While I’ve been loving the deck, I recognize its Dig-enabled days are numbered, and I’ve started looking for ways to pivot. Dig didn’t define Pioneer, and it didn’t see much play until a full combo deck appeared this winter: Inverter of Truth plus Thassa’s Oracle or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. Even Grisly Salvage only gets you halfway to a Dig Through Time. Each of those Delve-enabling cards has to actually be cast or milled, setting a kind of self-regulatory valve on Dig. In Pioneer, which is to say in a format with not fetchlands but Fabled Passage, and without Dredge, Faithless Looting, or Thought Scour, Dig Through Time appeared fair. Turns out there’s pretty much no cost to add to a Recall that won’t have someone cheating it out, and so Treasure Cruise was banned in Modern and Legacy in January and September 2015, less than a year after it was first printed. Wizards, having learned from the power of Tombstalker, believed they had adjusted it more appropriately in Khans block their Ancestral Recall had a hefty seven generic tacked onto it, their Time Walk a full eight. Delve was later deployed as the Sultai clan mechanic in Khans and Fate Reforged. It was introduced in Future Sight with Logic Knot, Death Rattle, and Tombstalker, which was good enough back then for Legacy play in decks that churned cards into the yard, before exiling them to play the ‘Stalker plus interaction. Khans was only the second set to feature Delve. It’s not as aggressively broken as Once Upon a Time, but it is just as flexible. DTT does too much, too cheaply, and I expect it to get banned in Pioneer before too long. Every time I cast Dig Through Time, it feels like I’m crossing off a date until some dreaded appointment, like I can see the future, and that future is short. I’ve recently picked up Corey Burkhardt’s Dimir Inverter as a pet deck-I love Pioneer because it enables creative brews, but it’s nice to have a fully built tier deck to practice with and against.

Delve dredge deck mtg