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My friends recently got better with their old 60 card decks, so I decided it was time to up my game. I hadn't really kept up on updating my old W/B list, so rather than trying to improve it, I decided to make a new lsit from scratch.

I'm more concerned about the ratio of utility and removal.

Creatures (9 x )
4 x Delver of Secrets
2 x Sage Owl
2 x Fettergeist
1 x Phantasmal Dragon

Spells (29 x )
3 x Ponder
2 x Preordain
3 x Thought Scour
4 x Unsummon
4 x Vapor Snag
2 x Essence Scatter
3 x Mana Leak
3 x Negate
3 x Think Twice
2 x Dissipate

Land (22 x )
22 x Island  

Thought Scour is the one card that seems out of place - outside of a mill deck, you're pretty much paying 1 mana for just a cantrip - in blue, the color of 1 mana draw spells. Plenty of better options, cheap, if you're willing to search for them - Serum Visions , Sleight of Hand , Brainstorm , Gitaxian Probe , even something like Conjurer's Bauble (with the way its worded, you don't need a target card in your graveyard, as up to one target can include zero targets).

Beyond that, the deck is more or less fine - but the big issues are that there's no card advantage, and your wincons aren't resistant to removal and rely on you drawing into enough control to keep them alive. Basically, you're very largely at the mercy of your draws, and your opponent's cards. If they play anything uncounterable, or have heaps of card advantage, you could get toasted easily. 

While I respect your desire to flip your delver, you just don't have enough threats.

It looks like you started playing within the last couple of years, just based on card choices, so I'll try to keep my comments relevant to your available card pool.


Delver decks operate well with about 16 creatures, more if you have creatures (like your sage owl) that allow you to manipulate your deck. Ideally, you want 16 efficient dudes, costing somewhere between 1 and 3 mana tops. With only 9 creatures, you are going to be spending too many of your early turns digging for threats, and if one of them gets answered, it will set you back quite a bit.

Given access to mana leak, essence scatter and negate, dissipate doesn't need to be here. You can't afford to play spells that are that "expensive". 8 counters should be sufficient, especially if you have enough instant speed cantrips to help you find them.

Vapor Snag is fine. I don't think you need 8 unsummon effects, so 2 unsummons should be acceptable (for 6 total). You are running countermagic, after all, so you will be packing 11 card dedicated to preventing creatures from getting in your way.

The rest of your deck should be 1 and 2 mana instant speed cantrips. You can keep 4 total ponder/preordains, but being able to draw cards during your opponents turn to try and find a counter or bounce spell is a big part of playing blue tempo.

If you can, I would suggest getting ahold of Brainstorm and Counterspell , as both of these card exemplify the core of a delver tempo deck.

Depending on what creatures you choose, some sort of pump effects would be a good idea. I'm personally a big fan of Favorable Winds , since most of your dudes should be flying anyway.

Lastly, if you build your deck out of mostly 1 and 2 cost spells (some 3's are ok) and enough cantrips (8-10), then you should be able to comfortably lower your land count to 18 or 19. After all, you only need a few, and the rest will be dead cards. Better to fill your deck with more answers.

Augury Owl > Sage Owl

I agree, you need more cheap creatures and cantrips (cards that do something and then you draw a card) 

I did a gatherer seach on this and so far I like Quicken for obvious reasons, and Twisted Image because there are all kinds of tricks you can do with it (kill walls with 0 power, turn your transformed Delver into a better blocker, etc) but there are a bunch in that link.

Into the Roil could also be good as it bounces any nonland permanent and if you have a lot of extra mana you can kick it to make it cantrip

if the link works, here's the search I used: blue cantripping instants