We’re retiring Spiral Blue, so the obvious question is… does it land at 4th best deck (all time) or knock Delver to 4th and take the 3rd spot? Here’s a highly unfair idea: one best-of-5 match to settle the decision.

G1

Spiral goes first. T1 Vault. T1 Delver. Delver flips right away. T4 float mana with existing vault, cast Vault #2, then cast Mind Over Matter (playing around Mana Leak). T5 Spiral has to pay to untap a Vault, and ends up at 7 life from all the Delver attacks and a Mana Vault damage. Turn 6 Time Spiral begins the chain that wins the game. Spiral Blue 1-0.

G2

T1 Delver, T1 Vault. Delver flips right away. On turn 3 Spiral has 3 islands, casts a 2nd Vault, and casts Time Spiral. A T4 Gitaxian Probe reveals 7 lands! WHIFF! But Delver has no additional threats, just an Abomination and an Invisible Stalker, and 3 Ponders. It comes down to top decks, as Spiral Blue will be dead in 2 turn. Nope. Nope. Delver steals a win! Delver 1-1. MVP: A Time Spiral whiff.

G3

Spiral goes first. Gitaxian Probe reveals Mind Over Matter, Time Spiral, Stroke of Genius, and Force Spike. Delver waits to play Delver of Secrets until turn 2. T2 Spiral finds a Vault, Delver comes down. T3 Delver flips right away. Delver hopes Spiral won’t find Island #4 and casts Runechanter’s Pike (playing around Force Spike) then Ponder (which resolves and finds Mana Leak, although now Delver is tapped out. Pretty please, no 4th island? T4 Spiral plays a 4th Island. Womp womp. Mind Over Matter comes down turn 4. Since shields are down, Spiral goes for it. Spiral untaps everything by discarding and casts Time Spiral. Intuition gets a Stroke. Stroke for 12. Vault #2. Meditate. Time Spiral floating 20 mana. Vault #3. Brainstorm. Brainstorm again. Meditate #2. Intuition for Stroke. Stroke to mill opponent for 50 cards. Bit of a risky line, but Spiral wins on Turn 4! Spiral 2-1.

G4

T1 Delver. T1 Vault. T3 Delver flips, Gitaxian Probe reveals Island #3, Force Spike, Mana Vault, Mind Over Matter, and 2 Stroke of Genius. Yikes. T3 Spiral plays the 2nd Vault, endstep Snapcaster. T4 Geist of St. Traft gets countered. Spiral doesn’t draw a 4th island. T5 A 2nd Geist gets counterspelled, but this prevents Spiral from casting Stroke. T6, Spiral is hoping to endstep a Stroke to draw more cards, but Sword, which would be lethal, needs to get countered, and does. Spiral goes down to 2 life, untaps, and… no 4th land! A desperation Stroke doesn’t help. Delver wins. Delver 2-2.

G5

Delver gets a hand with 3 Delver of Secrets. Spiral mulligans to 6. One Delver gets countered but the other 2 get cast. Still… they don’t flip for several turns. Meanwhile, Spiral has Mind Over Matter and Time Spiral in hand, but no mana vault. The Delvers finally flip on turn 5. Turn 6 Spiral tries a desperation Stroke to draw extra cards but Mana Leak counters it. On turn 7 the 2 abominations win the game. Delver 3-2. Delver defends its place at the 3rd best deck in the hall of fame.