Deck List
Lands
18 Island
2 Otawara, Soaring City
Spells
2 Spell Pierce
2 Shore Up
2 Slip Out the Back
2 Fading Hope
4 Combat Research
4 Consider
4 Impulse
3 Make Disappear
2 Essence Scatter
2 Negate
1 Ertai's Scorn
Creatures
4 Ledger Shredder
4 Faerie Vandal
4 Haughty Djinn
Sideboard
1 Negate
4 Witness Protection
2 Disdainful Stroke
4 Thirst for Discovery
2 Overcharged Amalgam
2 Field of Ruin
Game Plan
The goal of this deck is to put Combat Research on an evasive creature and counter all of your opponent's relevant spells. Use Impulse/Consider to find missing pieces, Spell Pierce, Shore Up and Slip Out the Back to protect your creatures, and Fading Hope/Otawara to push the final points or protect yourself. It is very easy to win when you're drawing 2 cards a turn and getting progressively bigger creatures.
Opponents will typically have Cut Down and Voltage Surge, which you can outscale with all of the creatures in the deck. You can protect yourself from sweepers/Liliana of the Veil with Slip Out the Back, targeted removal with Shore Up, and anything expensive with Spell Pierce or Make Disappear.
This deck is incredibly strong and unforgiving on the play, and not so good on the draw, much more so than other decks.
Differences From Delver
This deck is very similar to Delver, obviously with no Delver and no Tolarian Terror. I don't like Delver because it doesn't flip naturally at a rate I'm happy with, dies to all of the commonly played removal spells, and requires you to play weak cards to flip it. If I'm casting a Fading Hope or Otherworldly Gaze in hopes of flipping my Delver, I should just be doing something else. Tolarian Terror often clogs up my hand during the key early turns of the game, and isn't strong enough even when it's really good.
Card Choices
18 Islands
2 Otawara
This deck only needs 2 lands to operate early on. You draw lots of cards, loot often, and have a lot of selection. Less lands means discarding more spells to Ledger Shredder, which also pumps Haughty Djinn.
2 Spell Pierce
2 Slip Out the Back
2 Shore Up
All generally function as protection spells here, but each has its own perks. Slip is really awkward because of the way opponents will typically time their removal spell, meaning you can't block or won't draw a card from Combat Research, but it's incredibly versatile because you can remove one of your opponents creatures from play for a turn.
4 Ledger Shredder
4 Faerie Vandal
4 Haughty Djinn
All of these creatures are surprisingly synergistic with each other. Shredder triggers grow Vandal and often Djinn as well, Djinn makes it easier to cast 2 spells a turn, Vandal helps trigger Shredder on your opponents turn and reaps a lot of the benefits. Flashing in a Faerie Vandal to sacrifice it to Make Disappear occasionally comes up and is incredibly nice.
Opening Hand
A good opening hand has a 2 mana creature, 2 lands, Combat Research, and a protection spell. You should mulligan aggressively for a good hand, especially on the play. Once you set-up Faerie Vandal + Research and protect it once, the game is generally over.
One land hands on the play are not worth it no matter how many Consider, and aren't much better on the draw. 1 Island (not Otawara because of the risk of ruin) and 2 Consider I'd keep on the draw.
Hands full of air are auto mulligans. 3 Islands 2 Consider 2 Impulse? By the time you find something to do, you're dead.
Same goes for hands full of creatures. 2 Islands 5 creatures, 3 Islands 4 creatures, etc. Once again these hands do absolutely nothing. If your hand needs to draw 2+ specific classes of cards (Combat Research, Protection Spells, Creatures, Cantrips) it sucks and needs to get sent back
Sideboarding
The entire sideboard is there to either increase your win % on the draw or pivot away from Combat Research post board against decks with tons of removal. You also need to be better against Duress; most decks in Standard are Black and run anywhere from 2 - 4 copies. Combat tricks like Shore Up absolutely suck vs. Duress, your opponent can easily strand them in your hand or set-up to retrick you with a removal spell.
General Sideboarding
In:
4 Thirst for Discovery
2 Field of Ruin
2 Witness Protection
Out:
4 Combat Research
2 Shore Up
2 Slip out the Back
Thirst for Discovery replaces Combat Research against removal heavy decks. While they sit on Infernal Grasp, you're drawing cards at instant speed and playing the game on your terms.
Stock sideboarding is really tough for this deck past this advice. For example, sometimes you'll play against Esper Raffine and they have 0-1 Void Rend and your combat tricks are awful, but if they have 3/4 they're the best cards in your deck. Opponent aggressively plays around "Counter unless you pay 2" effects like Spell Pierce? Board them out. In match-ups like Gruul/Mono Red, I'll board in Field of Ruin just to make it less likely I miss land drops because those match-ups are so good that's typically the only way I can lose.
Speaking of Field of Ruin, I rarely if ever activate it, and it's generally nothing more than basic Wastes. When taking out 4 one mana spells and adding 4 3 mana spells that make you want to discard lands, you really want more lands. Pro tip for post sideboard games, play out Otawara/Field of Ruin and hold basics so that you can discard them to Thirst. It sounds trivial but that's what this deck is all about.
Overcharged Amalgam often comes in with Thirst as a counter spell that can't get Negated, and is another huge reason to add lands.
Problem Cards
Raffine, Scheming Seer
This deck often beats people up with creature sizing and needs to be able to deal combat damage in the air. A flying 1/4 definitely mucks that all up. Counter on sight.
Liliana of the Veil
If you are considering any play and it's bad against Liliana, don't do it. Casting a 2 drop on the draw and then getting Liliana -2'd the following turn is insurmountable. You're better off not casting anything at all and hoping they don't play it.
Void Rend
Uncounterable, enough said. Terrible against the combat tricks though.
Graveyard Trespasser
Eats away at Haughty Djinn's resources, can drain you out at a low life total, if you want to bounce it you discard a card. Another counter on sight.
Otawara, Soaring City
Like Void Rend, this is uncounterable unless you have Overcharged Amalgam, and unlike Eiganjo you can't just outgrow it. People only play one, but sometimes it just kills you.
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
A resolved Sheoldred is as close to unbeatable as it gets. Always try to save Otawara or Fading Hope for Sheoldred, and remember that you can Slip out the Back her in your opponents upkeep to stop them from gaining life or hurting you for a full turn cycle. This card is MUCH harder to resolve against you in practice than you'd expect, but it's the reason you're always boarding in Witness Protection.
Tricks/Set-Ups
Haughty Djinn
Unless you're playing against an opponent that can't kill it or are desperate, do not play this on turn 3/with 3 lands. Play it with protection available. Almost everyone can kill it once, killing it twice is much more difficult.
Be very mindful of how big Djinn is and how many attacks it'll take to kill your opponent. You can often drastically shorten the clock by spewing your spells; casting Spell Pierce on things it won't counter, aggressively discarding them to Consider/Shredder, end step tricks that you also counter.
Thalia is not a commonly played card right now but Djinn will offset Thalia's tax cost.
Faerie Vandal
Play it before your Combat Research trigger goes off for the counter.
If you want to counter an opponents spell and control a Ledger Shredder, cast Vandal, then the counter the spell. If your opponent casts anything else, your 2nd Shredder Trigger gives you a Vandal counter. Really nice when there's any sort of counter war.
Ambush! If your opponent sequences poorly, which will often happen because of how people try to play around counter spells, you can cast Vandal to block an X/1.
Ledger Shredder
Be mindful of how you stack the triggers with multiple Shredders. You'll often have one Summoning Sick, one not. If you save the second loot for the non-sick Shredder you can almost always get it a +1/+1 counter.
Shredder prison. If you control multiple Shredders/Vandals, your opponent gets severely punished for casting 2 spells in a given turn. Games that stall out, which is rare, typically end up with you having this type of board. Try to force your opponent to get into counter wars/have to do multiple things on their own turn for maximum punishment.
Combat Research Priority
Faerie Vandal --> Ledger Shredder --> Haughty Djinn
Faerie Vandal does nothing on it's own, you often take on the least risk putting an enchantment on it. Haughty Djinn is already a removal lightning rod, don't put all of your eggs in that basked it you can avoid it.
