MTG Salvation

I couldn't find any thread on this deck that Patrick Chapin played at the pro tour. It seems like a pretty fun deck and he obviously thought it had potenital. I've run into one other person online running it who had dropped white and brought in dismembers and death's shadows instead. I've personally been sticking to esper for now but you do wonder if green wouldn't be better for cards like tarmogoyf, grisly salvage, and abrupt decay.

This was chapin's list if anyone else wants to discuss!

I think that green is the direction to take for the delve deck.

Here is my mill delve list as it stands, utilizing land fall for ramp and self mill:

4x hedron crab
4x lotus cobra
4x bloodghast
4x torrent elemental
4x mist hollow Griffin
4x gurmag angler
3x sidisi, brood tyrant
2x skaab ruinator
2x tasigur the golden fang
2x lotleth troll
3x murderous cut
1x life from the loam

4x polluted delta
3x verdant catacombs
3x misty rainforest
2x creeping tarpit
1x breeding pool
1x overgrown tomb
1x watery grave
4x swamp
2x island
2x forest

The idea is milling the cast from exile creatures with crab or sidisi, or casting them with cobra. Turn 2 angler is very common, if if you mill a bunch you have ruinator to cast from the yard (provided it doesn't get pathed). Bloodghast in conjunction w sidisi make going wide the obvious route to victory, and torrent elemental clears the way for everyone to get in, minus crab. You don't care to much if yr enablers get bolted, they're just food for the delve dudes. Sideboard has been a work in progress, were the worst MU is likely combo, but on the whole the sack has game against any fair deck, and really early pressure.
Potential sideboard:

3x abrupt decay
2x life from the loam
2x ravens crime
3x tectonic edge/ghost quarter
3x vengeful pharaoh
2x pithing needle

Notes and feedback would be awesome!

I played this deck a bit on mtgo. It's so threat light, that if your creature gets path'd or double path'd through a stubborn denial, you're going to stumble. Also you can get tasigur flooded, I don't think you want to play 4. A tomb stalker or whatever else is better than the 4th tasigur.

But I also played this deck when affinity and burn and anti Liliana cards were really popular, so the deck underperformed. It might be better now with some tweaks.

Chapin suggested the deck could use 1-2 snapcasters in the main, and I've tested and it helps a lot having greater access to path and stubborn denial when you need them. I've also brought a spell snare into the maindeck.

The deck is all about getting a 4/5 or 5/5 out on turn 2 with a mana open to protect it - whether via thoughtseize or stubborn denial. Every card besides snapcaster mage contributes to this plan, and snapcaster as a "three drop" is fine since after turn 2 it protects on turn 3 or comes down and hits a thought scour for value.

I have yet to have a game where I didn't have a body on the board - you draw a lot of cards from baubles, scours etc so usually you'll hit a body. I have had to try and "Get there" with lingering souls a couple times though.

Actually the card that scares me the most is rest in peace. Unless you thoughtseize it or counter it its pretty hard to get rid of (only engineered explosives I think?) and the impact on the deck is massive. blood moon is a close second as we have really hefty mana requirements and not many basics.

I am thinking about splicing up this Esper Delve deck with the Esper Mentor deck that runs 4 Monastery Mentor and some Tasigurs. Mishra's Bauble and Gitaxian Probe together looks like an awesome package to abuse both Monastery Mentor and the delve creatures! And if they empty your graveyard, you have a very real alternative gameplan. Must try something like this:

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I was trying to do the same thing but the original version is so streamlined it seems difficult to modify. There is Manu S on MODO who keeps doing well in dailies which is reassuring.

Manu S (4 - 0)
Modern Daily #8022245 on 2015-03-02

Quote from rickster_ »

I played this deck a bit on mtgo. It's so threat light, that if your creature gets path'd or double path'd through a stubborn denial, you're going to stumble. Also you can get tasigur flooded, I don't think you want to play 4. A tomb stalker or whatever else is better than the 4th tasigur.

But I also played this deck when affinity and burn and anti Liliana cards were really popular, so the deck underperformed. It might be better now with some tweaks.

Threat light: - I agree. Put in Monastery Mentor instead of Liliana(could be in sideboard). It's plain awesome here with Mishra's Bauble and probe.
Tasigur flooded: - I agree, I like cutting 1 Tasigur to 3. 7 delve creatures is enough I think.

Some Zealous Persecution in addition to Lingering Souls, and Stony Silence etc. in the side works wonders against affinity. 3-4 Timely Reinforcements in the side for burn. Also, Spellskite.

A replay video here showing the explosiveness of Monastery Mentor in Esper Delve:
Video: Esper Delve (with Mentor) VS Merfolk
My decklist is posted above.

Another good placing a few days ago by manu s, no mentors.

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/273825#paper

I'm going to start testing Manu S list in paper as well as in online. I decided to try it out after it crushed my Splinter Twin deck.
I should be able to post a few match results later today with it.

Yeah it definitely looks interesting.

With these threats being relatively quick clocks and Meddling Mage coming out of the board, could Remand have a place here? Or is the firm 2 Cmc too high for a deck running 17-19 lands?

any thoughts on myth realized?

Funny you should ask about disfigure, because burn is one of the match-ups its for.

Goblin Guide and Monastery Swiftspear are the primary targets in that match-up. I imagine it would also be useful against neo-pod since most of their combo creatures have 2 or less toughness. It's great against Affinity as well. But I prefer Darkblast in that match-up since it's reusable.

I really love Deprive in this deck. The list I've been testing runs the full set of Darkslick Shores, so I'm not always paying life for dropping the same land more than once.

Mentor lists generally are more about grinding the game, rather than stealing wins off a few swings from a fatty. Despite different threads here on MTGS, the two decks really aren't that different. They play 21-22, where we play 17-18. They have a higher curve, where ideally we want to be casting everything in our deck for 1 (few exceptions of course).

Also I don't think they're playing Liliana of the veil.

Quote from artome »

Thanks for the reply. I've begun to see now that I've played with the deck a bit more. It is also sweet at killing the mana dorks from abzan :). I have another question. What is the difference between this list and the Mentor list? I don't mean the obvious differences (creatures) but what does this deck gain that the other one doesn't? At my LGS when I'm playing this deck ppl ask me "oh you're playign that mentor deck" and when I tell yhem I'm not, just esper delve they give me weird looks haha. What is the justification?

Esper Delve gains 8 fatties instead of 2 (Esper Mentor plays only 2 Tasigur--Monastery Mentor is a wide-ie, not a fattie), a heckuva fast curve compared to Esper Mentor, nigh-immunity to Abrupt Decay (face it--Mentor ALWAYS gets Decayed), and the ability to middle-finger stuff with Stubborn Denial.

I honestly think these delve decks need Bitterblossom. There's a lack of an early game and Bitter serves to either help give time for a Gurmag or Tasigur to come out and can win the game if left unchecked.

I'll go with 4 Gurmags 3 Tasigurs 1 Batterskull as the main creatures and 4 Bitters instead of Snaps/Death's shadow.

I play a non-white version, so won't post my list.

Quote from Underused Cards »

I honestly think these delve decks need Bitterblossom. There's a lack of an early game and Bitter serves to either help give time for a Gurmag or Tasigur to come out and can win the game if left unchecked.

I'll go with 4 Gurmags 3 Tasigurs 1 Batterskull as the main creatures and 4 Bitters instead of Snaps/Death's shadow.

I play a non-white version, so won't post my list.

If you're playing batterskull then you're obviously not playing the same deck at all. No way you could get away with running a card that costs 5 with only 17 lands.

I think Bitterblossom is too slow, plus these decks already have a flying token generator in Lingering Souls. If you definitely don't want to play white, then sure..try BB. But cutting Snapcaster Mage from your deck is certainly a mistake.

What do you guys think about the rest for the weary vs the timely reinforcements for the burn matchup?

I would think the blockers are more relevant than 2 extra life gained, but that's just me.

Anybody experiencing any success with this deck lately? Maybe we should take a page from the Grixis book and start playing 4x Delver of Secrets?

I was thinking the same thing, possibly losing the baubles as that is more of a delve heavy inclusion. Possibly dropping a tasigur as well to add a misers vapor snag? another issue with that line is that it makes stubborn denial less of an automatic inclusion. This is the list I've been tinkering with

Thoughts?

Maybe something like this? I could definitely get behind this list. Though I feel like it's missing lightning Bolts. Sadly makes me want to play Grix instead of Esp. Path to exile is great but other than Lingering Souls what other reasons do we have to stick to white?

I think Topplegeist might have a home here.

So something like

My latest list - feeling pretty good about this one. Meddling Mage in the main deck has been fun