***Tournament report***


They call me Doctor_Wyrm. Good morning, how are you, I'm Doctor_Wyrm.

I won the most recent pauper challenge 10-0 with Ur Delver (list here) and I figured I'd try my hand at writing a tournament report so here goes.

I started the day off right with a swift 0-2 drop from the MOCs. I wasn't really expecting much from that event as my pool was quite bad and I've played basically no limited since returning to the game in august, so I was able to brush that off fairly easily and went to grab some food. While eating, I pondered what I was going to play in the pauper challenge. For a while I had been playing tribe combo exclusively, and while that deck is quite good I've grown pretty tired of it. With that deck (at least the way I play it), almost every game plays out the same and its become quite stale, additionally I've noticed a growing number of spellstutter sprites as of late which isn't your favorite thing to see as a tribe player. So I've been hopping around between a number of different decks lately and for this event I was mostly deliberating between izzet blitz and izzet delver. Ultimately I went with delver because I was expecting a lot of mono blue delver (this did not turn out to be the case) and the izzet version has a strong matchup against its mono blue counterpart. Blitz might not have a bad time in the matchup, but unfortunately I rarely run into mono blue in leagues so I haven't gotten enough experience to be sure. Also to some extent I think trying to metagame for these events is a fool's errand, because a lot of the times the deck distribution is some weird anomaly like 10 MBC decks or something, and delver is much more consistent against random nonsense than blitz is. I don't have an enormous amount to say about my list, as it's fairly standard. I run a 9th cantrip where a lot of people run some random one of and I've been quite happy with it, I absolutely love having 2 brainstorm to filter my draws later into the game (especially shuffling away lands I've gushed back), and I wouldn't want any less ponders and preordains than I'm running currently. If I were to cut anything from the maindeck it would be the delvers, as they are often sided out, but there just aren't cards that I find particularly attractive to replace them with. Perhaps I'll try 3 delvers and a logic knot next time. I had 3 gorilla shamans in my deck 30 minutes before the tournament due to my irrational hatred of affinity (I swear to god they have 3 thoughtcasts, atog and battle rage in their top 20 cards every game), but I decided to replace one of them due to what I perceived as other aggressive decks such as elves, stompy, and heroic taking over some of affinity's meta share. I was considering adding one copy of harvest pyre to my sideboard because I wanted something that would kill enormous heroic creatures out of heroic if they had a quick start, but I ultimately decided on adding the 2 sandstorm for elves and stompy. Definitely something to consider if the heroic deck gets more popular.

On to the games!

Round 1: Paulinho_CMD with Affinity

Game 1: Of course this happens minutes after I cut my third gorilla shaman. I keep a strong hand on the draw, but he plays turn 3 atog, I spend my turn 3 cantripping and playing my augur and then he flings his atog at me on turn 4. Fun game.

In this matchup I like having the hydroblasts post board in order to stop a resolved atog from taking over the game, and if they don't draw an atog you can always counter galvanic blasts and pyroblasts. +3 hydroblast +2 Shaman +2 Sandstorm -3 bolt -4 delver

Game 2: I see a Gorilla Shaman in my opener and my eyes light up like a gorilla in an artifact store. I double stone rain him on turn 3, and while hes able to galvanic blast it I quickly deploy a ninja. Fun game.

Game 3: I keep a nice 2 lander with hydroblast and sandstorm, which should be capable of answering most any opening affinity can produce. I spend my first few turns cantripping and fetching, and at the end of his turn, he has two flayer husks, two carapace forgers and four cards in hand. I have 4 cards in my graveyard, two untapped mana and my hand is Ponder, Hydroblast, Gush, Skred, Sandstorm, Island, and Ash Barrens. I opt for an aggressive line here and cycle my ash barrens and hydroblast a random land, allowing me to gush on my fourth turn, granting me threshhold and enabling me to sweep his board. Fortunately I am a very skilled player and I draw a gorilla shaman off my gush which I use to blow up all his lands a few turns later and win the game.

1-0

Round 2: benjicards with Blitz

Game 1: I keep a weakish 1 lander on the play with a couple cantrips and an unfortunate two copies of gush. Fortunately brainstorm forgives all sins and I'm able to find another land and an ash barrens which I use to shuffle my gushes away with brainstorm. I find out what deck he's playing on turn 4 when he plays out a mountain and a kiln fiend. I untap and see this: hmm

I choose not to cast ponder here, as the deck only has 8 remaining basic lands, and I don't want to risk not finding one and being unable to cast bolt + a counter. I bolt, he casts mutagenic growth which I Spellstutter, and successfully net the kill on his fiend. Having played both of these decks extensively, I've found that the Blitz deck usually needs to stick one of its first two threats on the earlier turns or else delver will take over the game. He has trouble finding his second threat, casting an awkward gush which results in him discarding at the end of turn, and my ninja wraps it up.

Game 2: I keep a one lander on the draw with a terramorphic, I scry a skred to the bottom and haven't drawn a land by my second turn. I cast ponder, don't see any lands, shuffle and draw an ash barrens. Ah, the trials and tribulations of the 4/2 ash barrens terramorphic expanse split. I hold it to cycle the next turn and am able to hydroblast his early kiln fiend, but he plays a cyclops on his turn 4 and I look quite silly. Pictured: me, looking quite silly

Then I die.

Game 3: I keep a very strong 2 lander with some faeries, a pyroblast and a bolt. I cantrip into some more answers while he doesn't deploy a threat until turn 3 and is quickly dispatched by my pile of answers and their friend Ninja of the Deep Hours.

2-0

Round 3: Mezzel with Mono U Delver

Game 1: He's on the play and leads with ponder, I play delver which he snaps on his turn and passes. I choose to play an augur rather than delver + cantrip to play around sprite, which he dazes by returning an island and plays a very sad spellstutter sprite. He ninjas on his turn and I'm fortunately able to hit an ash barrens off my ponder which I mountaincycle to skred it. We play the 1 for 1 game for a while but his deck is full of dazes and bounce spells while my deck is full of cards that are always good and I take over the late game.

Game 2: I keep a nice post-board hand with a blast and a Stormbound geist, and he doesn't have much in the way of early pressure, so I'm able to leisurely wait until turn 5 to play my geist with blast up and daze protection. I get my geist into play after blasting his counter, which he snaps and hits me with a ninja. On my turn I cast gush, augur, and preordain looking for a burn spell, finally finding a skred which he counters, and I allow, saving my one counterspell for later nonsense. He attacks with the ninja, I block with my augur, he tries to gut shot it, I counter, he gut shots again leaving his ninja as the only creature on the board. My hand is faerie miscreant, geist, electrickery and a bunch of lands as I've impressively managed to draw 8 of my 18 lands in the top 18 cards despite multiple cantrips. He counters my geist and gut shots my faerie, leaving me with no way to stop another ninja hit. I ponder into an augur, and when he tries to spellstutter it my elecktrickery cleans up his faeries. My augur finds me a pyroblast and I'm able to stabilize from the brink of defeat at the hands of his ninja.

3-0

Round 4: RedderTory with Izzet Delver

Game 1: Another drawn out delver matchup which develops to the point where were both out of cards and his augur is staring down two of my faeries. He rips a ninja first and picks up his augur and things dont look good. However I soon draw an augur which he attempts to spellstutter with no other faeries on the board (oops), my augur finds a cantrip which finds a gush and I take control of the endgame.

Game 2: My opponent has to awkwardly gush and discard early while I play an early ninja and kill off all their creatures.

4-0

Round 5: EightSixEightSix with Angler Delver

Everytime my opponent plays dismal backwater against me I'm happy. I've experimented with most of the different variations of UB and I've found all of them to be quite bad. In this matchup I have skreds to kill his anglers, more countermagic than he does, and I have good cantrips in my deck instead of thought scour. Both games I get ninjas down at some point and kill all his anglers.

5-0

Round 6: Pokerswizard with Elves

Game 1: Elves is a good matchup pre-board and when you bring in 4 sweepers in game 2 you just crush them. Game 1 however I keep a clunky 1 lander on the draw, fail to find lands with my cantrips and get run over.

Game 2: My opponent plays nettle sentinel turn 1 and then two mana elves turn 2, meaning they must have had one in hand on turn 1 but chose to cast nettle sentinel instead, which I can't imagine is correct. Regardless, his only resolved threats this game are a pair of longbows and at some point I cast a sweeper and wrap it up.

Game 3: My opponent resolves an early spidersilk armor, turning off my electrickeries (that's a weird word to type) but he repeatedly decides to get in with his 1/2 reach elves rather than holding some back to stop me with ninjaing, so I just draw some cards with ninja and burn all his elves.

6-0. So I'm locked for top 8 and now my last round doesn't matter. Yay! Side note: for those who don't know, in the top 8 of a paper tournament, the higher seeded player is put on the play rather than rolling for it, MODO inexplicably doesn't do this (I guess the technology just isn't there yet), and it leads to not caring about matches and tilts me every time.

Round 7: N1CKLES with Slivers

Game 1: My opponent plays a sidewinder sliver on turn 2 and I debate the merits of scooping. I was watching the grand finals of the CS:GO major with some friends in discord, which I was somewhat tempted to give my full attention to, and additionally I can't imagine ever losing this matchup so if I scoop them into top 8 that realistically increases my odds of winning. I ultimately decide to play it out because I vaguely wanted to 10-0 the tournament. I keep his board under control early and counter both of his lead the stampedes, but he eventually manages to stick a lord and we get into a race situation which I'm able to edge out by skreding a blocker and ninjitsuing off a faerie for the last point of damage.

Game 2: I kill his first lord leaving him with just a couple 1/1s, but he casts a quick sliver at the end of my fourth turn (a card I hadn't seen before which seems quite strong in the matchup) which I choose to counter. He untaps and plays out two lords which end up putting me too far behind to recover.

Game 3: I keep a solid hand with a couple burn spells and keep his horde under control early. However A gemhide sliver enables him to bait with a lord, which I counter, and then follow up with a lead the stampede which flips two more lords, giving him the gas to stay in the game. We repeat a familiar play pattern from game 2, where he casts a quick sliver at the end of my turn to bait my counter, however this time my counter is baiting him into playing out his lords while I'm tapped down. When I untap I get to kill 3 lords and 2 1/1s with my sandstorm. He manages an impressive recovery, playing out two more lords the next turn, but ultimately I'm just up too many cards at this point and eventually bury him with ninjas.

7-0

Round 8: _DissonancE with Stompy Game 1: Matched against the defending champion himself for the quarterfinals! While I actually think this matchup is somewhere in the neighborhood of even, its definitely the pairing I felt I had the greatest chance of losing out of anyone in the top 8. It almost always produces exciting games though! I keep a reasonable hand lacking any burn spells, and he leads on a vault skirge, followed by a quirion ranger baiting my counter into a bloodthirsted pit-skulk. On his turn four he trades his skirge for one of my faeries, casts a rancor on his skulk to bait my counter, and then resolves a hunger of the howlpack on it. On my turn I play ponder and augur in an attempt to find a skred to hopefully kill the skulk on my next turn when I make my 5th land drop, but only find a bolt. On his turn he takes the opportunity presented by my tapped islands and resolves an elephant guide on his skulk and bashes me with his 8/8 skulk dropping me to 9. On my turn I untap, and in the deciding draw step of the top 8 rip the skred I need to take out his pit skulk. If I hadn't drawn that skred I could have passed with 5 open mana and hardcast gush at the end of his turn, but I probably would not have won from that position. With the way the game played out though I was able to kill off his problematic creatures, lock down the board with a couple augurs, and finish out the game with some delvers and a ninja.

Game 2: I keep a reasonable but unexciting hand and my opponent puts 8 power into play by turn 2. On his fourth turn as he bashes me down to three while I'm tapped out with 6 cards in my graveyard he muses in chat “gush into sandstorm” to which I respond “true”. However the top of my deck doesn't cooperate and we move to deciding game.

Game 3: I keep a nice seven with a sandstorm and some cantrips to enable it. I trade some bolts and a delver for some of his early pressure as he avoids committing more than two creatures to the board. As the pressure is so light I'm able to wait until my sixth turn to sandstorm, leaving up spellstutter sprite to stop his follow up. As it turns out the lack of commitment on my opponents part was due to massive flood rather than tight play and I quickly close out the game.

8-0

Round 9: Morrys with Blitz

Game 1: My opponent is on the play (I guess the technology just isn't there yet) and leads off with a turn 3 kiln fiend, which meets a counterspell. He bolts my ninja, I bolt his delver (as a a side note, I think delver is quite bad in the blitz deck), and the game quickly progresses to the point where were both low on cards, which is a situation where it is incredibly difficult for blitz to win from. If the delver he played was a gush or an augur he would have had a solid shot, but as it was I eventually find a ninja and lock it up.

Game 2: My opponent mulls to 6, scrys to the bottom, plays a gitaxian probe and a mountain on turn 4, then scoops on turn 4 without playing a second land. A win is a win I guess.

9-0

Round 10: pokerswizard with Elves (Rematch!)

Before the start of this match, my opponent messages me offering a split, which I decline, because I'm not splitting an 80/20 matchup regardless of what's at stake (and I probably wouldn't split a 50/50 matchup with less than a few thousand on the line), and we get ready for the climactic finale.

Game 1: My opponent is on the play (I guess the technology just isn't there yet), and I keep a below average seven with a miscreant into ninja opening. This isn't nearly fast enough as my opponent gets down a turn 2 elvish vanguard that quickly grows out of burn range and takes me out.

Game 2: I keep a seven with electrickery and sandstorm which usually means the game is already over. However when I go to kill three elves with my electrickery, my opponent untaps some elves with quirion ranger and casts magnify! He then follows up with a relic, limiting my ability to obtain threshold for my sandstorms. However, due to a lack of action my opponent is soon forced to crack his relic, only managing to exile a mere 3 cards (this is why I don't like bringing narrow sideboard cards like relic in as elves). I'm able to hold down the fort with augurs while I build up threshold and cast sandstorm, netting me a 5 for 1, and then I go through the motions of closing out the game.

Game 3: My opening hand has a sandstorm and I'm able find a pair of skreds to deal with his early vanguard and timberwatch elf. I sweep his board and he doesn't have a lead the stampede to recover and my ninja wraps it up.

10-0!

The deck is great. I'm pretty convinced that Ur delver is the best deck, I don't think it has any significantly losing matchups (I've heard people say it loses to boros, but that hasn't been my experience), and it just crushes a lot of the field.

Props:

Cantrips, for making magic fun to play

The second copy of swirling sandstorm returning to the sideboard and being amazing all day (I'm sorry for all those things I said about you baby, I'll never leave you again)

Slops:

Magic Online Technology, for just not being there yet.

This was way, way, way longer than I thought it would be, but I had a good time writing it. It was really nice to win a second pauper challenge, catch me next week when I win a third :)




                            ***SIDEBOARD by Doctor_Wyrm***

The number one mistake people make when sideboarding with this deck is thinking that it's a delver based deck because it's in the name. I board delver out in almost every single matchup with the exceptions of stompy (where you just want another one mana thing that can slow them down) and decks like tron that try to go bigger than you so you have a clock on them. Other than that I think the boarding is pretty self explanatory. Red blasts are for blue decks, blue blasts are for burn, blitz, and affinity, sweepers are for aggro decks, shamans are for affinity, and the geists are for delver mirrors and black decks. You cut bolts against control decks and affinity, and against fast aggro you cut down on ninjas and counters. I think that should cover most bases for you.


***  Whats the sb plan against elves? This matchup has been troubling me a lot. Unless I find sandstorm or electrickery ASAP, its really tough to compete against them. I know what to bring in, but what do you take out? How should I play games 2 and 3?



Response:  I just cut the delvers and bring in the sweepers as having a quick clock in the matchup isn't particularly important. The most important part of playing the matchup is understanding when to burn their early mana dorks and when to save your answers for their actual threats. If you have multiple answers you generally want to kill the first elf, as their deck is very light on lands killing their dork can often cripple their draw. You also usually want to do this when you have one burn spell and several counters as stunting their development gives you time to have mana up for their threats. However in a large number of the games they'll get several mana producing elves out and you won't be able to stunt them on mana, it's important to recognize this and ignore that random 1/1s as their deck only has four cards in it that do anything (vanguard, huntmaster, timberwatch elf, and lead the stampede), as long as you stop them from sticking one of those they can't really do anything. Postboard the matchup gets a lot easier as they usually can't beat a single successful sweeper and you aren't dead to a single huntmaster falling through the cracks.


***  Let me ask you a question: how important is Skred? Are there a lot of threats with 4+ toughness that need it? I keep looking longingly at Chain Lightning with its ability to go to the dome and still remove most of the threats in the format. I guess the question is does it routinely do more than 3 damage when you cast it?


Response:    Skred is crucial against affinity, mono blue delver, any deck that plays angler and a host of other random things. Lightning bolt almost never goes to the face to begin with, this really isn't a deck where that kind of thing is important.








                            ***SIDEBOARD by Kungfuutrees***



***vs mono G Stompy:

-3 Counterspell

-1 Daze

-2 Faerie Miscreant

+1 Augur of Bolas

+2 Skred

+2 Electrickery

+1 Swirling Sandstorm

Notes: Preboard, I consider this matchup to be slightly unfavorable, but postboard, I consider this matchup to be slightly favorable. Counters are bad in general against Stompy because they're too mana inefficient (except for dispel which can stop a key Vines of Vastwood or Hunger of the Howlpack), and UR Delver can just burn everything instead. I rarely try to race, and instead frequently use Delvers and ninjas on defense to trade against 2/2s. Eventually, UR Delver will out card advantage Stompy.



***vs mono U Delver:

-4 Delver of Secrets

-1 Augur of Bolas

-1 Daze

-1 Lightning Bolt

-1 Vapor Snag

+2 Pyroblast

+2 Skred

+2 Stormbound Geist

+2 Electrickery

Notes: I consider this matchup, both preboard and postboard, to be extremely favorable. Delvers are unreliable on defense, and can't get through Stormbound Geists and Spire Golems on offense, so I side them out. UR Delver can easily land a ninja, and ride it to victory by killing everything in its way. Otherwise, UR Delver can try to set up a board stall. Eventually, either mono U Delver will have to attack and make bad trades, or UR Delver will draw enough burn to clean up the board and win.



***vs UB Flicker:

-3 Lightning Bolt

-2 Skred

-1 Vapor Snag

+2 Stormbound Geist

+2 Pyroblast

+1 Augur of Bolas

+1 Counterspell

Notes: I consider this matchup slightly favorable preboard, and favorable postboard. Removal spells are not that great because they're negative card advantage against UB Flicker, and I find this matchup to be all about card advantage. UR Delver has slightly more value creatures than UB Flicker, and they're also cheaper. Also, Gush from UR Delver is easy to resolve, whereas Mulldrifter is not. In addition, in the late game, fetch lands plus the low land count from UR Delver means that UR Delver will just have drawn a few more spells than UB Flicker.



***vs Murasa Tron:

-4 Lightning Bolt

-2 Skred

-1 Vapor Snag

+2 Pyroblast

+2 Hydroblast

+2 Stormbound Geist

+1 Counterspell

Notes: I consider this matchup to be slightly favorable, both preboard and postboard. Because of their inconsistent manabase, UR Delver gets a lot of free wins. If they have mana, but don't have tron, their cards are too inefficient to keep up with UR Delver. If they have tron, UR Delver still has a reasonable shot because UR Delver can keep up in card advantage, and their big spells can still be countered cheaply.



***vs Kuldotha Tokens:

-4 Delver of Secrets

-2 Skred

-1 Daze

-1 Vapor Snag

+2 Stormbound Geist

+2 Electrickery

+2 Gorilla Shaman

+1 Augur of Bolas

+1 Counterspell

Notes: I consider this matchup to be even preboard, but favorable postboard. This matchup is mostly about value since both sides have enough removal spells to stop any fast starts from each other. Delver doesn't generate value, so I side them out. In general, UR Delver has slightly more value creatures, as well as more counterspells to stop value creatures. Postboard, UR Delver gets Electrickery to stop one of the main ways Kuldotha can win against UR Delver, and Gorilla Shaman as another value creature. (I usually target clue tokens before lands with my Gorilla Shamans.)

***vs Bogles:

-2 Skred

-1 Dispel

-1 Augur of Bolas

+2 Electrickery

+1 Counterspell

+1 Swirling Sandstorm

Notes: I think this matchup is slightly unfavorable preboard, but slightly favorable postboard. In the dark, I keep in Lightning Bolts to kill Scattershot Archers. If I see Aura Gnarlids, I'll swap the Bolts for Skreds. I'll usually let any aura that doesn't pump toughness resolve, and I'll let myself get hit down to very low life totals to keep up open mana. I think I would max out on Electrickerys and then start adding Curfews if I had to fight Bogles more often.



*First of all, great guide and write up, definitely a huge help. Any idea how to board or play against Affinity in general? 5 out of 8 matches have been against Affinity today and I am not sure what to do against them.

[–]kungfutrees[S] 2 pontos 10 meses ago
There are several different builds of Affinity, so sideboarding is a little bit more fluid. In general, I'll cut Dazes and Dispel, and trim on Delvers, Augurs, and Counterspells. I'll also trim on Bolts if they don't have Somber Hoverguard, Auriok Sunchaser, or Disciple of the Vault. I'll add Gorilla Shamans, Hydroblasts, Skreds, at least one Pyroblast (more if you see Gearseeker Serpent), and probably Swirling Sandstorm. (I'm still testing out Swirling Sandstorm :).)

I think the matchup is unfavorable preboard, but favorable postboard. Gorilla Shaman is easily the most important card in the matchup. If I do draw Gorilla Shaman, I try to wait until I can get 3+ lands with it, and I also aggressively go after Springleaf Drums, Flayer Husks, and even Chromatic Stars. (Affinity is usually the only matchup in which I will actually play Ash Barrens instead of cycling it to allow Gorilla Shaman to eat an extra land.) If I don't draw Gorilla Shaman, I usually try to race with Delvers and ninjas. (For example, I'll usually Skred the 4/4 on defense instead of trying to preserve my life total.)


***vs Izzet Blitz

+2 skred +2 pyroblast +2 hydroblast +1 swirling sandal (maybe)

-4 delver -1 daze - 1 counterspell - 1 augur(maybe)




***vs boggles

+2 electrickery +1 counterspell +1 swirling sandal

-2 skred -1 dispel -1 delver


*** Vs Mirror Match
Yeah, I definitely treat it as a value game. With the decklist linked in this post, I would go:

+2 Electrickery, +3 Pyroblast, +1 Augur, +2 Stormbound Geist

-4 Delver, -1 Daze, -1 Vapor Snag, -2 Skred


***Vs Elves
I think Elves should be a pretty good matchup, especially postboard. I wouldn't side out ninjas though, since they reset Spellstutters, are good blockers, and are also annoying to block for Elves, My sideboard plan is:

+2 Electrickery, +1 Swirling Sandstorm, +1 Counterspell

-1 Daze, -1 Dispel, -2 Delvers


***Vs Midnight Gond
I've only played that matchup once (and won :P), so I don't have a whole lot of experience, but for your list, I would probably go:

+2 Electrickery, +1 Relic of Progenitus, +1 Swirling Sandstorm

-2 Skred, -1 Dispel, -1 Augur of Bolas

My impression of this matchup is that Gond is really slow to get started and also somewhat inconsistent, so UR Delver can easily win with a good start. Otherwise, if the game goes long (and UR Delver is forced to play defense), I would look to save counters mainly for Spidersilk Armor and start digging for board sweepers. Once you have board sweepers, I would wait a little bit longer for another few counters for Prismatic Strands. If the sweepers resolve, the game should be pretty easy to win from there.

-----UR Delver is clunkier than mono U Delver, and gets nut draws far less often, but it is much better at catching up on the board, so being slower doesn't hurt UR Delver as much. Also, the addition of red sideboard cards makes the matchups against Elves, tokens, and Affinity quite a bit better. The red removal spells also kill Scattershot Archers, and just make the matchup against green decks much better.

UR Delver also loses Spire Golem, but I think Augur is better than Spire Golem in every matchup except vs mono U Delver anyways.