AV: TC is better in most (if not all decks) in modern. seems silly to have on the banned list with TC legal.
GGT: Without DR this is just silly to have on.
BBE: Jund needs to have something to do. Junk gets value + beat stick and basically made jund a thing of the past.
depths: no particular reason. I think a lands deck should be viable in modern and there's not much else that would use it.
DRS: I just want to play with drs... I don't think it would be healthy or anything I just like the card so I voted for the little guy.
JTMS: With delver and combo so wide spread controll decks have taken a hit. The only actual controll deck left (that is tier 1) is scapeshift and that's a combo deck in disguise.
Notable didn't votes:
Sword of the Meek: I want controll to be a thing, I don't want controll to be a deck that pushes all little guy/burn deck out of the format.
SFM: While I want white to do more main deck in modern SFM + BS is just too much for us.
Jite: I think it would add to a delver problem and not help it. It's a card that once it connects it's hard to win after and that's just not that healthy for modern when every little guy deck can run it against each other as a fun of and then have a huge boost on the other deck.
I like that. I would be hesitant to try it in the build I listed, but a more mid-range focused build would probably enjoy that interaction.
Pack rat was always a hit or a miss in testing. He requires a ton of mana and is rather slow to become big in modern. I found that when I was playing him over death's shadow I would have preferred death's after a few turns regardless. The pack rat build required more mana or less business spells and often trying to hold back the opponent with counter spells or kill spells meant pack rat stayed small and in few numbers too long. There were a ton of times that I didn't actually want to be pitching cards too. Pitching that late land or IoK is a no brainer, but keeping dismember or mana leak was often better if I had a delver or goyf active.
Suicide delver is a attempt to bring a BUG delver deck into modern. The deck wishes to land a threat and protect it with disruption and counter magic. Being BUG colors the deck has some of the best removal, disruption, and countermagic in the game. Suicide Delver gets it's name because the deck wishes to get to ~8 life and stay there. At 8 life the deck begins to utilize Death's Shadow to beat face and take names. If you want a deck that's going to top the next PT I would look other places, but if you want a highly interactive and unique deck that always feels like games go close than I recommend you keep reading.
The Core:
The core of the beck is basically the best of the best in BUG colors. When making a deck why not just use ~75 good cards? It has worked so well in the past.
4 Delver of Secrets - This card started a revolution. Delver decks wouldn't be delver decks without the 3/2 flyer for U.
4 Tarmogoyf - Some times fines isn't needed. Sometimes you just want to hit someone in the face with a 200 dollar bill until they die. Goyf is that bill.
3 Death's shaddow - 13/13 for B? That's NUTS! Well we hope it's not a 13/13, but 5/5 isn't bad.
4 Abrupt Decay - For 2 mana abrupt decay will kill anything under 3 cmc and can't be countered. This card is great and we will take 4.
3 Dismember - 1 colorless and 4 life will buy us the means to kill most things in modern and doing damage to our self is what this deck is about. Multiple Dismembers in the opening hand kinda sucks and the second is often too much. 3 has tested well, but so did 2.
3 Disfigure - For B we can kill a considerable amount of the format. Currently the format is quire fast so taking some smaller removal that hurts us less is needed.
3 Thoughtsieze - Being able to take anything for 2 life and B is powerful.
2 inquisition of kozilek - Stopping any early turn play we don't like is great.
2 spell pierce - This card protects quite a bit in the early turns. Having one in the opening is almost always nice, but multiple can get old.
2 spell snare - Every deck plays some 2 drop spell and spell snare stops that.
3 Treasure cruse - Suicide delver doesn't rip through cards as quick as UR burn, I mean UR delver, does. We can't use the card as quick and multiples really suck.
More cards:
We are not quite to 60 cards yet, lets see some more options
Snapcaster mage: Sadly within this deck we don't get a lot of value out of the blue ambush viper. The low land count often means that until late game he's just a 2/1 with flash.
Oona's Prowler: 3/1 with flying for 1B? I'm interested. -2/-0 kinda sucks, but making an opponent discard a card isn't bad.
Lotleth Troll: 2/1 with trample that gets better is sweet. I don't like the price those +1/+1 counters come at, but maybe you do.
Putrid Leech: Haaaaayyyy00000000! 2/2 for BG that can become a 4/4 when we hurt ourselves, that just fits right in.
Scythe Tiger: 3/2 with shroud is fantastic for G, but sacking a land is often just not acceptable for this deck.
Vendilion Clique: Great card If I have ever seen one. 3/1 flyer for UU1 with flash and a killer ETB effect is quite nice. 3 is a lot for this deck, but we can try him.
Slaughter Pact: Good spell but not hitting black is awkward. Thankfully black isn't as common in modern right now, but not being able to cast it without 3 lands is quite bad.
Bile Blight: Great effect but BB is hard to hit. Solid side board choice.
Tragic Slip: We can do better than this in modern. It's great at times and ******* worthless at others. We'll pass.
Mana Leak: being able to answer anything for 1U is nice.
Remand: Stalling is often good enough in delver decks. Drawing a card is great.
Duress: Not good enough in modern.
Despise: Close but not maindeck worthy.
I'll start by saying this. I haven't had enough time to truly test the deck. I've maybe played ~70 matches with it, but some games are useless information and I have no clue if the testing was good testing.
UR delver: 50/50 surprisingly. The deck attempts to conserve list and stop UR burns treasure cruse abuse. Taking the first TC with disruption goes a long way. I feel really sketchy about this remark because I feel like I should be doing worse.
Burn: Hehehehe... Well we hope to avoid those 80/20 match-ups right? Post board it gets better with IOK and surgical but still terrible.
Pod: I always feel good here. I take on the role of killing the early dorks and stopping the first pod. After that I never feel that bad but poding into a rhino or a early resto is just harsh.
Scapeshift: I love this matchup. We slam out life total to the ground and drop a fast clock. The deck has just enough disruption to get the job done.
Ascendancy: I love this match up as well. Surgical is just disgusting out of the board and abrupt decay does work.
Affinity: I have no clue to be honest. I haven't ran into it enough to be sure.
Amulet combo: I love it on the play, feel comfortable on the draw.
Bogles: I feel like it's 50/50 if we can keep the life link enchantments off the table. Bogles is strange to play against because I never know if it's suicide delver doing well or the nature of bogles that lets me win.
Merfolk: Suicide delver is unfavorable. Their average hands beat our average hands I think. On the play the match-up is quite better.
Junk: I like the match-up. I don't really know if it's better than 50/50.
Closing remarks:
I welcome anyone to try the deck and see how you enjoy it. Change anything you wish and see what's best. This is what I think the optimal list looks like, however I'm out of ideas. I don't think this will be winning a PT any time soon, but I made the deck to be fun and I find it quite fun.
As you can tell my grammar and spelling is terrible. I'll attempt to fix it over the next few days but for now I'm fairly brain dead.
Why bob? With such a fast format ATM I would almost rather have the 4th souls, some disfigures, and a kitchen finks. 8 discard spells + lilly looks like too much right now. I would cut back on ` IOK and 1 TX.
AV: TC is better in most (if not all decks) in modern. seems silly to have on the banned list with TC legal.
GGT: Without DR this is just silly to have on.
BBE: Jund needs to have something to do. Junk gets value + beat stick and basically made jund a thing of the past.
depths: no particular reason. I think a lands deck should be viable in modern and there's not much else that would use it.
DRS: I just want to play with drs... I don't think it would be healthy or anything I just like the card so I voted for the little guy.
JTMS: With delver and combo so wide spread controll decks have taken a hit. The only actual controll deck left (that is tier 1) is scapeshift and that's a combo deck in disguise.
Notable didn't votes:
Sword of the Meek: I want controll to be a thing, I don't want controll to be a deck that pushes all little guy/burn deck out of the format.
SFM: While I want white to do more main deck in modern SFM + BS is just too much for us.
Jite: I think it would add to a delver problem and not help it. It's a card that once it connects it's hard to win after and that's just not that healthy for modern when every little guy deck can run it against each other as a fun of and then have a huge boost on the other deck.
Pack rat was always a hit or a miss in testing. He requires a ton of mana and is rather slow to become big in modern. I found that when I was playing him over death's shadow I would have preferred death's after a few turns regardless. The pack rat build required more mana or less business spells and often trying to hold back the opponent with counter spells or kill spells meant pack rat stayed small and in few numbers too long. There were a ton of times that I didn't actually want to be pitching cards too. Pitching that late land or IoK is a no brainer, but keeping dismember or mana leak was often better if I had a delver or goyf active.
Introduction:
Suicide delver is a attempt to bring a BUG delver deck into modern. The deck wishes to land a threat and protect it with disruption and counter magic. Being BUG colors the deck has some of the best removal, disruption, and countermagic in the game. Suicide Delver gets it's name because the deck wishes to get to ~8 life and stay there. At 8 life the deck begins to utilize Death's Shadow to beat face and take names. If you want a deck that's going to top the next PT I would look other places, but if you want a highly interactive and unique deck that always feels like games go close than I recommend you keep reading.
The Core:
The core of the beck is basically the best of the best in BUG colors. When making a deck why not just use ~75 good cards? It has worked so well in the past.
4 Delver of Secrets - This card started a revolution. Delver decks wouldn't be delver decks without the 3/2 flyer for U.
4 Tarmogoyf - Some times fines isn't needed. Sometimes you just want to hit someone in the face with a 200 dollar bill until they die. Goyf is that bill.
3 Death's shaddow - 13/13 for B? That's NUTS! Well we hope it's not a 13/13, but 5/5 isn't bad.
4 Abrupt Decay - For 2 mana abrupt decay will kill anything under 3 cmc and can't be countered. This card is great and we will take 4.
3 Dismember - 1 colorless and 4 life will buy us the means to kill most things in modern and doing damage to our self is what this deck is about. Multiple Dismembers in the opening hand kinda sucks and the second is often too much. 3 has tested well, but so did 2.
3 Disfigure - For B we can kill a considerable amount of the format. Currently the format is quire fast so taking some smaller removal that hurts us less is needed.
3 Thoughtsieze - Being able to take anything for 2 life and B is powerful.
2 inquisition of kozilek - Stopping any early turn play we don't like is great.
2 spell pierce - This card protects quite a bit in the early turns. Having one in the opening is almost always nice, but multiple can get old.
2 spell snare - Every deck plays some 2 drop spell and spell snare stops that.
3 Treasure cruse - Suicide delver doesn't rip through cards as quick as UR burn, I mean UR delver, does. We can't use the card as quick and multiples really suck.
More cards:
We are not quite to 60 cards yet, lets see some more options
Snapcaster mage: Sadly within this deck we don't get a lot of value out of the blue ambush viper. The low land count often means that until late game he's just a 2/1 with flash.
Oona's Prowler: 3/1 with flying for 1B? I'm interested. -2/-0 kinda sucks, but making an opponent discard a card isn't bad.
Lotleth Troll: 2/1 with trample that gets better is sweet. I don't like the price those +1/+1 counters come at, but maybe you do.
Putrid Leech: Haaaaayyyy00000000! 2/2 for BG that can become a 4/4 when we hurt ourselves, that just fits right in.
Scythe Tiger: 3/2 with shroud is fantastic for G, but sacking a land is often just not acceptable for this deck.
Vendilion Clique: Great card If I have ever seen one. 3/1 flyer for UU1 with flash and a killer ETB effect is quite nice. 3 is a lot for this deck, but we can try him.
Slaughter Pact: Good spell but not hitting black is awkward. Thankfully black isn't as common in modern right now, but not being able to cast it without 3 lands is quite bad.
Bile Blight: Great effect but BB is hard to hit. Solid side board choice.
Tragic Slip: We can do better than this in modern. It's great at times and ******* worthless at others. We'll pass.
Mana Leak: being able to answer anything for 1U is nice.
Remand: Stalling is often good enough in delver decks. Drawing a card is great.
Duress: Not good enough in modern.
Despise: Close but not maindeck worthy.
Deck list:
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Breeding Pool
3 Death's Shadow
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Swamp
3 Thoughtseize
3 Treasure Cruise
2 Watery Grave
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Disfigure
3 Dismember
1 Forest
3 Mana Leak
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Oona's Prowler
1 Hinterland Harbor
2 Darkslick Shores
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Golgari Charm
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Deathmark
3 Hibernation
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Spell Snare
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Drown in Sorrow
Match-up analysis:
UR delver: 50/50 surprisingly. The deck attempts to conserve list and stop UR burns treasure cruse abuse. Taking the first TC with disruption goes a long way. I feel really sketchy about this remark because I feel like I should be doing worse.
Burn: Hehehehe... Well we hope to avoid those 80/20 match-ups right? Post board it gets better with IOK and surgical but still terrible.
Pod: I always feel good here. I take on the role of killing the early dorks and stopping the first pod. After that I never feel that bad but poding into a rhino or a early resto is just harsh.
Scapeshift: I love this matchup. We slam out life total to the ground and drop a fast clock. The deck has just enough disruption to get the job done.
Ascendancy: I love this match up as well. Surgical is just disgusting out of the board and abrupt decay does work.
Affinity: I have no clue to be honest. I haven't ran into it enough to be sure.
Amulet combo: I love it on the play, feel comfortable on the draw.
Bogles: I feel like it's 50/50 if we can keep the life link enchantments off the table. Bogles is strange to play against because I never know if it's suicide delver doing well or the nature of bogles that lets me win.
Merfolk: Suicide delver is unfavorable. Their average hands beat our average hands I think. On the play the match-up is quite better.
Junk: I like the match-up. I don't really know if it's better than 50/50.
Closing remarks:
I welcome anyone to try the deck and see how you enjoy it. Change anything you wish and see what's best. This is what I think the optimal list looks like, however I'm out of ideas. I don't think this will be winning a PT any time soon, but I made the deck to be fun and I find it quite fun.
As you can tell my grammar and spelling is terrible. I'll attempt to fix it over the next few days but for now I'm fairly brain dead.
Explor seems sketchy. Bolt would be nice here.
Prismatic omen is really not needed.
electrolize seems like it should be here in some number, and snapcaster mage seems left out.