60 to 100: Legacy Delver

Upkeep, Flip Delver...

Hello! Welcome to 60 to 100, a series where we convert beloved decks from 60-card formats to Commander.

In this installment, I'm going to be looking at one of the most enduring archetypes of all time: Legacy Delver. From the printing of Delver of Secrets

Over the years, Delver decks have had quite the propensity to get cards banned. I've chosen to use a version of the deck from after the release of Modern Horizons 2, which shook up the archetype tremendously, but before the relatively recent banning of Expressive Iteration

How Does Izzet Delver Work?

Izzet Delver is the ultimate tempo deck. It seeks to play a cheap threat, like Delver of Secrets

Delving Into Commander

Ideally, a Commander for this deck would be low cost, difficult to block, and have some other upside. Thanks to Outlaws of Thunder Junction, such a creature does exist! Behold: Malcolm, the Eyes

Malcolm's additional upside is perfect. Casting two spells in a turn with a deck like this is fairly trivial, and the Clue tokens can be sacrificed for additional card draw or used with artifact synergies. However, attacking for two damage every turn isn't all that impressive. That is a key hurdle we'll have to address when building Malcolm. I don't think a deck that wins in 60 attacks would be playable at even the most casual of tables. 

Eyeing the Vision

So how does one win a game with Malcolm, the Eyes

Step 1: Cast Malcolm on either turn two or three, ideally with a free spell to cast afterward to trigger Malcolm and get a Clue token.

Step 2: Establish one of the deck's many Curiosity

Step 3: Increase Malcolm's damage output with cards like Nettlecyst

One of the things that defines Delver decks, and by extension this Commander deck, is a blend of proactive and reactive cards. Despite having a relatively fast and combat-focused gameplan, the deck is overflowing with reactive cards. The tension that exists between those two halves of the deck renders game play pretty nonlinear. You're going to spend a lot of time holding back the cards in your hand and waiting to see what your opponents are up to while you do little more than attack with Malcolm and draw cards.

Win Conditions

The tradition in games of Commander is to "spread the love." Spreading out your attacks between players is a good political tool that allows you to avoid angering any one opponent too much. That is not the way of this deck. When I cast Malcolm on turn two, I have already picked my first target. The player that has the most threatening commander or that had the most explosive turn one is going to get beaten to a pulp by my 2/2 until they're out of the game. Then you move on to the next person. A common pattern of play is using pump effects, like Nettlecyst, to kill a player, and then on the following turn taking out the remaining two "simultaneously" with Alchemist's Gambit. Despite only running one copy of the effect, the high card velocity of this deck makes Alchemist's Gambit pretty easy to find by the point in the game you need it.

An advantage that I've noticed from focusing down one player at a time is that only one opponent at the table has an incentive to kill Malcolm, the Eyes at a given time. The job of protecting your commander is much simpler within this paradigm. I find this to be so beneficial that I'll usually be completely transparent about what I'm doing. So far, it's worked like a charm.

Ramp

I've omitted traditional two-mana rocks, like Arcane Signet and Talisman of Creativity, in favor of ramp options that are more friendly to the deck's gameplan. When your commander costs two mana, spending your second turn on an Arcane Signet is not very appealing. Instead, I've gone with zero-mana options, like Mox Amber and Mox Opal, alongside permanents that generate Treasures when a creature deals combat damage, like Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator and Professional Face-Breaker. Ramp pieces fill out the curve around the commander and make the deck's early turns feel incredibly smooth.

Draw

Our primary draw engines are Curiosity-like Auras and other permanents that draw cards when a creature connects. This form of draw is perfect for a deck that starts attacking on the second turn. Unfortunately, there are only three cards like this that only cost one mana. In order to increase the odds of seeing one in the early turns, some less efficient options have been included. I was so desperate for additional Curiosity effects that the initial draft of the deck played Acquisition Octopus. Not all of the higher costed cards are worse, however. Enduring Curiosity might just be the best of the bunch, as it can survive board wipes and removal spells and has flash!

In addition to the plethora of Curiosity effects, we have an assortment of traditional card draw spells. Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Expressive Iteration are all draw spells that are banned in Legacy, something I'm sure Delver of Secrets would deny being involved with if you asked them. Don't forget to play Expressive Iteration before you play your land for turn!

Eagle Vision is a brilliant draw spell that I wish I could take credit for including. Someone with an even greater encyclopedic knowledge of Magic: The Gathering than I gifted me the idea (thanks, Dana!). It's functionally a second copy of Ancestral Recall, the first being Treasure Cruise, for two mana if you've fulfilled the laughable requirement of dealing combat damage to a player with your commander.

Interaction

The vast majority of this deck's counter magic can be cast for zero mana, which feels very true to its Legacy roots. Generally, your counters will be used to protect Malcolm, stop opponents from winning the game, and keeping creatures that could block Malcolm off the board. There's nothing worse than someone with a giant Dragon as their commander sticking it on the battlefield and halting your progress.

Fiery Cannonade is literally the perfect card for this deck. A board wipe that can clear up opposing small creatures at instant speed that doesn't also kill Malcolm instantly replaced Pyroclasm once I remembered that it exists. Cyclonic Rift and Blasphemous Act provide two more best-in-class board wipes that function nicely as panic buttons for games where opponents have developed their board too much for you to keep pace.

Single-target removal spells have one purpose in this deck: getting rid of creatures that can block Malcolm. Some have additional upsides, like Fury being a free spell you can use to trigger Malcolm on turn 2 or You Come to a River being able to make a creature unblockable. The artifact sub-theme enables Galvanic Blast, one of my favorite toys from Affinity decks in Modern and Pauper.

Re-casting Malcolm is a pain that I try to avoid if at all possible. Most games that you lose with this deck follow a similar sequence: you cast Malcolm, someone kills it, you wait another turn or two and try to redeploy him, then he dies again. Not good.

Alongside the deck's suite of counterspells, a couple protection spells are included to prevent this death spiral. Dive Down gives Malcolm hexproof and can also be used to block bigger creatures in a pinch. Most recently, I used this card to defend against a Trygon Predator that wanted to get rid of my Combat Research. You See a Guard Approach also gives the option of tapping down an opposing creature to clear the way for Malcolm to attack. 

Artifact Synergies

Urza, Lord High Artificer gives us something to do with all the Clue tokens Malcolm makes. You can tap them for mana and even use them to cast spells for free! Third Path Iconoclast and Academy Manufactor provide ways to generate even more artifact tokens to make use of with Urza. Incidentally, generating all of these artifacts will contribute a lot of attacking power when Nettlecyst finally hits the board.

While Murktide Regent isn't included in this deck as a finisher, our artifact sub-theme provides an even more potent threat. Kappa Cannoneer is an unblockable creature that grows as more artifacts enter the battlefield. It gets out of hand as quickly as you may assume. If Malcolm can't get the job done on his own, this Turtle serves as a very strong backup.

Tutors

I decided to keep this deck pretty light on tutor effects as the deck draws a lot of cards over the course of a game and doesn't struggle to find what it needs. However, Drift of Phantasms is absurdly well-suited to this deck. Drift of Phantasms' transmute ability can find a curiosity effect in Sea-Dasher Octopus, multiple win conditions in Jeska, Thrice Reborn, Nettlecyst, and Alchemist's Gambit, a board wipe in Fiery Cannonade, and more. Also, if previous installments of 60 to 100 are anything to go on, I'm just generally in love with transmute as a mechanic and the opportunities for clever deckbuilding it opens up.

Lands

As always, I've maxed out on fetch lands to find Steam Vents and Thundering Falls. Mystic Sanctuary provides a way to recover an instant or sorcery spell that can be fetched with any of the four blue fetch lands. Not every deck can get away with a card like Mystic Sanctuary, but this deck is looking to put more Islands in play than Mountains by a pretty wide margin anyways. Seldom will you have to work around Mystic Sanctuary coming in tapped.

Seat of the Synod and Great Furnace add to our artifact count for Nettlecyst purposes. I've opted not to include Silverbluff Bridge or Darksteel Citadel, as entering tapped and not being able to help cast a turn-two Malcolm were big enough downsides that I'd prefer to just play more basics.

Typically a deck includes Urza's Saga because it values being able to search for an artifact with the third chapter ability. Here, I'm primarily looking to generate really big Construct tokens. You can do so twice, once on the turn it gets its second lore counter and another time the following turn before you go to your main phase. We don't actually have much in the way of great targets for the tutor effect, although it's important to remember that Tormod's Crypt is in the deck and can be fetched to slow down a player with a graveyard-focused deck!

I don't actually have a lot of insightful commentary on Riverpyre Verge, I'm just incredibly excited that Aetherdrift completed this cycle. Aside from the fact that they don't have basic land types and can't be found with fetch lands, this cycle of lands are nearly as good as original dual lands, like Volcanic Island, most of the time.