GOAT Magic: Best Tempo—Faeries vs. Delver
When it comes time to debate which Standard deck from the Modern era was best, two names you'll surely hear will be UW Delver from back in Innistrad Standard and Faeries from Morningtide Standard. While these two decks are very different, they share a common foundation: both are tempo decks. Unlike true control decks, tempo decks look to use some control pieces (like counterspells), but rather than trying to make the game go extremely long, they hope to stick a threat or two and use their Mana Leaks, Vapor Snags, and Agony Warps to disrupt the opponent just enough to seal up the victory.
While best Standard deck is up for debate, there's little doubt that Faeries and Delver are the two best tempo decks of the Modern era. As such, the question we are looking to answer this week is: which is the greatest tempo deck of all time? To figure this out, Richard will be representing the Delver side of the battle with the UW Delver list Matt Costa used to Top 8 Pro Tour Dark Ascension, while I'll be repping Faeries with the UB Faeries list Antti Malin used to win Worlds in 2008.
So, which GOAT tempo deck is better? Can Faeries deal with powerful hexproof threats like Geist of Saint Traft? Can Delver answer flashy Mistbind Cliques tapping down their lands? These are just some of the questions we'll explore on this week's GOAT Magic!
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Conclusion
Heading into the match, neither one of us really knew what to expect (plus, we're horrible at predicting the winners of GOAT Magic matches anyway), but in the end it, was a pretty clear victory for UW Delver, which took the Pro Tour-style match 3-1 over Faeries. From the Faeries side of the table, the biggest problem was Geist of Saint Traft. The Faeries deck simply isn't designed to handle such a powerful hexproof threat, which makes sense—cards like Geist of Saint Traft didn't exist back in Morningtide. As for Delver, it felt like (apart from hexproof threats) their biggest advantage was Mana Leak. In the Faeries deck, there's this weird tension when it comes to leaving up counters, since Remove Soul is so conditional. It's great if Delver taps out for Geist of Saint Traft, but things end really badly if they go with Sword of War and Peace instead. Delver doesn't have this problem—they just leave up Mana Leak and can counter anything Faeries casts. Despite these problems, I actually do think the match is fairly close and that Faeries might have more of an advantage with a sideboard designed to fight against hexproof creatures, but Delver is an extremely strong deck, and just playing this match gave me nightmares of Vapor Snag, Snapcaster Mage, Vapor Snag, which was the war cry of Innistrad Standard.
One last note on the way out the door about the decks in general: both were so good that Wizards ended up printing cards specifically to end their reigns of terror. For Faeries, this was Great Sable Stag and Volcanic Fallout, while for Delver, it was Thragtusk.
Anyway, that's all for today. If you have some ideas for sweet GOAT Magic matchups, make sure to let us know in the comments. As always, you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive (and Richard @MTGGoldfish) or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
