Red/Blue/Green Delver Humans Deck (Top 16 Finish at a Grand Prix)

June 22, 2012 | Posted by Dee

My last two posts were about decks that made top eight at the Standard Grand Prix last weekend in Manila. Today, we’ll look at a deck that made top 16.

Dell Sun got 16th place with a Red/Blue/Green (RUG) Delver Humans deck that dominated the competitive Magic scene in Taipei, Taiwan before the Grand Prix.

Tzu Ching Kuo, the player with three Taiwan National Champion titles and multiple Grand Prix top eights, built the deck. The weekend before the Grand Prix, it won the Pro Tour Qualifier (PTQ) and World Magic Cup Qualifier (WMCQ) in Taipei by two different players.

Check out the decklist below.

RUG Delver Humans
Creatures (14)
Spells (25)
Lands (22)
Sideboard (15)

Magic players save money on cards by going to eBay. Click the links below to buy cards from this deck on eBay.

The main card that makes this deck possible is Cavern of Souls. Delver of Secrets, Snapcaster Mage, and Huntmaster of the Fells are all Humans so Cavern of Souls produces three colors of mana for most of your creatures. Without this land, the mana base would be too bad to make this deck work.

Huntmaster of the Fells shines in this deck because of all the spells you can play on your opponent’s turn. You can pass the turn without casting a spell to flip Huntmaster and still use your mana with cards like Snapcaster Mage, Vapor Snag, and Mana Leak.

Plus, Huntmaster gives you multiple creatures for the equipment cards and he’s just a very good card in general with all the aggro decks running around in Standard.

Playing red instead of white gives you access to Pillar of Flame and Bonfire of the Damned. Pillar is very good against Zombies and the green decks that rely on Birds of Paradise (like Naya Pod and Red/Green Aggro). Bonfire is very good against those Birds of Paradise decks and you can set it up as a miracle with Ponder. Also, it’s good against Lingering Souls and Timely Reinforcements.

Phantasmal Image is there to give you a strong card against Geist of Saint Traft.

The rest of the main deck is cards you will typically see in Blue/White (UW) Delver decks. I like the 4 Thought Scour and 2 Gitaxian Probe split. Thought Scour has more synergy with Huntmaster since it’s an instant. Also, having only 2 Mana Leak seems decent because Cavern of Souls has risen in popularity.

Sideboard Plans

Here are some general guidelines for sideboarding against popular decks.

Blue/White (UW) Delver

+1 Ancient Grudge
+2 Mental Misstep
+2 Combust
+1 Phantasmal Image

-2 Bonfire of the Damned
-4 Vapor Snag

Zombies

+2 Dungeon Geists
+1 Phantasmal Image

-2 Vapor Snag
-1 Runechanter’s Pike

Pod

+1 Ancient Grudge
+2 Dungeon Geists
+1 Phantasmal Image

-4 Vapor Snag

Red/Green (RG) Aggro

+1 Ancient Grudge
+2 Dungeon Geists
+1 Phantasmal Image

-4 Vapor Snag

Wolf Run Ramp

+2 Dungeon Geists
+2 Negate
+2 Zealous Conscripts
+1 Phantasmal Image

-1 Gut Shot
-4 Vapor Snag
-2 Pillar of Flame

Solar Flare

+2 Dungeon Geists
+1 Hero of Oxid Ridge
+2 Negate
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Zealous Conscripts

-4 Vapor Snag
-3 Pillar of Flame
-1 Gut Shot
-1 Runechanter’s Pike

Filed Under Standard 

Get our blog posts for free in your email inbox.

Just enter your email address below and click the subscribe button: