Champion’s Deck

Batterskull Grand Prix Promo artwork - UWR Delver Legacy

UWR Delver legacy by Craig Krempels

1st Place at StarCityGames Legacy Open on 5/25/2014

The Legacy format is filled with cheap and efficient cards as it has access to the best ever printed over the entire history of the game. This deck is one of those that takes full advantage of that fact to pull together a cast of the top choices creating a highly disruptive killing machine. It pulls together permission, removal and draw to quickly dispatch all enemies that stand in its way. It’s no surprise whenever a deck of this style takes down a tournament.

Quite possibly the best Blue one drop ever printed, and quite aggressively out of Blue flavor, we have Delver of Secrets supported by an almost 50/50 split on spells which will be able to blind flip it turn two so you’re able to commence with the beatdown plan. Follow that up with True-Name Nemesis which demands the opponent to find an answer to it or they will definitely die to that unchecked clock. Both of them are supported by Stoneforge Mystic who is able to either search up an Umezawa’s Jitte to equip one of your attackers or find you a Batterskull to commit further to your beatdown plan. Next we speed up the deck with an abundance of card draw starting with the perennial Brainstorm, coupled with Ponder and Phyrexian freebie Gitaxian Probe which also provides you a sneak peek at the opponents plans. The deck also packs a very robust permission package centering around another format staple and free spell Force of Will, backed up by also free Daze and cheap but disruptive Spell Pierce. Then we round out the deck with top quality removal with the main reason this deck dips into Red with Lightning Bolt and also the classic Swords to Plowshares which will convienently exile most any creatures which are presenting you with certain doom.

The Delver deck is no surprise in the Legacy format and it’s one of the quintessential packages of the most cost effective but extremely powerful cards available. If you want to give yourself a fighting chance in any Legacy tournament you enter then definitely this is a fantastic choice. A great investment into a deck that is very likely to remain competitive continuing into the future of Legacy with only minor tweaks from time to time.
Eric J Seltzer
@ejseltzer on Twitter
Email: ejseltzer@hotmail.com