Yesterday I played in the usual Tuesday Standard tournament at Guardian Games. The tournament was a giant success, as I scored 3-0 and took first place on tiebreaks. I beat Henry Romero, Ryan Engbrecht, and Thomas Overton on my way to the top. All three of them were running U/W Delver.
Yes...in case you weren't paying attention, that means I played U/W Delver in every single round. I'm not going to relay the games as usual---as I think that would be kind of dull. Instead, I'll just use this post to generally reflect on the U/W Delver deck and the R/G Wolf Run matchup.
The Pre-Board Matchup
Just before the first match my opponent, Henry Romero said to me, "If you're not playing U/W Delver right now, you're just playing the wrong deck." I think my R/G Wolf Run deck got offended or something, because it ran incredibly all evening. Maybe Henry's right; U/W Delver is a super strong deck and probably the best deck in the format overall, but I think the deck is fully beatable if you prepare for it and stay on top of the metagame. In particular, several aspects of R/G Wolf Run make me think that I have a good matchup against Delver pre-board. First, I have Cavern of Souls, Primeval Titan, and Glimmerpost. Honestly, my success against Delver recently has been largely due to this combination. When I am able to resolve a Primeval Titan and fetch the Glimmerposts, I can gain anywhere between 4 and 8 life, offsetting whatever damage U/W Delver has done to me in the early game. Casting Vapor Snag on the Titan is really not a big deal, because I'll just cast it again next turn and do the same thing. Second, I have Huntmaster of the Fells, which is at least a minor annoyance for U/W Delver. Again, the fact that I gain life and get a wolf when casting Huntmaster really helps against U/W, and both abilities make Vapor Snag even less effective.
So maybe U/W Delver is the best deck in the format overall (unlike Wolf Run, U/W Delver has good matchups against just about every deck in the format), but against R/G Wolf Run I'd say its chances pre-board are about 50/50.
The Post-Board Matchup
Obviously, an evaluation of each deck's chances post-board depends on the particular sideboards. The best I can do to analyze this matchup is kind of describe the most recent history.
A couple of weeks ago, David Stroud won some nice games off me by sideboarding in two copies of Consecrated Sphinx and a couple Ghost Quarters (as well as one copy of Amass the Components and several copies of Phantasmal Image). David got the idea from Gerry Thompson, whose deck list can be found here. It turns out Consecrated Sphinx is pretty good against R/G Wolf Run after you board out your two copies of Beast Within. You pretty much just lose. This got me thinking.
Generally speaking, Beast Within isn't a good card against Delver. I was right to sideboard it out. However, you need to have some answer to Consecrated Sphinx, and Restoration Angel is still a problem (the 4 toughness puts it out of Slagstorm range). I started to play several copies of Crushing Vines in the sideboard because it had so many uses against Delver---it kills Restoration Angel, Delver of Secrets, Consecrated Sphinx, and Swords. It seemed like the swiss-army knife my deck needed to deal with U/W Delver. But, I also thought about Combust, which has the benefit of costing less than Vines, and being uncounterable.
I beat David the next time we played, so I felt my analysis was correct. I should mention howver, that even during that last victory, I boarded in 1-2 copies of Combust to deal with Angels, and 1-2 copies of Crushing Vines to kill Sphinx.
Recent Shifts
This tournament demonstrated why staying AHEAD of the metagame is so crucial.
The latest version U/W Delver was created by Luis Scott Vargas at the World Cup Qualifier. You can find the decklist here. Luis basically ran the usual Delver shell, but replaced Sword of Feast and Famine with Sword of War and Peace in the main deck, and added four Hero of Bladeholds to the sideboard to try and reduce the effectiveness of Crushing Vines. Luis' plan was to sideboard out the Restoration Angels and add the Hero of Bladeholds whenever he thought the opponent was sideboarding in Crushing Vines. The Swords of War and Peace were just awesome in the mirror. I think both of these changes were excellent based on the current metagame.
To combat these perceived changes (which I thought some players might try), I added the 4th Combust to my sideboard before the tournament. This proved to be the correct decision, as Combust simply crushed all evening. I killed 3 flipped Delver of Secrets, 3 Restoration Angels, and 1 Hero of Bladehold. Put simply, Combust probably won me the tournament.
If I were a Delver player last night, I would have tried to anticipate the Combust hate, and sideboard differently. I might still add the Swords of War and Peace, but I'd run the version of Delver with Consecrated Sphinx and Ghost Quarters in the sideboard, because the Sphinx doesn't die to Combust and still causes problems for many decks (I think Adam Brown tried something like this last night, and went 2-1). The Sphinx is also good against the current Mono-Green deck made by Carrie Oliver, which I thought might make a showing last night (You can find the deck list here. A somewhat similar version was run by Jason Lee, scoring 2-1).
When searching through the various MTG pages online, I found another interesting example (see the deck list, here). In a recent online tournament, a U/W Delver player took first place running 4 Mutagenic Growth maindeck and 4 Wurmcoil Engines in the sideboard. Despite whether or not you think those particular changes are good or bad, you have to agree the pilot exercised independent thought based on his perception of the metagame. The Mutagenic Growths are great in the mirror and save the Angels from Combust, and the Wurmcoil Engines are very difficult for a lot of decks-- including R/G Wolf Run--to anticipate. I don't have enough experience with U/W Delver to attest the the strength of this player's idea, but it's no surprise to me that the deck took first place. Nobody anticipated his changes.
As a side note, the G/R Wolf Run deck that took second in that tournament is just awful. You have to run 4 Cavern of Souls maindeck, noob :-)
Conclusion
Anyways, that's my take on the matchup. Game one is 50/50 while games 2 and 3 really depend on whether the players have prepared for eachother. I guess that's not drastically enlightening, but that's what happens when you try to speak in generalities about a topic that is largely about the details.
I used my prize credit to pick up a copy of Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. Not sure if I should have done that, as I think the card is overpriced, but oh well. More tournaments to come, stay tuned!
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