competitive Pauper! *Updated*
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If you look here you can see mtgo-stats's idea of what defines the archetype and how much each card costs from mtgotraders. Their total is about $70 for the average deck (as a sidenote, it looks like daze and cloud of faeries have both gone up in price recently, so this number was probably $60 about a week ago)
oh wow I didn't realize Cloud of Fae was 5$ each....
Deck List:
BMBCB
UBUB Control/TeachingsBU
Ha! My Pauper UG Post Deck Showed!
Classic
BPoxB
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An Introduction to Competitive Pauper! *Updated*
Pauper Meta Analysis & What Wizards Left Out!
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I own all of the cards IRL, but no stores that I know of around me to pauper tournaments.
And that is why they are so expensive online. There is a thriving tournament scene for them.
I would recommend starting off with this list. Going off of the website's prices it should be around 30 tix.
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Spire Golem
3 Brainstorm
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Preordain
4 Snap
4 Force Spike
4 Counterspell
2 Deprive
1 Gush
2 Echoing Truth
3 Dispel
3 Piracy Charm
1 Curfew
2 Steel Sabotage
4 Weatherseed Faeries
Trade List
Deck List:
BMBCB
UBUB Control/TeachingsBU
Ha! My Pauper UG Post Deck Showed!
Classic
BPoxB
Legacy
GB Eva Depths (Primer By Me) BG
Monthly Academy Showcase!
An Introduction to Competitive Pauper! *Updated*
Pauper Meta Analysis & What Wizards Left Out!
Found at MTGO Academy!! Same Great Series, Same Great Content, Great New Home!! (yes that is me shamelessly trolling for more readers :))
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Trade List
3x Keldon Marauders
3x Mogg War Marshal
4x Phantasmal Bear
3x Ninja of the Deep Hours
4x Delver of Secrets Flip
2x Spire Golem
3x Gitaxian Probe
2x Ponder
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Counterspell
2x Echoing Truth
3x Snap
1x Gush
11x Island
2x Izzet Boilerworks
Generally works for me in those kinds of situations.
How is this?:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Counterspell
4 Daze
4 Vapor Snag
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Gush
16 Island
Should I maybe increase the Gush count?
1x Quicksand
4x Delver of Secrets
3x Phantasmal Bear
4x Force Spike
2x Stream of Unconsciousness
4x Brainstorm
3x Gitaxian Probe
2x Vedalken Aethermage
4x Counterspell
4x Snap
2x Pestermite
3x Spire Golem
Vedalken Aethermage is for flash and wizardcycling (delver and spellstutter). Being able to tutor for a creature counterspell or surprise block seems powerful but it might cost too much for this deck.
Stream of Unconsciousness is meant to catch your opponent off guard. I feel like in most circumstances its able to kill an opponent's creature while cantripping and at worst fog with a cantrip for one mana.
Force Spike is a budget choice for Daze as is Pestermite for Cloud of Faeries.
Also, is Gush that great? I guess I would replace it for Stream of Unconsciousness in a more traditional build.
Please critique as I'd like to get a decent build before getting all the pieces!
"I feel like in most circumstances its able to kill an opponent's creature while cantripping and at worst fog with a cantrip for one mana. "
is not true. The worst case scenario is much worse than that - you only have 10 wizards in the deck so it will frequently not cantrip. And -4/-0 on one creature will hardly ever be a fog, more likely it stops one 2/2 while the other 3 get in or whatever. So the actual worst case is that you spent one mana to prevent two damage and did nothing else. It certainly wont' kill an opponent's creature in "most" circumstances - it will often only do that if you have 2+ blocking power, which you often won't (unless you're holding a flipped delver back which is usually going to be bad). Anyway, I don't like the card. You're MUCH better off with preordain and/or ponder (why aren't they in the list already?).
Also, if you're looking for a budget cloud of faeries, you're better off going with zephyr sprite not the pestermite. 3cmc creatures is not where this deck wants to be. I'm also fairly unconvinced on the aethermage (spending 4 mana to get a delver out just seems bad). Another cheap option that could have a place in the deck is bonesplitter which upgrades all of your cheap threats.
It's also another way to interact with decks that try to do stupid things on turns 2 and 3 like Infect, Storm, Stompy. I've been playing it in another sort of aggro-control deck and it's been pretty sweet. Could be wrong but I never even here this card mentioned in lists of potential counterspells. Just interested in other people's opinions.
That all makes sense. But when I look at Spell Pierce it just seems way more main deckable than Dispel. It seems like every deck has targets for it. I was actually thinking it was closer to Force Spike, initially, but harder to play around. You have to determine whether the number of times Force Spike is dead due to your opponents mana is greater than the number of times Spell Pierce is dead due to a lack of targets. Or maybe it's more than that. Like you were suggesting with your examples, just because you have targets doesn't mean that you're going to get a lot value by countering them.
Yeah, Show and Tell and all those other you-lose cards. I'm probably a little influenced by the "it's played in Legacy so it must be good in pauper" mentality.
The obvious upsides are that it's an instant, and you can use it to flip a Delver of Secrets on turn 2. I'm not sure you really should be using Brainstorm to flip Delver turn 2, since it prevents you from having two mana open. So really, the only upside I can see is that it's an instant (and sometimes you can hide a card from discard). Does that really justify the downside that most of the time you're just putting back 2 cards to draw over the next 2 turns?
As far as flipping Delver of Secrets, here are the numbers: Assuming you are running about 20 instants and sorceries (about average), you are on the play and draw 1 or more land, 1 Delver of Secrets and 3 instants or sorceries (slightly above average). You have a 32% chance of blind flipping him turn 2. By turn 3, you are 54% likely to have a blind-flipped Delver. By turn 4, these odds are 70%. The odds stay the same no matter when you drop the Delver, because your average remaining deck is going to contain 33% instants and sorceries no matter how late in the game it is. My experience is that Delver blind-flips after an average of about 2 turns, and the numbers support that.
The way I see it, Delver doesn't need a lot of help. Obviously any spell that improves your odds with Delver are a good thing, but the odds tell me that such a card doesn't need to be exclusively good with Delver. It should be the best card for the deck, not the best card for Delver at the exclusion of the other cards in the deck.
The average deck has 4 "shuffle" effects for Brainstorm. In most decklists, those are exclusively Preordain. Hoping for Brainstorm into Preordain to happen with any regularity is living in Magical Christmas Land. Not only that, it actually marginalizes the value of the subsequently cast Preordrain. If your forcing yourself to bottom the top two cards of your library immediately, then Preordrain is just a cantrip that just happens to let Brainstorm be pretty good. If you're playing a Brainstorm as an instant though, there's no way to keep yourself from drawing the first card you put back. Otherwise you're playing at a sorcery speed, which negates its major upside. Preordrain, then, is still a sorcery.
I'm just having a real hard time imagining Brainstorm actually being any good. Am I missing something?
There are two conflicting conventional trains of thought here: one says that Brainstorm is almost never good without a shuffle effect. The other is that basically every decklist for this deck runs 4 Brainstorm as what seems to be an auto-include. I'm not willing to accept either without questioning, but based on my evaluation, it really seems like Brainstorm is just not where this deck wants to be.
I haven't been running the deck for long, and currently I'm testing it with Preordain and Ponder. Ponder isn't great, but it feels like it's better card selection than Brainstorm. Preordain is just plain one of the best card selection spells available to us, and I love it. I've played against Delver blue plenty, and I've seen them play Brainstorm, and I've always commented that it seems bad.
I welcome any discussion or thoughts you have. If I've missed some important interaction, please enlighten me. What are everyone's thoughts on Brainstorm versus the other one-mana card selection spell available?
I think the best way to answer your Brainstorm question is to ask: What are you using this 1cmc card-slot for?
I think of three main requirements when I look at my mono-blue card-advantage: Flexibility, Tempo, and Digging.
Flexibility
Library Manipulation. Brainstorm just does more. Brainstorm puts cards back on top. Whether that's hiding valuable targets from Duress, getting your Delver of Secrets to flip over, or trying to win a Clash, Brainstorm can do it.
Tempo
Instant. Personally, I use Brainstorm as part of a larger "instants-only" strategy. (Impulse, Gush, Think Twice, Oona's Grace, etc...)
Sorcery. Preordain/Ponder are great on Turn 1. They're untenable on Turn 2, or when you're on two lands. (Taking the risk to drop to one-Island is only worth playing my first Delver.)
Digging
See ALL three. Brainstorm out-performs Preordain in single-card, desperation "where is my answer?!" digging. (Sidenote, if your answer is at Sorcery speed, Ponder outperforms both.)
Deep Digging. This is where Preordain has an edge. For long-term digging, Preordain is the winner. You don't need a shuffle effect, and it stashes the "losers" out of reach.
I need it now... For immediate deep-digging, Ponder beats out both. You get a chance at 4 cards. (Before the nitpickers: I know it's 3+1*<.....>.)
You make some very good points overall. While brainstorm is widely regarded as the best card in legacy, that evaluation is no longer sacred in formats without fetchlands, like pauper. Brainstorm is a role-filler in the deck, rarely being particularly good or particularly bad.
The roles that brainstorm fills have been pointed out several times already. In the late game, the brainstorm/preordain combination is a really nice way to get value out of extra lands. Despite this, I still view brainstorm as an overall aggressive card in the deck. As it flips your delvers and lets you draw the card you need in exchange for a bad topdeck later.
Many of the very aggressive lists play 3-4 brainstorms, while many of the controlling, creature-light versions don't play any at all. Personally, I play 2-3 brainstorms in my aggressive deck. I like drawing 1, as it gives me the option to either press my advantage or avoiding flood in the late game. The second brainstorm is pretty redundant and is often just a cantrip.
The number of brainstorms you play really comes down to personal preference, especially since the card has a lot of play to it. I'd recommend trying at least 2 in any aggressive version of the deck, though, as drawing 1 brainstorm has little downside.