Core (37)
Faeries Package (12)
'Removal' (4)
Sideboard
Other (15)
Maybeboard
Buffs (4)
Draw Spells (2)
Creatures (3)
Bounce (2)
Secrets Unraveled
A Pauper Mono-Blue Delver Primer
Mono-Blue Delver is the quintessential tempo deck of Pauper: an aggressive strategy that can disrupt the opponent's game plans through the use of interactive spells. The list revolves around the namesake card Delver of Secrets , which can transform into the best aggressive blue creature in the entire game provided your deck is constructed correctly. The deck mainly plays a 'protect the queen' approach to tempo, where any answers to Delver are stopped by counterspells and 'removal', all while it beats the opponent's life from 20 to 0.
You might like Delver if you:
- Are an aggressive player at heart, but want a less linear path to winning than just turning creatures sideways
- Love looking at more cards than your opponents
- Like disrupting the opponent's gameplan without playing a durdly control deck
- Want a deck that rewards format knowledge and deck experience
Avoid Delver if you:
- Like decks that threaten a faster clock to your opponents
- Dislike grindier games that rely on tight sequencing to keep an advantage
- Have a local meta that is hostile to small evasive creatures and/or aggro
- Hate the color blue
Delver of Secrets - A 3/2 flier for one mana. In blue. That's better rate than most green creatures. Play 3-4, almost always 4 unless you want to play a more controlling version.
Counterspell- The best counterspell in Pauper, and one of the most powerful in the entire game. No bells and whistles, 2 mana to stop any spell is a must in this deck. Play 4.
Ponder and Preordain - Two extremely strong cantrips that are banned in Modern. These allow you to filter through your deck to flip Delver easily and help you dig for lands or spells depending on your needs. Play a combination of both adding up to 7-8.
Ninja of the Deep Hours - A creature that can draw you extra cards if it connects for just two mana, and a lot of creatures in the deck want to be returned to the hand to be reused? Amazing in the deck, play 4.
Island - The most powerful of the basic lands. It comes into play untapped and produces blue mana immediately. Play around 15-16 of them due to the amount of filtering the deck has.
Note that this is a subsection of the Core of the deck: you want to be playing this most of the time. Do note, however, that this has gotten worse with the additions of Desert and Forked Bolt into the format.
Faerie Miscreant - An evasive creature that draws you a card if you have another one on the field. Play 4, you want to maximise the chance that you draw into more than one of these.
Faerie Seer - A new addition from Modern Horizons, scry 2 on a flying body is ridiculous and is often better than the chance to draw a card with Miscreant. Play 4.
Spellstutter Sprite - This is the reason to play the Faerie package: a creature that can counter a spell depending on the number of Faeries you have on the field. It can also be flashed in at the end of an opponent's turn, ready to attack on yours. Play 4.
This section has been added due to the addition of a certain card from Throne of Eldraine: Mystic Sanctuary. This card is absolutely nuts in Mono-Blue Delver. It gives the deck the ability to grind out card advantage (something sorely missed from the Gush ban) by placing spells on top of your library again and again. Run 2-3, any more and you risk too many of your lands coming in tapped.
Due to the sheer power of Sanctuary, the following cards are now integral for the list:
Deprive - Before Mystic Sanctuary, this was run as an occasional 5th copy of Counterspell, but with Sanctuary it creates a soft lock where the opponent can no longer resolve spells due to an infinite amount of counters at your disposal. Run 1-3, but take out a Counterspell if you're running more than 2.
Tragic Lesson - Initially unplayable in Pauper (returning a land to draw cards is not normally good), Sanctuary turns this downside into an extremely powerful engine. It allows you to continuously draw two extra cards each turn at instant speed. Losing Gush hurt, but this is a VERY good substitute. Run 2-3.
Snap - This pretty much reads, "Bounce a creature for free" due to it untapping the lands you used to cast it. That being said, it does require two lands to cast, so be careful. Play 4, but feel free to replace some copies if you want even earlier answers to pesky creatures.
Vapor Snag - One mana to bounce a creature and deal 1 to its controller. A solid tempo play for one mana that brings the opponent closer to dead. If two mana feels too expensive to get to, you can replace some copies of Snap with this. Note that the ability to hold up a counter is often better than 1 damage.
Snapback - A truly free bounce spell, you can pitch a card to bounce a creature. It allows for some nice 'gotcha' moments with the opponent. This puts you at card disadvantage so if you run this, do so in low quantities.
Mutagenic Growth - Gives a creature +2/+2 for the low, low price of 2 life. Phyrexian mana in general is a broken mechanic, and this spell is no exception. This makes combat extremely hard for an opponent, turning otherwise unfavorable trades into blowouts. Play 2-3.
Bonesplitter - A solid equipment that turns a lowly Faerie into a mini-Delver, swinging in the air for 3 damage. It's good because of its low upfront and equipping cost for its stats.
Mantle of Tides - A recent addition from Throne of Eldraine, it makes Delver a 4/4 and turns Faeries into decently sized threats. It rewards you for doing something you already want to do: cast cantrips to setup future turns. Plays extremely well with Brainstorm, but there are times when you want to hold up mana instead of cantripping.
Flayer Husk - An equipment that enters as a 1/1 body. Though it gives less power than Bonesplitter, the toughness boost it gives is not negligible, often saving some creatures from removal. Its equip cost is higher, too.
Unstable Mutation - It buffs creatures by +3/+3, a huge amount for one mana. It has the drawback of slowly killing the creature it is attached to, though.
Augur of Bolas - One of the cards that ended up getting old mainstays Gush and Daze banned, it digs for a spell while being a body that is difficult for aggressive decks to get over. Synergizes well with the Ninja, and a must-include in controlling builds. Play at least 2 in the 75, and consider maindecking 4 in aggro filled metas.
Spire Golem - A large creature with the broken Affinity mechanic. You often cast this 2/4 flier for 3 or less mana. Amazing against red-heavy metas and against the Delver mirror as it is almost impossible for those two colors to remove.
Stormbound Geist - A 3-drop that provides insurance against Edict effects, while also growing after its first death. Great against grindy matchups and the Delver mirror, as it eats removal like a champ. Play 2 in the sideboard.
Brainstorm - The Legacy-defining draw spell, this is often worse than Ponder or Preordain in a format with no shuffle effects (ie good fetchlands). With the addition of Faerie Seer and Augur, however, Brainstorm gets a lot better as you can get rid of the unwanted cards you put on top. It also has great synergy with Mantle if you run it. You can replace some of the cantrips with any number of these if you are playing both of the above cards.
Accumulated Knowledge - Gets better the more copies have been played over the course of the game. Can become a large source of card advantage for more controlling builds, but might be a bit slow for the tempo-based Delver list. Mostly outclassed by Tragic Lesson due to its synergy with Mystic Sanctuary. Play 4, if any at all.
Force Spike - The best turn 1 answer to anything the opponent does. With the absence of Daze, this is the next best option we have. Gets significantly worse if the opponent expects it.
Spell Pierce - Aside from being unable to hit creatures, this is a better Force Spike, as forcing them to pay 2 extra is far better than just 1. Early game interaction like this is vital for Delver. These get far worse in lategame, though, so play 2 maximum.
Hydroblast and Blue Elemental Blast - These pretty much do the same thing: act as red hate. Because they will be bringing in strong sideboard options against you like Electrickery and Pyroblast, strong answers to these will be required. With the announcement, the Elemental Blasts are now legal, so budget players rejoice. Play a combination of the two in the sideboard based on how much red is in your local meta.
Psychic Barrier - Counters creature spells, and makes the opponent lose life? Perfect sideboard card against decks with big creatures to disrupt. Play 1 in sideboard.
Annul and Dispel - These are cheap counterspells that hit narrow targets (artifacts and enchantments for the former, and instants for the latter), but they are very good in certain matchups. Play a few of each depending on the other decks in your local meta.
Curse of Chains and Narcolepsy - These spells disable a particular threat or blocker so that your creatures can kill them before they kill you. Depending on meta, play more of these in the sideboard. Note that Curse of Chains is better than Narcolepsy by a small amount.
Echoing Truth - A 2 mana bounce spell that can hit nonland permanents is decent rate already, but add on the fact that it can bounce all creatures with the same name as the original target and it becomes an amazing sideboard option against swarm decks. Play at least 1 in the sideboard.
Curfew - The best option against decks that slap a ton of buffs on a hard to remove creature (eg Bogles, Heroic), as they get around problematic abilities like hexproof and/or protection from blue. Run 2 or more if these decks are prevalent in your meta.
Coral Net - Another great option against Heroic and Stompy, as this will either run them out of gas quickly or destroy the targeted creature for 1 mana. Play if required based on your local meta.
Sunken City - An interesting option if you want to go even faster versus grindier decks like Tron, it's an anthem effect for all of your creatures which greatly increases your clock versus them. It does have an upkeep cost though. You do not want to be running too many of these, play up to 2 based on meta.
Most popular Delver lists splash another color (generally red or black) to make up for the weaknesses that playing mono-blue has: namely a lack of good creature removal. While these additions do make the deck perform better in certain aspects, the splash of another color adds inconsistency in the manabase. Depending on the splash, it can also change the core gameplan of the deck: for example, Izzet Delver (more commonly known nowadays as Skred Faeries) is a more controlling build that runs Skred alongside the Faeries package to grind out the opponent, while UB Delver plays even more of a 'protect the queen' game plan with an even bigger beater in Gurmag Angler.
Tron has bad matchups against two things: decks that go way too fast for it to handle, and decks that can disrupt it long enough to kill. Mono-Blue Delver falls into the second category. Counter their important spells and beat down with your creatures, and the boogeyman of the format (in MTGO, anyway) falls quite easily. Delver itself is one of, if not the most, important creatures as it provides a legitimate clock. In the event that the game goes longer than expected (or you don't stick a Delver), the Mystic Sanctuary package will come in handy to grind until you can lock them out of playing removal on your threats. That being said, though, you do NOT want to be going long against Tron.
The UR splash looks quite similar to the mono-blue list, but with less Delvers and less reliable mana. The main issue here is the fact that they have access to real removal in the mainboard (Lightning Bolt, Skred, etc) and some great sideboard cards as well (Electrickery, Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast). Extremely tight sequencing and plays will be required here, as they have the edge in both preboard and postboard games. Tempoing them is your out during this matchup.
Current Affinity lists actually end up abusing the Atog + Fling combo, and Mono-Blue Delver is primed to disrupt this combo effectively. Try to counter the Fling or bounce the Atog and their combo is effectively stopped, often leaving the Affinity player with less resources because they sacrificed them to Atog. Keep in mind, though, that they can still kill through an orthodox combat damage method with Gearseeker Serpent, so be careful.
Pauper is not a format with many board wipes. Mono-blue has no good board wipes. Unfortunately Elves is a deck that aims to vomit out their hand and clog the board with an army of 1/1s. You can probably guess, and correctly so, that Mono-Blue Delver has an abysmal matchup against Elves. Countering their spells and bouncing their creatures 1:1 is not very useful when they can play at least two spells a turn later in the game.
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Casual
93% Competitive
| Date added | 4 years |
| Last updated | 4 years |
| Legality | This deck is not Pauper legal. |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 1.71 |
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