B/G Delirium

B/G Delirium

Over this last weekend, most of the focus has been on the World Magic Cup 2016 with Greece seizing their moment and taking top spot. Today though, I would like to have a look at the Star City Games standard open in Knoxville, Tennessee which was taken down by the one and only Brad Nelson.

First, a quick break down of the day two meta game for Knoxville:

B/G Delirium – 37

W/U Flash – 31

Mardu Vehicles – 8

W/R Vehicles – 7

G/R Aetherworks – 5

B/R Zombies – 4

R/B Aggro – 4

B/G Aetherworks – 2

Jund Delirium – 2

W/U Humans – 1

W/R Humans – 1

B/W Control – 1

Bant Midrange – 1

Bant Aggro – 1

Sultai Emerge – 1

Temur Energy – 1

Jeskai Control – 1

Jeskai Aggro – 1

G/W Aggro – 1

W/R Midrange – 1

Under the top two decks, B/G Delirium and W/U Flash, there is quite a bit of diversity through the field, with the Mardu and W/R Vehicles decks along with various Aetherworks builds becoming the interesting decks to watch, with their fancy interactions and possible turn four 13/13’s. If you know Brad Nelson at all though you would be able to take a guess at what he was play from that list. That’s right, B/G Delirium. Right now, thought of as the best deck in the format, it just made sense for Brad to pick this up and go on a tear through the weekend. When we look at the Top 8 deck lists, that notion is certainly backed up with B/G Delirium making up half, closely followed by three W/U Flash decks and the final spot being taken up by the only Jeskai Control player on day two who ended up fighting it out with Nelson for first place.

As a deck, B/G Delirium is strong and does its job very well. The main aim is to use cards like Grapple with the Past and Vessel of Nascency to fill your graveyard, enabling Delirium and adding more card types, making your Emrakul cheaper. That’s the long game though, in the meantime B/G Delirium is a mid-range deck with some very hard questions to answer.

Like Grim Flayer, this 2/2 creature with trample for GB can get out of hand very quickly, easily becoming a 4/4 as soon as turn three thanks to its Delirium ability. Grim Flayer also allows you look at the top three cards of your library, put any number of those into your graveyard and the rest back on top in any order, whenever it deals combat damage to a player. An early enabler for both itself and the late game Emrakul I mentioned earlier. This deck is full of cards bursting with value, all of which can turn the tide of a game.

Playing B/G Delirium isn’t hard but it’s by no means easy. Yes, you can make a couple of Grim Flayers, get enough card types into your graveyard to make them 4/4’s, drop a Liliana, the Last Hope and ride it out. Or you could use a mix of Vessel of Nascency and Grapple with the past to stack your graveyard and fix your hand, take out all of your opponent’s creatures with your spot removal, tutor up an Emrakul, the Promised End, take your opponent’s turn and completely waste their resources, leaving them defenceless to your oncoming 13/13.

B/G Delirium had a big showing in Knoxville over the weekend, so watching the mirror matches were inevitable and interesting. Watching both players trade off Clues, Grapple with the pasts and Vessel of Nascencys, trying to find a card to give them the edge. There is a lot of set up in the mirror match what with both players knowing the exact build their opponent is playing, give or take a few cards. The really interesting stuff comes with picking your spot, finding the right time to strike. A lot of Emrakul followed by opposing Emrakul happened which meant it was hard to remember whose turn it was and who was controlling it. But watching each player choose slightly different paths with the deck, playing around certain cards or using cards at different times, reacting to their opponent’s plays, it was interesting to see who understood what kind of deck they were piloting.

 I will now reveal the main focus of this article. As interesting as the deck is and in this particular time in the Magic Standard meta game, B/G Delirium has really shown its place in the top tier decks, what about the pilot?

Brad Nelson spent a lot of the weekend playing on camera which meant, if you were watching, you got to witness him rattled off win after win to secure third place and a spot in the top 8. Brad is a fantastic player but what was apparent in this instance is that, no one in the room knew their role in the match up better than him. This doesn’t just mean knowing your deck or knowing your opponent’s deck. What I mean by knowing your role is, for example; you may be playing a control deck, so you want to sit back and counter all the spells. What if your opponent has a slow start? What if you can play an early creature and possibly do a considerable amount of damage, do you? That’s not what a control deck traditionally does, but does that mean it’s wrong to do it? In Brad’s case, he is very good at playing most types of strategy so this may come naturally to him. As he watched his opponent going through the motions, playing their deck as they would in testing perhaps, he was able to punish them because they weren’t playing against B/G Delirium correctly. A lot of players know what their deck does and will play for that. Brad understands that you can’t always be on the defensive or constantly attacking either, seeing the intricate interactions and having perfect timing both playing his cards and bluffing his opponent. He definitely deserved the trophy at Knoxville and after finding the current “best deck”, I’m sure we have more strong performances from Brad to come.

The lesson I took away from the Knoxville open was, understanding the ever changing situation no matter what deck you find yourself playing against. Like my control deck conundrum above, you may not always find yourself in a place that you can carry out your normal plan and you’ll have to adapt on the fly. You can’t spend every round of a tournament trying to do the same thing because it doesn’t always work that way. I’m sure there are videos of most of the rounds that were on camera on YouTube which I would urge you to watch. Or check out Starcitygames.com for coverage reports and deck lists, but as always keep checking back to Game Changers for more updates.