MTG Salvation

Saw this deck the other day and thought it was interesting, mostly because of all the 4-ofs.

I'd initially dismissed Thought Scour and Mental Note, thinking using them solely to fuel Treasure Cruise (and not Rune Snag, AK, etc) seemed to be a waste of slots/mana when compared to things with more direct utility (e.g. Git Probe), but the inventor made it work (and went 4-0).

Here's what I'm testing out after the inclusion of Treasure Cruise (ignore the sideboard). Suggestions appreciated!

Quote from fedezubo

what about sapphire charm? Seems good to me, because it can act as a pseudo-removal, can un-flip delver or remove any counter from permanents.
The fly ability seems also good for pushing some more damages.

Replies?

the deck is already very tight for space.
• replacing itself is useless
• most creatures already have flying, and it's begging to get 2-for-1'd
• phasing out an opponent's creatures is really situational, and will most often be dead

try it out and see how it goes, but i don't see this adding a whole lot of utility.

Quote from The Phasewalker

Humanoids are easiest for newer players to define with.

This sentence makes 0 sense.

Quote from leslak

-Lets make some really powerfull new slivers some of then that will make slivers decks in others formats become more and more powerfull lets make some of then really dumb broken

None of them are broken; none of them will see play in eternal formats.

I do play pauper (sig). Even some commons (e.g. Daze) are not quite what I'd consider budget-friendly or a reasonable price for cardboard.

Are there any formats that restrict cards on financial bases?

Reason I ask is because I usually limit my supercasual deckbuilding to a format and cost (among other things), because I find it an interesting limitation, it produces things I might actually be interested in investing in, I get a sense of superiority for beating someone with a "subpar" deck, and I have a couple outs if accused of being "cheap" or etc.

How about Type 0.25 - no individual cards >$0.25 using TCGplayer's lows as of 2013-05-16.
or decks can't cost more than $20 total (excluding basic lands).

I'm curious what the meta would look like.

You can take a look at the daily lists (bottom-right) to get an idea.

imo, it's 4 each of Cloud, Delver, Ninja, SSS, Golem;
4 Counterspell, 1 Deprive, 2-3 Snap, 1-2 Gush, 4 Preordain, 4 Ponder, 2 Daze, 4 AK;
17 Islands.

agree with Temporal Fissure Storm. It's entirely non-interactive while they ******** for 15 minutes a turn.

These are hardly slivers. They don't look like slivers and they don't act like slivers.
And all the ones that've been spoiled so far are unplayable.
They need to do something that Merfolk can't in order to be viable.

Some reasons why people don't like it:
• It's not fun to play against, as it's entirely non-interactive.
• It tends to abuse "unfair" mechanics (not derogatory, simply descriptive).
• It tends to win on T2-4.

I'm not saying people should stop playing it, as it's important in the checks and balances of things (especially in tournament settings, where sideboarding comes into play), but it's obv inappropriate to play a degenerate combo deck that involves 15 minutes of masturbation in a one-game casual setting.

Red. Even though Goblins are my favorite creatures/deck, the color has nothing going for it except cheap, fast creatures, which tends to be linear, limited, and completely non interactive (i.e., boring).

I'm sure this has already been said, but...

It's nearly impossible to be competitive and not netdeck, since the best decks will generally be netdecks. A lot of the lists have been tuned to near-perfection, with only a few flex slots, and only a few viable cards that can fit into those slots. Unless you're a true innovator and found something new that will push the metagame (spoiler: not happening), your "original" ideas are likely awful and probably an inferior version of preexisting archetypes.

That said, I don't think there's anything wrong with someone feeling a sense of accomplishment when a deck they conceived without outside influence is able to hold up against the best, and if that makes up for having a worse win record because you play subpar decks, then go for it. Personally, I can sympathize - I think it's boring when people simply copy+paste decks, I think it's neat when people try new things / things they like even though they may not be competitive, and tuning for the meta is my least favorite part about deck selection/building.


btw, I thought this was a decent recent article by Conley Woods on deck selection.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=11058

Quote from chrstphrbrnnn

Another pro for Memory Lapse is it allows you to play Quicksand and cast it off a single island and a quicksand.

Except we don't play Quicksand. Quicksand is for MUC. Delver plays 16-17 Islands. The low number is okay due to the low curve and card selection, but running non-basics, taplands, non-U producers, etc - basically anything but Islands - is suboptimal because it compromises the consistency of opening hands and Spire Golems way too much.

Quote from kidvoodoo

From a roughly traditional list I made these changes to add the lapse...
-1 deprive
-1 exclude
-2 counter spell
+4 memory lapse

Leaving me with the build i posted alittle bit earlier. And a well timed fog can win you the game :p. I can totally see where your coming from and its probably the reason people werent playing them earlier but its interesting to me. I really really want to see it work it hasn't disappointed yet. And i use the counterspells to counter their big stuff permanantly and i use the lapses to set back their draw and pull ahead in tempo. It does kinda feel aggressive when playing it.

I don't know but it just feels fun to play with.

2 hard counters is nowhere near consistent enough to be able to counter the things you need when you need. Sometimes a Fog can win games. Most of the time, you're better of running a card that actually does something. If you think tempo > hard counters and want to test it out, fine, but "really wanting to see it work" and "feeling fun to play" aren't valid reasons to be running a card in a competitive environment.

Ponder doesn't have any way of getting rid of the bad cards (shuffling and drawing isn't that great - when you do that, it's just a random cantrip). Just to reiterate: Ponder is better if you're looking for specific cards. Preordain is better if you want to improve the overall quality of your draws.

With Memory Lapse, you're giving up a draw (card) for one of theirs. It's about as much of a Time Walk as Fog or Boomerang are. They're also not "forced" to replay it next turn - they get a land drop, and can play anything else. Sure, it's tempo, but it's narrow in that it only helps you if you're already winning, and won't stop you from losing in the way a hard counter can. And I think someone was correct in saying that you're "countering a random card from their deck", but I see this as a con; hard counters give you the opportunity to counter the best card in their deck when they play it.
Also since someone mentioned it - Snap, by contrast, is free and has a lot of other uses: getting a Ninja through, recycling SSS, countering removal, etc.

Traditional Delver (i.e. the ones that go 4-0 in dailies) is more of a control-aggro deck (which is also why Accumulated Knowledge works, given our great card selection.) So like I said, maybe Memory Lapse would be better in a more aggressive, tempo-oriented deck, but at that point, why not just ditch counters altogether and fill the deck with bounce?

T1 Delver, T2 flip and protect it is our ideal plan, of course, but doesn't always happen and hard counters provide the most versatility and strongest "no".

The last concern is: what would you be cutting for it? I also wouldn't remove any hard counters for it, especially not Counterspell.

my take:

Memory Lapse doesn't actually do anything. When they replay it next turn, you still need to have an answer, and it'll be a 2-for-1. Not to mention it's an awful topdeck. I'd rather run more actual counters that aren't so situational.

Brainstorm's good at flipping Delvers (something the deck doesn't have a whole lot of trouble doing anyway), and finding an answer at instant speed, but not much else. It's only really shines in fast formats that have shuffle effects (fetches) and necessitate immediate answers to game-breaking plays.
Preordaining/Pondering just to get rid of Brainstorm junk seems wasteful - 2 mana and 2 cards just for filtering/random cantrips.

In terms of smoothing out / setting up favorable draws, Preordain > Ponder >> Brainstorm. I think Brainstorm might have a place in the more aggressive builds that would trade future card quality for immediate gains, but otherwise, I think it compromises the quality of the rest of the deck too much. If you test it out, please share results.