Starting today I'm going to look into Delver. I'm interested in dissecting this deck since I am fairly certain I'll be playing it once Gatecrash comes out and get my hands on Dimir Charm. I want to work on studying Delver over several days. I am very interested to poke at the mana base and study its spell curve. I hope to discover principals of deck design within its construction.
| 4 Glacial Fortress |
| 8 Island |
| 2 Moorland Haunt |
| 1 Plains |
| 4 Seachrome Coast |
| 4 Delver of Secrets |
| 4 Geist of St Traft |
| 3 Restoration Angel |
| 4 Snapcaster Mage |
| 4 Gitaxian Probe |
| 3 Gut Shot |
| 3 Mana Leak |
| 1 Mutagenic Growth |
| 4 Ponder |
| 3 Runechanter's Pike |
| 4 Thought Scour |
| 4 Vapor Snag |
The top of Delver's spell curve is Geist of St. Traft and Restoration Angel. The sample deck I am using has 4 Geists and 3 Angels. The difference kind of drew my attention. If a deck runs 4 copies of a card, of course it WANTS to play that card. So the deck obviously would love to cast Geist of St. Traft. I wonder whether the deck runs 3 Angels because it wants to limit the likelihood of drawing the very top of its curve, or it runs 3 angels because of their speed and use? So, I'v developed a few hypotheses considering those questions. My first hypothesis is, obviously, if a deck runs 4 copies of a card, then the deck really wants to play that spell. My second hypothesis is that a deck is looking to curve its mana to cast its sorceries. I'm guessing that is because spells that can be cast as instants give players options. Generally a player will keep his options open until he/she HAS to make a play. Sorceries ask players to take options away from themselves and commit to a plan of action on their turn. So, a deck that has 4 copies of a 3 mana sorcery speed spell obviously wants to cast the spell as soon as the have 3 mana and further their game plan.
I do need to consider, too, that the "4 of" rule I'm developing breaks at higher mana costed spells. A deck may really want to play an 8 mana spell, but does not want that spell languishing in his/her hand as they acquire their mana. Higher costed spells need fewer copies of themselves in a deck. They can be casted at reasonable times along a curve without having 4 copies of themselves. I doubt this is the case with Restoration Angel, though.
Returning to the budding manifest. I said that you can discern a deck's plan through its sorcery speed spells.
The deck runs:
4 Delver of Secrets {U}--1CMC
4 Geist of St. Traft {1WU}--3CMC
4 Gitaxian Probe {U/P}--1CMC, P is for "Phyrexian mana"
4 Ponder {U}--1CMC
3 Runechanter's Pike {2}--2CMC, 2 Equip
Seeing Gitaxian probe, we can now state that Delver is actually a 56 card deck. Gitaxian probe can cost 0 mana to cast and it replaces itself thanks to being a cantrip.
It runs 2 different 1CMC spells in Delver and Ponder. 3 copies of a 2 CMC spell in Runechanter Pike, and 4 copies of a 3 CMC spell in Geist. I'm guessing Delver wants to play either Ponder or Delver turn 1, the other card turn 2, and Geist on turn 3.
Lets see what the probabilities are of Delver having the 1 CMC spells in hand:
| # of Delvers and/or Ponders in Hand | |||||||
| Drawn: | >=1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | >1 |
| 7 | 68% | 32% | 42% | 21% | 5% | 1% | 27% |
| 8 | 73% | 27% | 41% | 24% | 7% | 1% | 32% |
| 9 | 78% | 22% | 40% | 27% | 9% | 2% | 38% |
| 10 | 82% | 18% | 38% | 30% | 12% | 2% | 44% |
| 11 | 85% | 15% | 35% | 32% | 14% | 3% | 49% |
| 12 | 88% | 12% | 32% | 33% | 17% | 5% | 56% |
| 13 | 90% | 10% | 29% | 33% | 19% | 6% | 59% |
| 14 | 92% | 8% | 27% | 34% | 22% | 8% | 66% |
So, we're looking for Delver to have 2 cards in hand by turn 2, 1 Delver and 1 ponder. Combined, the chance of having any combination of at least two of any of these cards, 2 Delvers, 2 Ponders, or 1 of each, is 27% in the opneing hand. There's a 32% chance of having 2 or more of these cards by the 8th card drawn. There's a better than 50% chance of ay least 2 cards drawn by the 12th card drawn.
Next is Runechanter's pike. There's 3 copies of that in the deck. The chances of drawing it are:
| # of Pikes in Hand | |||||
| Drawn: | >=1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 7 | 34% | 66% | 30% | 4% | 0% |
| 8 | 38% | 62% | 33% | 5% | 0% |
| 9 | 42% | 58% | 35% | 6% | 0% |
| 10 | 45% | 55% | 37% | 7% | 0% |
| 11 | 49% | 51% | 39% | 9% | 1% |
| 12 | 52% | 48% | 41% | 10% | 1% |
| 13 | 55% | 45% | 42% | 12% | 1% |
| 14 | 59% | 41% | 43% | 14% | 1% |
| 15 | 62% | 38% | 44% | 16% | 2% |
| 16 | 64% | 36% | 45% | 17% | 2% |
| 17 | 67% | 33% | 45% | 19% | 2% |
| 18 | 70% | 30% | 46% | 21% | 3% |
| 19 | 72% | 28% | 46% | 23% | 3% |
| 20 | 74% | 26% | 45% | 25% | 4% |
So, the deck has a better than 50% chance of drawing the pike by the 12th card drawn. It is as likely to be drawn by the 17th card as just 1 copy of Delver or Ponder in the opening hand, ~68%.
Lets grab some data about the top end of Delver's sorcery speed spell curve. Delver wants to play Geist of St. Traft, and wants its mana available to do that. So, here's the chance of drawing at least 1 Geist:
| # of Geist in Hand | ||||||
| Drawn: | >=1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 7 | 42% | 58% | 35% | 7% | 0% | 0% |
| 8 | 47% | 53% | 38% | 9% | 1% | 0% |
| 9 | 51% | 49% | 40% | 11% | 1% | 0% |
| 10 | 56% | 44% | 41% | 13% | 2% | 0% |
| 11 | 59% | 41% | 42% | 15% | 2% | 0% |
| 12 | 63% | 37% | 43% | 17% | 3% | 0% |
| 13 | 66% | 34% | 44% | 19% | 3% | 0% |
| 14 | 70% | 30% | 44% | 21% | 4% | 0% |
| 15 | 72% | 28% | 44% | 23% | 5% | 0% |
| 16 | 75% | 25% | 43% | 25% | 6% | 0% |
| 17 | 78% | 22% | 42% | 27% | 7% | 1% |
| 18 | 80% | 20% | 41% | 29% | 8% | 1% |
| 19 | 82% | 18% | 40% | 31% | 10% | 1% |
| 20 | 84% | 16% | 39% | 33% | 11% | 1% |
In an opening hand of 7, Delvers has a 42% chance of having Geist in its hand. As Delver digs deeper into its deck, that probability goes up. 8 cards deep into its deck there's a 47% chance that Delver has drawn a Geist. Delver has a better than 50% chance of having a Geist in hand by the 9th card drawn. The chances of Delver having EXACTLY 1 Geist in hand top out at 44% by the 15th card drawn. That starts to go down as the probability of having multiple Geists goes up.
If we intuit the deck's plan on the cards that reach 50% probability of having at least 1 card in hand first, we come up with:at least 1 of Ponder/Delver in the opening hand, then 1 Geist by the 9th card, and finally playing a Pike by the 12th card drawn. I want to dig more into this progression later. The combination of Ponder and Delver is very synergistic and once Ponder left the format Delver dropped off as a deck choice. I want to determine, for myself, if that is really because of Ponder leaving.
Just for fun, I looked at the highest costed spell in Delver, Restoration Angel. It is not a sorcery so the deck does not have to plan to cast it at any specific point. It just needs 4 mana to cast it. The chances of Delver having Restoration Angel in hand are:
| Drawn: | >=1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 7 | 34% | 66% | 30% | 4% | 0% |
| 8 | 38% | 62% | 33% | 5% | 0% |
| 9 | 42% | 58% | 35% | 6% | 0% |
| 10 | 45% | 55% | 37% | 7% | 0% |
| 11 | 49% | 51% | 39% | 9% | 1% |
| 12 | 52% | 48% | 41% | 10% | 1% |
| 13 | 55% | 45% | 42% | 12% | 1% |
| 14 | 59% | 41% | 43% | 14% | 1% |
| 15 | 62% | 38% | 44% | 16% | 2% |
| 16 | 64% | 36% | 45% | 17% | 2% |
| 17 | 67% | 33% | 45% | 19% | 2% |
| 18 | 70% | 30% | 46% | 21% | 3% |
| 19 | 72% | 28% | 46% | 23% | 3% |
| 20 | 74% | 26% | 45% | 25% | 4% |
In an opening hand of 7, Delver has a 34% chance of having at least 1 Angel in hand. There is a better than 50% chance of Angel being in hand when the 12th card is drawn. I looked further down my chart and discovered Delver has a better odds of having drawn 2 or 3 Angels than 1 by its 26th card and a better than 50% chance of having 2 or 3 than 1 or less by the 29th card drawn.
Next post I'm going to spend my time dissecting the mana base for delver.
No comments:
Post a Comment