Creatures (15)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (18)
Let’s start here. Now ponder for a moment about the matchups and current metagame.
Did you come to the same conclusion that ramp is most likely the worst matchup? If so, we are on the same page!
However there is good news here; Gerry Thompson and crew cracked Standard and everyone is currently battling Delver of Secrets with Restoration Angels. Because of this, ramp isn’t a common matchup.
There’s even more good news: the other decks that are capable of beating Delver, such as Zombies, are decks where tokens dominate, particularly ones with additional life gain.
The W/B Tokens strategy has always been one that hasn’t been capable of taking down tournaments; however, the metagame has changed a bit as we now have a "King of the Hill" deck to combat against. Instant speed interaction is something the W/B Midrange strategy has lacked in the past, but I’m leaning towards fixing this issue with the inclusion of the new almighty Restoration Angel, Midnight Haunting, and some additional instant speed removal.
The idea is that Mana Leaks are generally too powerful against us, particularly when we lean towards a midrange version of W/B. The key plays here are that you can cast an end of turn Restoration Angel and/or Midnight Haunting to either bait the Mana Leak or create board presence, both of which are largely beneficial to us. Once we have board presence, we generally have a fast clock to beat down our opponents.
The general consensus to beat Delver seems to be having a quicker game plan than your opponent, one where you start with aggressive one-drops such as Champion of the Parish and Gravecrawler. I actually agree with this, but I also think this is not the only way. Admittedly, a turn 1 Delver of Secrets that blind flips turn 2 can be a problem for this deck. Sure there are answers, but it’s still a dangerous start.
The reason I mention this is because it’s one of the main ways Delver decks will race you. The inclusion of Blood Artist is another step in combating other decks that can race us. Day of Judgment is also included to synergize with Blood Artist, as well as set up huge swings since we can follow up with hefty turn 5 plays such as Elspeth Tirel or Lingering Souls plus a flashback.
When trying to take down top strategies, I personally believe it’s important to continue to use some of the stronger cards in the format even if they aren’t "hot" at the moment. In this deck those cards consist of Intangible Virtue, Lingering Souls, Restoration Angel, and Blade Splicer. In fact, these are the cards I started with when building this deck, and I proceeded to branch out into a B/W Tokens strategy.
The deck could have gone any direction, but there were some cards that felt important enough that sticking to a two-color deck was highly important. This included Vault of the Archangel, which isn’t a "best" card but is a card that can win games on its own without costing you much to include it.
A quick side note: Restoration Angel is a very good card no matter how many other cards you can or can’t abuse with her. We have Blade Splicer, which I believe is enough; her ability is also a "may." Saving a Blood Artist and doing some neat combat tricks often leads to enough momentum to turn the tides of battle.
U/W Delver
This is the deck we are aiming for. Our goal is to play the midrange battle with them, not to race them. Your opening hand generally wants to see at least a turn 1 or 2 play like Doomed Traveler, Blood Artist, or Intangible Virtue to set up solid turn 3 plays. One of the tighter spots you can be put in is when you stick one of these spells and you are facing down a Delver with Mana Leak open. Your best bet here is to cast an end of turn Midnight Haunting to bait them down and get them to tap out.
Don’t panic if and when your life gets below twelve or so; you have plenty of ways to gain life. Speaking of life, Vault of the Archangel is a key component to winning this matchup. It also lets our Restoration Angel succeed in a head-to-head Resto battle.
On camera this past weekend I saw a lot of Delver decks playing out the midrange game and knew that’s how we have to play as well. Cards like Elspeth Tirel let us keep up with cards such as Ponder and Snapcaster Mage.
For this matchup I would look at these sideboard options.
-1 Honor of the Pure
-1 Elspeth Tirel
+2 Timely Reinforcements
There are times when changing a few other cards will be correct; however, this deck was built to combat Delver so the maindeck is very much geared towards beating it. The matchup actually will take a bit more practice than it may appear as Blood Artist continues to be a slightly tricky card to play, and anytime you make a deck more instant speed oriented it’s good to get in games before feeling comfortable with it actually working correctly.
In honor of last weekend’s SCG Standard Open in Columbus where U/B Zombies with Blood Artist took down second place, here is a sideboarding guide versus Zombies, a deck I’m fairly familiar with.
Zombies Variants
Zombies is currently the fastest deck that you will see on a consistent basis. Therefore, in this matchup you are not the beatdown; you are playing the control deck. Keep this in mind when seeing a turn 1 black creature and play accordingly. The nice thing about being a midrange deck here is that we have a lot of trump cards and a lot of life gain to deal with their quick onslaught.
A key card in this matchup for stalling board positions is Blade Splicer, which also happens to be good against Delver decks because it trumps their Geist of Saint Traft among many other creatures. So don’t hesitate to cast this as soon as possible.
A side note here as well: if your metagame is heavy black aggro for whatever crazy reason, play with more Sword of Feast and Famines, even some in the maindeck over Elspeth Tirel or the Honor of the Pure.
Here’s how I generally would sideboard.
-1 Honor of the Pure
-1 Elspeth Tirel
-2 Day of Judgment
-1 Plains
+3 Timely Reinforcements
+1 Sword of Feast and Famine
+1 Celestial Purge
Most likely you’ll be combating Ratchet Bombs out of the sideboard, but Restoration Angel helps us diversify our threats and Blood Artist helps us get value out of a popped Ratchet Bomb for zero. This matchup is easy to gun for if it’s ever a problem for you.
Naya Aggro
This matchup and deck is one that seems to be on the rise and for good reason. It too is using some of the strongest cards such as Restoration Angel, Huntmaster of the Fells, and Blade Splicer (which I’m a firm believer is still extremely underrated, even with Vapor Snag in the format). The positive here is that they are also a midrange strategy, leaning towards aggro due to a lack of removal spells.
Cards like Lingering Souls and Day of Judgment truly shine here. Doomed Traveler also trades favorably with Strangleroot Geists, and Blood Artist can put in a lot of work especially once they overextend their board. Most players will overextend, not because they are bad but because they mostly have to against our board particularly if we get some strong board presence going.
Here’s my sideboarding for Naya:
-3 Elspeth Tirel
-1 Plains
+2 Timely Reinforcements
+2 Honor of the Pure
The metagame is much larger than these three decks, however, which is why you don’t see every card from the sideboard coming in. Cards like Surgical Extraction are catchalls.
You may have been wondering by this point why Elspeth Tirel is even in the deck if we side her out a lot of the time. The answer is she’s good, but there are often better cards that do similar things in particular matchups such as Timely Reinforcements.
Unfortunately, the metagame is almost solely these decks with many tier 2+ strategies. In fact, in the top Standard decklists from this past weekend in Columbus contains only one ramp deck and a couple of control decks.
To be honest, metagames like this please me; I enjoy working hard to beat "the man." It’s a challenge, but you can focus in on the challenge at hand easier than when a metagame is in flux and all over the place. Give this deck a try and bring back a classic midrange strategy; just don’t forget to pack your deckboxes with lots of tokens!