You may have heard the term “forcing” a draft. What does it mean? Generally, it’s a negative term, as it suggests you’re pushing too hard for a certain type of deck to work instead of following the signals given to you by what is being passed. It doesn’t have to be negative though. Forcing an archetype can be fun! More than that, it can teach some valuable lessons on what types of decks or archetypes work in drafts, which is very important if you’re going to big tournament and want to know what to look for or avoid. In the Full Force series I want to force these archetypes for you, to learn with you what archetypes work (and what don’t!) in the latest limited formats.

In this series we delve a little deeper in to the madness of Innistrad with some Green Black Delirium drafts! So why force Delirium? Well, you get access to some very powerful spells. The payoff is very high in delirium with cards like Kindly Stranger, Obsessive Skinner, Topplegeist, and Tooth Collector all being uncommon. The problem here is that delirium is probably one of the easiest mechanics to play without being dedicated to the strategy, so all of our high-value targets will be snapped up by others at the table as well. So when you decide to go into delirium, make sure you have a good payoff first, or you’ll end up with a lot of enablers with no real finishers.

You’ve managed to pick up a few good payoff cards for Delirium and now you need to enable it. How can you do that best? One card, in particular can help; Vessel of Nascency. Vessel is generally decent; acting similarly to Anticipate, but it gets an extra level in Delirium. I’m not sure I’ve ever used Vessel and not had at least 2 card types in the graveyard afterwards and it’s not uncommon to hit 3. Make sure you pick it early; although once you have one subsequent copies do get much worse. I wouldn’t play more than 2 personally. Other cards you want to look out for are removal. Some of the best removal spells happen to also be good Delirium enablers. Sinister Concoction is obviously the best example of this, but the diversity removal (especially black) makes it easier to hit Delirium, there are sorceries like Murderous Compulsion and Rabid Bite, instants like Throttle, and Enchantments like Concoction and Dead Weight. Having a suite of varied removal helps your deck deal with threats while also upping your Delirium.

So removal is very important in this list, to get cards into your graveyard, and you need the payoff cards, what else? The last few tips I’ll give are first to up your rating of cards like Wicker Witch, Crow of Dark Tidings, and Explosive Apparatus. Don’t play a lot of them, but if you have 2-3 good payoffs in Delirium (and I mean good payoffs, not just a Kessig Dire Swine, but a Skinner, Soul Swallower or similar) then one of each will really help you. The other is to not be afraid to splash. In Delirium you are perfectly happy running a Fork in the Road or Warped Landscape to help fuel your other cards and if you find a Topplegeist, or Bound by Moonsilver, or something similarly strong, don’t be too scared to pick it up. I stuck more to green and black in the videos, but it’s fine to branch out more into a third colour.

As always, I’m toadly happy to Markov another video in the series and I wish you luck in your next drafts!

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