Delirious Death

Standard BGW (Abzan, Junk) Competitive Midrange Theme/Gimmick

Zaueski

Instant (5)

• 2x Anguished Unmaking
• 3x Murder

Sorcery (5)

• 2x Declaration in Stone
• 3x Traverse the Ulvenwald

Enchantment (5)

• 3x Dead Weight
• 2x Sinister Concoction

Artifact (3)

• 3x Terrarion

Planeswalker (5)

• 2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 2x Liliana, the Last Hope
• 1x Liliana, the Last Hope

Creature (14)

• 1x Emrakul, the Promised End
• 4x Gnarlwood Dryad
• 4x Grim Flayer
• 2x Mindwrack Demon
• 3x Topplegeist

Land (23)

• 3x Blooming Marsh
• 2x Canopy Vista
• 2x Concealed Courtyard
• 4x Evolving Wilds
• 2x Forest
• 2x Hissing Quagmire
• 2x Plains
• 2x Shambling Vent
• 4x Swamp

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Sideboard

Instant (2)

• 2x Anguished Unmaking

Sorcery (7)

• 2x Declaration in Stone
• 3x Fragmentize
• 2x Seasons Past

Creature (6)

• 2x Emrakul, the Promised End
• 2x Ishkanah, Grafwidow
• 2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

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The issue with Delirium Decks in SOI was that they were unwieldy and prone to axe-ing themselves. Now that we have EMN to complete the block, the whole picture can begin to form. Now it isn't just dump a whole bunch of cards into the graveyard and hope you get the right ones in your hand to keep. Now we have a lot of really nice controlled flow of cards from the library to the graveyard. If you like this deck then check out my other deck 14-08-16-KHZ-ub-zombies too.

The Cards

Emrakul, the Promised End: She is insane, and this deck can reliably cast her for 6 or 7 mana by the time I need her.

Gnarlwood Dryad: No one ever wants to block a deathtoucher, especially not one that is super easy to recur and play again. The power boost later in te game definitely starts putting a serious clock on the opponent.

Grim Flayer: He is the single most useful creature in the deck and performs so many needed functions. 4/4 Trample attached to a Delirium focused Sensei's Divining Top is insane.

Mindwrack Demon : Super efficient creature that helps enable Delirium if we don't already have it.

Topplegeist: This guy is the all-star underdog of the deck. Being able to lock down the most dangerous creature an opponent has is insane value.

Declaration in Stone : Super solid removal spell that shuts down tokens and other decks that like to recur creatures like Zombies or a mirror matchup.

Traverse the Ulvenwald: Best tutor spell in Standard and is the sole reason the having a singleton of Emrakul is a functional strategy. It also doubles as mana fixing if you come up short in the opening hand.

Liliana, the Last Hope: She is completely crazy in killing off Spirits, weaking pesky creatures, and demolishing human fields. Not to mention she fuels Delirium and allows a repeatable recursion effect.

Sorin, Grim Nemesis: He combos extremely well with Grim Flayer and gives some targeted removal that can keep us alive for that crucial last turn we need to win.

Anguished Unmaking: Super flexible removal for cheap is always good. This is the primary way the deck deals with Planeswalkers and the only way it can affect enchantments.

Murder: Solid creature removal that hits almost everything.

Terrarion: Solid artifact that provides color fixing for our Tri-colored mana base and replaces itself.

The Sideboard is also really solid and will help guarantee that our games 2 and 3 are even stronger than the first no matter what we're facing.

How To Play

This deck is very toolbox in nature and rewards a high knowledge of itself, the format, and your opponent. In your opening hand you want at least 2 lands, three is perfect, and four is actually still playable usually. After that you want a threat that you can play on curve. These include but are not limited to, Liliana, the Last Hope, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Grim Flayer, and Mindwrack Demon (who often can enable Delirium entirely on its own because of how diverse the deck is). Traverse the Ulvenwald is a card that you'll want to try to save for after Delirium is on, but if you need the land then play it for the land and know that it was probably the right choice. The rest of your cards will hopefully be removal. Once you go to game 2, sideboarding becomes very important. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is always a must against recursive decks like Mirrors and Zombies. Ishkanah, Grafwidow is a great choice against faster decks and oddly enough against control decks. For the new Temur Emerge decks, bring in more instant speed removal to combat Elder Deep-Fiends as much as possible. Hallowed Moonlight is obviously there to combat Bant Company, but it also works well against Ishkanah, Grafwidows and other token generators. Exile based removal tends to be really good against the new B/W Angel Control deck that is getting popular so be sure to load up on that. Hope this helps explain a lot of the play avenues available to this deck.

The Plan

Ideally we want to get Grim Flayer online and on the board as quickly as possible. This is doable by a rather large number of 1-drop plays to help us into him. Dropping a Terrarion turn one is never wrong and guarantees us the necessary mana for any two drop. Delirium happens very naturally as the removal cards are spread out across the types and creatures die naturally. Topplegeist stalls amazingly well and guarantees that they won't be able to do anything with their most valuable creature or creatures if we're lucky enough to have duplicates out.

The Endgame

Naturally, in a perfect world we can bring about our opponent's demised in the Promised way (No? OK back to the strategy). Emrakul is surprisingly easy to find in the deck despite being a singleton thanks to Traverse the Ulvenwald and Grim Flayer. When she resolves, in every game I've played so far the opponent has lost. If we can't find Lady Emrakul, then brute strength will find a way. Grim Flayer doubles as being a really heavy hitter, no one ever wants to block a Gnarlwood Dryad if they can help it, and Liliana, the Last Hope has sprung her ultimate quite a few times for me creating a huge source of inevitability for your opponent.

Hypergeometric Distribution (Why It Works)

The deck has been through the math and the testing of probabilities thouroughly. There is an above 80% chance that you will both have a threat, removal, and all the land necessary to cast it by turn 4. For this reson, despite lands being expensive, if you decide do build this deck keep the lands the same and keep your threats castable by turn 4 or 5 at the latest. Otherwise it throws the math off by double digit percentages and makes your chances of losing go way up because the deck will not give you what you need to win. Hopefully this helps and if you'd like to double check the math or see it for yourself, just google "Hypergeometric Distribution Calculator" and plug the numbers in for yourself. I always do these calculations for any deck costing over $100 so you can be sure the deck will function properly and will win consistently.

If you like don't forget to upvote and if you have questions or comments about anything let me know down below. I love discussing Deck Building strategies, cards, and everything else needed to make a deck great.

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	7 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 8 Mythic Rares 18 - 4 Rares 12 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 3 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.24
Tokens	Clue, Emblem Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Emblem Liliana, the Last Hope, Knight Ally 2/2 W, Spider 1/2 G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Deck Ideas, Cool Decks, cool decks, Decks to make, Delirium - Abzan, standardzzzz, Favorites, Cool, Ideas, Want to try