Discussion Forum

So with no bannings to the Delver line of decks, i found myself looking at the spoilers of upcoming cards and wondering, WTF is Wizards thinking? You probably don't know what i mean, allow me to show you a new, mono-blue delver deck that i think will rear it's ugly head until October when RTR hits and the scars block and m12 rotate.

Creatures: (16)
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Mindshrieker
4x Jace's Phantasm (a one drop 1/1 with flying, if an opponent has 10+ cards in their graveyard it gets +4/+4)

Spells: (20)
4x Ponder
3x Thought Scour
3x Mind Sculpt (target player puts the top 7 cards of their library into their graveyard)
4x Mana Leak
3x Vapor Snag
3x Gut Shot

Artifacts (5)
3x Ring of Evos Isle (2 to cast, 1 to equip, pay 2 give creature hexproof until end of turn, during your upkeep put a +1/+1 counter on creature if it's blue)
2x Runechanter's Pike

Lands (19)
4x Cavern of Souls
15x Island

The idea? Turn one you hopefully have Jace's Phantasm, turn 2 Mind Sculpt your opponent, turn 3 you can go about other business or Thought Scour your opponent putting them at a bare minimum of 9 cards in their graveyard. If they are also playing blue then they will have 10 or more and your Phantasm will be a 5/5 flier and any other phantasm's you cast will be also.

The Mindshriekers are there to buff themselves off of milling your opponent as well as feed your Phantasms, the synergy is blatant. Snapcasters are your toolbox as usual, and Delvers are Delvers. Runechanters Pike is fairly good in a Delver deck and will be a necessity in the mirror. It's either use the Pike to try for an advantage, or run Tormod's Crypt to nuke your own graveyard just so your opponents 5/5 flier becomes a 1/1 again. The new ring seems broken from the get go in this deck and may warrant a resurrection of Tezzeret's Gambit.

And you thought a 3/2 flier was bad mojo...