Deck of the Week
Shannon Lindsey, August 21, 2012

Considering the widespread popularity and success of Delver of Secrets, it is time I looked at a deck that uses the buggy human. Also, I am long overdue for a discussion of tempo. Lastly, I got destroyed by another powerful card in the last round of my Friday night magic that deserves a healthy discussion, even though it is the most expensive card in standard right now, despite not being a planeswalker. This deck has all those things, and isn’t even that popular. Meet Grixis Delver.

Grixis Delver
Creatures (12)
4 Talrand, Sky Summoner
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Delver of Secrets

Artifacts (3)
3 Runechanter’s Pike

Spells (24)
4 Bonfire of the Damned
4 Mana Leak
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Vapor Snag
4 Tragic Slip

Lands (21)
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
8 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain

Sideboard
3 Phantasmal Image
2 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Mental Misstep
1 Go for the Throat
2 Geth’s Verdict
1 Doom Blade
2 Smelt

The Delver Package

There are six cards that are universal to all standard Delver decks, no matter what flavor of Delver they are running. These five cards are Delver of Secrets, Snapcaster Mage, Mana Leak, Ponder, Gitaxian Probe, and Vapor Snag. First of all, if you haven’t already noticed, these are all blue cards. Even more important, they control the board in an early tempo style, by allowing a turn 1 Delver, followed with turn two mana leak if he flips, or a turn two Ponder and Vapor Snag to set up turn 3 flip if he doesn’t. Snapcaster’s job is to give an extra body, along with an extra dip at Vapor Snag or Mana Leak as the situation calls for. The beauty is that these six cards alone can knock an opponent’s life total low very quickly while stalling them to protect the Delver player. Successful Delver decks run cards that can help with this early tempo, or can achieve the last few points of damage when it stalls. Because of this, it must be paired with a powerful turn 3 or 4 threat that can finish the game. This version has a very strong late game because of the other four cards in the main deck.

Card 1: Tragic Slip

Tragic Slip, the only main deck black card, is a critical piece because of its dual purpose. At a single black mana, it can be used early to kill a one toughness threat in the same way Gut Shot does in other builds, but unlike gut shot, it can kill big threats late game, via a chump block to engage its morbid ability.

Card 2: Runechanter’s Pike

Runechanter’s Pike is fairly common in Delver builds because of the inherently high count of instants and sorceries in any Delver design. The extra power, combined with the first strike, makes any creature carrying this not only dangerous, but an engine to engaging the morbid on tragic slip, which in turn makes the pike bigger. Speaking of cards that get better with high instant and sorcery counts…

Card 3: Talrand, the Sky Summoner

This guy shouldn’t be attacking unless they are tapped out with an empty field, yet he is the single biggest creature threat this deck offers. The reason is because he makes armies of flying drake tokens using the same cards that make Delver flip and Runechanter’s Pike huge. Right now, most decks that run him like pumping the drakes out with free spells and Phyrexian mana, but this build doesn’t play the desperation game with him nearly so much. Mostly this is because even though he is the biggest creature threat, he isn’t the biggest overall threat. Gee, it would be nice for my opponent not to have any creatures when attack…

Card 4: Bonfire of the Damned

This card is epically amazing, and there is no reason this bad boy can’t be paired with Delver. This card is unique in that it can take a losing board state, and completely swing it the opposite direction. There is also a nice synergy with tragic slip, if the opponent has a single creature in their field of multiple creatures that is too big to Bonfire. Delver player’s looking for the answer to the last few points of damage, here is the answer.

The Land Base

Three colors can be tricky right now, but this land setup does a decent job, enabling max tempo turns one through three, and since Talrand is a late threat, if the fourth land is tapped, while bad, isn’t a total disaster either. Because of this, the fastlands were preferable where available.

Sideboard

In this deck, Phantasmal Image’s first job is to kill legendary creatures, especially Geist of St. Traft. Tormod’s Crypt stops graveyard decks. Surgical Extraction breaks combo decks. Mental Misstep shines in the Delver mirror match. Doom Blade, Geth’s Verdict, and Go for the Throat are specialized kill for the times slip won’t be good enough. Finally, Smelt is to destroy Swords.

Conclusion

This version of Delver, while not having the super fast clock of the blue-white version, should have a much better late game and can pull wins in situations other Delvers can’t. I welcome anyone who wants to try this design to give it a test run, and let me know what happens.