Trollololol

Every Thursday I drink A LOT of coffee at work. Coffe is specially made in appreciation for the unwashed masses that patronize my workplace that morning. The coffee is NEVER finished because we have to ensure enough for everyone that comes by and there's NO WAY that it'll ever be finished through NORMAL human consumption. After the crowds have had their opportunity to drink from the cup o' Joe  there's the question of what to do with the leftovers. I answer the pleas of the proletariate and CHUG THAT SHIT. This is absolutely very Golgari of me, to not waste what NATURE and Mr. COFFE has brewed for ALL OF US TO CONSUME! I am, however, WIRED the remainder of the day. I can taste time as it slowly winds down towards the end of the workday and it is AMAZING! I've accessed OMNISCIENCE. I spend the rest of time at work conversing with the denizens of THE WARP which helps pass the indetemrinable eternity of the remainder of my work day.

Me: I need to think of a standard rogue deck, now, while I can swim in the aether of imaginative thought!

Xthulp the Cantankerous: chtk-stk-nck

Me: Absolutely we'll topple the Ziggurat of Hope's Flame AFTER I CRUSH FNM.

Ryback: FEED ME MORE!

Mulling the chaos within my mind gave me an epiphany. I REALLY want to make a deck that uses the new Windfall. So I need a deck that wants to keep refueling its hand. This either means it needs to be full of cheap spells, want a full graveyard, or wants to pitch these cards for actvated abilities that require discarding cards.

Hello Gorgeous!

There is now a caveat, then. This budding Rogue deck needs LOTS of Creatures.

Also, lets look at what there is to play with, here. The Troll does have an activted ability that helps keep it around in case someone wants to stop all my fun. Is there a way that I can get BBG by turn 2?

 Well, there we go.

OK, lets MATH! If I have 4 Trolls in my deck, the chance of having 1 in hand by turn 2 is: 44/49% (On play/On draw). The chance of having an Arbor Elf Turn 1 and an Overgrown Tomb turn 2 is 18/21%. So, I have around a 1/5 chance of having 3 mana, and it at least taps for BB? by turn 2. Y'know what, though, what else is a BB? spell?

Hello Sexy!

Now, I don't want to draw her more often than I can cast her. So if I can cast Arbor Elf turn 1 and have Overgrown tomb in play by turn 2 18/21% of the time, how many Liliana's does the deck need to draw her less than that?

 

	Lilianas in Deck
Cards in Hand	1	2	3	4
7	12%	22%	32%	40%
8	13%	25%	35%	44%
9	15%	28%	39%	49%

So, with 1 Liliana I get a 12/13% split, with 2 I get a 22/25% split. I'll go with 2 Lilianas.

So I have the the making sof a deck that, if I want to use Whispering Madness to draw creatures to pitch to Lotleth Troll, I'm looking at a BUG deck. Since I'm leaving myselfopen to a delightful option of dreaming of 3 mana bu turn 2 to cast Troll and have mana up to Regenerate him, I might as well look for a card that is pretty tasty to cast turn 2, Liliana of the Veil. I'm now looking at a deck that is:

If I want to guarantee a likelihood of having 3 lands in hand and having a 4th one to play on turn 4, that's 23 lands.

04x Arbor Elf

04x Overgrown Tomb

19x LAND

04x Lotleth Troll

02x liliana of the Veil

04x Whispering Madness

37x CARDS

23x Cards left to play with

Liliana is already committing the deck to running creature removal at no more than 3CMC, the Troll is committing the deck to having creatures to play by turn 2, and if those creatures have a non-{T} activated ability, the better. The Troll asks the deck to utilize the Graveyard as a dumping ground for creatures, so creatures I can cast from the Graveyard or that can return from the graveyard to hand on their are preferred. They should be in BUG colors, as well.

Changing the numbers

I was aked to do Math stuff with my brain after 9 last night. My weeknight schedule is normally pretty predictable. I get home by 6:30, workout with the encouragement of an time displaced Axis agent using EA's Wii Active game (I'M DOING THE BEST I CAN YOU JAPANESE WENCH!), then chillax on my couch watching episodes of Burn Notice I have saved on my DVR. So, this event was a pretty big shake-up of my precious routine.

I really used to be good at math, you guyz! I could sit in the back of a math class, giving all the right answers for just the right price. Yes, I'll find the derivative of that equation, Professor, in exchange for a favorable grade. Sucker. The only class I was really an anchor around anyone's neck was PE but coaches are more than willing to just leave my chunky ass by the curb and give attention to the guys with the sexy muscle flexes that cause them to swoon and bat their eyes. Except my 7th grade PE coach. He tried to get everyone involved. He was also my 6th grade English teacher. THAT guy was an all around Renaissance man. He was a good example of how idealists envision the classical education system. Too bad it's become an incubator for the idiots of the absent parents, just warming them over until the very last ding of the final school bell they hear their senior year. Then the system that only wants them to be capable of being a wage slave vomits them out so they can assume their role as the ditchdiggers of society. Have we really failed our kids this hard?

The only way to fix this is with vigorous science! The kind Texas school board members question the validity of. Simic and Orzhov can never get along.

The math for my developing "Aggression" index is constantly shifting, changing, and EVOLVING. Primarily, it is so I can accomodate the special needs of the Evolve mechanic. Turthfully, the majority of evolve creatures are underpowered compared to their mana cost. They're also kind of frail, too. They gotta toughen up. What better way to do that than through peer pressure? Bring in better teammates to motivate those lazy Cloudfin Raptors to do their job.

So, how am I factoring in the effectiveness of Evolve creatures? More math, again! UGH! I'm only through the green creatures in my aggression index and still have multi-colored and artifact creatures left. But, here's an example of what I'm thinking of doing:

Lets take a look at Crocanura:

At 3 mana it's a 1/3, which is pretty good defensively. He's obviously hit his share of Doritos tacos in his life, but his power is just too small. He's a weak little chump. Now, if I want to determine how aggressively costed this dude is, I shoud compare his power to the average power of his 3 mana peers and 4CMC haste creatures. He is woefully underaverage in this respect, so far.

Ah, but Evolve is there, and it hates simple math. When this armchair QB hits the board on turn 3, he doesn't attack until turn 4. Because of summoning sickness and he has to vomit that McDonald's 2xQP meal he X-tra sized! This denizen of wal-mart should be ashamed of himself!

So, turn 4 rolls around, I can play my 4th land, and summon a creature. Heres the question: What is the likelyhood THIS next creature triggers evolve? What is the average power or Toughness of a 4CMC creature, and is that average greater than Crocasnorlax P/T? If it is, I can assume that by the time I attack with Chunksanura he'll get his ass in shape and be a 2/4. Actually, on average, so far as I have done it, this would put him above average for power AND toughness for a 3CMC common/uncommon creature.

So, thanks to Evolve, I have to make a new adjustment to my aggression index for these lazy assholes. I gotta figure out the likelihood that they'll actually evolve on the following turn they're dropped. Thankfully, after working my brain helping a friend with pre-calculus, I was able to ponder this quandry and have an epiphany on how to handle it. Harder math came into my world, and I evolved my thinking brain to meet it.

Aggression

Ladies and sane blood sports understand that size does matter (HEYO!) Boxing has cute terms like "pound for pound" to acknowledge the prowess of a light weight who'd die in the ring from a punch by Bowe or Lewis or Klepto (is that his name?). Scrappiness doesn't have the ability to overcome monstrous size.

I spent Sunday watching the Royal Rumble at a friend's home. Royales and Rumbles are marvelous spectacles where there's this illusion that any man can become a winner. Even Epico. If he was present.

I was playing WWE '13 a few weeks ago, playing a multi-player rumble and I went wire to wire playing Epico to the dismay of the rioting virtual audience witnessing the abomination before their eyes. It must have been the absolute worst event for the citizens of Reboot to watch. I'm glad to get my Revenge against Boob, Enzo, and the rest of the cast of the horrid little show.

Magic can operate similar to a Rumble match. Start with a few creatures. More come in as time goes by, as others get eliminated. Ideally start with 1CMC creatures, move to the 2s and 4s, and once there's enough mana, once Rey-Rey Reckless Waif starts getting into the impossibly shocking predicament of being around STILL after turn 1 being summoned to tussle with a durdling Avacyn's Pilgrim, here comes a Thragtusk fattie and it is lights out as the red zone clears beneath the weight of the 5/3. It only gets bigger and better from there. The durdling utility shenanigans that the light weights provide goes to the wayside as the match turns into a top decking fattie slobber-knocker.

Some creatures are born to pick fights with things above their weight class, though. They'll take as much a beating as Jet Li against Dolf. Still, the scrappy howitzers will leave it all on the kitchen table as its Heyman-esque controller gleefully tags him into the next round's brawl.

For use of any environment, I'm developing what I'd call an "Aggression" index for creatures. Within their CMC (wieght-class), how are they compare to the Power of their peers. I have not finished the list for GTC, only because I'm lazy about doing data mining and input, so the Aggression Index for creatures will have to wait a few days. I've covered White, Blue, and Black creatures so far. I have Red, Green, Artifact, and Multicolored to go. This isn't the ability for these pound for pounders to survive against their competition. this is only where they stack in in terms of power versus their peers. The methodology I'm using is:

is Power of X-CMC Creature at Common/Uncommon or Rare > Average Power for Creatures X-CMC at Common/Uncommon or Rare

So, I've thrown all the Commons and Uncommons together into a pot. Averaged the power for creatures at 1-12 CMC. Then look to see if a creature is greater than that average.

If you're curious what i'm finding, right now, I'm finding that Evolve really skews the data. Evolve creatures start out at atypically low power/toughness. They have the prospect of growing bigger over time, but when they appear they're generally underpowered for 1-2 turns.

A Pre-Release mini tournament report

Violent adolescents and their adult violent offenders future selves must have parts of their brains wired in ways that prevent them from reconsidering smashing a beer bottle over some bro douche's head when he looks at them askew, regardless of the fact that bro douche was giving a head bob to his friend who just walked in throught the door. He shouldn't have nodded at that door with a psychopath standing between him and that exit. I make it a point to never look towards an exit in a bar. When you look to exits you alert every honorary Cobra Kai member you are a flight risk when shit goes down. Never show weakness. GRUUL never show weakness.

Saturday I played in the Gatecrash pre-release. My box was pretty good to me. It is my Gruul mindset. I knew it'd cough up the goods or else. Inanimate objects have this fear or my rage. I make VCRs work by yelling at them. Their clocks bow to my will. Back to the box. What was in the GRUUL box? Well, lets start with the guy who was the all star for my first 3 rounds:

The Magic GAWDS were obviously smiling down on me. GRUUL was the best choice to win! Snatched him from the final pre-release pack I opened. That just about made my day. A foil Godless Shrine helps, too.

So, I at least left the party with about $40-$60 in value for my rare cards. 

Orzhov is such an ungodly pain to play. I played them twice in swiss. It came down, both matches, to me trying to make an akpha strike around the time I get 6-8 mana and they're at 20-25 life. I'd swing with 1-3 dudes, and bloodrush 2-3 times on top of that. Seriously, playing against Orzhov is THE WORST.

I finished swiss at 3-1-1, probably should be 4-1 but the guy i played in the last round wanted to draw and hope we both drew into top 8. I didn't want to be THAT GUY so I said okay. Then we played ot our match and a steam rolled him 2-0. My inner Gruul was mad. We both made Top 8 and EVERYONE decided to just pool prizes. Divvying up the loot gave each top 8 member 7 packs. I turned into THAT GUY by saying I wouldn't join in the split unless they named me winner of the oturnament. They did, and that is how I won my Pre-Release, by holding the rest of the Top 8 hostage. THAT is so so Gruul!

I've been developing metrics for Creature power and toughness, recently. This is more for limited uses, until I get a big enough database of Standard creatures. I want to determien which creature are aggressively cpsted, defensively costed, and have surviveability against the average of each creature within their shared mana costs. It's...going along. I've got Gatecrashes White, Blue, and Black creatures in my database already. I'll share what my formulas are tomorrow and hopefully name some names wednesday.

Sports and Magic

Just for background, I am a sports fan. Pre-releases and releases on Saturday are the worst because they pull me away from watching LSU because WIZARDS HATES COLLEGE FOOTBALL! They're based in Seattle where UW is at and the huskies have sucked in football for years! Enjoy those Apple Cups being trounced by WSU! It is written in the history of Magic, too. Richard Garfield obviously was an IVY LEAGUE UPENN SNOB! He IS NOT Penn State!

Sports writing is just terrible. Some poor english major or blogger who just eats tons of chicken wings watching the game and needs an audience for his insane ranting (Hi, me!) toils away at crafting perfect storylines leading up to games only to have it completely knocked aside when guys like BILL CALLAHAN decide to trash entire gameplans and sabotage super bowls for league MVPs and my fantasy QB/Crush RICH GANNON! (wait...where am I?)

Post game wrap ups either fall into 1 of 2 categories: The original sappy storyline was validated by the play of one guy because GAME OUTCOMES ARE NOT TEAM EFFORTS or the original storyline was obviously not the real story of the game it was some complete unknown steals the spotlight when the original storyline driven protagonist of the work of fiction that is a game preview turned out to be a dirty fraud who made a prognosticator look bad for hitching his fantasy wagon to the wrong guy.
The entire point of this is that people like to have things explained to them like we were a primitive tribe gathering around the campfire to hear fishermen's tales. We want to see trees for forests. Magic meta-game and deck analysis tends to work the same way. To grab audiences we need stories with plot about a card game that features a randomized 60 card deck. It sucks because it hinders advancement of statistical analysis of deck design. Crafting stories takes a backseat to objective analysis.

Case in point: My analysis of Delver. Delver lost Ponder, and people see the tree of Ponder and proclaim the deck was ruined. It was ruined when it lost the majority of its spells and the air of Gitaxian probe. Ponder only guaranteed a flip of Delver by turn 3 if you drew the card. Decks are not created around 1 card, theyre created arund the effects of the card and how much of that effect does the deck in order to construct a viable gameplan.

Gatecrash Pre-Release

On monday I played in a Mormir Vig swiss event b/c I needed to finally play magic again. I hope I can go inifinite once my deck stops giving me 0/0s for my 5 drop! Also DENIZEN OF THE DEEP IS THE WORST! Y'know what I love the most in Momir? The 4s.

Saturday I'm going to the gatecrash pre-release and I'm trying to figure the math I need for my deck. Which is hard since all the guilds have different mana needs in their concept. Orzhov should just run an extorters and, like, 28 lands. Tax your oponent to death! The thought of playing Orzhov makes me feel like Arms Akimbo selling "Oops" insurance. OMG YOU GUYS THAT IS THE BEST WAY TO PLAY!

PLaying that way, though, is not how my brain is wired. Orzhov may be The Kingpin, Simic may be conceptually X-Men, just average mutants that train to be the best. I hope to run into a Bald guy playing SImic so I can rattle his head calling him Professor or Charlie and stare him down to see if he has telepathic powers. Gruul are Hulks and I play by tellign the Dr. Banner part of my brain to go eat a BoD. At a pre-release in Texas I was taunted by a spectator to "Get your head in the game, Louisiana!" I was playing Rakdos. I'm going into auto pilot until I wake up in the middle of an empty hall with the blood of my enemies on my fists with no memoery of how I lost my shirt but kept my pants.

Playing in that PTQ in Texas was great, too. I was entirely defined by my birthplace. I WAS Louisiana. I was the avatar of my crap state and much like how Louisiana's relationship to Texas is defined, there was just too much Texas for me to overcome. Its so big and omnipresent. Texas is just the worst jerk asshole ever. All of it.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend over whether I should go for the cool sticker or play Magic to win at the pre-release. I realized that I'd just never be able to enjoy playing Orzhov or Dimir. I hate white and weenie aggro in limited so Boros is out. Simic just seems like it wants to durdle forever. I'm picking Gruul b/c SMASH.

Bant Auras and its sorceries

Bant Auras runs 33 sorcery speed spells.

• 8 of the spells are mana acceleration (Avacyn's Pilgrim and Abundant Growth) at 1CMC
• 8 of the spells are growth spells (Ethereal Armor and Rancor) at 1CMC
• 4 spells are Spectral Flight at 2CMC
• 4 spells are Invisible Stalker at 2CMC
• 7 spells are creatures at 3CMC (Geist of St. Traft and Silver Blade Paladin)
• 2 spells are growth spells at 4 CMC (Increasing Savagery)

Bant also has 4 instants in Selesnya charm that can act as a surprise 2|2 blocker, kill a 5 or more power creature, and also grow another creature. This card, though, is largely reactionary so we shouln't think of it as something that is part of the overall offensive plan of the deck.

Percentage wise, this deck should have in its opener: 3 lands, 1 piece of mana accel, 1 1CMC growth spell, 1 3CMC creature, 1 2CMC object, and 1 other card.

Lands went 1-2-3-4-4-5-5-6 for Bant Auras. How about spells that grow creatures? Given how many auras are in the deck and at what cost each one is, Bant should be able to have and have played 1 aura on average in hand turns 1-2, 2 auras from turns 3-5, and 3 auras drawn & played by turns 6 onward.

Of couse, Silverblade Paladin is pretty much an aura his own self. If I count him as an aura that's playable on turn 3, then the ability to draw and play auras goes 1 for turns 1-2, 2 by turn 3, 3 by turns 4-7, and 4 by turn 8.

The deck ideally wants to play Turn 1 mana accel, turn 2 Geist/Stalker, turn 3 1-2 growth spells. It will keep up mana for Selesnya Charm as it needs it, but shouldn't be tinking of it until turn 4 or beyond. It needs to use its Knight token as a surprise blocker in a race, its exile function if its creatures ar being outclassed, or its growth function as a way to push through lethal damage.

Bant Auras, Ramp, and accessible Mana

So the first theory I've developed is that you can intuit a deck's plan of attack through the sorceries it wants to cast at applicable turns. The second theory I'm intereted in using to design decks is anticipating on mana and how many copies of sorceries you need to have them in hand when you reach that anticipated mana.

I wanted to look at Bant Auras, to start. The deck John Stern used to win GP: Atlantic City ran 23 lands. What turns could he anticipate his land drops?
  

	Total Cards Drawn
Cards in Hand	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
0	3%	2%	1%	0%	0%	0%	0%
1	14%	9%	6%	4%	2%	1%	1%
2	29%	23%	18%	13%	9%	6%	4%
3	30%	30%	28%	24%	20%	16%	12%
4	18%	23%	26%	27%	27%	24%	21%
5	6%	10%	15%	19%	23%	25%	25%
6	1%	3%	5%	9%	13%	17%	20%
7	0%	0%	1%	3%	5%	8%	11%

Percentage wise, Bant was most likely to have 3 lands in its opening hand than any other number. In total, it had a 54% to have 3 or more in its open. Bant doesn't run any card drawn when it draws its 8th card, so that puts it on its scond turn on the play. Bant isn't more likely to have 4 lands in hand until the 10th card drawn, 4th turn on the play. Its fifth card drawn isn't likely to happen until the 12th card drawn, turn 6.

I have no earthly idea if I am interpretin this math right, guys and gals.

Bant, though, does run mana acceleration. It runs 2 forms of 1 mana acceleration, Avacyn's Pilgrim and Abundant Growth.

	Total Cards Drawn
Cards in Hand	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
0	35%	29%	25%	21%	18%	15%	12%
1	42%	42%	41%	39%	37%	35%	32%
2	19%	22%	25%	28%	30%	32%	33%
3	4%	6%	8%	10%	12%	15%	17%
4	0%	1%	1%	2%	3%	4%	5%

There is a 65% chance, total, Bant has AT LEAST one of these cards in it opening hand. It doesnt have a higher probability of having 2 in hand than 1 until the 6th turn on the play (13th card drawn)

Bant has a 97% probability to  have at least 1 land in hand when it opens its turn. It has a 65% chance of having acceleration. By turn 1 it has 2 mana to start turn 2 65% of the time. It starts with, actually, 1.65 land in hand.

Anyway, point being, Bant's mana actually anticipates to move like this:

Turn 1: Land, Mana Accel (2)
Turn 2: Land (3)
Turn 3: Land (4)
Turn 4: Land (5)
Turn 5: Miss (5)
Turn 6: Land (6)

Soul Ransom

Not gonna lie, this card should be better as an Orzhov card. I get it though, stealing creatures is a blue/red ability and the color pie need to be maintained. I think for the flavor, though, it is very much Orzhov. Who holds people ransom? Crime Syndicates. Who is the nominal big named cirme syndicate? They have Extort as their mechnic? Orzhov. Whatever. I like the card personally. However, I don't think I've ever come across cars that involve giving opponents choices that end up with the choice you're looking for chosen.

In general, I am liking Dimir. Before writing this so briefly on Soul Ransom, I was hoping to find a way to write an article about Angelic Skirmisher, or as I've taken to thinking of her, as Concerted Effort Charm.

Then, I started looking at Blue/Black cretures and I've been noticing something. I never considered how much being a saboteurs mattered within Blue/Black creatures. There's around 128 Blue & Black cretures (including 3-5 color ones, too) and 17 of them are Saboteurs. More than 10%! This is actually not a recent development. It is fairly spread out over the existence of Magic. I can say most of them came about starting at the release of Ravnica and afterwards. In fact, Ravnica has the highest concentration of UB saboteurs at 3: Dimir Cutpurse, Mindleech Mass, and Szadek. Now with the Return to Ravnica and the release of Gatecrash, there's a whole mechanic around turning any creature on the board into a secrt Dimir agent. This is honestly so much better as a mechanic for the guild than transmute could hope to be. The best thing I enjoy about this development? It wants Dimir to attack. Use an Invisible Stalker, Rakdos Shredfreak, Thragtusk, whatever. You just have to deal combat damage.

Finishing with Delver

I am NOT a math major, or have I actually went through statistical studies in college. What I'm doing here is for my own enjoyment and to help foster discussion of better deck design in Magic: The Gathering using more replicable mathematical theories. I stated that you should be able to discern a deck's attack plan through its sorceries in part 1 of my dissection of Delver. I determined that Delver should run less glacial fortresses in order to not be caught with the card's disadvantage before playing a third land drop in part 2 and part 3. I stated my skepticism tht the loss of Ponder is the main reason why Delver decks disappeared form standard in part 4.

The reason I am skeptical that the loss of Ponder is because the card helped flip a Delver into a 3|2 flyer by the start of the third turn. Realisticly, if you were on the play, youd have had about a 60% chance of Delver flipping already. That is a fairly good percentage in my opinion. What I believe is the cause of Delver's demise is the loss of the spell suit it caried when M13 and RTR rotated into Standard.

4 Gitaxian Probe: {U/p},1CMC,Sorcery, "Cantrip"--LOST with RTR
3 Gut Shot: {R/p}, 1CMC, Instant, 1 damage "Removal" or 1 point "Range"--LOST with RTR
3 Mana Leak: {1U}, 2CMC, Instant, "Soft Counter"--LOST with M13
1 Mutagenic Growth: {G/p}, 1CMC, Instant, "Growth"--LOST with RTR
4 Ponder: {U}, 1CMC, Sorcery, "Scry 3" and "Cantrip"--LOST with M13
4 Thought Scour: {U}, 1CMC, Instant, "Mill" and "Cantrip"
4 Vapor Snag: {U}, 1CMC, Instant, "Bounce Removal" and 1 point "Range"--Lost with RTR

Almost every spell the deck ran is now lost since RTR came out. Several of them "Free" spells thanks to Phyrexian Mana. The deck lost its "Air" with the rotation of gitaxian Pobe, and now has to actually have 60 cards in the deck. Gut shot was actually really good when being cast for free. Mana leak was the best way the deck could protect its flipped Delveron turn 3. Vapor snag was another good way to keep out tempoing your opponent by sending back a newly summoned creature or a potential blocker for a turn. Most importantly: They go so well with a Snapcaster Mage on turn 3!

While I evaluate Sorceries based on the probabilities of casting them on the right turn with the appropriate land, Instants are very reactionary cards. No one has to cast them untl the very last moment you need to cast them. Because of that, I want to look at the probabilities of having instants in hand and how many. The deck begins with 22 instants, counting Flash creatures. The probabilities for instants in an opening hand are:
 

Drawn:	>=1	0	1	2	3+
7	98%	2%	13%	28%	57%

So, a Delver player is fairly likely to have 3 or more instants in hand. 4 are "Free" phyrexian inatnts, 8 are 1CMC, 7 are 2CMC, 3 are 4CMC. I want to draw attention to, at least, how this lines up with the sorcery speed spells.

	"Free"	1CMC	2CMC	3CMC	4CMC
Instants	4	8	7	0	3
Sorceries	0	8	3	4	0

The deck wants to play a 1 CMC sorcery turn 1, this is obvious. If not it does have options in free and 1CMC instants to react to an opponent's opening play. ON Turn 2 it actually wants to lave up its Mana for its Instants. ON Turn 3 it wants to play Geist or leave the mana up for Instants. If you want to count Runechanter's pike as a 4 mana spell (2 to cast, 2 to equip) that's fine. The deck can cast that when ever it wants after the 4th land drop, or leave the mana open for a restoration Angel. This, of course, does not get into all other permustations of events for each turn. Really, though, we just want to etermine what holes along the curve does the instant spells fit into. What turns should the Delver player anticipate leaving mana up for an instant spell.

Delver rana very limited number of effects in the deck. It ran 12 "cantrips", and 7 forms of tempo removal (Vapor Snag and Mana Leak). Gut shot, too, is a form of removal, but I do  not see it in this role in a vacuum. It certainly has the poential to deal 4 damage to a creature or player in conjunction with a Snapcaster Mage at various points in the game, but getting 1 of each card in hand has a low probability. Plus that would suggest a proactive plan instead of a reactive one. Instants, especially int his deck, don't want to be proactively used. Gut shot can be removal, in the early turns, but the deck obviously doesn't want to maximize the use of Gut Shot. It must be wanting to use it for its "Range" function.

Delver didn't lose spells, it lost effects, 8 of its "cantrips" went by the wayside in the rotation to RTR. All of its removal was lost, too. It lost the ability to be a 56 card deck. To adjust to these losses, the deck would have to play an honest 6- cards, and more lands than 19. It loses spell slots to flip Delver and lost consistency. The loss of Ponder did not kill the deck. The loss of Gitaxian probe, Vapor snag, and Mana Leak with it did that. Personally, I think the loss of those 3 spells is more devastating than the loss of Ponder to the success of the deck. 

Flip Mode

There are 23 Instants or Sorceries in the sample Delver deck, this includes the empty calories of the Gitaxian Probes. They really are good for nothing. I'm trying to think, now, why I just didn't run 4 of them in my RDW deck last year. In a 60 card deck, that's 38% of the deck.

	Instants of Sorceries in Hand
Drawn:	>=1	0	1	2	3	3+
7	97%	3%	14%	29%	30%	55%

There will most likely be 3 or more cards that are instants of sorceries (55%) in an opening hand of 7.
The deck runs an abudance of these types of cards so that it can flip Delver. Here's another good use for Gitaxian Probe! It makes Delver a 56 card deck, AND it can help increase the odds of flipping Delver!
In fact, I want to calculate the odds of flipping a delver. I want to determine the chance of drawing and instant or sorcery depending on how many cards have been drawn in the game and how many instant or sorceries have already been drawn.

	Sorceries or Instants already Drawn
Draw	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	43%	42%	40%	38%	36%	34%	32%	30%
9	44%	42%	40%	38%	37%	35%	33%	31%
10	45%	43%	41%	39%	37%	35%	33%	31%
11	46%	44%	42%	40%	38%	36%	34%	32%
12	47%	45%	43%	41%	39%	37%	35%	33%
13	48%	46%	44%	42%	40%	38%	35%	33%
14	49%	47%	45%	43%	40%	38%	36%	34%
15	50%	48%	46%	43%	41%	39%	37%	35%
16	51%	49%	47%	44%	42%	40%	38%	36%
17	52%	50%	48%	45%	43%	41%	39%	36%
18	53%	51%	49%	47%	44%	42%	40%	37%
19	55%	52%	50%	48%	45%	43%	40%	38%

The percentages are for whether the card being drawn is an instant or sorcery. So if there were 0 Instant or sorceries drawn in an opening hand of 7, then there's a 43% chance that the 8th car drawn is an instant or sorcery. If there are 7 sorceries drawn to start the game and for some reason this hand was not mulliganed (I'm guessing SWAT raid interrupting the game) the chance that the 8th card drawn is an instant or sorcery is 29%. If the hand is average and there's 3 sorceries or instant in the opening hand, the 8th card drawn would have a...38% chance of being an instant or sorcery. It is funny how math works predictably like this, sometimes. It makes sense, though. If cards were being drawn and instants or sorceries were showing up within average, then there'd be an average chance of drawing an instant or sorcery on the following turn.

Ponder can allow anyone to cheat these projections, sort of. Because it is a sorcery it has to be played in the main phase. The same goes for Delver. So, at best, Turn 1 on the play you could go: play land that produces {U}, Tap land for {U}, cast ponder/delver, end turn. Turn 2: if Delver was played last turn, check top card if it is instant or sorcery, play land, tap a land for {U}, play ponder/delver, end turn. Turn 3: Check top card (better be a freaking instant or sorcery), flip Delver, Smash. Ponder can set up a more likely Delver flip by allowing a player to look at the next 3 cards down. It is just that it can only set up a more likely turn 3 flip since there is no way Ponder could be cast before a draw step. Stupid sorcery rules.

What I find absolutely fascinating is that the 35-40% probability of flipping a Delver on any turn, IF Delver was even drawn, is so acceptable for people playing the deck. Once Ponder left standard, though, Delver became non-existent as a deck. Ponder would only improve the chances of creating a Delver flip for the third turn. I seriously don't believe the loss of Ponder killed the deck.

This is especially relevant since there was a card previewed for Gatecrash that could help revive Delver as a deck archetype: Dimir Charm. Coming down the pipe, instant speed library manipulation similar to Ponder, for 2 mana! Now there's the chance to "ponder" at the start of the upkeep. It still prevents using the "ponder" to flip Delver prior to turn 3.