Grand Prix Indianapolis is just mere days away! For a lot of Legacy players, this is a rare treat, as we get some time play our favorite format on the big stage in between all of these Constructed and Limited Grand Prixs. Today, as you can probably tell from the article title, I want to talk about the deck that I plan on playing this weekend, RUG Delver. It’s the love child of an old Legacy favorite (does the name David Caplan strike any bells?) and new gifts from Innistrad. In many ways, [card]Delver of Secrets[/card] and [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] strengthened the core of this deck so that it could be a heavy player in the metagame, affixing itself as one of the Top 3 decks in the format over the last few months.
For my preparation, I’ve taken an extra step back to familiarize myself with this deck as much as I can. With limited time and money for travel, playing at local events each of the past three weekends has been a good way to get myself into the correct mindset. Also, Star City Games columnist and friend Drew Levin (@drew_levin) has taken some extra time out of his schedule to help me evaluate my strategies and decisions with RUG Delver. Drew is incredibly knowledgeable in this format, and has posted two amazing records in the past two American Legacy Grand Prix. How do you think he’ll do this weekend? A lot of what I’ll be talking about today was helped by speaking with him on the subject.
First of all, this is the 75 that I’ll be registering on Saturday, plus or minus a couple of cards at maximum:
[Deck Title= RUG Delver, Mark Sun]
[Lands]
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Island
4 Wasteland
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Nimble Mongoose
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Spell Snare
3 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Chain Lightning
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
3 Submerge
2 Krosan Grip
3 Counterbalance
1 Mind Harness
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Surgical Extraction
[/sideboard]
[/deck]
Decklist Breakdown
This is fairly close to the stock lists that have been doing well at the recent Starcity Opens, but honestly, after grinding this deck for the past couple of months, there isn’t a whole lot of room to get cute. The deck has a very targeted plan of what it wants to do. These cards are what I consider to be the core of the deck:
4 [card]Delver of Secrets[/card]: As it turns out, even when you deviate from Standard, where [card]Delver of Secrets[/card] has been on a tear, you still can’t get away from it. It’s one of the best cards in this deck – an efficient and evasive beater, capable of putting pressure on early, exactly what you need to be doing with this deck. With over 40% of the deck being Instants or Sorceries and eight cantrips (+1), there’s a very good chance you’ll be attacking with a 3/2 flier on your second turn.
4 [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]: Tarmogoyf has fallen out of favor in Legacy recently, but remains a staple in RUG Delver. For this type of aggressive strategy, it’s still the best 2cc beater that’s available. The core of the deck is still UR, and for the cheap price of 3 [card]Tropical Island[/card]s in your mana base and more flexibility in your sideboard, you can speed up your clock considerably. It gets towered over by [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card], but the RUG Delver manabase is not made to support a card that wants to be cast in the mid to late game. It doesn’t want to make it to that point, because something has probably gone wrong if so.
4 [card]Force of Will[/card] / 3 [card]Daze[/card] / 3 [card]Spell Pierce[/card]: While you are administering your beats, your threats are backed up with a strong suite of cheap and efficient disruption. There are seven pieces of countermagic that you can cast without mana. The other three are made to help you survive the early game and last into the mid game. [card]Spell Pierce[/card] is incredibly versatile, especially when paired with free countermagic and 4 [card]Wasteland[/card].
But wait, where is [card]Stifle[/card]? It’s back in the play stock binder, pushed out by the adjusting metagame and experience against RUG Delver. Stifle’s usefulness is very cyclical; it’s a blowout when people aren’t expecting it, but when it has been public knowledge for months now on the Starcity circuit, it becomes a lot worse. From the pilot’s standpoint, it provides a serious conundrum regarding whether to play a threat on turn one or hold up mana for [card]Stifle[/card]. This is incredibly weak, since it removes the momentum from RUG Delver as the aggressor, and gambles with its ability to generate a tempo advantage. What if your opponent doesn’t fetch? How far behind will you get? Removing [card]Stifle[/card] for [card]Spell Pierce[/card] gave the deck some mid to late game resiliency against decks that are playing around [card]Stifle[/card]. It also, in a way, helps make [card]Brainstorm[/card] a more powerful tool as the game goes on; you’ll be digging into more business and less do-nothings with it the more patient you are.
4 [card]Brainstorm[/card] / 4 [card]Ponder[/card] / 1 [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card]: Perhaps the biggest strength of the base blue aggressive decks is the ability to have a very strong say in your card quality. By having access to eight (+1) cantrips, the deck can maintain consistency with its draws and provide you with the cards suited for the situation. The other bonus that cantrips provide is the ability to increase deck velocity, or the speed at which you can move through the cards in your deck. This is what allows the ability for the deck to run a 1-of [card]Ancient Grudge[/card] or 1-of [card]Mind Harness[/card] in its sideboard; besides being redundant effects of cards already present in the sideboard ([card]Krosan Grip[/card] and [card]Submerge[/card], respectively), these singletons can be reached faster with the ability to see more virtual cards. Oh, and at some point, you get to have a shrouded [card]Wild Nacatl[/card].
4 [card]Lightning Bolt[/card] / 2 [card]Chain Lightning[/card]: I’ve heard a lot of unhappy chatter about red removal in general, along the lines of it unable to answer a larger threat like a [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]. But this deck is tempo-oriented, and life is a resource. [card]Lightning Bolt[/card] and [card]Chain Lightning[/card] are designed to generate tempo in some situations (removing a critical [card]Noble Hierarch[/card], for example), but can also double up as a win condition when you aim it at your opponent’s dome. It can artificially increase the deck’s threat base. As Drew reasoned in one of his previous articles, the reason the [card]Chain Lightning[/card]s aren’t [card]Dismember[/card]s, is because against the matchups where you would want to use a [card]Dismember[/card] on a [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] or [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card], you’d probably be better off setting up a better situation where you can race instead.
Support Cards
The core of the deck basically looks like a UR tempo deck splashing [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]s. This is what you want when considering slots for this type of deck. It does get some support in the other cards of the deck to push through its core strategy of tempo advantage and mana denial.
3 [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card]: [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card] makes a huge comeback after being in Legacy jail for the greater part of two years. When I first started playing Magic in 2009, one of the first decks that I encountered was Canadian Threshold, which at the time sported a full playset of these guys. Then, I started seeing it a lot less. The format had adjusted to a more creature heavy format where decks like Zoo were king, and as good as a 1/1 with Shroud was, it couldn’t make as much of an impact with so many early [card]Wild Nacatl[/card]s and [card]Kird Ape[/card]s. Why do I bring that up? Because we can use the signs from the past to pinpoint [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card]’s role in RUG Delver.
Having the three copies of [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card] in your deck alongside 4 Delver of Secrets gives you an approximately 60% chance to have an opener containing at least one 1cc threat. Compare this to 40% when you have only 4 [card]Delver of Secrets[/card], and you can see the importance of including an additional early threat to the deck. This allows you to assume your role as the aggressor more often, something that RUG Delver should be doing frequently. This is a topic I’ll cover later.
3 (Total) [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card] / 3 [card]Counterbalance[/card]: The [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card] and [card]Counterbalance[/card] combo is still definitely viable, but no longer a strong maindeck strategy. This is mainly due to decks like Maverick, which can assemble a board presence before you can cast [card]Counterbalance[/card], and play around it with a card like [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card]. Instead, it’s more of a strategy that is suited for certain matchups. With the format becoming more tempo oriented, decks have taken the liberty to be more efficient. When this usually means going lower on the mana costs, [card]Counterbalance[/card] shines. Take a look at the ten best performing decks of the past month. I took this data from The Council, a resource similar to when deckcheck.net was active in the past. The Council has taken an extra step to compile the collective Top 8’s of each archetype.
Listed in position, we see (1) RUG Delver, (3) Stoneblade, (4) Reanimator, (5) Burn, and (6) Storm. Elsewhere, Maverick, Nic Fit, Sneak Show, Bant Aggro, and Pox round out the rest of the Top 10. Counterbalance is great against the former five decks, but very poor against the latter five. Take into account the diversity of the rest of the format, and the Counterbalance package gets relegated to the sideboard.
2 [card]Krosan Grip[/card] / 1 [card]Ancient Grudge[/card]: The original configuration ran two [card]Ancient Grudge[/card] as the answer to Stoneblade’s equipment, but lately, with more RUG Delver decks adapting the [card]Counterbalance[/card] sideboard, [card]Krosan Grip[/card] is suddenly relevant again. It’s also a tad more reliable against Stoneblade than [card]Ancient Grudge[/card] used to be; now that [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] is not a turn two play but instead a turn four or turn five play, there’s more mana to bounce [card]Batterskull[/card], whether it’s intentional or not. [card]Krosan Grip[/card] becomes the default answer, but gets some backup from [card]Ancient Grudge[/card] as additional utility against Tier 2 decks like Affinity, MUD, and Tezzeret decks, which we’ve seen in the Starcity circuit recently.
3 [card]Submerge[/card] / 1 [card]Mind Harness[/card]: With Maverick securing a place as a Top 3 deck over the past few months along with RUG Delver, a fourth green creature hate slot had to be made. This card is not for the mirror. It’s for Maverick, where you want to gain early tempo, and neutralize something huge in the mid to late game (say, a [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card]) to either remove a potential blocker or add a threat. Players can also play around [card]Submerge[/card], but [card]Mind Harness[/card] is a little tougher to do so against.
0 [card]Red Elemental Blast[/card] / [card]Pyroblast[/card]: Red blasts were happily cut for the singletons of [card]Ancient Grudge[/card] and [card]Mind Harness[/card] in the sideboard, because they no longer pull as much weight as they used to. [card]Spell Pierce[/card] does almost everything that you wanted red blasts to do, but they are more versatile against the rest of the field. Otherwise, Stoneblade moved to more [card]Elspeth, Knight-Errant[/card]s, they do nothing against GW Maverick, GWr Maverick, and Burn, and they are risky cards to have in against Reanimator or Storm. Sure, you can get a little value against GWu Maverick, but most of the time, if they don’t go the [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card] plan or have a target in play, it’s another dead card.
Matchup Analysis
As I mentioned earlier, RUG Delver usually assumes the role of the aggressor. It’s not always the aggressor; in some cases you’ll be playing more of a control role (which I do against Combo decks). The key to succeeding in this situation is to identify what you’re playing against as soon as you can, and choose your role. If you’re new to the format, or even if you’ve been playing Legacy for a while, one of the articles that was shown to be was Matt Sperling’s article, Reading the Script of a Magic Game. By knowing what script your opponent is on, you can assign your role and quickly draw up a game plan. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s a little more complicated than that. There are hundreds of decks that you can play against at the Grand Prix this weekend, so I’ll look into the first half of the aforementioned Top 10 as compiled by The Council. I’ll list patterns so it’s easier to identify what can be cut.
RUG Delver Mirror
Decklist: The one in the beginning of the article is a great place to start!
The Script: Remember, this is your script too. If your opponent is playing the stock list or something similar, they too will have a 60% chance to open with a 1cc threat. If they still play [card]Stifle[/card], they have a 28% chance to open with it, and lay a land. Otherwise, they’ll [card]Ponder[/card] on their first turn.
The Role: Aggressor
The Gameplan: Neutralize the first threat that they play if you can. You want to shift the momentum towards you so you can start putting pressure on them. 6 Removal spells to answer [card]Delver of Secrets[/card], 4 [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]s to answer [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card]. This matchup is about tempo for the early part of the game, but usually degenerates into an attrition battle. [card]Spell Snare[/card] answers [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] nicely, and [card]Spell Pierce[/card] does the same against [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] in Game 1. [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] wars are what breaks open stalemates.
Sideboarding: -4 [card]Force of Will[/card], -3 [card]Spell Pierce[/card], -1 [card]Ponder[/card], +2 [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card], +3 [card]Counterbalance[/card], +3 [card]Submerge[/card]
Postboard: In most attrition situations, [card]Force of Will[/card] comes out. [card]Spell Pierce[/card] is possibly the weakest card in your deck against the mirror, so that comes out. Board in the [card]Counterbalance[/card] package to control what your opponent does, and [card]Submerge[/card]s for three more removal spells (almost a 70% chance of having a removal spell if they have a [card]Tropical Island[/card] in play). In this situation, I can rationalize boarding out the fourth [card]Ponder[/card] because I’m gaining two ways interact with my library. If I suspect my opponent is also planning to board in [card]Counterbalance[/card], then I can cut 3 [card]Daze[/card] for 1 [card]Ponder[/card], 2 [card]Krosan Grip[/card]. Now, [card]Krosan Grip[/card] becomes a key card in winning the mirror, and I need to find it faster.
Maverick
Decklist: Varies with plain GW, GWr Punishing Maverick ([card]Punishing Fire[/card] + [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card] engine), or GWu Bant Maverick ([card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card] + [card]Spell Pierce[/card] and possibly [card]Submerge[/card] in the sideboard).
The Script: With four [card]Noble Hierarch[/card] and four [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card] for [card]Dryad Arbor[/card], you’re very likely to see something like, “[card]Savannah[/card], manabug.” They’re 40% to have at least one [card]Mother of Runes[/card] in their opener, so that is a possibility too.
The Role: Aggressor
The Gameplan: This is the deck’s worst matchup, which reasonably explains its popularity over the past few months. The deck is made to beat “fair” matchups, especially blue [card]Force of Will[/card] fair decks. Guess what RUG Delver is? To approach this matchup, the early [card]Delver of Secrets[/card] is probably the biggest key to success. Whether or not you have it, burn the each of the early plays ([card]Noble Hierarch[/card], [card]Dryad Arbor[/card], [card]Mother of Runes[/card]) if you can, for different reasons. Taking care of the manabug allows you to maintain some control over the game with the mana denial plan of [card]Wasteland[/card]/ [card]Daze[/card], and taking care of the [card]Mother of Runes[/card] allows you to gain some value in your ground game, even if it is very poor in this matchup. The matchup is very difficult in Game 1, but should get better with sideboarding.
Sideboarding: -4 [card]Force of Will[/card], -3 [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card], +3 [card]Submerge[/card], +1 [card]Mind Harness[/card], +2 [card]Krosan Grip[/card], +1 [card]Ancient Grudge[/card]
Postboard: [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card] gets to sit on the sideline for this matchup. As I mentioned earlier, it is a card that gets worse against creature swarm decks. Maverick is one of those types of decks. By the time you achieve Threshold, it’s likely no longer relevant that you have a piddly 3/3, even if it has Shroud. Instead, you should look into the four additional removal spells, including a gamebreaker in [card]Mind Harness[/card]. [card]Submerge[/card] has a key role in maintaining tempo advantage against manabugs, and [card]Mind Harness[/card] is designed to steal a huge creature for board control. I would consider boarding in [card]Surgical Extraction[/card] against GWr Punishing Maverick; if you intend on using [card]Surgical Extraction[/card] on [card]Punishing Fire[/card], be careful if your opponent has an untapped [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card].
Stoneblade
Decklist:
[Deck Title= UW Stoneblade, Kenta Hiroki]
[Creatures]
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Vendilion Clique
[/creatures]
[Spells]
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
3 Force of Will
1 Spell Pierce
4 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Flooded Strand
2 Mishra’s Factory
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
1 Tower of the Magistrate
1 Karakas
4 Tundra
4 Island
1 Plains
3 Wasteland
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Crucible Of Worlds
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Hydroblast
3 Path to Exile
1 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Wrath of God
[/sideboard]
[/deck]
The Script: Simply put, “fetchland/[card]Tundra[/card]/ [card]Island[/card], Go.” I believe the correct way to play [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] is a turn four to turn five play, but some players have still been running it out on turn two like [card]Mental Misstep[/card] was still in the format.
The Role: Aggressor
The Gameplan: It’s simple. We kill the [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card]. Well, something like that. While [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] is a key part of this deck’s success, allowing them to get to the late game is an issue as well. This is where the recent addition of [card]Spell Pierce[/card] comes in. It’s an incredibly powerful card in this matchup, being able to not only hit [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card], [card]Elspeth, Knight-Errant[/card], and hardcast Equipment, but it also serves as a nice answer to [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] shenanigans. I also read my Stoneblade opponent’s manabase to know when to [card]Wasteland[/card] them. The Stoneblade manabase has a high percentage of colorless lands, between their own [card]Wasteland[/card]s and any copies of [card]Mishra’s Factory[/card] they may be playing. Since the deck is colored mana hungry, the colored lands of the manabase should be attacked if they go for them early; otherwise, it’s not worth it.
Sideboarding: -4 [card]Force of Will[/card], -3 [card]Daze[/card], -1 [card]Chain Lightning[/card], +2 [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card], +3 [card]Counterbalance[/card], +2 [card]Krosan Grip[/card], +1 [card]Ancient Grudge[/card]
Postboard: [card]Counterbalance[/card] is crucial here to success. UW has been evolving in a manner where their spells are becoming more efficient to fight against the mana denial elements of decks like RUG Delver, and as a result, their overall curve is lower, and falls right into the [card]Counterbalance[/card] plan. [card]Spell Pierce[/card] is still MVP pre and post-board. Now that there are answers to Equipment, save them for the Planeswalkers.
Reanimator
Decklist:
[Deck Title=Reanimator, Phillip Lorren]
[Creatures]
1 Hapless Researcher
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Angel of Despair
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
[/creatures]
[Spells]
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Daze
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
4 Reanimate
2 Animate Dead
[/spells]
[Lands]
1 Marsh Flats
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Island
1 Swamp
[/lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Pithing Needle
1 Blazing Archon
1 Coffin Purge
2 Echoing Truth
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Wipe Away
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
3 Show and Tell
1 Thoughtseize
[/sideboard]
[/deck]
The Script: This is an elementary one. Reanimator has evolved quite a bit, from when [card]Mystical Tutor[/card] was banned to [card]Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur[/card]’s printing. Regardless, a high (65%) chance of having a way to bin a creature with Entomb or Careful Study and an even higher (pushing 75-80%) chance of having a way to get it back is an incredibly powerful strategy.
The Role: Control
The Gameplan: Reanimator is an early all-in type of deck, but once that early all-in produces dividends ([card]Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur[/card] in play, for example), the game quickly gets out of control. The goal is to stop their initial attempt at dumping, which is going to happen in the opening turn or turns of the game. Stopping their dump strategy (8 outlets) makes more sense than the stopping their reanimation strategy (more than 8 ways). This requires you to not be vulnerable to [card]Daze[/card] if you can help it. It’s a very rough Game 1. RUG Delver has no outs to [card]Sphinx of the Steel Wind[/card].
Sideboarding: -4 [card]Lightning Bolt[/card], -2 [card]Chain Lightning[/card], -2 [card]Ponder[/card], +2 [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card], +3 [card]Counterbalance[/card], +3 [card]Surgical Extraction[/card]
Postboard: This is a matchup where [card]Counterbalance[/card] can shine. [card]Show and Tell[/card] will be a way to play around graveyard hate, but is also a situation where [card]Wasteland[/card]s become a little bit better. Again, the initial attempt is the most important. [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] is a way to answer threats in the late-game.
Storm
Decklist:
[Deck Title= The Epic Storm, Bryant Cook]
[Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Duress
3 Orim’s Chant
2 Silence
2 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
[/spells]
[Lands]
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
[/lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Pyroblast
2 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Silent Departure
1 Duress
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Past in Flames
1 Shattering Spree
[/sideboard]
[/deck]
The Script: No Burn? It’s the fifth best performing deck from February, but the metagame is adjusting to it (did you hear that [card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card] sold out at SCG Tampa?) and it will not be a strong contender in a large event like a Grand Prix. I chose Storm because it will be an important matchup, and I put Bryant Cook’s TES (The Epic Storm) list here instead of a stock UB Ad Nauseam Tendrils list here because it’s a lot stronger in this metagame. The first difference is the manabase. TES features a 5-color strategy, and uses a series of rainbow lands in addition to 3 dual lands to round out the manabase, and can attack you with [card]Ad Nauseam[/card], or [card]Burning Wish[/card] for [card]Empty the Warrens[/card]/ [card]Grapeshot[/card].
The Role: Control
The Gameplan: TES is much more threat dense, which makes it a much more explosive deck. Getting your own threat down is important, but so is attacking their all-nonbasic manabase and countering the right spells. It’s all about their protection suite; neutering their ability to go off with protection is important. They use up to 4-5 [card]Orim’s Chant[/card]/ [card]Silence[/card] effects, which is the most dangerous card in the deck against RUG Delver and other decks with taxing countermagic. Focus [card]Wasteland[/card]s on the rainbow lands. Waiting for a series of rituals to resolve so you can counter their business spell is also risky. RUG Delver only has four hard counters, so if you can disrupt their rituals proactively, do so. Extra black mana opens up the possibility of [card]Duress[/card] backup. Keeping them from playing spells can play to the gameplan, as it keeps too many cards in their hand from going Hellbent and turning on [card]Infernal Tutor[/card].
Sideboarding: -4 [card]Lightning Bolt[/card], -2 [card]Chain Lightning[/card], -2 [card]Ponder[/card], +2 [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card], +3 [card]Counterbalance[/card], +3 [card]Surgical Extraction[/card]
Postboard: Same gameplan, although there is a lot more firepower now with [card]Counterbalance[/card] in the deck. Red removal is always strictly worse than getting in with a creature, and [card]Xantid Swarm[/card] is no longer part of the deck.
I’m not saying these sideboarding strategies are 100% correct, but they are what I would do against these matchups. There are easily identifiable patterns here. [card]Force of Will[/card] comes out for attrition matchups. [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card] comes out against decks that clog the ground. Red removal comes out against degenerate decks where you need to play a more controlling role, most of the time with [card]Counterbalance[/card]. Knowing what your opponent’s playing is a great start to creating the gameplan that you will use for the rest of the round. This is what I try to do in each round of Magic that I play.
All right, that’s all I have for this article. If you are interested in playing RUG Delver or even playing against it, I hope you’ve found this article sufficient for your questions. I will be in Indianapolis on Friday during the afternoon for some grinders, so please come and say hi!
Thanks for reading,
–Mark
chbe.sun@gmail.com
Dubbed the Legacy Superstar, Mark Sun has been spending the past year trying to live up to his nickname. His biggest accomplishment to date was a top 8 finish at the 2011 Legacy Championships.