First Pass on Champion of the Parish

At least before we have a lot of tangible tournament results, I am thinking there are two main interesting cards to think about for Standard with Avacyn Restored:

1. Delver of Secrets (surprise surprise), and
2. Cavern of Souls

Specifically, Cavern of Souls gives you another dual land to play first turn Delver of Secrets (and through a Mental Misstep, if that matters)… Plus you get to play Champion of the Parish for double the possible aggressive starts!

Now if you are trying to buff a Champion of the Parish you need to configure your deck list a little bit differently. The Delver deck is already chock full of Humans (Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage, for instance, are both Humans)… But Geist of Saint Traft isn’t. I decided to go a little bit of a different direction and swap Geist of Saint Traft with Blade Splicer. Blade Splicer is a little bit weaker on offense (2 + 4, with the 4 evasive being a bit more damage than 1 + 3 and the 3 not evasive); but the 3 [Golem] striking first (and potentially generating a fine synergy with Intangible Virtue) makes for an elite defense.

Please keep in mind this is just a first pass:

Champion Delver with Avacyn Restored v.1

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Mana Leak
4 Ponder
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Vapor Snag

2 Gut Shot

4 Blade Splicer
3 Gather the Townsfolk
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Champion of the Parish

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Glacial Fortress
6 Island
2 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
4 Seachrome Coast

sb:
1 Batterskull
1 Consecrated Sphinx 
2 Dissipate
2 Mental Misstep
2 Negate
1 Gut Shot
2 Celestial Purge
1 Revoke Existence
3 Timely Reinforcements

Whether Intangible Virtue or Honor of the Pure is the right buffing enchantment is up for grabs, I think. It is a question of how much you care about Vigilance versus buffing Champion of the Parish; I have Honor of the Pure right now because this seems to be a bit of a “Champion” deck. I am sure you can see the hyper-aggressive starts like…

• Champion of the Parish –> Gather the Townsfolk…

Or better yet:

• Champion of the Parish –> Champion of the Parish + Delver of Secrets

I am not super satisfied with this pass right now. For one, I don’t even know which is the right two drop enchantment! Other things kind of up in the air…

2 Mana Leak + 2 Gut Shot… I am neither elite against G/R Ramp nor against other Delver decks in the main; when I was playing 2 Gut Shots in Baltimore I felt like a smart guy, but right now many Delver players are main decking three Gut Shots! I felt like Mana Leak was a compromise-able card based on my previous Cavern of Souls blog post (i.e. players like G3rryT and Jonny Magic are playing only two).

3 Blade Splicer or 3 Gather the Townsfolk? This one is pretty debatable. I went with 3 Gathers because we have shifted Cavern of Souls to a primary source of White mana… but it doesn’t actually cast a Gather the Townsfolk… Same reason I dropped the Moorland Haunt count by one (it doesn’t contribute to the Moorland Haunt activation). I guess you can cut a Gitaxian Probe… But that’s like my favorite card in Standard, so please don’t do that.

Obviously this version doesn’t have the “race you with an Invisible Stalker” functionality of the straight Delver deck; that said, I found Invisible Stalker to be the weakest card in straight Delver, worse than a Champion of the Parish, certainly, if you don’t have a Sword of War and Peace or a Pike.

The sideboard is medium-straightforward. The only weird card is Consecrated Sphinx. I actually kind of fell in love with that card in Delver playing a variation of Caleb Durward’s Delver list, whereas I give Jace, Memory Adept a rating of “uh… I guess it’s a card” in most situations.

I do think Mental Misstep is an absolute must for Delver, even though it is a bit weaker now that Cavern of Souls will be entering the Standard Arena… But if you watched Chi Hoi Yim work over Robbie Cordell in the finals of the Birmingham Open (and how could you not, with the attractive and charismatic Joey Pasco YT on the mic?) … You know what kind of havoc Mental Misstep can levy in the Delver mirror… Especially on the draw and when setting up Timely Reinforcements.

Speaking of which, a month or so ago I felt like the Delver mirror was my best matchup in Standard due to my figuring out Mental Misstep (and I know that is ironic as I finally lost the Delver mirror playing for Top 8, on camera)… and the truth is, my Invitational deck was nowhere near as prepared for other Delver decks as this one.

I think the tensions in Standard are going to be interesting. This version — whether you stay with Honor of the Pure or move [back] to Intangible Virtue — is pretty on-par with the “tokens” Delver decks in terms of tokens production + buffing (they are going to have some mix of Midnight Haunting and Lingering Souls instead of Gather the Townsfolk and Blade Splicer), but one Golem can rumble pretty adequately with multiple regular tokens, and you can use your Phyrexian mana to set up a favorable Gather, don’t forget. On balance you have much faster and more explosive mana, and you have literally twice the aggressive draws with Champion of the Parish to get in early damage and put the opponent (or any opponent) on his heels.

Again, just a first pass, but certainly adequate for… say… the first week’s FNM.

I am pretty sure if I were playing in the Rhode Island Open this weekend I would be playing four copies of each of Delver of Secrets, Champion of the Parish, and Cavern of Souls though… Those cards are too good and too fast to ignore, plus they are great together and make for wild synergies with token producers and everything else you want to do with the best deck since Caw-Blade Exarch Twin.

LOVE
MIKE