THE BEST DECK IN LEGACY! Izzet Ragavan Delver has people calling for bans. Izzet that good? MTG MH2

[@Cowter4]

The fact that izzet delver is cutting on delver is hilarious

[@OldManStompy]

"I wish there were fewer Delvers at Legacy tables" *Ragavan's paw curls*

[@ryonalionthunder]

@@OldManStompy Perfect

[@AlexanderWestcott]

@@OldManStompy damn, lol good one

[@servantofdiscord3586]

I forget what it was, but MTGO had a promotional thing where, for two weeks, you could play anything you wanted on MTGO. I kept losing against temur delver at the time, so I picked it up thinking that I was a good magic player and it couldn't be that difficult. I was wrong. Delver is very difficult to play, requires a lot of format knowledge to figure out your winning lines, and has the disadvantage of 90% of players know how to optimally play their deck against it. It was a good experience, cause it helped me determine that I am not a delver player. It just is not a play style I am good at.

[@Interesting_Failure]

oh shit conceding during brainstorm resolution lets you keep all the cards, that could be big

[@BoshNRoll]

The game ends immediately. Poggers

[@Bloodywolf11]

The arch enemy of all decks finally makes an appearance.

[@ryangilner9984]

Your surprise in the last match was hilarious, got me

[@ParadiseNigh]

35:54 "Did you know that Daze is also card advantage?" *_CURSED BLUE MAGE KNOWLEDGE_*

[@Totescolin]

"Daze is card advantage" Izzet delvers greatest advantage.

[@FrancisMarion1776]

I was wondering if you could clarify when to board daze out/ in. I seemed to understand for the most part, but wanted to learn more about when it is a “bad” card (or if it is an intuitive decision not a hard rule). Thanks so much for the content.

[@captaincanada6598]

I would also like to know as well. Knowning the Heuristrics of legacy play is often not talked about because the people who are good at the format already know, while others aren't familiar and "get lost in translation" by not knowing when to and when not to do stuff. (Side out/in cards, what to prepare for, how to determine match ups your deck loses in theory and not to even mention lines of play!)

[@BoshNRoll]

Daze is good when the games will be low-resource and you're planning to be ahead. I like it less on the draw overall because you're less likely to be ahead, picking up a land when you're already a land behind is risky. Likewise against decks with high land counts I don't want dead cards. If they can just play a turn off curve and dodge daze, I don't want it.

[@Fandwicksvhs]

In regards to your discussion of expressive iteration at about 4:50 on, I've long thought that the most powerful card that could be designed that would not be immediately banned would just be a instant that costs 1 and a U and that draws two cards.

[@DeeJy33]

Doing that at instant speed is way too powerful, I can't see that card getting printed until maybe like another 5 years of power creep.

[@MaxDilthey]

I notice that you cut Force of Will in certain matchups when playing this deck, and when playing Bant. I know you want FoW against unfair decks like combo, but when do you want it boarded out? Any fair, grindy matchup or is it more complex than that? Would love to hear your thoughts in a future video.

[@BoshNRoll]

I leave it in when opponents will have threats that are worth 2 cards to answer. If I can Prismatic Ending or Pyroblast everything in the deck, I don't need to spend 2 cards Forcing it. I like it vs. decks that will do something mean quickly (Trinisphere, Karn, etc) and vs decks that have cards that win when they resolve (combo).

[@Borkybaby]

Leaving this for the algorithm :) love the video :)

[@daltonmekis]

Slowly coming up on 10k subs. So exciting!

[@BoshNRoll]

Yeah buddy!

[@SpiritSquadMTG]

36:00 "Why is everyone always talking about Brainstorm?"

[@BoshNRoll]

Yeah IDK. No big deal.

[@brettucker9695]

Monke too stronk. He heard what they did to his brother SSG and is here to wreck all our formats.

[@petemagnuson7357]

SSG?

[@jaggededge11]

@@petemagnuson7357 Simian Spirit Guide

[@petemagnuson7357]

@@jaggededge11 daww, RIP good monke boy

[@MichSports]

I am totally one of those degen's that has a mismatched mana base. My D&T deck has a mix of plains including alpha, beta, the un sets, and my fav art foils. hehehe

[@jennaeasley2277]

Does ee on 1 still kill a flipped delver? I assumed it counted as a 0 mana creature on its flip side

[@BoshNRoll]

It used to be zero on the back, they updated the rules a few years ago that any flipped card has the front side’s mana value.

[@NieRlyLegendary]

Murktide Regent is lurking: Lurktide Regent! XD

[@Noctis198]

What was the first deck he faced with the mox opal called?

[@aaaccciiiddd]

so speaking of bans, what would even be an effective ban? In my mind, force of will, brainstorm, ponder, wasteland are all off the list to be banned just because they are so format defining. any of the threats could just get subsumed by some other threat/replaced with regular delvers. would daze be enough just so that they only have force of will as an extremely early answer?

[@ohno5559]

The right answer is probably Daze but I want it to be Ragavan since Daze is cool and Rag sucks

[@aaaccciiiddd]

@@ohno5559 I def agree but if rag is banned then the decks just add 2 more delver and maybe like pyrite spellbomb and are functionally the same

[@WigglyWoobah]

Daze. Daze has ALWAYS been the problem.

[@MackNJacishopper]

Not sure about legacy, but Ragavan is just a card that should have never been made, similar to Oko. I could easily see a ban in Modern.

[@jacobwheeler9330]

100% think Daze.

[@adventurewithdanny]

I wonder if dazing the lotus petal in match 1 against the artifact deck would have been a huge blowout

[@lehearse662]

"for 2 mana, that's pretty good." - BoshNRoll

[@Drew-ix5ih]

Remember when goyf and goose were good? The deck was called Canadian threshold, to delver, now delver is barely up to par. the power creep is real

[@shorts_gaming]

The power creep of mtg in the last 2 years has been insane. The game doesn't look anything like it used to

[@michaelbloom8270]

Goose?

[@Drew-ix5ih]

@@michaelbloom8270 nimble mongoose. A 1/1 that grows to 3/3 w shroud when you have threshold, was a premier 1 drop in its days

[@michaelbloom8270]

@@Drew-ix5ih thanks

[@Mat-tg4fk]

I needed proof to explain to a friend how insane ragavan is, your round 1 game 1 was the PERFECT exmaple lol

[@MaxMckayful]

Monke has a slightly Deathite Shamam issue to me. It's not that any singular part is busted. It's the sum of the parts winds up doing so much. Having ramp, agressiveness, and a splash of card value all on one card is crazy.

[@MomirsLabTech]

@@MaxMckayful and it's 1 mana, or 2 mana with haste. The card is cracked.

[@jennaeasley2277]

Why isn’t the jeskai ragavan deck not doing as well as izzet? The lists are very similar but jeskai seems to have better removal

[@picassodilly]

I may be mistaken, but I believe you missed a chance game two of round one to upkeep brainstorm for a guaranteed delver flip. Like can’t you brainstorm in response to the upkeep trigger then put the other brainstorm on top of your deck to reveal?

[@BoshNRoll]

That is a play you can make. Brainstorm is so important in these decks to keep the good cards flowing, you really want to maximize it with a fetch land and 2 bad cards to get rid of. Aggressively flipping delver is less important than casting a good brainstorm in most situations.

[@gusglass2867]

Would love to see you play more s-tier devil's like this

[@errorhurts665]

Neat little fact, when you said that you momentarily had delirium before your treasure left the graveyard, that was incorrect. Delirium says "as long as there are four or more cards types among cards in your graveyard" and tokens aren't cards.

[@ohno5559]

Is there a consensus yet on which Aluren build is better between Acererak and Recruiter?

[@BoshNRoll]

I'm not involved in any Aluren discords or communities. Recruiter seems better to me from the outside.

[@guybrushthreepwood8174]

You really delved deep into the underbelly of the legacy meta for those last two matches👍

[@Graatand]

Ban Daze and one of either DRC or Ragavan?

[@polsenOO7]

Daze is not a problem. Them giving Delver a flying Gurmag & a hastey 2 power creature that exiles stuff from your opponent's deck is the problem.

[@DragonMasterSubo]

@@polsenOO7 Daze has been a problem for a long time and needs to go. Ban Rag, and we're just back to the same tier 0 Delver decks we've had for the past 6 years.

[@Graatand]

@@DragonMasterSubo Yeah, the Delver shell has been tier 1 for a very long time, and it seems like it’s always just one Dreadhorde Arcanist or Ragavan away from tier 0.

[@polsenOO7]

@@DragonMasterSubo I have been playing Legacy for 6 years and the only Tier 0 deck was Counter Top Miracles. After that the card Deathrite Shaman, and after that a bunch of their cards from their F.I.R.E. design team that ruined all of their eternal formats. And through that time Daze was not once brought up. The cards that need to be banned are the new ones that were pushed by their design philosophy. If you ban staples in the format I guarantee you will have a mass amount of people sell out of the format. Especially for a card that wasn't bitched about until now. And no Daze was never brought up until now.

[@polsenOO7]

@@jtyree0226 that is an ideal scenario of what could happen. You could play a fetch or a basic and you would still be fine if you waited a turn. Daze loses value once the game progresses. I have played Wasteland and Daze together and that is not that OP as you make it out. Sure you can screw over so many Turn 1's but that is the game of Magic. If you are not wanting to play in the oldest format next to Vintage where you have access to some of the most powerful cards ever printed then go play Standard or Modern. If you ban Daze then you will say goodbye to Tempo Decks and all you will have in Blue are Control decks and a few Combo Decks. Basically dumping a large part of the format. All because you want to hit 1 deck. Not a good strategy to which I really do believe you will see people up and leave the game. Besides you just described the problem, minus the spelling error: "These new 1 drops are ridiculous because of the value they accrue over time." You just admitted it's not Daze that's the problem. It's your busted new card that you want the format to be warped around. And you doubt people won't leave because of that shit? If I was told I would not be able to play my collection or a deck I played for years because Wizards wants to push their new cash grab card then I'm out. Switching decks and/or cards isn't as easy to do especially in Legacy. Cards in this format are $$$ and you would be a burden for anyone you encourage to do this.

[@mileswhitesmith6821]

we need bans to keep up appearances and get these "delver" players back on 4 delvers

[@Civera89]

I’d be okay with a DRC ban. It does too much for 1 mana and is hard to blank. I think a lot of the focus is on the expensive mythic but personally I think DRC is the problem. I also own this deck in paper so whatever happens affects me :(

[@alext5497]

And that's why I main deck nihil spell bombs and endurance. But then again, I play modern

[@Quiron1985]

now, if u would ban 1 card out of the deck, what would it be? Ravagan? Murktide? Iteration?

[@BoshNRoll]

I wouldn't miss Daze, but I think Ragavan is the highest-pressure single hit right now.

[@smegmalasagna]

So BoshNRoll, weren’t you the one that said that you did not respect Dragon’s Rage Channeler and that Delver of Secrets on the other hand is ‘a real creature’? ;) (It could have also been ThrabenU i’m not sure)

[@BoshNRoll]

I meant that strictly in terms of pacing the game from the Bant side. We ranted and raved for close to an hour about how powerful DRC is during preview season and it's been consistently outperforming even that. Card is nutters.

[@smegmalasagna]

@@BoshNRoll Ah that makes sense.

[@alasanof]

It's fascinating that this deck made wrenn banned in legacy, but it's not strong enough to get it banned in modern. It's interesting to see if this'll be a deck in pioneer with the midnight hunt reprint.

[@BoshNRoll]

Modern lacking Force of Will, Daze, and Wasteland is the difference. Otherwise it's just an aggro deck.

[@willjoyce5013]

If the anti netdeck crowd talks you just show them the high-level results while their decks go nowhere, despite knowing the meta. Then they get huffy and make excuses while the good brewers make netdecks

[@MrNoPants305]

How would brewers make net decks? Seems like an oxymoron in concept.

[@willjoyce5013]

@@MrNoPants305 every netdeck was once a brew, they don't just magically appear. To think otherwise would be a moronic concept, plus there are brewers that build decks for pros. Multiple pros pilot the list a brewer gives them to pilot. So, basically, all the good brewers make netdecks as that shows their brews are actually good The reality is a lot of self-proclaimed brewers just aren't very good, so they blame the good brews that become the netdecks for their own inadequacy

[@MrNoPants305]

@@willjoyce5013 Sure, but when folks talk about brews, they typically don't consider something so refined as a net deck as that. Brew typically refers to something fringe, or new. UR Delver is neither of those things.

[@willjoyce5013]

@@MrNoPants305 yes, they talk about it in such a fashion as most aren't good brewers and blame their own failure on the success of others

[@willjoyce5013]

@@MrNoPants305 bad / so-so brews refer to fringe / unplayable piles of cards, good brews become the next netdecks. At one point Delver was a brew, along with every other deck netdeck in existence

[@KingPieson]

I'm really surprised in R1G3 you played DRC on 1 over Ragavan. With a hand that constrained on mana getting the extra treasure usually helps a lot with having it all work out, plus the hand has an iteration so you likely will have other things to do with mana other than dash in the midgame. With brainstorm you can still get the DRC + surveil interaction to dig for land 2, assuming Ragavan hits. The only normal way for your opponent to prevent the hit is with turn 1 emry that blocks, which likely is a slightly favorable interaction in your favor anyways. Ragavan is also only 1 less damage than DRC assuming you even get delirium, which you did get here but isn't a guarantee

[@VADBV]

DRC was more of a safe play but with such a bad matchup Ragavan can fix your hand faster imo

[@asdffjsdjasd]

Prior to Delver the deck was Canadian Thresh (RUG) or Team America (BUG). Or URx tempo more generally was it often just called Thresh. Delver came along and with basically every U based tempo deck became Delver. Will we see a new name change in the near future? More importantly, bans. What do? Delver has and always will be the best Brainstorm deck. Combo and control can replace is at way lower opportunity cost than Delver. Daze is the second obvious choice. It is probably the single most format warping card in that no other card demands that you play around in the dark so strongly (except maybe Wasteland but that is good for the format). Delver is always top tier (unless there is a really busted deck in which case it drips to merely high tier) and a card or two from being a problem. Which suggests that the new cards are not the root cause. That said the new cards are independently problematic. I don't think anyone would argue that rags is good for the format. I'm less convinced on any of the others but I think Expressive Iteration followed by Murktide would be the most banworthy. Brainstorm is a sacred cow and will never be touched. I think Daze and rags need to go 100% and I'm 50/50 on EI. Thinking ahead to the new meta, saga probably needs to go as well. It's not centralizing in the same way but saga decks make up the entire remainder of tier one that isn't UR Delver.

[@MrNoPants305]

It seems counterintuitive that you say the deck is not so smooth brained to play for wins, but then you acknowledge a bunch of mistakes that led to some losses. Granted tempo isn't your typical jam, so the mistakes may have played larger, but the deck did have answers available if the sequencing was correct. The deck still seems very simple- make threat, protect threat, counter here and there.

[@DragonMasterSubo]

Delver players claim Delver is big brained just to make themselves feel more important. I have absolutely nothing against net decking (I play cookie cutter Bant, Jeskai RagaSagavan, and other UW goodstuff piles), but Delver isn't anything difficult to play. Hell, back when Deathrite came out the entire meta was some form of BUG/RUG delver or show and tell. It's not difficult to play if the majority of players are playing it.

[@petemagnuson7357]

Wonder how many games you could win if you cut the delver threats and just played 10 decent draft uncommons. Is the shell *that* good?

[@BoshNRoll]

The shell needs good threats to function. Like you need the threats to put opponents in position where they have to play into Daze etc. There's a lot of Legacy playables past Rag/DRC/Delver, this was a deck before any of them were printed, but you can't just play Welkin Tern or whatever.

[@zachjones1716]

I think banning ragavan in legacy over daze is good. Both this and drs were potentially 1 mana, and while drs helped you cantrip far better than most cards, ragavan hitting you feels very bad. He stole my jitte the other day lol, and the dash option makes him avoid removal better than other cards in that mana slot. Making that deck play like 2 swiftspear, 4 delver instead seems fine. I do get the daze arguments though, it makes stuff like b2b not matter at the same time it's going aggressive af with mana bases

[@morgoth2425]

you know force of negation counters artifacts, right?

[@Topples7]

Not if the artifact is also a creature

[@jbzettl427]

NOOOOO you were suppose to destroy the dark side not join them

[@dylanfalk3243]

Could've easily won game 3 match 3 if you force Uro the first time to push through 6 damage. Sometimes the most efficient card-advantage plays aren't the correct ones when the game is only going to last one more turn.

[@inpacc]

BAN RAG!!!

[@alext5497]

This deck should be main decking thought scoure

[@BoshNRoll]

What does it do that the deck needs and what are you cutting for it?

[@alext5497]

@@BoshNRoll the same thing that is does in modern. This is an opinion. I would test cutting the preordains for thought scoure. You can get a turn 2/ 3 reagent sometimes. What you should be asking is what does preordain do for you. The difference is basically card selection vs power. So that's where the choice is.

[@nathreetimesnineequalstwen7172]

@@alext5497 What does Preordain do for you: Dig for spot removal against creature decks Dig for a second land off a 1 lander Dig for a third land after being Wastelanded Dig for counterspells against combo Dig for additional threats when one of your creatures is killed Sequence you turns/play the game off 1 land, via chaining cantrips with preemptive knowledge of what will come as a result. What does Thoughtscour do: Allow you to get Murktide out 1-2 turns earlier Sometimes turn a DRC on faster One of these lists contributes to game actions that are *needed* to keep up in a game. While the other list consists of those which are *not needed,* but instead lend themselves to 'solitaire' play patterns which isn't how Delver wins.

[@alext5497]

@@nathreetimesnineequalstwen7172 I'd rather make 8 of my 14 threats much much more potent and faster than play the boomer cantrip game. You guys are dinosaurs . You just netdeck and won't even try new stuff. When someone 5-0s with some garbage Brew is the only time you experiment.

[@nathreetimesnineequalstwen7172]

@@alext5497 Your last paragraph... XD what's wrong buddy? Kinda triggered, so you decided to call people names on the internet? Want a hug? Don't like that some people value consistency in their decks opposed relying on RNG for a slightly faster game *sometimes?* Switching 2-4 cantrips in a top tier established deck isn't "brewing" anyways, so get outta here with that: "yall don't like to brew, imma pro gamer" stuff XD Edit: "8-14 of my threats more potent" < interesting way of saying 6-7 of my threats *occasionally* a turn or two faster. SMH

[@emilj6858]

I think G2 you really should’ve upkeep Brainstormed instead of doing it mainphase, there is no draw in your deck that makes it worse to upkeep brainstorm except for not going one card deeper

[@barkerm9]

Expressive Iteration and Ragavan are both going to get banned. Meanwhile, dreadhorde arcanist is wondering what it did wrong.

[@mxt7407]

Ragavan needs banning

[@jayceh]

There are plenty of decks with >50% win rate against delver and sagavan, but people refuse to play them and whine about a ban instead. Whatever, WotC always gives into the mob.