Dies to Removal

Young pyromancer let me come back from one life against a Wu hatebears deck that cast all 4 of this Thalia's on one game tonight

also there seems to be a LOT of batterskull around where i play, going to try running some smash to smithereens in my SB

I've been playing Modern for awhile (about a year on and off), but most of my experience is on Scapeshift (formerly the RG titan version, now the RUG with four DTT's). I'm trying to practice as much Delver as I can as the archetype fascinates and excites me but hasn't been real strong in Modern until KtK came out (and i don't have the volcanics/FoW's for the legacy version lol).

What sort of UR build would you guys recommend for a completely open and random meta? It's pretty difficult to predict what will show up in my local meta, with different people bringing different decks every week. Even though i like the DTT/snapcaster builds more, I think the swiftspear/cruise version would be better if I have no idea what I'm going to be playing against since i can put out a faster clock and kill them before their plan can get off the ground.

What do you guys think about Caleb Durwald's take on UR delver in modern? I personally think he's crazy for running 17 lands with only 6 mana producing lands and no ponder/brainstorm, but he says it's been working well for him

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles ... nd-modern/

(scroll down he talks about Legacy first)

YP$ is a fair magic card

burn is this decks worst matchup that i'm aware of (though that chalice zoo list i've heard about look like it'd be pretty tough, thankfully it's not popular...yet) but it's far from unwinnable especially postboard. if you are expected burn in any capacity a couple dragon's claws go a long way

I haven't played vs. burn with a DTT/Tiago list yet but i suspect its burn matchup is better than the cruise/swiftspear version since you have more interaction as opposed to just trying to race them. Plus DTT lets you find your SB cards easier

Oh and 1 less burst lightning for 1 more pillar for the pod matchup since it's so popular here

Edit: I also hate how stupid the salvation forum is on the UR Delver forum

fixed that for ya

Current list, it's pretty close to what I've been seeing around here
[deck]Creatures 12
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Young Pyromancer
4x Snapcaster Mage

Sorceries 8
4x Serum Visions
4x Gitaxian Probe

Instants 21
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Burst Lightning
2x Spell Snare
2x Vapor Snag
1x Spell Pierce
4x Remand
2x Mana Leak
3x Dig Through Time
1x Electrolyze

19 Land
3x Steam Vents
3x Scalding Tarn
3x Misty Rainforest
1x Arid Mesa
2x Flooded Strand
1x Sulfur Falls
1x mountain
5x island[/deck]
The sulfur falls is a concession to the fact that some people play choke around here. I also only have 3 tarns, obviously need to get another one and replace the mesa with it.

SB is under construction but it's probably going to have the usual suspects. My local meta for modern is sort of random and it's difficult to predict what people are going to be playing, but recently the only things I've seen consistently the last couple weeks are twin and burn, so I'm gonna have 2 combusts and 2 [card]dragon's claw[/card]s at least. There's been some more delver too.

I want to try Izzet Staticaster over electrickery since it's reusable, since I only run one electrolyze so I think i can afford it mana curve wise.

Also, do you guys think something like batterskull is reasonable for the sideboard in grindier games, against stuff like UWR midrange? DTT lets you find it even as a singleton, and I can see games going long vs. a deck like that, and batterskull can help keep you out of reach from their burn. I know 5 mana is a lot for this deck, but I've had games where i get up to that much mana (hell that's why i have burst lightning, it does get kicked sometimes) Though I'll be packing dispel and negate for that matchup, and probably blood moon too. I dunno, just a thought.

Related to the UWR question, Geist of St. Traft is a card that has killed me more than once at my shop, are there any reasonable SB cards that deal with him? I honestly can't think of any besides pyroclasm besids just blocking but we're very creature light, so sometimes you just don't have a blocker. A resolved YP$ is obviously very good but sometimes you don't have enough time to get him out to make tokens while being able to leave up protection.

okay, so we basically agree then Zem.

though you ended up answering rcwrapsy's question too

Personally I agree that YP is an auto-include, but some people still insist on running the Hoogland Spellstutter Sprite Delver list. Maybe mention it briefly and why you choose the YP version over it?

I wouldn't think the mana base would support running the mutavaults needed to make SSS worth it now that you're running so many fetches so fuel cruise.

I also think YP is just straight up a better card in a deck with cruise.

I could be totally wrong though

The Delver archetype is probably one of the spikiest archetypes in the game since it's really strong and requires you to make correct decisions to win consistently

Treasure Cruise and Swiftspear have made me want to play this deck again. I've been playing scapeshift but my local meta isn't too soft to it. This deck seems insane now with fucking ancestral recall (with threshold) basically, and swiftspear looks promising. Not sure what to cut for her though, looking at the lists you guys have been posting.

My initial thought is cutting some snappys and lavaman mainboard. Snapcaster mage is insane, but with treasure cruise he isn't quite as vital for CA since we have cruise now.

I'm running Hoogland's UR fae version, here: http://articles.deckfactory.com/ur-fae- ... layer-50k/

Bitterblossom seems like a difficult card to handle for this deck, we might have to start running more copies of spell snare mainboard.