Deckbuilders’ Challenge V (Poll): Future Playtest League

{Comments} Bit busier lately so no ultra-flashy writeup this time, but after a bit of trial and error here's the deck I've designed for this round's contest:

Death's Delve
Enablers:
4 Satyr Wayfinder
4 Gather the Pack
4 Buried Ogre

Payoffs:
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Hooting Mandrills
3 Gurmag Angler
1 Torrent Elemental

Control Package:
3 Thoughtseize
4 Sultai Charm
1 Languish
2 Murderous Cut
2 Treasure Cruise
2 Hero's Downfall

Lands:
3 Yavimaya Coast
2 Forest
3 Swamp
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Island
3 Opulent Palace
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Temple of Malady
4 Polluted Delta

This deck is based on the Sultai decks of the Khans Standard era that aimed to use cards like Satyr Wayfinder and Gather the Pack to naturally accumulate a critical mass of cards for Delve cards - except I soon realized after trying several builds that 4 Buried Ogre + 1 Fetchland leads into a Turn 1 Hooting Mandrills or Tasigur, the Golden Fang. We just need 1 fetchland and 1 delve payoff in our hand, both of which have 57% chance to happen in a 56 card deck, which is ~32.5% chance for both cards to be present in our opening hand. In other words, every 1 out of 3 games, we'll just randomly get the nuts and slam down a turn 1 4/5 or 5/5 to try and clock out our opponent. Should that fail, the rest of our deck plays like a more generic midrange-y control package using various removal like Heroes Downfall and Thoughtseize to keep our opponents gameplan in check while we try and get a turn 2 Gurmag Angler or some other Delve payoff instead.

Some other considerations:
Bone Rattler went in and out of this deck several times until I ultimately deemed it was too slow. Just going all in on landing a turn 1 Mandrills or Tasigur allows the deck to have a more focused goal instead of trying to loot into a good longterm or shortterm gameplan.

Whip of Erebos was a candidate but in the end I couldn't find room for it, I think we're better off on going all-in on the aggro delve plan with our smaller deck. It could easily replace Torrent Elemental though.

I really wanted to try Risen Executioner after discovering it but the various iterations of the deck make it tough to fit in and really keep the graveyard open for optimal conditions to play it. Torrent Elemental felt like it played more naturally into the fast delve plan and it at least also sits out of bolt range. That said, like Whip of Erebos, it could be a viable plan B replacing Torrent Elemental.

{Comments} Sadly, I'm really not good with offering fancy deck descriptions. So without any further ado, here's..


Hive Death

• Format: Standard (Lorwyn to M10, July 17 - Oct 1 2009)

I intentionally did not look up any control list from that time – which means the deck is probably completely flawed in some way. I did remember not putting in any Cascade cards though