I was planning on hitting SCG Kansas City this weekend, but the group that I was planning on going with met some unfortunate circumstances. I had avenues to get there, but I couldn't find a ride in time to learn how much Magic 2015 mattered, and instead elected to play the PTQ here in Minnesota.

Fortunately for me, the ban list update for Modern didn't deliver any changes and it's a format where a new core set (or any set for that matter) is unlikely to change much of anything. So I booted up MTGO and took a look at my most recent build of Izzet Delver.

Goblin Guide was definitely worth trying out and helped the deck with its greatest weakness--that is, losing one toughness kills all of the deck's creatures. That said, almost everybody is playing decks featuring some form of removal, and after giving my opponent so many lands and not killing them specifically because my creature was Goblin Guide, I decided that Young Pyromancer could come off the bench.

I don't really like four in a deck that almost always wants Mana Leak mana up, so I decided to try out a 3-1 split with a Vendilion Clique in the mix, which I've been happy with thus far.

The more games I played, the more I hated that basic Mountain, and my experience at GP Minneapolis taught me that I probably want a second Hibernation in the sideboard, as it's just unreal against Birthing Pod. I put in a few dailies in the week leading up to the PTQ and registered this list for the fighting:

Round 1 vs. Izzet Twin

An advantage that Splinter Twin decks have in Modern is that until they show you a combo piece, there are a ton of overlapping elements between their deck and a number of other decks. It's really hard to put somebody on a particular strategy just because they have a Steam Vents in play.

Fortunately, my Gitaxian Probe lifts some of the fog of war. Straight Izzet Twin has been a very good matchup in all of my experience with Delver in Modern.

Part of what makes this matchup so good is that, despite the fact that they do have access to Snapcaster Mage and Lightning Bolt, your life total doesn't matter all that much--thanks in no small part to having access to four Spell Snare.

Against most decks you can Probe on turn 1 and you'll see a hand capable of doing a reasonable amount of damage to you, making Snapcasting a Probe a suspect proposition. Against Twin, a lot of their hands just make it really easy to turn the heat up and Snap-cantrip, which is almost never the most exciting line, but in a land-light hand (particularly one with two Snapcasters), it will often be your best option.

Anyway, this match was a pretty open and shut 2-0.

1-0

Round 2 vs. Grixis Twin

If it's hard to place a Steam Vents deck, it's impossible to place a Creeping Tar Pit deck. My opponent was able to kill me in game one without showing me any combo pieces. Despite mis-boarding for game two, I did still bring in all of my relevant sideboard counterspells and was able to see a Deceiver Exarch and win game two.

Game three brings about an interesting game of WIFOM. Izzet Twin really can't board out of their combo too effectively. RUG Twin can, and I surmised that Grixis Twin probably could, too. I kept a hand that was very aggressive but counter-light, expecting that my opponent wouldn't be trying too hard to combo me after the cat was out of the bag.

After I won the third game, my opponent revealed that he indeed only had one Splinter Twin still in his deck.

I have to give credit where it's due. Despite winning this match, I feel like my opponent's deck was way sweeter than mine. I've long been a fan of Tar Pit alongside Snapcaster Mage and Lightning Bolt, and Thougthseize is oh so much better than Gitaxian Probe.

2-0

Round 3 vs. Kiki Pod

Hibernation is excellent against Junk Pod. It's passable against Kiki Pod.

This match, despite being against local legend Ken Bearl, wasn't all that interesting. In game one my hand was too land light to play around everything and I picked the losing line.

In game two, Ken was punished for an awful keep. In game three, Ken was able to land a Thrun, but I already had reasonable pressure and a Vedalken Shackles to prevent Thrun from making any friends. Serves him right, too. That Troll deserves to die alone.

3-0

Round 4 vs. Gruul Tron

When they're very lucky and/or you play into their haymakers, Tron will crush you.

Most commonly, Izzet Delver is pretty favored against Tron. Not leaving up counterspells and/or over-committing into Pyroclasm/Oblivion Stone will lose you games. I managed to avoid any particularly egregious blunders and won this match 2-1.

4-0

Rounds 5 and 6 vs. Izzet Twin

There was a lot of Twin at this PTQ. Not a lot to report on these rounds. If you're expecting to play against a lot of Twin, then I cannot recommend Izzet Delver enough. 2-0 and 2-0.

6-0

Rounds 7 and 8

A draw in round 7 locked me for top 8.

At this point in the day, I was feeling pretty fatigued, and I had forgotten to pack any ibuprofen for my back, which bothers me after long days of sitting.

A better man than myself would have played for position in round 8, as I was a lock for a weak seed in the top 8. And with the modified play/draw rule, it absolutely benefits Delver decks to be on the play for every match.

But I needed to stretch out, get some food (I wasn't hungry during round 7 and decided that the top of round 8 was the minimal threshold I needed to digest before playing) and clear my head. The cost of playing for position was low, as dropping from 5/6 seed to 8th (I was a lock) isn't a dramatic step back, but playing at first seed would be a tremendous boon.

Sometimes though, external factors win out. Perhaps on a better day I'd have played for position and it would have helped me, but all things considered, I don't regret the decision.

6-0-2

Quarterfinals vs. Junk Rock

GB/x decks have been my toughest matchups with this deck, and despite winning game one, I hit some pretty bad draws in games two and three and made my exit from the event.

This was the first match on the day where Keranos, God of Storms entered the fray, but it was ultimately Thoughtseized. To boot, when I Probed my opponent turns later he had an Unravel the AEther in his hand, remarking that he needed answers to Keranos.

Keranos seems to have taken off in Modern, and this leads me to believe that that slot for this deck needs to change.

6-1-2

Going Forward

The deck was gas all day, and variance unfortunately caught up to me in the first match I couldn't afford to lose. Such is Magic.

I would strongly recommend this deck, particularly if Twin decks are popular in the metagame, though I'd change approximately three slots in the deck.

I have been boarding out the second Shackles, if not both, in almost every matchup. Having lost to Lingering Souls in the quarters, I wouldn't be mad about just changing the second copy to an Electrolyze. It's generally good everywhere Shackles is anyway, even if lower impact.

Mountain remains the worse card in the deck, and for this reason I'm inclined to believe that I'm playing too many Arid Mesas. Even though I'll only have one Shackles, I still don't want more non-Island lands. I'm going to try cutting one Mesa for the fifth Island and see how I like it.

Lastly, Keranos, while good, is probably just not the droid I'm looking for. I'm not sure what to replace it with, but it's very likely that it will be replaced going forward. Outside of that, the only other change I'd consider is maybe putting the second Spell Pierce back on board over the second Magma Spray, but the split is fine in either direction.

Unfortunately I won't be able to make all that many more PTQs this season, but I'll be hitting the Minnesota one in August, at the very least. Good luck to everybody as they slog through Modern. Hopefully you fair slightly better than I did!

Thanks for reading.
-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter