Delver's Match-Ups
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on Dec. 9, 2015, 9:27 a.m. by That_Guy_You_Know
What is U/R delver's good and bad match ups, and what answers do I have access to to even the odds?
You're not that good against Infect. You run out of burn spells and they can counter your burn with pumps like Mutagenic Growth
December 9, 2015 10:53 a.m.
Yeah, it's not a slam dunk. But it feels pretty good given that you have burn, pressure of your own, and counterspells. But Grixis Delver offers Terminate and Kolaghan's Command as extra removal, and Jeskai has Lightning Helix.
December 9, 2015 11:05 a.m. Edited.
Wizard_of_the_Broke says... #5
I don't disagree with any of the above, but I'd like to add a few notes that might be useful. Note that I run a more aggro version of UR Delver.
Though rothgar13 is generally about right, I think it's important to remember that almost no matchups are a slam dunk. Tempo really requires knowing the opponent's deck, and has a sharp learning curve. And it beats few with pure speed, and can't beat anyone with pure value. You often win by drawing more cards and doing more stuff, essentially. Maximizing the efficacy of that stuff is up to you, and will decide matches. That said, the upside is that few decks will have a total slam dunk against you, and I think tempo forces one to become a more effective player.
I think certain cards are major variables in some of these matchups. A lot of the aggro matches (Zoo, Elves, etc.) can be hugely improved with Forked Bolt, and Electrickery or Pyroclasm. Those cards really change the deck and limit space for counterspells, so it's a meta-dependent or play style call, but it's worth it in many cases. The other card I think swings a lot of matches is Dragon's Claw. 3-4X in the sideboard makes the Burn matchup way more favorable, and it can do the same elsewhere. But again, you're giving up other stuff to do that (like probably not splashing black).
Laslty, I think Jund and Junk are very different matchups. It often makes sense to bundle the two, but not for Delver. If you play a good number of threats, and a good amount of burn, you can beat Jund. Junk has bigger problems, like persistent creatures and lifegain. Kitchen Finks and Siege Rhino are nightmares, more so than 4/5 Goyf. If they stick a 2-for-1 and gain a turn's worth of life, that puts you behind with limited means of recovering. Lifegain generally can be a bogey.
December 10, 2015 12:34 p.m.
I just wanted to come back to endorse Wizard_of_the_Broke's points, because they're very good. By the way, cards like Kitchen Finks and the Burn matchup are why I'm leaning toward Jeskai as my Delver variant of choice at the moment (though of course that is subject to change) because Path to Exile and Lightning Helix do the job nicely.
December 10, 2015 2:08 p.m.
Wizard_of_the_Broke says... #7
Yeah, rothgar13, I really want to see Jeskai tempo work in Modern. I've messed around with Monastery Mentor a bunch, in addition to the stuff you mentioned. Nobody's posted a major tournament result that I've noticed, but I still think something along those lines could work, The creature I'm dying to see printed is probably a 2-drop white or blue flyer with prowess, but I think any single quality prowess creature could really make Jeskai or some other tempo deck very competitive.
rothgar13 says... #2
Well, the first thing to say is that Delver decks don't just use
anymore - the toolbox isn't deep enough to get away with that. Grixis (
) Delver is the most well-known and popular, but people have experimented with 
and 
. That said, all of them have somewhat similar matchups. Here's what the matchup list for 
Delver generally looks like:
Good matchups:
Ad Nauseam (you counter the money spell)
Infect (you kill all of their dudes)
Living End (you can stuff the cascaded free spell and hack away at your opponent's life total)
Scapeshift (slow combo deck that takes far too long to get going)
Splinter Twin (you can disrupt their combo as you smack them)
50/50 matchups:
Affinity (if they vomit out their hand by T2, you're in trouble)
Bloom Titan (they could go off before you're set up to disrupt + pressure them)
Elves and CoCo Zoo (counter Collected Company or else)
Knightfall (not enough data to tell one way or the other)
Bad matchups:
Abzan or Jund (Abrupt Decay is something you can do next to nothing about)
Aura Hexproof/Bogles (difficult to interact with using spot removal, very fast)
Burn and
Zoo (you deal a fair amount of damage to yourself)
Merfolk (their creatures get big, come down fast, and they dodge counterspells and blockers)
Options:
Artifact/enchantment hate for Affinity, Bloom Titan, Bogles, and Merfolk (Ancient Grudge, Kolaghan's Command, Rakdos Charm, Wear / Tear)
Card draw for Abzan and Jund (Painful Truths, and some people try Day's Undoing, though I'm not overly fond of it)
Cheap counterspells for Burn, Elves, CoCo Zoo, and Amulet Bloom (Dispel and Spell Pierce)
Lifegain for Burn, Merfolk, and
Zoo (Feed the Clan, Lone Missionary, Spirit Link/Vampiric Link)
Sweepers for Bogles, CoCo Zoo, Elves, Merfolk,
Zoo (Anger of the Gods, Pyroclasm, and most notably Engineered Explosives)
Spot removal protection for Abzan, Bogles, and Jund (Spellskite)
December 9, 2015 10 a.m. Edited.