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JMLL
01-10-2013, 11:00 AM
I'd love to hear Dan's thoughts on the matter, but Sinkhole's inclusion seems so obvious.
I'm sorry but, this isn't that obvious for me.

Without Stifles like the "old times" Team America I don't see when the mana denial plan would be a good option for G2 instead of some other sort of disruption or more specific answers.

Maybe I'd use this when facing decks that don't require you to use FoW (2x1 yourself) when you convert Team America into a Destruction Deck with some blue cards, am I right?

wcm8
01-11-2013, 09:46 AM
I'm sorry but, this isn't that obvious for me.

Without Stifles like the "old times" Team America I don't see when the mana denial plan would be a good option for G2 instead of some other sort of disruption or more specific answers.

Maybe I'd use this when facing decks that don't require you to use FoW (2x1 yourself) when you convert Team America into a Destruction Deck with some blue cards, am I right?

Obvious in that it was a card in the original list wayyyyy back on page 1. It's literally been sitting there in plain view, not as some sort of obscure card that's never been utilized before. Sinkhole, unlike Stifle, is not situational in terms of being land destruction. My assumption is that it's at its most useful against midrange decks like Esper. With Sinkhole, you can prevent them from casting spells like Jace or Supreme Verdict, and along with Wasteland, perhaps even prevent them from playing Lingering Souls, Perish, or flashback spells with Snapcaster. If they opt to fetch basic lands, they are just opening themselves further to mana screw. Hymn also facilitates this approach: either you're hitting the cards that they hoped to cast, or you're discarding lands. They are then forced to play into Daze, or if they want to play around it, lose tempo while you beat their face with Tarmogoyfs.

The thing is, Esper has a much better lategame than TA. Taking the 'if you can't beat them, join them' approach of playing Jaces of your own just doesn't really work that well in a tempo build. Hence, Sinkhole can force the opponent into staying in the early game where your cards are stronger. Besides midrange, it's also pretty good against combo decks: you can still interact with those decks on the stack via Daze and FoW, but you're also screwing with their hand AND mana AND putting them on a fast clock: a four-prong attack that many decks are just simply not equipped to deal with.

KobeBryan
01-13-2013, 03:10 AM
Obvious in that it was a card in the original list wayyyyy back on page 1. It's literally been sitting there in plain view, not as some sort of obscure card that's never been utilized before. Sinkhole, unlike Stifle, is not situational in terms of being land destruction. My assumption is that it's at its most useful against midrange decks like Esper. With Sinkhole, you can prevent them from casting spells like Jace or Supreme Verdict, and along with Wasteland, perhaps even prevent them from playing Lingering Souls, Perish, or flashback spells with Snapcaster. If they opt to fetch basic lands, they are just opening themselves further to mana screw. Hymn also facilitates this approach: either you're hitting the cards that they hoped to cast, or you're discarding lands. They are then forced to play into Daze, or if they want to play around it, lose tempo while you beat their face with Tarmogoyfs.

The thing is, Esper has a much better lategame than TA. Taking the 'if you can't beat them, join them' approach of playing Jaces of your own just doesn't really work that well in a tempo build. Hence, Sinkhole can force the opponent into staying in the early game where your cards are stronger. Besides midrange, it's also pretty good against combo decks: you can still interact with those decks on the stack via Daze and FoW, but you're also screwing with their hand AND mana AND putting them on a fast clock: a four-prong attack that many decks are just simply not equipped to deal with.

I really like sinkhole too, but there is absolutely no room to use it as a 4 of. And its a horrible draw, much like hymns and thoughtseizes.

nitewolf9
01-15-2013, 04:50 PM
GP Report is up:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25355-Top-8-at-GP-Denver-with-BUG-Delver&p=697764#post697764

Koby
01-15-2013, 04:57 PM
GP Report is up:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25355-Top-8-at-GP-Denver-with-BUG-Delver&p=697764#post697764

Nice read, Dan. And congrats again!

What are your typical board-out cards when you're bringing in the Sinkholes against Stoneblade?

nitewolf9
01-15-2013, 05:21 PM
Nice read, Dan. And congrats again!

What are your typical board-out cards when you're bringing in the Sinkholes against Stoneblade?

Thanks! This was my typical board plan against Esper:

+1 Tarpit, +4 Sinkhole, +2 K Grip, +1 Loam, +1 Umezawa's Jitte
-2 Abrupt Decay, -1 Dismember, -4 Force of Will, -2 Delver of Secrets

Delver is your weakest threat in the matchup as they can blank him with one part of lingering souls. He still lets you nut draw them, but with more disruption you become more consistently able to focus on that early as opposed to aggression. Force of Will is just worse than Daze when you have so much LD, and you still want to leave in a couple of abrupt decays to deal with SoFF or kill an early mystic/germ token. I've had games where my opponent got batterskull into play and I just ignored it, taking a couple of hits just to kill his last lands, then decaying the germ or sticking a goyf. This plan is really hard for them to beat as they rely on stabalizing on 4 or 5 lands. Daze just wrecks them because they always have to play into it, especially with Jace.

Adryan
01-16-2013, 05:37 PM
The people at my LGS keep telling me that BUG Midrange is better than Team America.

What do you guys and especially Dan think about this?

I would say that Team America (and BUG Control of course) is better than Midrange because of the following facts:

1. More pressure because we play a Tempo game.
2. Better against Combo because we have a faster clock
3. Higher Blue Count so we have Force of Will against random decks (Combo, MUD, Painter, Lands)
4. Tombstalker is awesome against Maverick and RUG
5. We can play Sinkhole in our Sideboards which push our gameplan against UW Control/Esper. And Sinkhole is very good against Lands and against 12 Post (soon 16 Post xD )
6. Better Matchup against Jund with a dedicated Sideboard with for exemple 4 Submerges etc.

I think that there is no reason to play BUG Midrange, because you can play Jund which is a much better midrange Deck.

KobeBryan
01-16-2013, 11:12 PM
When playing sinkhole, do you also use stifle?

Amazing Larry
01-16-2013, 11:52 PM
When playing sinkhole, do you also use stifle?

I was actually wondering if 4x Stifle in the board might be better than 4x Sinkhole.

Spike
01-17-2013, 06:48 AM
The people at my LGS keep telling me that BUG Midrange is better than Team America.

What do you guys and especially Dan think about this?

I would say that Team America (and BUG Control of course) is better than Midrange because of the following facts:

1. More pressure because we play a Tempo game.
2. Better against Combo because we have a faster clock
3. Higher Blue Count so we have Force of Will against random decks (Combo, MUD, Painter, Lands)
4. Tombstalker is awesome against Maverick and RUG
5. We can play Sinkhole in our Sideboards which push our gameplan against UW Control/Esper. And Sinkhole is very good against Lands and against 12 Post (soon 16 Post xD )
6. Better Matchup against Jund with a dedicated Sideboard with for exemple 4 Submerges etc.

I think that there is no reason to play BUG Midrange, because you can play Jund which is a much better midrange Deck.

I don´t think you can say that deck A is better than deck B or C. It all comes down to personal preferences and playstyle in my opinion. I myself enjoy playing tempo decks with a playset of Ponders and Dazes, and a fast clock to end games quickly so that I have more time to elaborate the perfect game plan in complicated situations and still having some spare time between rounds.

I´ve also played BUG Midrange a couple of times but games tend to go long with these decks unless you have the nuts draw. If thats your thing Bug Midrange also is and has always been a good deck.

I wouldn´t count being able to play sinkhole an advantage of the tempo version. Its definitely a possible choice but I myself am not the biggest fan of that card. But as always if it works for you thats fine. There´s no such thing as the perfect list, thats why we´re here :)

jarvisyu
01-17-2013, 09:52 AM
I don´t think you can say that deck A is better than deck B or C. It all comes down to personal preferences and playstyle in my opinion. I myself enjoy playing tempo decks with a playset of Ponders and Dazes, and a fast clock to end games quickly so that I have more time to elaborate the perfect game plan in complicated situations and still having some spare time between rounds.

I´ve also played BUG Midrange a couple of times but games tend to go long with these decks unless you have the nuts draw. If thats your thing Bug Midrange also is and has always been a good deck.

I wouldn´t count being able to play sinkhole an advantage of the tempo version. Its definitely a possible choice but I myself am not the biggest fan of that card. But as always if it works for you thats fine. There´s no such thing as the perfect list, thats why we´re here :)

I agree with Spike here.

nitewolf9
01-17-2013, 09:59 AM
I definitely think the "tempo" build is the better of the 2 as I have had more success with it, but that might be a bit biased. There are so many different directions you can go with BUG that are all viable, I'm not really sure how to answer that. I will say this though, you really need to compare yourself to esper stoneblade if you are building a more controlling bug list. That deck seems to be able to switch gears more effectively from control to aggro, but then again BUG will have certain matchup advantages as well. In short, who knows.

I tried stifle and sinkhole last night, wasn't impressed with stifle. It can rob tempo from you if you leave it up and they don't play into it. It's better in RUG where they have more countermagic to leave up.

wcm8
01-17-2013, 11:03 AM
What is the plan to be with Jund as a DTB? Would Divert be worthwhile to fling discard and removal back at them? Should we try to Sinkhole/Submerge them back to turn 1? I think they will be a very difficult deck for TA to deal with: tons of removal and raw card advantage, backed by decent threats.

nitewolf9
01-17-2013, 11:40 AM
I need to test the Jund matchup now that it is a deck, have no idea how to approach it really. Doesn't seem like it's too bad though. You want removal and the ability to force guys through liliana, and you also have cantrips where they don't. Seems like it's going to be close regardless unless there is some way to hose the deck.

Bitterblossom could be worth a look as a card against them and control decks, as it makes liliana kind of suck and that's their out to Tombstalker.

Maximus
01-17-2013, 03:53 PM
I don´t think you can say that deck A is better than deck B or C. It all comes down to personal preferences and playstyle in my opinion.

In a competitive setting, one choice is almost certainly better than another. You may not understand why, or the why may change in 5 minutes, or every 5 minutes. In any given competitive scenario, it's highly unlikely that any two options are exactly equal.

The same can be said about "play style", which is a dangerous justification to choose some line of play that is anything other than the optimal one. If you don't understand why one is better, that's fine and we can post here and try to figure it out and learn from each other. But to embrace any preferences that are not the optimal decision is certainly going to cost you win percentages left and right.

Dan, I considered adding Bitterblossom to my sideboard, as most white decks can't ever beat one if it sticks. However, I'm not sure it adds enough to the clock to be viable. Even though Bitterblossom will kill them (it is going to kill them) it still takes something like seven turns, which is a significant number of turns that you have to sit behind it and keep the opponent off of any meaningful spells. It can be like Delver where you sit on that and have your opponent play into your disruption to make favorable trades, but I usually don't find that a single Delver gets there anyway without some help. Either way, I think if you're going to go the Bitterblossom route, you'll still want an increased number of Spell Pierce backing it. It is a very nice bonus that it can deal with troublesome planeswalkers that are otherwise difficult to beat. Forcing a white deck to bring in Disenchants for game 3 is also sweet. Let me know what you think?

wcm8
01-17-2013, 06:35 PM
I'll posit Obstinate Baloth as an option against Jund. It can negate their various forms of discard, dodges the majority of their removal, outsizes most of their creatures, and the life gain is relevant against such an aggressive deck.

AngryTroll
01-17-2013, 10:25 PM
Baloth seems extremely narrow. It seems to me that Vendilion Clique, Divert, and Submerge are better sideboard options in general and better in the Jund matchup in particular.

With that said, how do you beat Jund? The Forces come out, and the Dazes might come out on the draw; that's 4 slots if you lose game one and 8 slots if you win game one. What do you board in in each of these cases?

aznepyon7
01-19-2013, 04:41 PM
Baloth seems extremely narrow. It seems to me that Vendilion Clique, Divert, and Submerge are better sideboard options in general and better in the Jund matchup in particular.

With that said, how do you beat Jund? The Forces come out, and the Dazes might come out on the draw; that's 4 slots if you lose game one and 8 slots if you win game one. What do you board in in each of these cases?

Divert seems to be a good choice against Jund. It's great against Abrupt Decay, Hymn to Tourach (Diverting Hymn is so epic), Bolt, Thoughtseize and their mana base is pretty low. In addition you can also be sure that they will be bringing in more removal anyway. Misdirection is another option but I haven't tried that out extensively. I just like to pretend to place a FoW out on the table on an Abrupt Decay, have the opponent say you can't do that, then pull out the misdirection from my hand and fry their Goyf.

Disfigure is also a pretty good choice over Dismember. It can deal with most things Jund has except Goyf.

I'm not sure if Clique is what we want against Jund.

What are the thought of 3 DSG and 3 Tombstalker over 4 DSG and 2 Tombstalker?

wcm8
01-21-2013, 10:58 AM
What are the thought of 3 DSG and 3 Tombstalker over 4 DSG and 2 Tombstalker?

I think 4/2 is correct. You don't want to get stuck with multiple tombstalkers in hand, whereas Deathrite is the best one drop and a must-answer for a lot of decks.

If you want to play the 3rd Tombstalker, I would probably consider dropping a delver or a Goyf before cutting a shaman.

Current SB I'm testing:
4 sinkhole
1 loam
1 dblast
2 disfigure
2 submerge
2 k grip
1 jitte
2 bitterblossom

Blossom serves a similar function as creeping tarpit against Control decks, and it was actually quite strong against my jund opponents when I managed to land it early. I could see cutting one for something else though.

AngryTroll
01-22-2013, 01:49 PM
I'm not sure if Clique is what we want against Jund.

Clique's a great way to kill Liliana after it's resolved. It's also possible to nab Punishing Fires if your opponent isn't careful. Of course, once you get behind, Clique isn't enough to put you back into the game by itself.

Amazing Larry
01-23-2013, 01:25 AM
Just got through testing some tonight against a friend playing Esper, and wow is Sinkhole a great sideboard addition. I still hate having Tombstalker hit by Swords, but other than that this deck is just crazy good most of the time. I won 10 out of 16 matches using the most popular list:

4 Goyf
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Tombstalker

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Daze
4 FOW
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
1 Sylvan Library

For my sideboard, I am going with

4 Sinkhole
2 Disfigure
1 Darkblast
2 Krosan Grip
2 Submerge
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Life From the Loam

I really just feel unsafe without at least 2 dedicated graveyard hate cards in any sideboard. Shaman does a lot of heavy lifting, but I still love my Crypts, call them my security blanket if you will. Loam, Sinkholes and Wastelands just wreck strategies, I do love me some land destruction. I had previously tried to run Bobs instead of Tombstalkers, but it is clear that Bob is just not enough pressure for a tempo build. Bob is just better suited to mid-range builds I think. The one question I had about the mana-base is do we have to run Tropical Island? I almost always want either a Bayou, or an Underground Sea. Can this deck run 4 Underground Seas and 3 Bayous as it's lands? We still have 4 blue sources for Daze, is this enough?

wcm8
01-23-2013, 09:26 AM
The one question I had about the mana-base is do we have to run Tropical Island? I almost always want either a Bayou, or an Underground Sea. Can this deck run 4 Underground Seas and 3 Bayous as it's lands? We still have 4 blue sources for Daze, is this enough?

It's true that this deck often wants BB, but even so, having a Tropical Island in there is a nice option to have on occasion.

Suppose your opening hand is the following:

Fetch
Wasteland
Ponder
Daze
Tarmogoyf
Delver of Secrets
FoW

(First of all this hand is pretty good.) Here I think Tropical Island would be your ideal fetch target: it still enables you the possibility of using Daze, as well as casting a turn 2 Tarmogoyf.

Another example that frequently comes up is against Wasteland decks. Suppose you have an Underground Sea and a Bayou already in play, and that you want to crack your third fetch in order to play another spell that turn. Rather than fetching up another of the two, Tropical would give you access to all 3 colors even if they happen to draw into a Wasteland.

It's really all situational though, but I think having the option there, even if it ends up screwing you in 1/1000 games because you couldn't cast a BB spell, makes it worth it.

nitewolf9
01-23-2013, 10:16 AM
4 Goyf
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Tombstalker

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Daze
4 FOW
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
1 Sylvan Library

For my sideboard, I am going with

4 Sinkhole
2 Disfigure
1 Darkblast
2 Krosan Grip
2 Submerge
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Life From the Loam


This is my exact list minus the 2 crypts, and with a tarpit over the 2nd disfigure. Instead of crypt I am playing Grafdigger's Cage, since it seems to be the most powerful single card against Dredge and also can come in against Natural Order elves. Not sure about that yet but it's what I'm experimenting with.

At the GP I wasn't expecting any dredge at all, and was rewarded, but at an SCG event I would definitely pack a bit of hate for it.

AngryTroll
01-23-2013, 10:28 AM
I played that list -1 Library, -1 Goyf, +1 Tombstalker, +1 Ooze, and with a sideboard of
2 Faerie Macabre
3 Thoughtseize
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Submerge
3 Divert
1 Sylvan Library
to 6-2 for 16th place at the SCG: Dallas event. I went 0-2 Jund, 2-1 UR Delver, 0-2 Know and Tell, 2-1 Jund, 2-1 Dredge, 2-1 Jund, 2-0 Esper Stoneblade, and 2-0 Merfolk. I think Know and Tell should be in my favor, but he killed me in game one when I kept a really good hand against anything but combo, and in game two his hand ended up with more countermagic than mine, which happens.

The Ooze was fine all day. It was better than Goyf in a game that I lost, worse than Goyf in a game that I won, and it won me a match against Dredge. Saturday night there seemed to be a lot of Reanimator in the convention center so I wanted an additional maindeck card against them.

The Submerges and Diverts were for Jund, BUG, and RUG, and I was pretty happy with them. I played against Jund three matches and went 2-1, and the Submerges won me a game in both of the matches I won. I never got to live the dream of Diverting a second turn Hymn or aim an Abrupt Decay back at an opposing Goyf, but I did Divert a Thoughtseize against Jund.

I still think that the Jund matchup is really ugly. The games I won involved being on the play and going Hymn, Daze your Hymn, Hymn, or my opponent struggling with mana development because he was playing the Punishing Fire build, getting to cast multiple Submerges, and/or high-powered draws on my part. Is the Sinkhole plan more effective than the Submerge and Divert plan in this matchup?

Amazing Larry
01-23-2013, 11:42 AM
It's true that this deck often wants BB, but even so, having a Tropical Island in there is a nice option to have on occasion.

Suppose your opening hand is the following:

Fetch
Wasteland
Ponder
Daze
Tarmogoyf
Delver of Secrets
FoW

(First of all this hand is pretty good.) Here I think Tropical Island would be your ideal fetch target: it still enables you the possibility of using Daze, as well as casting a turn 2 Tarmogoyf.

Another example that frequently comes up is against Wasteland decks. Suppose you have an Underground Sea and a Bayou already in play, and that you want to crack your third fetch in order to play another spell that turn. Rather than fetching up another of the two, Tropical would give you access to all 3 colors even if they happen to draw into a Wasteland.

It's really all situational though, but I think having the option there, even if it ends up screwing you in 1/1000 games because you couldn't cast a BB spell, makes it worth it.

That does make sense, I honestly have not played this deck much against other wasteland decks. I'll probably stick with 1 Tropical, no reason to rock that boat, I think.

@nitewolf: Sinkhole was a sweet call. I'm just ecstatic to be able to break them out again, Beta Sinkholes look marvelous. I finally gave up trying to fit Stifle in the 75. With Hymn instead of spell pierce/snare Sinkhole is just better. This deck is definitely fun to play.

Goddik
01-23-2013, 05:55 PM
What are your experiences with sinkhole in other matchups, when do you board it in and when do you leave it on the bench?

Goddik
01-23-2013, 06:20 PM
I have been brewing a bit with Spike and we think some combination of threads of disloyalty, kitchen finks, disfigure and submerge in the sideboard might be the key to winning the jund matchup. I have further changed my maindeck removal suite to 3 decay, 2 dismember, 1 disfigure to combat all the deathrite shamans. Let me know if you gain some knowledge from testing the matchup.

kingsey
01-23-2013, 07:52 PM
Has anyone tested heavy against Jund ? Thoughts on that match up ?

wcm8
01-23-2013, 09:26 PM
I have further changed my maindeck removal suite to 3 decay, 2 dismember, 1 disfigure to combat all the deathrite shamans.

I do sometimes feel like 4 Decay is too much 2cmc removal, and that some more 1cmc stuff would be good, especially on the draw. Not sure if I would want the split of 2 dismember 1 disfigure though. I wish they would hurry up and print a decent 1cmc black removal spell for once, it's kinda obnoxious that White gets StP and PtE while Black is left with much more situational options...

Amazing Larry
01-25-2013, 02:18 AM
What are your experiences with sinkhole in other matchups, when do you board it in and when do you leave it on the bench?

I think Sinkhole should come in against Stoneblade for certain, this is the deck I've tested most against. I would imagine Sinkhole would be effective against Miracles, and combo decks to slow them down. I'd like to test them against Junk/Jund, although with opposing Shamans, Sinkhole's effectiveness may be lessened.


I do sometimes feel like 4 Decay is too much 2cmc removal, and that some more 1cmc stuff would be good, especially on the draw. Not sure if I would want the split of 2 dismember 1 disfigure though. I wish they would hurry up and print a decent 1cmc black removal spell for once, it's kinda obnoxious that White gets StP and PtE while Black is left with much more situational options...

Tell me about it. How does the color of death in magic get the most conditional an expensive removal? Something like Vendetta without the non-black restriction might work?

apistat_commander
01-25-2013, 10:19 AM
I am working on my sideboard for my local meta (I see Junk, Belcher, lots of Blade, Miracles, Reanimator, and Sneak/Show but no GY combo and not much tribal) and I am not convinced that I want to buy Sinkholes just yet, hence their exclusion. I am playing the standard MD. Here is where I am at currently:

1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Disfigure
1 Darkblast
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Engineered Plague
2 Flusterstorm
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Krosan Grip
1 Life from the Loam

Against aggro/creature decks I have Pulse, Disfigure, Jitte, and maybe Engineered Plague to bring in for my Forces and maybe a Daze and/or Decay. For control my Forces and Tombstalkers come out for JTMS, Clique, Loam, and then depending on the deck maybe Grip, Plague, and Jitte as well. Combo seems a tad weak because I will generally want to cut the Dismember, 1-2 Decay, and Tombstalkers, and maybe Library for Flusterstorms, Cliques, and depending on the deck Grips, Plagues, or Pulse.

wcm8
01-25-2013, 10:56 AM
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Disfigure
1 Darkblast
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Engineered Plague
2 Flusterstorm
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Krosan Grip
1 Life from the Loam

You want to beat reanimator and don't have any sideboard GY hate? I would definitely consider a Tormod's Crypt and/or Grafdigger's Cage.

For the other combo decks, you probably want some Thoughtseizes or Spell Pierces. Flusterstorm is pretty good, but if you really wanna beat Belcher, Mindbreak Trap is an option to consider.

Diabolic Edict might be a decent removal card to be playing. It can come in against Junk as well as Show and Tell.

A single Pithing Needle might be nice to have. Deals with SDT, planeswalkers, Charbelcher, etc.

apistat_commander
01-25-2013, 11:51 AM
You want to beat reanimator and don't have any sideboard GY hate? I would definitely consider a Tormod's Crypt and/or Grafdigger's Cage.

For the other combo decks, you probably want some Thoughtseizes or Spell Pierces. Flusterstorm is pretty good, but if you really wanna beat Belcher, Mindbreak Trap is an option to consider.

Diabolic Edict might be a decent removal card to be playing. It can come in against Junk as well as Show and Tell.

A single Pithing Needle might be nice to have. Deals with SDT, planeswalkers, Charbelcher, etc.

I prefer Cage over Crypt because it also shuts down Esper and doesn't reduce Deathrite targets. I could see cutting a Grip to fit it in.

What are people's thoughts on jace in the board? I know that Dan mentioned that trying to out Jace your opponents was a losing proposition. I could see those becoming Seizes as that works against combo and control.

I prefer Flusterstorm over Pierce because the power level is higher. It is less flexible but it is much harder for combo to play around.

Jitte has always seemed a little random to me but the power level is pretty high. However I may want to cut it for a second cage or a crypt.

So far I am thinking:.

-2 Jace
-1 Grip
-1 Darkblast

+2 Seize
+1 Edict
+1 Cage

kingsey
01-26-2013, 10:27 PM
Looking for thoughts on sideboard in general and esp for Jund.

Engineered plague for human blanks thier bobs, and perish kills everything else. Divert in sideboard since its great against esper and rug too?

My meta is sneak attack, jund, junk, enchantress, stoneblade and burn.:rolleyes:

How are you guys beating burn?

Sturtzilla
01-26-2013, 11:12 PM
How are you guys beating burn?

Sideboard Chill and counter their higher impact cards. The ones that do more than 3 damage... Flame Rift, Fireblast, and Price of Progress (also don't play too hard into Price).

sdematt
01-27-2013, 12:48 AM
Or run Nourish? But yeah, Chill's pretty great too.

IMHO Diabolic Edict is only okay against Junk, but doing double duty against Sneak is very good.

-Matt

Mike_
01-27-2013, 12:53 PM
Btw, do you think it would be a good idea to run 2x Negate or Maelstrom Pulse in board instead of Jaces? IMHO Jace doesn't suit this deck very well..

KobeBryan
01-27-2013, 01:49 PM
Btw, do you think it would be a good idea to run 2x Negate or Maelstrom Pulse in board instead of Jaces? IMHO Jace doesn't suit this deck very well..

I too am not a big fan of jace. 4 mana for this deck just doesn't happen.

I rather just get a pithing needle or maelstrom pulse.

Spike
01-27-2013, 02:24 PM
Jace is awesome and hitting 4 mana is pretty easy with this deck. For me its still the best card against any control deck and jace also dominates the mirror match. I've never seen a BUG player winning through a resolved Jace on the other side. I suggest giving him a try, you'll be amazed :)

KobeBryan
01-27-2013, 02:33 PM
Jace is awesome and hitting 4 mana is pretty easy with this deck. For me its still the best card against any control deck and jace also dominates the mirror match. I've never seen a BUG player winning through a resolved Jace on the other side. I suggest giving him a try, you'll be amazed :)

I have to disagree

This deck runs 20 lands...some 19 lands.

9 are fetches, 4 are wastelands, 7 our duals. Of the duals, only 5 are blue mana.

Its too easy to get wasteland out for you to get to 4 mana. Its also too mana intensive when you start wastelanding. This deck needs double black, then with jace, you will need double blue.

of course you do have deathrite shaman, but lets not talk about it being killed out early.

Spike
01-27-2013, 03:00 PM
I see your points and I'll try to explain my point of view:

Your not going to board in Jace against Canadian or Zoo or something like that. In most matchups where Jace comes in you'll board out Dazes anyway and getting to 4 lands with 8 cantrips is really no problem at all. Esper also runs only 22 lands, and even fewer cantrips. You'll also have a single Loam postboard.
And having double blue should be possible if you have four lands in play ;)

Einherjer
01-27-2013, 03:04 PM
I have to disagree

This deck runs 20 lands...some 19 lands.

9 are fetches, 4 are wastelands, 7 our duals. Of the duals, only 5 are blue mana.

Its too easy to get wasteland out for you to get to 4 mana. Its also too mana intensive when you start wastelanding. This deck needs double black, then with jace, you will need double blue.

of course you do have deathrite shaman, but lets not talk about it being killed out early.

But I have to disagree and second what Spike said. Planeswalkers, be it Liliana, or (and especially) Jace just win the Mirror. We play no Burn and hardly any flash creatures, making Jace a very predictable card (a'la how long will he live, who do I have to kill, what to bounce and stuff). Same for Liliana, there is no Bolt eot or anything, she can play out her full strenght, aka make board/cardadvantage. And casting a Jace in the lategame is no problem. We are not RUG, we sometimes need to have about 3-4 Lands to apply pressure in the right moments, making an lategame Jace a draw-and-drop. I am playing the standardlist by Daniel, but a different sideboard, featuring 2 Lilly and 1 Jace, but at the moment im trying to fit the second inside.

GReetings

Maximus
01-27-2013, 07:49 PM
I have to disagree

This deck runs 20 lands...some 19 lands.

9 are fetches, 4 are wastelands, 7 our duals. Of the duals, only 5 are blue mana.

Its too easy to get wasteland out for you to get to 4 mana. Its also too mana intensive when you start wastelanding. This deck needs double black, then with jace, you will need double blue.

of course you do have deathrite shaman, but lets not talk about it being killed out early.

I agree with you, but I think one big part of Jace has been overlooked:

Jace doesn't get your opponent to 0 life.

nitewolf9
01-27-2013, 10:49 PM
They really need to errata the way life loss works so that it can be redirected to planeswalkers. Deathrite being able to smack Jace or Liliana down would make me a very happy camper indeed.

catmint
01-28-2013, 02:48 AM
I agree with you, but I think one big part of Jace has been overlooked:

Jace doesn't get your opponent to 0 life.
That's like saying Ad Nauseam does not kill your opponent and is bad for storm. For matchups like "UW removal heavy control" jace is perfect since you'll likely get to the lategame where he is a bomb that they have trouble dealing with.

Maximus
01-28-2013, 05:46 AM
You can speculate that you're going long against Tundra decks and that Jace would be good against those, but those decks are much better equipped at that game plan than TA is. Playing to the strengths of your opponent is just not a good strategy. It also weakens the flexibility of the deck over several turns. Jace requires 4-5 lands, while our deck only requires 2-3. Those 2 extra cards/turns have to be made up for somewhere. This gives us two choices:

1. Play more lands. The additional lands needed to play Jace also lower your chances to topdeck business, and usually some of the first business to be cut are copies of Ponder, i.e. chances to get more cards to interact with your opponent when you don't have any. Meanwhile, playing more lands is going to make your Ponder/Brainstorm worse, reduce deck slots for cards that interact with your opponent, and minimize your advantage in the turns you're most likely to actually be playing (the first 5 or so).

2. Play the same number of lands. Then we have to play around natural anti-synergies we incur by diluting our own game plan. This includes getting to 4-5 lands with/through Daze, having fewer ways to interact with the opponent (you cut disruption for Jace and not threats, right?) or if you took out some threats you are simply less able to kill your opponent. Then we can count on the other opinions mentioned so far about hitting the correct colors or the exacerbated weakness to wasteland (either having no way to stop pressure or just being unable to cast the Jace).

This deck is far better off re-crafting its tools to fit its standard strategy- killing the opponent before they play anything meaningful. It's more profitable to exploit all of those implications to playing Jace and to punish that line of play with cards like Sinkhole. Typically, our disruption base is far more flexible than our threat base is, so it would probably be better to start there, or to find other creatures that double as disruption/beaters such as Scavenging Ooze or Vendilion Clique.

If you want to play bombs, this is not the deck for you. If you want 60 cards that are frustratingly powerful on their own, or if you want an absurd win rate by balancing all of your resources on razor-thin margins, now we're talking.

catmint
01-28-2013, 06:15 AM
Your logic is fine for RUG tempo but a bit flawed for Team America I think.
For the common configuration of Team America with a slightly higher land count than RUG + deathrite it is possible to support jace without having to increase the land count or screwing with the plan of virtual card advantage due to less land slots/drops. The % you loose by removing the 2 worst cards to interact with your opponent and or 1 of the worst cards and 1 of the worst creatures or cantrips is very low but the upside of slamming a jace for the win is very high.

I am not arguing that you will be an equally good lategame deck just by running 2 jace. The plan is still to pressure them with discard, delver (& confidants - maybe board them instead of tombstalker) as much as possible. They will have to invest all their resources in fighting this pressure enabling your mid-game jace to easily resolve & seal the deal. I wrote about the problems of Team America with Tundra decks (Stoneblade) as well here and Jace helps out against those issues.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?11605-DTB-Team-America-(Aggro-Tempo-Thread)&p=693455&viewfull=1#post693455

nitewolf9
01-28-2013, 10:27 AM
Jace can be a fine sideboard card in a deck like this, but I don't think it's the best option if you are trying to board against Esper Blade.

Against Miracles Jace is great, against blade he is not so much. They have too many ways to interact with you once they hit 4 lands, and you don't really have much high end action other than Jace after you sideboard. All of their draws become better and all of your draws become worse (relative to theirs that is) as the game goes on. Esper can protect their own Jaces and kill yours more effectively than you can against theirs.

The more mana Esper blade gets, the more powerful it becomes. They always have uses for extra lands, and we do not.

Against Miracles Jace is another creature that can't be killed with removal and doesn't overextend you into wrath effects. They can only really answer him with countermagic or a Jace of their own, so it's the nuts. But that deck also dies to Sinkhole + Hymn, and those cards are much better against blade.

wcm8
01-28-2013, 11:14 AM
Sinkhole dovetails with Hymn very nicely, with the land destruction approach being backed up by Wasteland (with the potential for Loam recursion) and Daze. While this is going on, ideally you have presented a threat that needs to be quickly dealt with. I think some people are not adopting/testing Sinkhole due to budgetary reasons. But then again, if you can sling 4 Underground Seas, surely you could find a way of obtaining 4 Sinkhole?

Not having to ramp into 4 mana in TA is powerful for the same reason it's powerful in RUG: Brainstorms can be used to tuck back extra lands and shuffle them away in exchange for more disruption and threats. Daze's island-bounce "drawback" actually becomes more of a bonus since you can more often turn Brainstorm into Ancestral Recall.

This entire plan would work slightly better if TA could run Nimble Mongoose or another shrouded threat. But the Goose does not play nicely with Deathrite or Tombstalker -- both of which are powerful enough to warrant their susceptibility to removal.

catmint
01-28-2013, 11:29 AM
That is true. Jace is stronger vs. miracles than Stoneblade. Hymn is strong versus stoneblade and Sinkhole might be... never tested it. However I am sure that Hymn & Sinkhole are both mediocre against "the sd.top" deck miracles. I guess you can tune the sideboard according to which UW deck you expect. My experience of the applications of Sinkhole against thre rest of the field is also limited, but with Jace I do know that it is strong against any non-red control/midrange deck. Sylvan Library is strong in that segment too.

nitewolf9
01-28-2013, 11:39 AM
If you keep a top player digging for lands with their top activations, you're in a good spot. Sinkhole also stops topdecks pretty effectively, and being able to hit basic lands means life from the loam is going to be really awkward for them if you draw it. Or they'll fetch all their basics and lose to a single sinkhole, which happens more often than you would think with that card. People have trained themselves to play around Stifle and Wasteland, but not Sinkhole and Wasteland. The strategies are different to minimize impact of those cards. Along with Hymn to further drain their resources, it is a pretty devastating disruption suite. On their own they aren't quite as effective, but together the sum is greater than the parts.

sdematt
01-28-2013, 12:44 PM
This is exactly why I stopped running Top against a disruptive deck like this; Top activations searching for lands is the worst, but best, thing you can be doing in this situation and just puts you guys so far ahead. Top is too slow if you're not running 5+ basic lands in your deck.

Hymn, Daze, Wasteland, and Sinkhole is a pretty nutter butters disruption suite, especially if you just drop a Goyf and start pounding face. I picked up a set of Sinkholes so I could do just this once in a while.

Question for you, though: Is Nimble Mongoose not good enough with the possibility of DRS and RIP sucking up graveyards, or is there just no room? I really like Nimble in this format of AD everywhere, but I'm sure it's been tested and dropped, I just wanted some feedback since I heart/hate that little bastard.

-Matt

Maximus
01-28-2013, 01:28 PM
Jace can be a fine sideboard card in a deck like this, but I don't think it's the best option if you are trying to board against Esper Blade.

Against Miracles Jace is another creature that can't be killed with removal and doesn't overextend you into wrath effects. They can only really answer him with countermagic or a Jace of their own, so it's the nuts. But that deck also dies to Sinkhole + Hymn, and those cards are much better against blade.

This is mostly what I was getting at, but from a different angle. If we're looking to prepare for a generalized form of "Jace decks", there are multiple ways to attack this problem. Miracles and Landstill are going to struggle with an opposing Jace sure, but Stoneblade and BUG Midrange are probably not so it's not really practical to go that route. It's much better to search for better answers without all of the implicit downsides.

I think this deck is close enough to RUG that we can at least trade notes and learn from it. If the opponent is planning on playing spells with lands, we can probably disrupt it.

nitewolf9
01-28-2013, 01:32 PM
I really have no idea how to evaluate Stalker vs Goose, but I can say that AD doesn't hit either, and against Jund for example their only outs to Tombstalker realistically are liliana and lavamancer + bolt. For mongoose they have liliana + tarmogoyf + bloodbraid elf + deathrite, and Stalker races them more effectively when he goes unanswered. Against white based removal, along with Jaces, Mongoose is very good. Still, Stalker kills them faster. Mongoose is probably still better there. Against Tribal I'm not sure which is better. Against midrange decks like maverick and jund/junk, I'd rather have stalker.

Stalker is staying in my deck as the threat of choice, mainly because I like having an airforce, but I wouldn't fault someone for running goose. Especially if there was a lot more control and combo (1 mana threat >>>>> 2 mana threat here) in their expected metagame. It's also nice that we can just kill Goyfs outside of combat.

SuiciniV
01-29-2013, 07:43 AM
What do you think about one or two copies of Lim-Dûls Vault in this deck?


Did some one tested it already or think about it?

It can provide us a twist on the game with brainstorm.

Arsenal
01-29-2013, 01:38 PM
Do not own Sinkholes. Any subs that I can run that will also help in the Esperblade matchup?

sdematt
01-29-2013, 01:44 PM
Yes, UNL Sinkholes.

-Matt

apistat_commander
01-29-2013, 03:45 PM
Do not own Sinkholes. Any subs that I can run that will also help in the Esperblade matchup?

I am trying out 2x Clique and 2x JTMS in my "control" slot. Even though there aren't many fans of Jace on the thread, there are quite a few builds on TC that have run him to success in the main or board. Sinkholes are fine but I am not super interested in dropping $100 on sideboard cards (as cool as Sinkhole is).

lordofthepit
01-29-2013, 08:30 PM
Yes, UNL Sinkholes.

-Matt

I need to upgrade my Sinkholes. :-(

Mike_
01-30-2013, 03:20 AM
Ok, how about Maelstrom Pulse instead of Sinkhole, has anybody tried it? It should deal with Jace or Batterskull, or with Lingering Souls tokens if you really need to.

Arsenal
01-30-2013, 09:48 AM
Yeah, I figure if I can't prevent them from casting their spells (courtesy of Sinkhole), then I damn sure better be able to answer them once they're cast. I've been thinking of going 2x Pulse, 1x JtMS, 1x Venser, Shaper Savant in addition to 1x LftL to help me in the grindy control matchups.

Borealis
01-30-2013, 08:38 PM
Hey All!

It's been awhile since I've been in the Legacy court, but I'm starting to get back on the train. I'll be at SCG Edison next weekend, and I plan on Slinging BUG Delver. I was on RUG for awhile (and Junk before that, what's up sdematt), but I'd much rather be slinging Shamans, Decays, and Hymns next weekend, than losing to Rest in Peace. I love Bolts, but gotta go with the flow.

Anyway, with that out there, would you guys care to throw me a few decklists as to where you're all at right now? I'm aware that there are VARIOUS versions of "Team America", so I just want to see some recent spice from you all hardworking fellows. Surprise me!

I'll be testing real soon, and thus posting actual useful content in the next week. Thank you kindly for your time.

~B

sdematt
01-30-2013, 09:18 PM
Nice to see you're not dead in a ditch somewhere.

-Matt

catmint
01-31-2013, 05:46 AM
With the rise of jund I’ve been thinking about moving to BUG Delver, since gaining tempo advantage & Tombstalker seems to be a better plan than Jace against a deck offering so much burn, haste & card advantage. Also Mavericks Mother, Thalia are declining which were easier to handle by RUG tempo than Team America. To tackle the often mentioned problems with Tundra decks that Team America has, I was thinking about transforming the creature base from the sideboard. For Tundra decks I recommend reducing Goyf, cutting stalker and rocking confidant & Vendilion clique.

Confidant vs. Tombstalker: Confidant being superior versus combo & Tundra decks – Tombstalker obviously better versus decay & lightning bolt decks.
To support confidant I feel targeted discard is superior over hymn to Tourach since getting the removal out of their hands is more important than the direct card advantage from Hymn to tourach.

The configuration I thought was:

Maindeck
4 Deathrite
4 Delver
3 Goyf
3 Confidant
4 targeted discard

Sideboard
2 Vendilion Clique
2-3 Tombstalker

Another option would be to run a traditional configuration with Hymn & stalker maindeck and something like 3 confidant, 3 thoughtseize in the sideboard.



Has anyone thought about the transformation of Tombstalker/Confidant and to a lesser extend hymn vs. targeted discard?

Maximus
01-31-2013, 06:27 AM
The problem with V Clique against Tundra decks is that it doesn't handle Lingering Souls well, and beating that card is pretty important for this match. Without that I think it's a reasonable choice to handle something like Jace or SFM but those are secondary threats in this match as far as I can tell.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Dark Confidant, but playing Tombstalker is one of the main reasons to play black for TA over RUG. If you're going for one or the other, I think Tombstalker is better here as it kills the opponent much faster.

I am also having difficulties so far matching white decks. I haven't found a truly good solution for them yet.

aznepyon7
01-31-2013, 10:14 AM
The problem with V Clique against Tundra decks is that it doesn't handle Lingering Souls well, and beating that card is pretty important for this match. Without that I think it's a reasonable choice to handle something like Jace or SFM but those are secondary threats in this match as far as I can tell.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Dark Confidant, but playing Tombstalker is one of the main reasons to play black for TA over RUG. If you're going for one or the other, I think Tombstalker is better here as it kills the opponent much faster.

I am also having difficulties so far matching white decks. I haven't found a truly good solution for them yet.

If you feel that Lingering Souls may be a problem, there is always Dread of Night. It also shuts down Elspeth and Timely Reinforcements as well. Of course it's a hit or miss, a lot of Tundra decks don't run them, but for those that do, Dread of Night is an option.

And as for Confidant, you just play to what your meta is more full of. I like TS but I know there are times I would much rather be running a Confidant.

Mark Sun
01-31-2013, 10:15 AM
If you feel that Lingering Souls may be a problem, there is always Dread of Night. It also shuts down Elspeth and Timely Reinforcements as well. Of course it's a hit or miss, a lot of Tundra decks don't run them, but for those that do, Dread of Night is an option.

And as for Confidant, you just play to what your meta is more full of. I like TS but I know there are times I would much rather be running a Confidant.

Haven't seen a ton of Maverick (Thalia, Mother, Elspeth) or Timely Reinforcements, might be reasonable to just let Engineered Plague overlap for now. Not sure how good Dread of Night is at the moment; obviously, when it's relevant, it's insane.

Amazing Larry
01-31-2013, 12:27 PM
Has anyone thought about the transformation of Tombstalker/Confidant and to a lesser extend hymn vs. targeted discard?

I tried running Bob instead of Tombstalker, and in this deck, it's just not the right play. I was unhappy with Tombstalker against Stoneblade builds, but as good as Bob is, he's not a big threat you can drop and then beat face with while disrupting the opponent. The best cards against U/W/x decks are Sylvan Library, and Sinkhole. As for targeted discard, it is also a good sideboard plan against U/W/x, but maindeck you just want Hymn, as the 2 for 1 is what you want to be doing. Sinkhole combined with some lucky Hymn rips and Wasteland can keep them off of 4 lands long enough for you to do some serious damage.

Maximus
01-31-2013, 01:18 PM
Right now I like Engineered Plague and Darkblast in the board to deal with white in a general way. Each have their merits, but essentially it comes down to shutting off Lingering Souls, Thalia, and Elspeth. Then we can direct our counters to Jace/STP to avoid blow-outs. They're still not particularly fun matches, particularly Maverick game 1. Although I could be approaching that match-up incorrectly.

Borealis
01-31-2013, 08:42 PM
Nice to see you're not dead in a ditch somewhere.

-Matt

Thanks Matt! I'll be starting off with this here piece of work.

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1084818

Pretty standard list for the delver versions, but I'm hella psyched to play all these cards together, finally. Particularly the playset of sinkholes, which I'll need to find before Edison. Testing this weekend, so I'll be back with some questions and findings soon. Go BUG GO!

wcm8
02-01-2013, 10:34 AM
I have found that the best approach to beating Jund is very similar to beating Esper: mana screw them.

This is a bit harder since you need to also be capable of killing an early Deathrite Shaman, and they will also be running discard and mana destruction of their own. However, it's very doable.

The ideal end game against Jund is you with a Tarmogoyf and Shaman in play, 1 or 2 cards in hand, 2 lands, and a full graveyard. They will ideally be backpedaling on 1-2 lands (which you destroy promptly) and they will have a nearly full grip. Cards like BBE and Liliana will get stranded in their hand, and each time they try to resolve a threat, you'll have already found a removal or Daze.

Trying to out-attrition them on the board is really tough. Bitterblossom is awesome (and I'm playing one in my current SB), but it's too narrow to really devote more slots to. If you can limit them to deploying only one threat at a time, you can easily beat them thanks to Ponder/Brainstorm trumping their desperate topdecking. (As an aside, if you ever need to see how fucking nuts Ponder and Brainstorm are, try playing Modern for a little bit. Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand are god-awful in comparison and will make you appreciate these cards, which happen to be RESTRICTED in Vintage...)

Sinkhole plays a vital function in modern BUG tempo decks. Tempo decks are notoriously bad at beating opposing late-game strategies and lucky topdecks, and both RUG and BUG can mitigate this in various ways. RUG runs Wasteland, Stifle, and Nimble Mongoose (which negates the majority of commonly played removal). BUG runs Wasteland, Sinkhole, and Hymn to Tourach. The BUG approach, when it works, is arguably stronger since a lot of Legacy decks are not really built to deal with 8 land destruction cards (9 if you count Loam as playing into that plan, 13 if you consider the times Hymn hits lands). Stifle is a more elegant card, but it can frequently be dead if your opponent plays around it or simply drops 'real' lands.

With WotC's R&D move towards printing more and more obnoxious, Timmy-esque creatures in the slightly higher CMC slots, it is more important than ever for a tempo deck to deny that approach. I'm not sure you can really hope to beat most Midrange strategies if you allow them to actually get to that point. The best method of beating something like Supreme Verdict or Jace, the Mind Sculptor is to simply never give your opponent the option of playing it.

Also, I tested Mongoose in BUG a little bit, and was unimpressed. He just doesn't really seem to fit the current build of TA, and is a much better fit for RUG. Tombstalker is still amazing as a finisher.

wcm8
02-01-2013, 10:43 AM
Also, I want to add that playing Nassif-style sideboards is a completely valid approach. ESPECIALLY since this deck runs 4 Ponders, 1-2 Sylvan Library and 4 Brainstorm. They aren't quite as 'tool-boxy' as something like Enlightened Tutor, but they still let you rip through your deck at an amazing rate in search of your bomb.

Dread of Night for example is a bit too narrow to justify running more than one (unless you know for a fact that there are a ton of Wx aggro decks), but having one is absolutely nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuts when it's relevant.

In fact, the only cards for sure that I feel every TA sideboard should be running right now is 4 Sinkhole and 1 Life from the Loam (and probably 1 Darkblast since it's very often relevant). From there you can easily shift the slots around to beat particular matchups in your local meta.

SirTylerGalt
02-01-2013, 11:37 AM
Also, I want to add that playing Nassif-style sideboards is a completely valid approach. ESPECIALLY since this deck runs 4 Ponders, 1-2 Sylvan Library and 4 Brainstorm. They aren't quite as 'tool-boxy' as something like Enlightened Tutor, but they still let you rip through your deck at an amazing rate in search of your bomb.

Dread of Night for example is a bit too narrow to justify running more than one (unless you know for a fact that there are a ton of Wx aggro decks), but having one is absolutely nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuts when it's relevant.

In fact, the only cards for sure that I feel every TA sideboard should be running right now is 4 Sinkhole and 1 Life from the Loam (and probably 1 Darkblast since it's very often relevant). From there you can easily shift the slots around to beat particular matchups in your local meta.

Could we move a few Sinkhole to the maindeck, making space in the sideboard for more bombs? Or do we want to keep the LD plan in the SB for specific matchups? If we play Sinkhole in the maindeck, we can still side it out when necessary, and LD is a strategy that works against lots of decks.

One advantage of having them in the SB, is that the opponent might fetch basics (after seeing wasteland G1), in which case Sinkhole blows him out.

Would you rather play RUG with Stifle maindeck, or in the SB? (ok, Stifle has other uses than stifling fetchlands)

Amazing Larry
02-01-2013, 12:47 PM
I may get roasted for this, but I'm going to test Paralyze as a 2-3 of in the board. It's not instant speed, but it is 1CMC black removal (sort of). It certainly plays well with Wasteland and Sinkhole.

wcm8
02-01-2013, 01:32 PM
Could we move a few Sinkhole to the maindeck, making space in the sideboard for more bombs? Or do we want to keep the LD plan in the SB for specific matchups? If we play Sinkhole in the maindeck, we can still side it out when necessary, and LD is a strategy that works against lots of decks.

One advantage of having them in the SB, is that the opponent might fetch basics (after seeing wasteland G1), in which case Sinkhole blows him out.

Would you rather play RUG with Stifle maindeck, or in the SB? (ok, Stifle has other uses than stifling fetchlands)

Sinkhole is unfortunately only relevant in some matchups, not all. It's a pretty lousy card against, say, Goblins or Elves, or any deck that's mostly immune to Wasteland. I think it's best relegated to sideboard duty, at least for the time being. The card that I'm often siding out for Sinkhole is Force of Will, which is an important card in plenty of matchups. If you try to stuff Sinkhole into the maindeck, what ends up getting cut for it? I really don't think you'd want to drop Hymn or anything else for that matter.

Regarding RUG: Stifle is either maindeck material, or not played at all. Ironically, after all the talk about the importance of land destruction in tempo, I've been playing a RUG build that actually doesn't play any Stifle. But this discussion is better fit for that deck's own thread.

aznepyon7
02-01-2013, 02:00 PM
I may get roasted for this, but I'm going to test Paralyze as a 2-3 of in the board. It's not instant speed, but it is 1CMC black removal (sort of). It certainly plays well with Wasteland and Sinkhole.

The best approach is why we would run Paralyze over anything else in sideboard that's out there. There are a lot of good cards for this slot already.

Innocent Blood
Darkblast
Disfigure
Deathmark
Maelstrom Pulse
Dismember
Smother

It can also be removed, paid off in late game, not an instant.

Goddik
02-01-2013, 05:56 PM
Have we gotten to the point where a stifle sinkhole deck might be good again?

Amazing Larry
02-02-2013, 02:04 AM
The best approach is why we would run Paralyze over anything else in sideboard that's out there. There are a lot of good cards for this slot already.

Innocent Blood
Darkblast
Disfigure
Deathmark
Maelstrom Pulse
Dismember
Smother

It can also be removed, paid off in late game, not an instant.

Yeah, so Paralyze was not that good. I was thinking rather than the sideboard, putting it maindeck as a 3-of while cutting Abrupt Decay to 3, as I just wanted more 1 CMC removal. Instead of the 3 Paralyze, I think 3 Disfigure/Decay is what I'm going with, sending Sylvan to the SB.

Mark Sun
02-02-2013, 02:24 AM
Have we gotten to the point where a stifle sinkhole deck might be good again?

Dear god, please. Just picked up Sinkholes today.

Parcher
02-02-2013, 10:19 AM
Stifle and Sinkhole end up being opposing philosophies in Tempo decks. RUG, which runs Bolt, Stifle, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Thought Scour, REB, etc. has no problem keeping mana open to use Stifle. BUG, which runs Hymn, Thoughtseize, Shaman, Sinkhole, Tombstalker, Tarpit, etc. in addition to the Ponder/Goyf/Delver that both run, ends up tapping out most of the time when the deck is working properly. Especially in the early turns, where Stifle is at it's most broadly useful. RUG can't run Sinkhole, so that's a non-issue. And the reasons for running BUG over RUG, while they might include Sinkhole, have nothing to do with Stifle's inclusion or exclusion. You can't really run the TA version as it's currently built, and have the needed open mana to access Stifle. And cutting something to add Stifle would change this iteration enough to be a different deck in how it sequences it's first three turns.

aznepyon7
02-02-2013, 11:04 AM
Yeah, so Paralyze was not that good. I was thinking rather than the sideboard, putting it maindeck as a 3-of while cutting Abrupt Decay to 3, as I just wanted more 1 CMC removal. Instead of the 3 Paralyze, I think 3 Disfigure/Decay is what I'm going with, sending Sylvan to the SB.

I would probably turn 1 of the Disfigure into a Dismember to deal with some of the bigger fatties that may be going around. Can't always depend on Disfigure and Decay to take care of everything should the game get to mid-game or god forbid - late game.

I wouldn't remove the Library though. It's like a free Ponder and it helps with a later Delver or lets you know when it's time to shuffle the deck with a fetchland. In pinches, well net you 1-2 cards for the final push. This card is a game changer.

Amazing Larry
02-02-2013, 11:32 AM
I would probably turn 1 of the Disfigure into a Dismember to deal with some of the bigger fatties that may be going around. Can't always depend on Disfigure and Decay to take care of everything should the game get to mid-game or god forbid - late game.

I wouldn't remove the Library though. It's like a free Ponder and it helps with a later Delver or lets you know when it's time to shuffle the deck with a fetchland. In pinches, well net you 1-2 cards for the final push. This card is a game changer.

I know how good Library is, it's honestly one of my favorite cards and I hate to remove it, but I really find that I want some 1CMC removal against the vast amount of Delvers, Shamans, Lavamancers, Lackeys, Hierarchs, and Moms I run into. I might stick with 1 Dismember though.

aznepyon7
02-02-2013, 11:40 AM
I know how good Library is, it's honestly one of my favorite cards and I hate to remove it, but I really find that I want some 1CMC removal against the vast amount of Delvers, Shamans, Lavamancers, Lackeys, Hierarchs, and Moms I run into. I might stick with 1 Dismember though.

That's a good point and I think TA should race other decks to finish ASAP due to its strong early game. I run Sylvan Library more for stability and for the little extra push against UW/x before it gets to mid/late game. For me, it's a recurring Brainstorm that gives me a little more control to help my game run more smoothly and minimize the amount of guesswork. Besides I don't like having mana open because if I did, I would be running RUG.

If the meta is so saturated with what you stated, then I think Disfigure would have to be the right choice though.

Will_L
02-03-2013, 03:58 AM
Yesterday I top 8'd a 45 man tournament playing Team America. I went 4-1-1 in the swiss and then lost in the top 8 playing the mirror.

I wanted to play Team America with Baleful Strix because I felt like they would be really good against aggro and delver mirrors. Next tournament I play in I'll change some of the sideboard choices and cut x2 Strix for another Ponder and another Deathrite Shaman. I also tried to jam some basics, but it wasn't worth it. The island and swamp should be another Bayou and a Polluted Delta/Verdant Catacombs.

I have recently been playing either Esperblade, Canadian or Goblins. So this is a new deck for me, and today was sort of training grounds for it. I think with more experience and some tweaks to the 75 that I could do well with it again.

Here's the list I played:


1x Sylvan Library
2x Deathrite Shaman
3x Tombstalker
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Baleful Strix
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
3x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Abrupt Decay

1x Island
1x Swamp
1x Bayou
2x Tropical island
3x Underground Sea
3x Verdant Catacombs
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Wasteland

SB:
1x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Thoughtseize
2x Life from the Loam
2x Engineered Plague
2x Submerge
2x Tormod's Crypt


R1 [Goblins]

G1: I waste a cavern and then play 2 goyfs. I have him playing around a daze I don't have and it works long enough for me to beat down FTW
G2: I decay a vial and waste his cavern again... He gets mana screwed and mutant bugs eat him

My opponent was playing a borrowed deck and made a few misplays. I brought in Plagues and Jitte


R2 [Deadguy Ale]

G1: I double waste my opponent and he is never in the game
G2: Lots of back and forth until he sticks a Hero of Bladehold and I can't deal with it in time
G3: I counter some key spells (Lili, SFM) and owls and goyfs got there

I brought in Cliques and jitte... The cliques were just to give me more fliers to beat down with, and they can tuck his bombs (hero, batterskull, elspeth)


R3: [Affinity]

G1: My opponent dumps his hand and I force his plating... My team is faster then his (Goyf > Memnite)
G2: He dumps his hand but this time he has Etched Champion and Plating. I can't counter/decay either and lose.
G3: I Force of Will his 3 key spells (SFM. plating, champ) and win the memnite/goyf race again

Actually sided in Plague in this MU since I had so little to bring in and I actually blew him out one game by wiping out 3 memnites. Force of Will was good considering that Affinity kind of sucks without Ravager or Plating (a 2/2 champ doesn't matter without buffs).


R4: [Elves!]

G1: I Hymn him and hit 2 Glimpse and then he can't draw heritage/symbiote/nettle and I beat him down
G2: I mull and keep a loose 6, on turn 3 he craterhoofs FTW
G3: I get NO'd for Prog on turn 3 and I can't deal with it and lose

I wish I had more experience playing this MU... Definitely punted a couple of times here. My opponent this round top 8'd as well.


R5: [Canadian]

G1: His delversmanship put mine to shame... Turn 1 blind flip versus me not drawing creatures/decays. I lose this game.
G2: This time I flip delver early on and we waste each other a bit, and I surgical his trop. I decay his dude then play LftL and he scoops at low life/few cards in hand.
G3: This one was hard to remember. A very close game that a narrowly edge out a win. The strixes held back his goyfs until I was able to grind out with Deathrites.

I brought in LftL, Surgicals, Jitte and Submerge... It all turned out to be pretty necessary, but this may be due to me lack of experience with BUG.


R6: [Intentional Draw]

---


Top 8: [Mirror Match]

G1: I should have mulled and lose to a quick flipped delver and clutch wastelands
G2: I keep a hand with trop/waste/business and get wasted then proceed to draw 2 more wastelands and no other lands. I lose.

My opponents list was a little cleaner then mine and he had a better SB. We talked about MUs and card choices and stuff. He had been playing the deck for a few months so it was nice to talk to someone knowledgeable about the deck.


So I would definitely play this deck again but with x2 strix and x4 ponder and x3 deathrite, also I would change the manabase to have no basics. The SB wants a 3rd plague really badly and the MD should have a 1-of Snuff Out probably. I would also play more removal in the side... Most likely Darkblast.

Also, If anyone has any advice or thoughts on my list beyond what I've mentioned, please share, because I plan to continue to play this deck for a bit.

Good luck to everyone playing BUG/Team America!!

Borealis
02-04-2013, 09:54 AM
The other day, my friends and I were testing BUG Variants against each, and one of us had a couple River Boas as Goyf proxies. In a nutshell, almost every time that deck landed a "River Boa" Goyf, the board state was such that it seemed like a legitimately better play would have actually been the Boa.

It's a limited testing example, but what are the thoughts on running 1-2 River Boas as a spicy Blue mirror breaker in the 75 somewhere? I'll be testing it this week.

Lejay
02-04-2013, 10:11 AM
MOCS are the hardest tournaments to play on MTGO. They are once a month on qualification and about two of them in a year are in legacy.
Team America was well positioned in the online environment.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/4965124

Thanks to Dan Signorini for his report and to people with relevant posts. Helped me prepare in 24 hours with a deck I never played.^^

Borealis
02-04-2013, 10:30 AM
Thanks to Dan Signorini for his report and to people with relevant posts. Helped me prepare in 24 hours with a deck I never played.^^

Where is this report you mention? Haven't seen it, but would love to read it.

Lejay
02-04-2013, 10:36 AM
Probably in the tournament Reports section.

SirTylerGalt
02-04-2013, 11:06 AM
Where is this report you mention? Haven't seen it, but would love to read it.

Here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25355-Top-8-at-GP-Denver-with-BUG-Delver

Will_L
02-04-2013, 10:49 PM
Accidental double post... May have been vBulletin or my computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts on playing x2 Strix MD in Team America? Would they simply be better off as x1 removal x1 flex spot?

Also, not sure if this report belongs here... I just now realized there is a dedicated tournament report thread. If mods/admins feel it should be moved then please do so!

apistat_commander
02-05-2013, 09:48 AM
Accidental double post... May have been vBulletin or my computer.

Does anyone have any thoughts on playing x2 Strix MD in Team America? Would they simply be better off as x1 removal x1 flex spot?

Also, not sure if this report belongs here... I just now realized there is a dedicated tournament report thread. If mods/admins feel it should be moved then please do so!

The deck is already choked with two drops (for a tempo deck) and Baleful Strix isn't really what you are trying to accomplish. Strix is a speed bump to delay the opponent in order to get your own more powerful cards down. TA is trying to capitalize on early disruption and get there with undercosted beaters. This is not the mid-range/value version of BUG. That deck is typically not playing Delver and is playing some combination of Planeswalkers, Confidants, and Shardless Agents instead. The deck simply doesn't need what Strix provides. Also, playing only 2 Deathrite Shaman is downright criminal. The card is really good and one of the main reasons to be playing the deck.

Will_L
02-05-2013, 12:29 PM
Yes, this is what I thought. As I played through the tournament I realized that there were situations where they were very useful, but they really do not fit the overall gameplan of the deck, plus they made flipping delvers harder then it already is with this deck. I was pretty much decided on cutting them entirely, but I''m glad to hear others think the same.

This is a pretty small question... But what do you guys think about Snuff Out vs. Dismember? Dismember allows us to kill Tombstalker... but we can't cast it if we are tapped out, which I often find myself being tapped out, what with all the sorcery speed 2cc cards in the deck.

Finally... I've seen people playing JtMS in their Team America sideboards? I know the difference between BUG Control, Shardless Visions and Team America... So I was surprised to see Jace in dedicated tempo deck... Can anyone shed some light onto why he is included in some SBs and what MUs he would come in against?

About the Deathrites: I agree! I am now playing the above list but with 0 basics manabase, 2 strixes and 3 DRS and 4 Ponder. Now that I've decided to cut the remaining two owls I can shoehorn in some removal.

Borealis
02-05-2013, 01:26 PM
Check back a couple pages for the Jace discussion, but the consensus is that he's not really ideal for our build. He'd mostly be for U/W and Midrange matches, but I personally think we're better off just playing Sinkhole against those guys.

Dismember is definitely better than Snuff Out. Sure, casting it for free sometimes is nice, but would you rather have to wait a turn to kill Stalker/Goyf, or just die to it outright? Also, the 4 life can be mitigated on Dismember if you're low, whereas Snuff Out is just a dead card when you're at 4 or less.

aznepyon7
02-05-2013, 03:36 PM
Dismember is definitely better than Snuff Out. Sure, casting it for free sometimes is nice, but would you rather have to wait a turn to kill Stalker/Goyf, or just die to it outright? Also, the 4 life can be mitigated on Dismember if you're low, whereas Snuff Out is just a dead card when you're at 4 or less.

I'm not sure what you are referring to regarding your second sentence. Snuff Out is free with a minor condition and thus still faster than Dismember.

The other problems you didn't mention that is fairly significant is that it does not deal with either Deathrite Shaman or Dark Confidant, two very significant threats that should be removed early.

Borealis
02-06-2013, 05:06 PM
I'm not sure what you are referring to regarding your second sentence. Snuff Out is free with a minor condition and thus still faster than Dismember.

The other problems you didn't mention that is fairly significant is that it does not deal with either Deathrite Shaman or Dark Confidant, two very significant threats that should be removed early.

My sentence was worded poorly. I was saying that yes, Snuff Out is usually free, whereas Dismember always costs at least 1. However, Snuff Out gets much trickier when you are low on life, and doesn't have the same flexibility as Dismember in that regard. I'd rather be able to pay 1-3 mana and 0-4 life, than be forced to hit a 4th land to cast a removal spell.

The nonblack clause is also a liability given the Jund and Mirror matches, I just though that would have been more obvious. We can play Submerge in the board if we really want access to "Free" removal. I'm currently trying to figure out how many I want to board.

wcm8
02-06-2013, 05:25 PM
This deck can still have some trouble against Green aggro dudes, so I think taking the RUG angle and playing 3-4 Submerge is a completely legit approach. However you still want to fit in some black removal to beat your non-green aggro opponents. If the mirror and RUG is common, Submerge is absolutely bonkers. It can also give you some easy wins against Elves and Maverick-y type decks. Free Time Walk is best Time Walk.

Goddik
02-06-2013, 05:53 PM
between wastelands and people just playing around it (swamp into deathrite), submerge is actually dead against bug and jund more often then you would think.

Cellar Door
02-07-2013, 10:33 AM
I have to agree. I played TA delver at the SCG open in Atlanta this past weekend to a 4-4 finish. I played against two Jund opponents and went 1-1 against them. The loss was purely my fault as I had to call a game loss on myself in a feature match with Tony Chu due to leaving a sideboard card in my deck between rounds (I left in Life from the Loam and left out Sylvan Library... Just completely overlooked it because they were both green and cost 1G).

The match I won vs Jund was largely because of Sinkhole. I boarded in 4 Sinkholes and 2 Diverts. The Diverts were actually just terrible all tournament long. I never got to cast it a single time because my opponents always had mana to pay for it when I had the opportunities to cast. I would much rather just have Disfigures in that spot. The Shinkholes, however, were just amazing. In game 2, the game ended with my opponent having zero lands in play and about 15 or so in his graveyard. I Wastelanded/Sinkholed him 6 times in that game. In the end, he had a hand full of bloodbraids and lilianas that he couldn't cast all game long.

Against opposing deathrite shaman decks, the combination of sinkhole + disfigure is really difficult for them to beat. Disfigure allows you to save your Abrupt Decays for Tarmogoyfs, Jittes, Lilianas and other threats that are otherwise difficult or impossible to deal with. You can use your Disfigures to kill DRS, Bob, Delver, BBE, SFM, etc etc.

The deck itself ran well and I think it's still one of the better decks in the format. My losses were to Tony Chu (Jund), Justin Geary (Esper), a mono red player and a merfolk player.

Our Mono Red mu is pretty awful. I squeaked a game 1 win off of him and then proceeded to die to burn in 2 and 3. I will probably be running 2 Blue Blasts from here on.

Against Merfolk, I just had poor draws both games. In game 1 I started with a 2 land hand, that immediately ate 2 wastelands, and then never drew another land. In game 2 I started strong, had the board under control with an active Jitte and then my opponent killed my only threat and I proceeded to draw lands for the next 7 turns while my opponent resolved a silvergill adpet and 2'd me the rest of the way.

Goddik
02-07-2013, 04:09 PM
Could you give us a view of your list, i am particularly interested in your sideboard and the reasoning behind it

Jessenator
02-07-2013, 05:24 PM
Sinkholes vs Jund.

I can see how depriving them of Mana / Grove is extremely important, but is it actually good on the draw? I feel getting a Deathrite on the board first is pretty important in this matchup. I can definitely see the Submerges / Disfigures coming in for this matchup. Submerge is absolutely bonkers against them I think. Haven't played a lot of this deck as of late.

How has Sinkholes been for you guys? What are the best match ups you would side it in?

Koby
02-07-2013, 05:30 PM
Why not run Deathmark against Jund? I understand it can't kill Dark Confidant, but being able to pick off a Turn 1 DRS or a Turn 2 Goyf for 1 mana seems highlly valuable, and a permanent answer where Submerge on BBE is not.

Borealis
02-07-2013, 11:30 PM
Why not run Deathmark against Jund? I understand it can't kill Dark Confidant, but being able to pick off a Turn 1 DRS or a Turn 2 Goyf for 1 mana seems highlly valuable, and a permanent answer where Submerge on BBE is not.

Deathmark is pretty narrow compared to the other options. The same could be said for Submerge too I suppose, but the difference is you can target anything once they play a Forest, and at instant speed. The Tempo play of having them redraw a Shaman or whatever is also very relevant sometimes. Deathmark is a fine card, but Disfigure does nearly the same thing in the Jund match, but also does work against Fish, Goblins, Burn, and a variety of other relevant creatures that may not be green or white. Even when Maverick was the Fair deck to beat, Deathmark would have been narrow.

If you must Submerge a BBE, just wait until they crack a fetch.

catmint
02-08-2013, 06:19 AM
I finally got some testing done with Sinkholes against midrange decks and I have to agree to what many people said it is very powerful against those midrange decks. Attacking their manabase Sinkhole & 1 Loam, also makes daze that much sweeter. Jace is still powerful vs. Stoneblade but if you sinkhole, waste them you can also win with regular business. Jace beeing pretty bad against jund makes me reject him for now.

Concerning the removal I always played 2 disfigures, 3 decay in the maindeck since I don't want to rely on 2cmc removal. I play additional 1 Decay, 1 Disfigure, 3 Submerge, 1 Mind Harness in the SB. Shaman has to die against jund if we want to get ahead in tempo and if they are out of lands in hand: submerge, sinkhole on shaman can be enough tempo advantage to seal the win.

sdematt
02-08-2013, 12:48 PM
I ran Deathmark back when MM Blade was a thing, and that card was great at doing what it does best. The card is damn good, but VERY narrow.

-Matt

wcm8
02-08-2013, 01:40 PM
Yep, sadly Deathmark doesn't kill Goblins, Merfolk, or various Black creatures. At some point, I'm sure Black will get an inverse StP printed (B, Instant, Exile target creature, lose life equal to it's toughness). Until then, our options are limited. Disfigure, sucky as it is, seems to be the best option in the current metagame since you really need to be able to reliably kill an early Deathrite Shaman.

Jessenator
02-08-2013, 02:20 PM
The thing with the Jund matchup (after playing 2 matches yesterday and barely squeezing out 1 of them, got 0-2ed), I realized that we cannot efficiently answer all their threats but they can usually use one card to answer ours. Submerge really does not do so much in the late game. After one for one-ing their threats here and there, I began to notice that their top decks are much more efficient than ours, especially with Punishing Fires recurring to win Goyf wars and pick off Delvers / Deathrite. Thinking about the match-up vs actually playing the matchup gave me a lot of insight on this matchup, and I have to say.. It was pretty awful.

How would you guys side for this matchup? I tried to side-in Sinkholes but did not see them at all in the 2 matches..

Cellar Door
02-08-2013, 03:27 PM
Could you give us a view of your list, i am particularly interested in your sideboard and the reasoning behind it

Here's the list I registered for SCG Atl

4 Delver
4 DRS
4 Goyf
2 TS

4 FoW
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sylvan Library

4 Wasteland
4 USea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Verdant
4 Misty
1 Delta

SB
4 Sinkhole
1 Jitte
2 Flusterstorm
2 Divert
1 Life from the Loam
2 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Engineered Plague

I ran the 1-of LotV just as a test. She was fine for the most part, but I think trading her out for a MB Disfigure would probably be fine, or even a Dismember (which is what that slot was originally anyway). I still go back and forth between Thoughtseize and Hymn. Other than that, the main was fine for me.

The sideboard is really where you have the most play with this deck. Flusterstorm was not impressive all day, neither was Divert. I would definitely keep the 4 Sinkholes + 1 LftL as they seem to be the best plan of attack against decks like Jund and Stoneblade. I could see dropping some number of EEs, possibly even removing them altogether, but they did help me lock up a game against Gobs and are also decent against decks like Belcher, Dredge, Storm, Elves etc etc.

As it stands, I think this is what I would do for now:

MD
-1 Liliana
+1 Disfigure or Dismember

SB
-2 Flusterstorm
-2 Divert
-1 Engineered Plague
+2 Blue Blast
+2 Disfigure
+1 Spell Pierce or ??? (possibly thoughtseize) really not sure about this slot.


Anyway, I'm totally open to suggestions and feedback. As I said previously, I think this deck is definitely still a contender, we just need to come up with an effective way to combat the Jund menace and still be strong enough against combo, as combo should start to see a resurgence in popularity in response to the increase in Jund.

aznepyon7
02-08-2013, 04:03 PM
How would you guys side for this matchup? I tried to side-in Sinkholes but did not see them at all in the 2 matches..

And unfortunately that is the key. You'll need the Sinkholes and LotL to balance things out.

Spike
02-09-2013, 03:07 PM
Got first today (45 players) with this list:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland

// Sideboard
2 Golgari Charm
2 Disfigure
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Thoughtseize
4 Sinkhole
1 Life from the Loam
2 Surgical Extraction

I went 5-0-id, this have been my matchups:

Jund: 2-0
BUG Midrange: 2-1
ANT: 2-0
UW-Miracle: 2-1
ANT: 2-1
ID against Maverick

I'm very happy with the list, especially the sideboard. Snapcaster has been awesome, he's good against all those grinding matchups like Jund, and also helps against Esper and UW-Miracle, flashing back Sinkhole all day long. He's good against sweepers where we dont want to throw all our creatures on the board at once and also multiplies Thoughtseizes/ Hymns against Combo and Extractions against Dredge/Reanimator.
The only thing I'm still a bit unsure about is the best combination of Decay, Dismember and Library, perhaps I'll play 3 Decay, 2 Dismember, 1 Library again next time.
Sinkholes worked pretty good against Jund, I think thats definitely the way to go in this matchup.

catmint
02-09-2013, 06:28 PM
Concerning the miracles matchup: SD.top looks very strong versus Hymn and Sinkhole and Wasteland/Loam is also much weaker due to their high basics count. How did that matchup work out for you guys?

StoneColdEffy
02-10-2013, 03:17 AM
List I'm planning to take with me to a Legacy event this weekend:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
1 Dismember

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Disfigure
3 Submerge
2 Spell Pierce
4 Sinkhole
1 Life from the Loam
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Darkblast

phazonmutant
02-11-2013, 02:22 PM
I'm very happy with the list, especially the sideboard. Snapcaster has been awesome, he's good against all those grinding matchups like Jund, and also helps against Esper and UW-Miracle, flashing back Sinkhole all day long. He's good against sweepers where we dont want to throw all our creatures on the board at once and also multiplies Thoughtseizes/ Hymns against Combo and Extractions against Dredge/Reanimator.
The only thing I'm still a bit unsure about is the best combination of Decay, Dismember and Library, perhaps I'll play 3 Decay, 2 Dismember, 1 Library again next time.
Sinkholes worked pretty good against Jund, I think thats definitely the way to go in this matchup.

What do you cut for the 4 Sinkholes, 1 LftL, 2 Snapcasters against UW and Jund? The only things that seem obvious are the Forces, but it seems suspect to lose such a tempo-positive spell.

How afraid is this deck of punishing fire? I know there's 4 answers in the maindeck, but is it worth bringing in Surgical Extractions?

Arsenal
02-11-2013, 02:48 PM
If I'm on the draw, I typically board out the Forces and Dazes, and maybe -1 Ponder and -1 Dismember. Disimember isn't where you want to be against Bolts and Hasters, and Force and Daze lose tons of value if you're on the draw and/or your opponent is also rocking Hymn.

kingsey
02-11-2013, 03:57 PM
I was surprised to see the lack of TA in scg edison this weeked.

Cellar Door
02-12-2013, 10:02 AM
What do you cut for the 4 Sinkholes, 1 LftL, 2 Snapcasters against UW and Jund? The only things that seem obvious are the Forces, but it seems suspect to lose such a tempo-positive spell.

How afraid is this deck of punishing fire? I know there's 4 answers in the maindeck, but is it worth bringing in Surgical Extractions?

I wasn't afraid of P.Fire at all. Normally, my Jund opponents would try to play non-basics against me anyway, which left my wastelands alone to target their Groves. Post-boarding you have 8 ways to disrupt the grove/fires combo, so it's really not that bad.

When I board against Jund I usually take out the FoW's and some number of Daze, depending on how many cards I'm boarding in. FoW is not very good against Jund. Daze can be okay, especially when you board in Sinkholes, but it's still only a marginally good card against them, mostly because of bbe and drs.

I do my best against Jund when I just try to play the control deck. Keep their lands under control with wasteland/sinkhole, use disfigure/dismember to kill DRS and Bob and try to save Abrupt Decays for goyfs, library, chains, and jittes.

catmint
02-13-2013, 09:46 AM
Is anyone else thinking about thoughtseize vs. hymn? It seems to be common understanding that hymn is the better choice.

My pros and cons:

Pros for Thoughtseize:
- Better versus combo & control making sure you get that peace that matters.
- You gain information about how to play best.
- Cheaper!! The early turns "doing many things at the same time" is where the deck wins most matches, so 1 mana makes a difference. Deahtrite into: Thoughtseize, Wasteland, Delver with Daze backup turn 2 feels better to me than Hymn, but saving waste or delver for the next turn.

Pros for Hymn:
- Think its better against those midrange decks because of their redundancy.
- Hitting lands (to support sinkhole plan) and/or "the last 2 cards" is often a more powerful effect.

Problems I have with hymn is that I cannot cast it on a regular basis. Tropical island is often necessary to make sure you are not cut off from blue (ponders/brainstorms) making BB a liabilty.

If people would share their thoughts and actual testing results that would be very helfpul. Stuff like "I play it because I netdeck and was always happy": keep it to yourself. :tongue:

useL
02-13-2013, 10:37 AM
Stuff like "I play it because I netdeck and was always happy": keep it to yourself. :tongue:

Hey! That turns off 90% of the comments on mtgsource, now who would you like to give you stats now? =)

TarmoX
02-13-2013, 12:35 PM
Hi all!!!
I'm having serious problem against ScapeWish list's, my list of TA is standard and mi sidebord is:
2 Disfigure
3 E. Plague
1 Null Rod
2 Extirpate
3 Duress
2 Spell Pierce
2 ........ (flex slot)
Any advice???? Thanks :smile:

phazonmutant
02-14-2013, 01:01 AM
Top 4 split a local tournament with a pretty stock list. I played only 3 Abrupt Decays so I could fit a Sylvan Library, a Disfigure, and a Dismember in the main. Went with the Sinkhole plan in the board. It played out very very well, the deck seems very powerful and a nice break from combo. Much easier to play :wink:
I was a big fan of the Darkblast in the board. I tried out the Snapcasters last night in some testing and it seemed too inbred, so I just played EPlague.

Maximus
02-14-2013, 01:02 AM
If people would share their thoughts and actual testing results that would be very helfpul. Stuff like "I play it because I netdeck and was always happy": keep it to yourself. :tongue:

To be honest, I would like to pursue the conceptual framework of tempo as it stands for this deck. Usually this deck must accept some balance between increasing its potency (Hymn to Tourach, Abrupt Decay) at the opportunity cost of its speed of operation and fluidity (Thoughtseize, Snuff Out). I don't think the utility or disutility of taking one preference over the other are well understood even though one choice is almost always going to be better than an alternative. Or if they are, that content is certainly not posted here where it probably should be. This idea is mentioned indirectly once in a while, but never seems to be explored further. I have some examples:

- Alix's reply to my post about Abrupt Decay from a few months ago touched on this in a micro level. Why is paying 2 mana and exposing a green source better than a cheaper alternative? These are very real costs that are associated with the card over its alternatives.

- Discussing the merits of building around Deathrite Shaman. For example, I find the Shaman version of the deck to be clunky whenever that card doesn't stick for whatever reason, but quite potent when it does. Why is this implicit variance objectively better than the alternative of not building around it?

- What is the ideal operating speed of the deck in a given metagame, and how is that determined? Clearly in a non-linear Brainstorm deck, one of the main benefits is the ability to interact heavily with your opponent, and choosing the optimal methods to do this are crucial to the deck. Why are the 4 Daze 0 Stifle decks good sometimes while 3 Daze 4 Stifle decks are better at other times?

I do not think that this deck is well investigated on a theoretical basis outside of an outdated view on tempo from 2010 or so. As much as Dan is a great guy/player and obviously understands this deck, I don't like the prospect of blindly copying his lists 4 times per year. It's great that some of the Curio Cavern guys understand what's going on, but that medium of communication is certainly not accessible for newer players like me that crave that same level of depth without 5+ years of experience. The testing is certainly part of it, but so are the more complicated play decisions, sideboarding, and other finesse parts of the game that get almost no attention.

mackaber
02-14-2013, 05:18 PM
Is anyone else thinking about thoughtseize vs. hymn? It seems to be common understanding that hymn is the better choice.

My pros and cons:

Pros for Thoughtseize:
- Better versus combo & control making sure you get that peace that matters.
- You gain information about how to play best.
- Cheaper!! The early turns "doing many things at the same time" is where the deck wins most matches, so 1 mana makes a difference. Deahtrite into: Thoughtseize, Wasteland, Delver with Daze backup turn 2 feels better to me than Hymn, but saving waste or delver for the next turn.

Pros for Hymn:
- Think its better against those midra nge decks because of their redundancy.
- Hitting lands (to support sinkhole plan) and/or "the last 2 cards" is often a more powerful effect.

Problems I have with hymn is that I cannot cast it on a regular basis. Tropical island is often necessary to make sure you are not cut off from blue (ponders/brainstorms) making BB a liabilty.

If people would share their thoughts and actual testing results that would be very helfpul. Stuff like "I play it because I netdeck and was always happy": keep it to yourself. :tongue:

While Hymn is the more powerful effect I feel that the mana curve of the deck is a bit overloaded at 2 mana. My initial sollution has been to begin to skim the 2 mana spells (Hymn, Decay) down to 3 each and include some cheaper spells (Thoughtseize, Dismember) able to fill the same role.

Also has anyone ever tried adding a few more cantrips(I was thinking going up to 10)? My feeling is that your best draws include 1-2 cantrips in the first 3 turns, whereas the worst draws tend to be those that lack any library manipulation. Drawing too many cantrips can be an issue in games where you are the beatdown but still seems better than not drawing any at all.

kingsey
02-14-2013, 05:36 PM
My meta is filled with sneak attack and affinity.

Is deed my only sb choice for affinity? How about sneak attack ?

Zand
02-14-2013, 07:26 PM
My meta is filled with sneak attack and affinity.

Is deed my only sb choice for affinity? How about sneak attack ?

Engineered Explosives is another option but if you really want to annihilate affinity just play Null Rod. A pair of those in the sideboard would dramatically improve the match-up IMO.

I like a single Venser, Shaper Savant in the sideboard when Sneak and Tell is popular. You can Show and Tell it in, bounce Sneak attacks, Emrakul etc as well as a mix of Thoughtseize/Spell Pierce in the board.

xfxf
02-15-2013, 05:26 AM
Would you consider Energy Flux a valid SB alternative against affinity considering even their lands are artifacts?

Mark Sun
02-15-2013, 05:32 AM
Would you consider Energy Flux a valid SB alternative against affinity considering even their lands are artifacts?

I've never seen an Affinity deck beat a resolved Energy Flux but the card is fairly narrow. I think Deed would be more versatile as you can bring it in for a variety of matchups.

lordofthepit
02-15-2013, 05:36 AM
How do you guys board against RUG Delver? It seems like it's a slightly favorable matchup, but I want to make sure I'm "doing it right".

I take out my Force of Wills. I add in Disfigure (since they're the beatdown in this matchup and it answers Delver and is a trump in Tarmogoyf standoffs) and Life from the Loam (obvious reasons). If they have Life from the Loam too, I'm tempted to bring in Tormod's Crypt, although this may be a bit loose.

Running Sinkhole seems tempting, but it's the worst card in the world against Daze. Spell Pierce seems okay, although not amazing here.

I'm a bit unsure on what to do with Hymn. On one hand, it's a great card and clears their hand of removal spells (Bolt, Submerge, etc.) and Stifles so you can safely land your threats. On the other hand, they're often in topdeck mode by the time you feel safe enough to play Hymn through Daze and Pierce (perhaps only to run into a Snare), which is a real bitch when you're trying to hit BB against a deck with Stifle and Wasteland as well as seemingly infinite ways to prevent Deathrite Shaman from untapping.

Given my sideboard, it's often a choice between shaving some Hymns or a few Delvers. Cutting the threats seems terrible in this deck, but on the other hand, it's the most fragile creature we have (gets hit by Lightning Bolt, Forked Bolt, Submerge, Dismember, and Pyroblast/REB) with the least impact on board state.

Last time I went with +2 Disfigure, +1 Life from the Loam, +1 Creeping Tar Pit (strictly as an extra mana source), +2 Spell Pierce (which I'm rethinking), -2 Force, -4 Hymn. After getting Loam-locked in Game 2, I dropped 2 more Forces for 2 Tormod's Crypt.

bondafong
02-15-2013, 07:24 AM
How do you guys board against RUG Delver? It seems like it's a slightly favorable matchup, but I want to make sure I'm "doing it right".

I take out my Force of Wills. I add in Disfigure (since they're the beatdown in this matchup and it answers Delver and is a trump in Tarmogoyf standoffs) and Life from the Loam (obvious reasons). If they have Life from the Loam too, I'm tempted to bring in Tormod's Crypt, although this may be a bit loose.

Running Sinkhole seems tempting, but it's the worst card in the world against Daze. Spell Pierce seems okay, although not amazing here.

I'm a bit unsure on what to do with Hymn. On one hand, it's a great card and clears their hand of removal spells (Bolt, Submerge, etc.) and Stifles so you can safely land your threats. On the other hand, they're often in topdeck mode by the time you feel safe enough to play Hymn through Daze and Pierce (perhaps only to run into a Snare), which is a real bitch when you're trying to hit BB against a deck with Stifle and Wasteland as well as seemingly infinite ways to prevent Deathrite Shaman from untapping.

Given my sideboard, it's often a choice between shaving some Hymns or a few Delvers. Cutting the threats seems terrible in this deck, but on the other hand, it's the most fragile creature we have (gets hit by Lightning Bolt, Forked Bolt, Submerge, Dismember, and Pyroblast/REB) with the least impact on board state.

Last time I went with +2 Disfigure, +1 Life from the Loam, +1 Creeping Tar Pit (strictly as an extra mana source), +2 Spell Pierce (which I'm rethinking), -2 Force, -4 Hymn. After getting Loam-locked in Game 2, I dropped 2 more Forces for 2 Tormod's Crypt.

Depending on your list:
- 4 FoW, - X Daze
+ All SB removal & Submerge
+ 1 Life from the Loam

wcm8
02-15-2013, 10:22 AM
Depending on your list:
- 4 FoW, - X Daze
+ All SB removal & Submerge
+ 1 Life from the Loam

I actually disagree with cutting Daze, especially if you're on the play. They get choked on mana frequently, so Daze is very often going to be a hard counter. It's also nice when you can cast Goyf, Daze back your Tropical and be immune to Submerge, or save a land from being a Wasteland casualty. I think Hymn is going to be one of the first cards to consider cutting after FoW. Yeah, it's brutal if you can resolve it early on, but that's often difficult and later you're both likely to be getting into topdeck mode.

learntolove6
02-15-2013, 10:48 AM
i'm going to try to play this deck and this is the sideboard im going to try:
2 golgari charm
2 jace, the mind sculptor
3 tormod's crypt
2 blue blast
1 dark blast
2 disfigure
2 krosan grip
1 life from the loam

what do you guys think?

lordofthepit
02-15-2013, 12:50 PM
I actually disagree with cutting Daze, especially if you're on the play. They get choked on mana frequently, so Daze is very often going to be a hard counter. It's also nice when you can cast Goyf, Daze back your Tropical and be immune to Submerge, or save a land from being a Wasteland casualty. I think Hymn is going to be one of the first cards to consider cutting after FoW. Yeah, it's brutal if you can resolve it early on, but that's often difficult and later you're both likely to be getting into topdeck mode.

You've outlined all of my reasons for keeping Daze in on both the play and draw.

There were a lot of decks I used to play where I'd cut Daze in sideboarded games on the draw. I almost never cut it when I'm play with RUG Delver or Team America though.

Goddik
02-18-2013, 07:16 AM
I would strongly consider cutting hymn before force against canadian, depending on blue count and sideboard strategy.

Barbed Blightning
02-20-2013, 01:44 AM
any thoughts on stifle in this deck?

Spike
02-20-2013, 05:00 AM
Stifle and Sinkhole end up being opposing philosophies in Tempo decks. RUG, which runs Bolt, Stifle, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Thought Scour, REB, etc. has no problem keeping mana open to use Stifle. BUG, which runs Hymn, Thoughtseize, Shaman, Sinkhole, Tombstalker, Tarpit, etc. in addition to the Ponder/Goyf/Delver that both run, ends up tapping out most of the time when the deck is working properly. Especially in the early turns, where Stifle is at it's most broadly useful. RUG can't run Sinkhole, so that's a non-issue. And the reasons for running BUG over RUG, while they might include Sinkhole, have nothing to do with Stifle's inclusion or exclusion. You can't really run the TA version as it's currently built, and have the needed open mana to access Stifle. And cutting something to add Stifle would change this iteration enough to be a different deck in how it sequences it's first three turns.

I think Parcher sums it up pretty nicely.

Barbed Blightning
02-20-2013, 05:47 PM
Seems fair enough, I'm new to Team America and blue in general so I figured I'd ask.

What are some problem matchups for this deck?

catmint
02-21-2013, 06:11 PM
There are no real super-horrible matchup since TA's early game is so strong that it can keep up with almost everything but currently I worry about the following:

Burn: classic bad matchup for BUG due to price of progress, thoughtseize, dismember,...

Miracles: current strategy is to attack manabases of midrange/control decks and the hand with discard which is very strong versus stoneblade, but SD.top's miracles is good against both and they play soo many basics making this plan not supported by wasteland and ineffective.

Jund: This matchup feels to me like I can be behind so far after 2 turns that I feel not to have any chance: Sometimes though you gain a lot of tempo advantage which feels like you can just get there before they stabalize (does not look too good to me). Also 23-24 lands + 4 deathrite and packing loam as well these days making sinkhole plan look pretty bad.

Canadian: another a bit swingy matchup: you can win big if you have mana, but an early combination of: stifle, wasteland, bolt (shaman), daze can win them the game also easily.

______
What I've been thinking about:
In deathrite matchups:Tempo is king and it often feels who sticks an early deathrite wins. Decay is an expensive answer making people play disfigure/dismber maindeck as well with additionally 4 Submerge in the sideboard. Did anyone consider 2 additional contagion in the sideboard to support the tempo plan? Also not horrible against Goyfs, Stalkers, Lingering Souls or any random tribals & weenies.

Spike
02-22-2013, 07:33 AM
Burn: classic bad matchup for BUG due to price of progress, thoughtseize, dismember,...

I know BUG decks are said to have a bad burn matchup, but from my experience this is not the case for Bug-Tempo. We´re fast, and Deathrite Shaman improved the matchup a lot. Hymn is also very strong and Price of Progress is easy to play around with Wasteland/Shaman and Daze. Besides that, we have a lot of good sideboard cards we can bring in like Jitte and you can even plan something like Chill if you´re expecting a lot of Burn, which is also good against Goblins, and could be nice against Jund (Bloodbraid Elf, Lightning Bolt, Punishing Fire, ...) and some combo decks. Or Kitchen Finks, Divert, Misdirection, Obstinate Baloth, ... the list is long.


Miracles: current strategy is to attack manabases of midrange/control decks and the hand with discard which is very strong versus stoneblade, but SD.top's miracles is good against both and they play soo many basics making this plan not supported by wasteland and ineffective.


I´ll quote nitewolf here:


If you keep a top player digging for lands with their top activations, you're in a good spot.

This is really true, I had to play against Miracles in a tournament and he wasn´t able to reach four mana postboard, although he had an active top. I admit it´s one of the harder matchups, but Hymn+Sinkhole really do a pretty decent job here. Besides that you can still play 2 Grip, or Needles for the Top.


On their own they aren't quite as effective, but together the sum is greater than the parts.

Next one:


Jund: This matchup feels to me like I can be behind so far after 2 turns that I feel not to have any chance: Sometimes though you gain a lot of tempo advantage which feels like you can just get there before they stabalize (does not look too good to me). Also 23-24 lands + 4 deathrite and packing loam as well these days making sinkhole plan look pretty bad.


Same is true here: It looks bad on paper, 23 lands, 4 Shaman, loam ... Sinkhole will do nothing ... wrong :) Its acutally pretty good against them. Their manabase is really awkward, and when I had to play against Jund during a tournament the game ended like this: His board: 2 lands, 2-3 cards in hand; My board: Tombstalker, Deathrite Shaman, 3 Lands and 1 card in hand. Although this could be on the extrem side of the spectrum, it shows how efficient Sinkholes are. Its not so much to completely screw them, but to prevent them from casting their important spells while beating them with your creatures. If the game goes a little bit longer, things will look bad for you, but at that point, they should aready face lethal on the board.


Canadian: another a bit swingy matchup: you can win big if you have mana, but an early combination of: stifle, wasteland, bolt (shaman), daze can win them the game also easily.

Yea, thats a hand many magic players fear, but the matchup is really exciting. It´s pretty balanced, but in my opinion at least 20 percent is decided by the die roll. Thanks to Deathrite Shaman its a bit easier to play around Submerge now, if he survives, but here really every move could be crucial. One of my favourit matchups to play :)

Valarne
02-23-2013, 04:27 PM
Don't rule Stifle out too fast. On paper, there is obvious potential problems with the tap-out of Hymn (I don't run Sinkholes), but in play this is a minor problem. I have been running a list, for 12 tournament matches (10-1-1) plus random casual/test games, that runs Stifles instead of Delver (with 3 Tombstalker). The simple reasoning being, that this type of deck doesn't want to run too many creatures, and that Tombstalkers, Goyfs and Shamans are more important than Delver. Stifle does a lot of heavy lifting - so my 2 cents: try it out before you rule it out ;)

That aside: How has SB Jaces and/or Sylvan Librarys been for you in mirrors or other matchups where Force of Will is boarded out (if you indeed think that is right?)? Is it too heavy or what?

Thx

KobeBryan
02-23-2013, 09:26 PM
Don't rule Stifle out too fast. On paper, there is obvious potential problems with the tap-out of Hymn (I don't run Sinkholes), but in play this is a minor problem. I have been running a list, for 12 tournament matches (10-1-1) plus random casual/test games, that runs Stifles instead of Delver (with 3 Tombstalker). The simple reasoning being, that this type of deck doesn't want to run too many creatures, and that Tombstalkers, Goyfs and Shamans are more important than Delver. Stifle does a lot of heavy lifting - so my 2 cents: try it out before you rule it out ;)

That aside: How has SB Jaces and/or Sylvan Librarys been for you in mirrors or other matchups where Force of Will is boarded out (if you indeed think that is right?)? Is it too heavy or what?

Thx

so you are saying we should drop delver?

catmint
02-24-2013, 02:55 AM
On Sinkhole vs. Miracles & Jund
The scenarios you desribed are how we want it to play out aka best case. Simplyfied you can say there are also "mediocre" and a "worst case" scenarios and those have to be considered when evaluating the MU% and the SB cards. Remembering one game where it worked out is not very effective. If you do serious testing with sinkholes against those both matchups and tell me "I owned them" I want to see your secrets.

Fact is that if jund curves out pretty well and if it is on the play starting with deathrite you are always behind and playing sinkhole after they made their T2/T3 play is a lot less effective. Good jund players will also have a loam in their 75 and board out/reduce their elfs since they don't need them to win and they know having cards in hand without enough lands is one way to loose. As I said soemtimes (especially on the play) you can also get very much ahead if you have the deathrite/removal/daze/Sinkhole/Wasteland hand. Overall a very swingy matchups where T1 to T3 are pretty much deciding but I think they have more ability to get back from behind than we do.

On miracles: Wasteland is usually justa a colorless land and if you don't have multiple sinkholes in the early turns & they keep struggling to find them in the top3 you are happy. Much more common is that they make their basic drops and you play one sinkhole which they giggle about. :smile:. Also to stop us from winning they just haev to pay W (swords & Terminus).

Valarne
02-24-2013, 03:56 AM
so you are saying we should drop delver?

Well, it's not an order ;) But I have played without, because it is unnecessary and in tough matchups like Jund, it is a liability by being an almost dead draw. If I am playing Team America, then I don't want to flood the table with threats. I much prefer to have a plethora of spells avilable, and try to clear stuff like Swords away with Hymn, before deploying Tombstalker. DRS will get killed often, but his upside when untapping is much greater than Delver.

That aside, Miracles should be better if we are playing Stifle.

Goddik
02-24-2013, 05:05 AM
Miracles with stifle in the main and Jace in the board is a completely different matchup. So if that is what worries you guys then stifle is the answer.

aznepyon7
02-25-2013, 04:36 PM
....Fact is that if jund curves out pretty well and if it is on the play starting with deathrite you are always behind and playing sinkhole after they made their T2/T3 play is a lot less effective. Good jund players will also have a loam in their 75 and board out/reduce their elfs since they don't need them to win and they know having cards in hand without enough lands is one way to loose. As I said soemtimes (especially on the play) you can also get very much ahead if you have the deathrite/removal/daze/Sinkhole/Wasteland hand. Overall a very swingy matchups where T1 to T3 are pretty much deciding but I think they have more ability to get back from behind than we do.

Have you considered having Snapcaster Mage on sideboard and siding them in Games 2 and 3? It may not be BBE but it's pretty darn good from the few times I've tried it.

Barbed Blightning
02-25-2013, 04:47 PM
Have you considered having Snapcaster Mage on sideboard and siding them in Games 2 and 3? It may not be BBE but it's pretty darn good from the few times I've tried it.

My issue would be that he's only able to grab brainstorm most of the time (still good, but not StP or lightning bolt), since abrupt decay and sinkhole are so much more mana intensive

aznepyon7
02-25-2013, 04:58 PM
My issue would be that he's only able to grab brainstorm most of the time (still good, but not StP or lightning bolt), since abrupt decay and sinkhole are so much more mana intensive

In G2 and G3 he can also grab Disfigure and Surgical Extraction and that's pretty important. PF Jund is everywhere so removing a PF is big as well as disfiguring a Confidant/BBE/Lavamancer/DRS. Not to mention he can also chump-block or kill a Liliana (possibly) if the opponent is careless.

EDIT: Grammar

Barbed Blightning
02-25-2013, 08:42 PM
In G2 and G3 he can also grab Disfigure and Surgical Extraction and that's pretty important. PF Jund is everywhere so removing a PF is big as well as disfiguring a Confidant/BBE/Lavamancer/DRS. Not to mention he can also chump-block or kill a Liliana (possibly) if the opponent is careless.

EDIT: Grammar

Fair enough, but he'd either compete with tombstalker in the main or crowd the sideboard. Also not too crazy about putting him in the side. He's a main deck inclusion or not at all. Also, his home for BUG is over in the midrange/control forum.

aznepyon7
02-25-2013, 10:10 PM
Fair enough, but he'd either compete with tombstalker in the main or crowd the sideboard. Also not too crazy about putting him in the side. He's a main deck inclusion or not at all. Also, his home for BUG is over in the midrange/control forum.

You only need 2 spots for him. With the way Jund decks are made these days, the land disruption package doesn't seem sufficient. I realize that it conflicts but you should try it unless you have a better idea. It seems to work for me.

catmint
02-26-2013, 08:02 AM
Snapcaster sounds like a reasonable idea to support the jund matchup, but there are certain issues:
1) Dismember is next to disfigure the 2nd best removal option - ouch
2) There will be the situations where an opposing deathrite stops snapcaster or we are 1 gy-card short of casting stalker
3) It’s offensive qualities are almost not existing and it is yet another punishing fire target.

Still - surely worth testing since if you run thoughtseize, snapcaster is worth gold in combo matchups and is of course also superstrong against UW.

Some other collective thoughts on Jund:

I don’t think surgical extraction is a good idea because it is a pretty bad card if not used for Punishing and slots are tight – not sure though. You also cannot rely on Wasteland to deal with Grove, so I think you have to accept that the punishing fire will be there and play a different game.

In general I feel delver is such a weak, almost not relevant card that I already considered siding it out.

Besides finding an alternative plan for land destruction (as I already discussed in earlier posts), I also have the problem that Submerge is too often not castable due to them playing around it with Grove and deathrite.

So what I would like to test next is

1. Attacking their hand more and not worrying about the lands playing with 0 countermagic postboard
I’ve been talking about version with 4 thoughtseize maindeck which could be joined by 3-4 Hymn to tourach from the sideboard
In this way you also don’t have to panic about killing every deathrite on sight, but rather focus on killing library, goyf, confidant and making sure that liliana & bloodbraid don’t hit the board with discard.

2. Siding out delver finding alternative slower wincons which they have a tougher time dealing with: Something like Thrun or Phyrexian Obliterator along the 2-3 Tombstalker.

3. Playing a lot of black cards which are dead at some point I want to try if 2 contagion are playable as a replacement of submerge.

wcm8
02-26-2013, 11:23 AM
If you really want to beat Jund, there are two cards I'd look at to supplement the rest of the SB:

Misdirection
-slings back discard and removal.
-can't be paid for unlike Divert
-still useful against other matchups

Obstinate Baloth
-'answer' to discard and Liliana (without this, Thrun is the better option hands down)
-outsizes most creatures on their side, and ignores graveyard hate
-immune to most of their removal (survives bolts, fires, and can't be decay'd)
-life gain is very relevant
-still able to be hardcast in the mid-game
-more narrow, but still can be brought in against some other matchups

However, I look at Jund similarly to how I look at Dredge. You can take measures to beat them, but they are just one deck in the huge pool of variety that is Legacy. Neither is dominant or prevalent enough that I would feel the need to warp a tempo deck to account for it, at least right now. Remember, Jund's 75 is designed to beat our 60. You're fighting a bit of an uphill battle here. If Jund is the clear and obvious DTB in your metagame, I'm not sure Team America is the deck to be playing. Fast combo and midrange control is going to have an easier time dealing with Jund.

aznepyon7
02-26-2013, 03:32 PM
If you really want to beat Jund, there are two cards I'd look at to supplement the rest of the SB:

Misdirection
-slings back discard and removal.
-can't be paid for unlike Divert
-still useful against other matchups

Obstinate Baloth
-'answer' to discard and Liliana (without this, Thrun is the better option hands down)
-outsizes most creatures on their side, and ignores graveyard hate
-immune to most of their removal (survives bolts, fires, and can't be decay'd)
-life gain is very relevant
-still able to be hardcast in the mid-game
-more narrow, but still can be brought in against some other matchups

However, I look at Jund similarly to how I look at Dredge. You can take measures to beat them, but they are just one deck in the huge pool of variety that is Legacy. Neither is dominant or prevalent enough that I would feel the need to warp a tempo deck to account for it, at least right now. Remember, Jund's 75 is designed to beat our 60. You're fighting a bit of an uphill battle here. If Jund is the clear and obvious DTB in your metagame, I'm not sure Team America is the deck to be playing. Fast combo and midrange control is going to have an easier time dealing with Jund.

When you side-out all those FoW and probably Dazes, your blue count is going straight to hell. I'm not sure if Misdirection is going to be the best option here. I will say that it's better than Divert; I was not happy when I was running that card.

I've never tried Baloth but it seems like it can be really good. Removing it is pretty difficult for Jund. Maybe I'll try that.

catmint
02-27-2013, 05:38 AM
Baloth sounds like a lot of fun against Jund :laugh:. They still can kill it with double punishing in the long game, but the discard is a funny feature.

Still, Baloth is embarrassing in UW matchups whereas Thrun is really good, so if I really want to consider playing a 4 mana creature in legacy I would go for Thrun.

Cellar Door
02-27-2013, 11:11 AM
Sinkhole is still the plan for me vs Miracles and Jund players.

At the GP, I was crushing miracles players in win-a-box events using Sinkholes.

Miracle players are trying to amass 6+ lands on their side of the board. I had multiple games where sinkhole allowed me to keep them below 4, making my dazes more potent and able to stave off Jace. I basically forced my opponent to use his tops, brainstorms, ponders, and jace activations to try and find more lands, and was even able to completely lock them off of U or W.

As for Jund, yes, they do run LftL, but you also run DRS. I've had quite a few games where I was able to keep my opponents at 2 of fewer lands, using my own DRS to eat their lands as I destroyed them, making loam a non-issue.

Sometimes, Jund is just going to curve out and have all the answers, that's just the nature of the deck. There's very little that you can do to stop them if they have the nuts. That said, they are very mana hungry and run a very greedy mana base. As a past Jund player myself, having your mana base aggressively attacked is one of the easiest ways to get locked out of a game.

aznepyon7
02-27-2013, 04:45 PM
Snapcaster sounds like a reasonable idea to support the jund matchup, but there are certain issues:
1) Dismember is next to disfigure the 2nd best removal option - ouch
2) There will be the situations where an opposing deathrite stops snapcaster or we are 1 gy-card short of casting stalker
3) It’s offensive qualities are almost not existing and it is yet another punishing fire target.

Still - surely worth testing since if you run thoughtseize, snapcaster is worth gold in combo matchups and is of course also superstrong against UW.

Some other collective thoughts on Jund:

I don’t think surgical extraction is a good idea because it is a pretty bad card if not used for Punishing and slots are tight – not sure though. You also cannot rely on Wasteland to deal with Grove, so I think you have to accept that the punishing fire will be there and play a different game.

In general I feel delver is such a weak, almost not relevant card that I already considered siding it out.

Besides finding an alternative plan for land destruction (as I already discussed in earlier posts), I also have the problem that Submerge is too often not castable due to them playing around it with Grove and deathrite.

So what I would like to test next is

1. Attacking their hand more and not worrying about the lands playing with 0 countermagic postboard
I’ve been talking about version with 4 thoughtseize maindeck which could be joined by 3-4 Hymn to tourach from the sideboard
In this way you also don’t have to panic about killing every deathrite on sight, but rather focus on killing library, goyf, confidant and making sure that liliana & bloodbraid don’t hit the board with discard.

2. Siding out delver finding alternative slower wincons which they have a tougher time dealing with: Something like Thrun or Phyrexian Obliterator along the 2-3 Tombstalker.

3. Playing a lot of black cards which are dead at some point I want to try if 2 contagion are playable as a replacement of submerge.

As a response as I forgot to respond earlier:

1. Well I'm hoping you'll be running at least 2-3 copies of disfigure so it won't be much of an issue. Besides I'm sure every once in a while an Abrupt Decay will come in handy?

2. If you're short for TS then there's not much you can do unfortunately. You can't have all the answers because the matchup isn't going to be a great one against Jund. That being said, it's only two and hopefully you won't be that unlucky. Also for DRS, it can easily work the other way if you do it in response to them.

3. Snapcaster can still kill a BBE or smack Liliana. We don't run cliques so we have to do something against Lilly or we're screwed.


As for Surgical Extraction. It's become much nice because the better Jund variant is the PF version which I suspect is more heavily played. With the Snapcaster, you can cast it a second time anyway, furthering its use.

As for submerge: I understand that scenario completely but you should be cutting the mana base off (Grove is usually the 1st target anyway) somewhat by now so they have to rely on DRS which you have the 2-3 Disfigures for. I think the problem with Submerge also stems from the fact that it can't be used in a long term game scenario as the card can then be recasted. However at that point, Jund is going to win.

I haven't tried Obliterator. Sounds like fun. Thrun seems a little too slow for me.

codegoblin
02-27-2013, 05:10 PM
Sinkhole is still the plan for me vs Miracles and Jund players.

At the GP, I was crushing miracles players in win-a-box events using Sinkholes.

Miracle players are trying to amass 6+ lands on their side of the board. I had multiple games where sinkhole allowed me to keep them below 4, making my dazes more potent and able to stave off Jace. I basically forced my opponent to use his tops, brainstorms, ponders, and jace activations to try and find more lands, and was even able to completely lock them off of U or W.

As for Jund, yes, they do run LftL, but you also run DRS. I've had quite a few games where I was able to keep my opponents at 2 of fewer lands, using my own DRS to eat their lands as I destroyed them, making loam a non-issue.

Sometimes, Jund is just going to curve out and have all the answers, that's just the nature of the deck. There's very little that you can do to stop them if they have the nuts. That said, they are very mana hungry and run a very greedy mana base. As a past Jund player myself, having your mana base aggressively attacked is one of the easiest ways to get locked out of a game.

I have been doing *very* well playing a modified version of your GP list (sb mainly ... I like chill more than BEB honestly, and I put a spell pierce in the sb as well cause there's a crazy amount of combo in socal) at legacy events since you placed with it and I agree in the case of UW, where I've found that if I board in denial/grips/sinks, slow tempo (control their control ... snipe their business with counters), and make sure I hold reserve creatures in my hand to avoid getting totally blown out by terminus, the matchup actually looks pretty good. Jund is much more of a problem IMHO. Slowing down is totally wrong, and I just can't go fast enough. While I think land denial is the best suggestion I've heard so far, I'm also looking for something even more competitive. A single bob stuck for 1-2 turns can really make a hand with sinkhole and hymn look like crap. A stuck Phyrexian Obliterator however, ahhh that would own them if it were realistic ...

aznepyon7
02-27-2013, 05:25 PM
I have been doing *very* well playing a modified version of your GP list (sb mainly ... I like chill more than BEB honestly, and I put a spell pierce in the sb as well cause there's a crazy amount of combo in socal) at legacy events since you placed with it and I agree in the case of UW, where I've found that if I board in denial/grips/sinks, slow tempo (control their control ... snipe their business with counters), and make sure I hold reserve creatures in my hand to avoid getting totally blown out by terminus, the matchup actually looks pretty good. Jund is much more of a problem IMHO. Slowing down is totally wrong, and I just can't go fast enough. While I think land denial is the best suggestion I've heard so far, I'm also looking for something even more competitive. A single bob stuck for 1-2 turns can really make a hand with sinkhole and hymn look like crap. A stuck Phyrexian Obliterator however, ahhh that would own them if it were realistic ...

I'm not sure if Obliterator is totally unreasonable. I'm starting to think it's becoming more reasonable than protecting a Delver that kicks the bucket to every removal spell they run which is like 9-11. Besides it's immune to Abrupt and I don't see Bolts or PF going to want to hit it often.

It's not that much slower than TS, especially with GY removal.

nitewolf9
02-27-2013, 05:37 PM
If you're going to run something as ridiculously narrow as Obliterator, which I don't even feel would be any good considering it gets hit by liliana and costs 4B against a deck with 4 wastelands, why not just run bitterblossoms and bolster the control matchups in the process. Bitterblossom shuts down their best threat against you (liliana) and is just more resilient overall to discard as it comes down early.

Bitterblossom would compete with Sinkhole though, and I don't think it's nearly as good against control decks. It's fine there, but Sinkhole is much more of a dagger for esperblade.

Has anyone actually taken the time to test the Jund matchup? I haven't really had a chance to but it doesn't really seem as bad as people think. I have a feeling alot of this is theory combined with fear of the latest thing. That deck doesn't run Brainstorm and Ponder, which are going to win you more games than you think. If they get even a little bit flooded they can't cash anything back in, and they have much less ability to dig for lands. Which means they have to run more. Which means they will get flooded more. Which means when they get mana screwed, they REALLY get mana screwed because they run a bunch of 3 and 4 drops, because "hey, why not, we run 24+ lands".

The only cards I want to cut are Force of Wills, which get replaced by 4 removal spells in my board, and possibly Hymn if I go the LD route of Sinkhole + LftL. In which case you kind of have to cut a Daze I think. Not sure where else you want to change post board.

sdematt
02-27-2013, 06:22 PM
If you're going to run something as ridiculously narrow as Obliterator, which I don't even feel would be any good considering it gets hit by liliana and costs 4B against a deck with 4 wastelands, why not just run bitterblossoms and bolster the control matchups in the process. Bitterblossom shuts down their best threat against you (liliana) and is just more resilient overall to discard as it comes down early.

Bitterblossom would compete with Sinkhole though, and I don't think it's nearly as good against control decks. It's fine there, but Sinkhole is much more of a dagger for esperblade.

Has anyone actually taken the time to test the Jund matchup? I haven't really had a chance to but it doesn't really seem as bad as people think. I have a feeling alot of this is theory combined with fear of the latest thing. That deck doesn't run Brainstorm and Ponder, which are going to win you more games than you think. If they get even a little bit flooded they can't cash anything back in, and they have much less ability to dig for lands. Which means they have to run more. Which means they will get flooded more. Which means when they get mana screwed, they REALLY get mana screwed because they run a bunch of 3 and 4 drops, because "hey, why not, we run 24+ lands".

The only cards I want to cut are Force of Wills, which get replaced by 4 removal spells in my board, and possibly Hymn if I go the LD route of Sinkhole + LftL. In which case you kind of have to cut a Daze I think. Not sure where else you want to change post board.

I've tested the Jund matchup using Chills as my hate card (2-3 Chill in the board, also there for the 2-3 Burn players in my meta) and it's been stellar when it stays. They don't always have Abrupt Decay, and paying 3 for Bolt, 4 for PF, and 6 for BBE is not where they want to be. It at least buys you a bit of time.

-Matt

Adryan
02-27-2013, 06:29 PM
If you're going to run something as ridiculously narrow as Obliterator, which I don't even feel would be any good considering it gets hit by liliana and costs 4B against a deck with 4 wastelands, why not just run bitterblossoms and bolster the control matchups in the process. Bitterblossom shuts down their best threat against you (liliana) and is just more resilient overall to discard as it comes down early.

Bitterblossom would compete with Sinkhole though, and I don't think it's nearly as good against control decks. It's fine there, but Sinkhole is much more of a dagger for esperblade.

Has anyone actually taken the time to test the Jund matchup? I haven't really had a chance to but it doesn't really seem as bad as people think. I have a feeling alot of this is theory combined with fear of the latest thing. That deck doesn't run Brainstorm and Ponder, which are going to win you more games than you think. If they get even a little bit flooded they can't cash anything back in, and they have much less ability to dig for lands. Which means they have to run more. Which means they will get flooded more. Which means when they get mana screwed, they REALLY get mana screwed because they run a bunch of 3 and 4 drops, because "hey, why not, we run 24+ lands".

The only cards I want to cut are Force of Wills, which get replaced by 4 removal spells in my board, and possibly Hymn if I go the LD route of Sinkhole + LftL. In which case you kind of have to cut a Daze I think. Not sure where else you want to change post board.

I have tested it a lot with BUG Midrange and BUG Control (MTGO &Cockatrice& Real life) . I would say that Punishing Fire Jund is easier for Team America than normal Jund because the manabase is the worst manabase in Legacy (except 4 color). On paper Punishing Fire looks quite good against us, but i don't think that with 4 Wasteland and 4 Sinkhole, Punishing Fire will ever be more than a bad shock. I would also like to test 2-3 stifle with 4 Sinkhole and Life from the loam because it hurts their major weakness even more and you can stifle Liliana. Force of Will is really horrible against Jund, trading 2 for 1 is the beginning of the end. Therefore Force of Will --> Sideboard

As you said Bitterblossom is not good in Team America, we don't have any planeswalker worth protecting. In BUG control it is quite decent against other Control decks. By the way are you going to GP Strassbourg?


I've tested the Jund matchup using Chills as my hate card (2-3 Chill in the board, also there for the 2-3 Burn players in my meta) and it's been stellar when it stays. They don't always have Abrupt Decay, and paying 3 for Bolt, 4 for PF, and 6 for BBE is not where they want to be. It at least buys you a bit of time.

-Matt What else is in your Sideboard? Do you play 4 Sinkholes? In theory Chill doesn`t look good because they only need Abrupt Decay for Tarmogoyf in this matchup and I'd rather play Submerge. But it's worth testing.



I still don't know what to play at GP Strassbourg. Team America, Shardless Agent BUG or BUG Midrange with many Control Elements or Hard Control.

codegoblin
02-27-2013, 07:03 PM
If you're going to run something as ridiculously narrow as Obliterator, which I don't even feel would be any good considering it gets hit by liliana and costs 4B against a deck with 4 wastelands, why not just run bitterblossoms and bolster the control matchups in the process. Bitterblossom shuts down their best threat against you (liliana) and is just more resilient overall to discard as it comes down early.

Bitterblossom would compete with Sinkhole though, and I don't think it's nearly as good against control decks. It's fine there, but Sinkhole is much more of a dagger for esperblade.

Has anyone actually taken the time to test the Jund matchup? I haven't really had a chance to but it doesn't really seem as bad as people think. I have a feeling alot of this is theory combined with fear of the latest thing. That deck doesn't run Brainstorm and Ponder, which are going to win you more games than you think. If they get even a little bit flooded they can't cash anything back in, and they have much less ability to dig for lands. Which means they have to run more. Which means they will get flooded more. Which means when they get mana screwed, they REALLY get mana screwed because they run a bunch of 3 and 4 drops, because "hey, why not, we run 24+ lands".

The only cards I want to cut are Force of Wills, which get replaced by 4 removal spells in my board, and possibly Hymn if I go the LD route of Sinkhole + LftL. In which case you kind of have to cut a Daze I think. Not sure where else you want to change post board.

I'm not saying PO is a good sb choice for mana/tempo reasons, but i do think it's something close to what is needed to really hurt jund. Bitterblossom ... ehh ... I want to be as fast as possible against jund because of TA's relative lack of card advantage ... that feels too much like a BUG control card. I've played vs jund (including punishing) lots in actual tournaments and on cockatrice (R.I.P.). Generally speaking, Brainstorm/Ponder < bob + BBE in the aggro race, but I did CRUSH a jund deck during SCG San Diego w/ 2 sinks, 2 stifles sb ... so like I should have mentioned, the matchup is far from hopeless, but more often than not (60% in their favor I'd say) I've noticed decent tempo-ing for 1-3 turns before they just TAKE OFF and then I have no hope. Also, somebody said something along the lines of "punishing fire is just a shock" ... shock kills more than half our creatures seeing as we run < 4 TS, so not something to scoff at ... it can hurt, esp cause I've noticed them kill my DRS on sight so I can't remove the fire from the yard. Not sure if this is even worth mentioning, but I've also noticed that when sniping jund lands, the color priority that seems to be best is red > black > green

codegoblin
02-27-2013, 07:06 PM
I've tested the Jund matchup using Chills as my hate card (2-3 Chill in the board, also there for the 2-3 Burn players in my meta) and it's been stellar when it stays. They don't always have Abrupt Decay, and paying 3 for Bolt, 4 for PF, and 6 for BBE is not where they want to be. It at least buys you a bit of time.

-Matt

This appeals to me. I also have a lot of burn/burning wish/Empty The Warrens players in my meta. May test 1-2 this weekend @ SCG vegas.

catmint
02-28-2013, 09:33 AM
Funny, I was also thinking about chill against Jund since the card has other narrow applications (sneak attack, empty the warrens, burning wish, burn, UR burn, Goblins), but wanted to test it first before suggesting. Good to hear it works to some extent.

Coming back to land destruction: if this strategy is really the nuts (which is not the case), maybe they just add 2-3 life from the loam to their 75. It has a good synergy with liliana, punishing-grove and our hymns anyway and suddenly they get to 2 mana and boom your gameplan goes to hell. Also as I stated before land destruction is horrible if you are behind in tempo and/or are able to develop a board while you crush their lands. They have a good curve on 1,2,3 and it's not like esperblade/mircales, where they are just reacting/controlling the game to get to 4+ mana to do win the game (of course exaggerated).

Claiming punishing fire does not work because of land destruction shows also not enough testing to me. First you want to waste and sinkhole asap so it has an impact and can’t wait for Grove. They play their bad 2 mana shocks killing your delver/deathrite. Then their fires sit in their graveyard until they draw (another) grove (please don't tell me you want to use deathrite to remove fire because this will be really really rare). Once grove hits they get their fires back gaining an advantage even if you are killing their land immediately.

The statement “going slow is wrong I want to go as fast as possible” sounds pretty dull to me. With what do you want to kill them fast? Delver? (lol), Tarmogoyf? (they play them as well + have burn to break stalls). Tombstalker is the only reliable win-con so far but unfortunately is not really fast and they also run 4 liliana’s. True liliana is a problem for every other “non-removable” creature you might try to replace Delver with, so thinking tokens is a good direction. Bitterblossom is unfortunately so much worse than lingering souls which is the legacy standard for token playability.

I also heard “they will draw bad because no cantrips and 22-24 lands”. This is where I see the most potential, which is why I would like test the following: Attack their hand with Thoughtseize and Hymn and keep the board clean first and then play creatures they have a harder time dealing with. You can argue with “they will do the same and have card advantage” which is true, but I would like to try if card quality (cantrips) + “strong threat’s” and hate like “chill” can keep up better than the tempo plan.

codegoblin
02-28-2013, 02:51 PM
Funny, I was also thinking about chill against Jund since the card has other narrow applications (sneak attack, empty the warrens, burning wish, burn, UR burn, Goblins), but wanted to test it first before suggesting. Good to hear it works to some extent.

Coming back to land destruction: if this strategy is really the nuts (which is not the case), maybe they just add 2-3 life from the loam to their 75. It has a good synergy with liliana, punishing-grove and our hymns anyway and suddenly they get to 2 mana and boom your gameplan goes to hell. Also as I stated before land destruction is horrible if you are behind in tempo and/or are able to develop a board while you crush their lands. They have a good curve on 1,2,3 and it's not like esperblade/mircales, where they are just reacting/controlling the game to get to 4+ mana to do win the game (of course exaggerated).

Claiming punishing fire does not work because of land destruction shows also not enough testing to me. First you want to waste and sinkhole asap so it has an impact and can’t wait for Grove. They play their bad 2 mana shocks killing your delver/deathrite. Then their fires sit in their graveyard until they draw (another) grove (please don't tell me you want to use deathrite to remove fire because this will be really really rare). Once grove hits they get their fires back gaining an advantage even if you are killing their land immediately.

The statement “going slow is wrong I want to go as fast as possible” sounds pretty dull to me. With what do you want to kill them fast? Delver? (lol), Tarmogoyf? (they play them as well + have burn to break stalls). Tombstalker is the only reliable win-con so far but unfortunately is not really fast and they also run 4 liliana’s. True liliana is a problem for every other “non-removable” creature you might try to replace Delver with, so thinking tokens is a good direction. Bitterblossom is unfortunately so much worse than lingering souls which is the legacy standard for token playability.

I also heard “they will draw bad because no cantrips and 22-24 lands”. This is where I see the most potential, which is why I would like test the following: Attack their hand with Thoughtseize and Hymn and keep the board clean first and then play creatures they have a harder time dealing with. You can argue with “they will do the same and have card advantage” which is true, but I would like to try if card quality (cantrips) + “strong threat’s” and hate like “chill” can keep up better than the tempo plan.

Ok so what I said "sounds pretty dull." I'm always open to new ideas ... What would your sb look like? I'm not sure I feel comfortable letting jund go wild with lands, which essentially enables them to land a BBE off a bob even after hymning/seizing their hand once or twice. From my experience attacking their hand < attacking their land < attacking with big creatures. I've also been happy the couple times I've been able to blow up two lands in one turn w/ sink + waste and force them to play a second bob which pings them harder every upkeep.

P.S. - We play the same two decks (SA + TA) ;)

catmint
02-28-2013, 04:19 PM
Sure, I also love that feeling too and as I wrote a couple of posts ago in some starts you get the feeling that you can't loose. E.g.: ony the play with deathrite, wasteland, sinkhole, daze,... I desribed this plan as too swingy since it can be really good, but sometimes you feel so behind in t2/t3 you can never get back. E.g. they land a confidant but if you remove him with decay, they play land into liliana or Goyf & discard/deathrite your sinkholes look pretty stupid.

So the bad scenario happens more often than the good one AND once behind I don't like my chances, whereas if we are ahead their chances to come back are better.

I am also not claiming to have the answer of what the best setup is, but I am pretty sure sinkhole is not. Next I am going to test maindeck thoughtseize with hymn in the sideboard. 6 removal maindeck + 2 SB and some new ideas like chill, Thrun or Contagion.

Adryan
02-28-2013, 06:10 PM
Sure, I also love that feeling too and as I wrote a couple of posts ago in some starts you get the feeling that you can't loose. E.g.: ony the play with deathrite, wasteland, sinkhole, daze,... I desribed this plan as too swingy since it can be really good, but sometimes you feel so behind in t2/t3 you can never get back. E.g. they land a confidant but if you remove him with decay, they play land into liliana or Goyf & discard/deathrite your sinkholes look pretty stupid.

So the bad scenario happens more often than the good one AND once behind I don't like my chances, whereas if we are ahead their chances to come back are better.

I am also not claiming to have the answer of what the best setup is, but I am pretty sure sinkhole is not. Next I am going to test maindeck thoughtseize with hymn in the sideboard. 6 removal maindeck + 2 SB and some new ideas like chill, Thrun or Contagion.

Serious? Contagion? Card Disadvantage against Jund? I still think the LD plan is the best against Jund. What else can you do as a tempo deck? Submerge, Sinkhole, Hymn and other Tempo Cards are the best things you can probably do against Jund. You can't be serious about Thrun. Why not play Shardless Agent in a tempo shell? Still better than Thrun.

catmint
03-01-2013, 12:43 AM
I Said that I want to try new ideas... And some new strange stuff to replace delver submerge, which are bad and the tempo benefits associated with these cards. Trying out awkward stuff like Contagion, chill or trunn is part of the learning proceess . Even if they don't make the cut you get a deeper understanding of the matchup.

Keep your

'I do what everybody tells me to yourself'

mike1987
03-01-2013, 01:03 AM
I Said that I want to try new ideas... And some new strange stuff to replace delver submerge, which are bad and the tempo benefits associated with these cards. Trying out awkward stuff like Contagion, chill or trunn is part of the learning proceess . Even if they don't make the cut you get a deeper understanding of the matchup.

Keep your

'I do what everybody tells me to yourself'

How is sinkhole in the side treating you guys? I just bought my playset and raring to go. So its usually sided in against stoneblade and miracles? Any other matchups whereby sinkhole is good?

Amazing Larry
03-01-2013, 01:24 AM
How is sinkhole in the side treating you guys? I just bought my playset and raring to go. So its usually sided in against stoneblade and miracles? Any other matchups whereby sinkhole is good?

I'm loving the Sinkholes myself. They are great against Stoneblade and Miracles, a little less so against Jund, but still one of the better plans (I might try and test out Chill like some have been doing and it could also shore up the burn matchup). Sinkhole also shines against Sneak & Show for sure. I've also been overloading on maindeck discard lately, cutting the Sylvan Library and Dismember, going down to 19 lands and running 3 Thoughtseizes in their place maindeck. Then again, my meta is littered with combo, so the extra discard is great for me.

codegoblin
03-01-2013, 06:11 AM
Sure, I also love that feeling too and as I wrote a couple of posts ago in some starts you get the feeling that you can't loose. E.g.: ony the play with deathrite, wasteland, sinkhole, daze,... I desribed this plan as too swingy since it can be really good, but sometimes you feel so behind in t2/t3 you can never get back. E.g. they land a confidant but if you remove him with decay, they play land into liliana or Goyf & discard/deathrite your sinkholes look pretty stupid.

So the bad scenario happens more often than the good one AND once behind I don't like my chances, whereas if we are ahead their chances to come back are better.

I am also not claiming to have the answer of what the best setup is, but I am pretty sure sinkhole is not. Next I am going to test maindeck thoughtseize with hymn in the sideboard. 6 removal maindeck + 2 SB and some new ideas like chill, Thrun or Contagion.

Right on, man. Yeah, report any results. Every deck has its worse matchups and jund is one of ours. I've only lost a _slight_ bit less than half the rounds I've played vs jund with the sinkhole plan, but there's always room for improvement, especially in a liquid meta like legacy's. I've thought about putting an extra thoughtseize or two in the board before ... getting esperblade-like protection against combo is always nice.

On the subject of delver ... ya, he's not *the greatest* vs jund ... but very relevant in just about every other matchup, so I'm not sure I have the same desire to cut him that you do. A turn 1 3/2 flyer is just ... never bad? Seems like if he were gone the deck would loose a whole lot in the tempo dept. DRS does good work, but it's damage that gets you there and he's not as good as delver in that respect. I feel like if you want to play bigger creatures, more hand disruption, etc etc, then maybe play bug midrange/control?

For those that are interested, chill has yielded pretty decent results for me. Against burn it goes without saying that it's amazing, but it also does solid work vs any combo deck that plays red (Sneak/Show, TES, ANT) and makes it so jund has a harder time plowing your board ... obviously there's the threat of being immediately abrupt decayed, but if they're prioritizing their mana and destruction to blow it up then that kinda tells you it's the right card to be playing ;)

GENERAL QUESTION:
How much GY hate are you guys putting in your sb these days? I'm always scared to cut mine, but I'm also very interested to see how putting some thoughtseizes in my sb will work out.

Spike
03-01-2013, 07:01 AM
GENERAL QUESTION:
How much GY hate are you guys putting in your sb these days? I'm always scared to cut mine, but I'm also very interested to see how putting some thoughtseizes in my sb will work out.

I would definitely play some gravehate in the Sideboard at the moment. There are quite a few Reanimator decks (traditional and Tin-Fins as of late), and there´s also the new "oops, all spells" combo deck with Undercity Informer. Besides that there will always be some Dredge and Loam.decks, so all in all I think it´s reasonable to pack some gravehate in addition to Deathrite Shaman. I like Surgical Extraction the most cause it´s also good against Combo Decks (Storm, Show and Tell) together with the discard. It´s not an easy card to play with, but very rewarding if you get the timing right.
The other card I would consider is Tormod´s Crypt, which is generally stronger against Dredge and Reanimator, cause it also doesnt get hit by discard, but if you´re on the draw this could already be to slow against Tin Fins or the Undercity Informer.deck, and it´s useless against most other Combo decks (besides Past in Flames ANT). It´s also important that your gravehate has cmc0, so you can Ponder into it T1 for example, hence I´m not considering Cage or Spellbomb atm.

Nice to see that my other suggestions (Chill, Snapcaster,...) get some attention finally, I can definitely recommend them :)

@Sinkhole: It´s not the best card and it doesn´t win you the game on the spot against Jund, Esper, UW, ..., but for me it´s still the best approach at the moment. The Jace+Thoughtseize plan can also be successful of course, but how do you want to deal with Entreat the Angels, Geist of Saint Traft, Lingering Souls, Bloodbraid Elf, ... etc then? What if they just go for Stoneforge Mystic and beat you down with some equipment instead? There are also many things that have to go right with this approach, but I haven´t found 15 cards yet, that are capable of doing that. On the other hand, just playing 4 Sinkholes is a nice and clean strategy.

Barbed Blightning
03-01-2013, 10:47 AM
Chill has been this shit for me. Wrecks Jund, esp. Punishing Jund, since their decays are focused on your other permanents

catmint
03-01-2013, 12:04 PM
On the subject of delver ... ya, he's not *the greatest* vs jund ... but very relevant in just about every other matchup, so I'm not sure I have the same desire to cut him that you do.

I was obviously not talking about cutting delver but siding him out vs. Jund which would require some replacement slots to hit for the win.

sdematt
03-01-2013, 01:34 PM
I told you Barbed, I fucking told you so :P

-Matt

Barbed Blightning
03-01-2013, 04:59 PM
I told you Barbed, I fucking told you so :P

-Matt

I don't think I ever doubted it in the first place? :P

Why would we side Delver out? Evasion is our best friend against Jund, and given that we only run two Tombstalker, I think Delver should stay in. My plan is pretty simple, actually:

-4 FoW
-4 Daze
+4 Sinkhole
+3 Chill
+1 Jitte

It's been ridiculously solid so far.

KobeBryan
03-01-2013, 06:28 PM
I don't think I ever doubted it in the first place? :P

Why would we side Delver out? Evasion is our best friend against Jund, and given that we only run two Tombstalker, I think Delver should stay in. My plan is pretty simple, actually:

-4 FoW
-4 Daze
+4 Sinkhole
+3 Chill
+1 Jitte

It's been ridiculously solid so far.

agreed...

You side out all the counters in a matchup with jund. Though I have to say, daze on the play is still pretty powerful.

And why are you running 3 chills in your sideboard?

Barbed Blightning
03-01-2013, 07:36 PM
agreed...

You side out all the counters in a matchup with jund. Though I have to say, daze on the play is still pretty powerful.

And why are you running 3 chills in your sideboard?

Jund and, to an extent, burn are big decks right now, as are combo decks featuring red (tes, sneak attack, etc) so chill has some applicability across the meta. Submerge wasn't pulling its weight, which chill replaced.

Daze is daze. On the play, perhaps you should leave it in. I think countermagic is moot against jund

KobeBryan
03-01-2013, 07:40 PM
Jund and, to an extent, burn are big decks right now, as are combo decks featuring red (tes, sneak attack, etc) so chill has some applicability across the meta. Submerge wasn't pulling its weight, which chill replaced.

Daze is daze. On the play, perhaps you should leave it in. I think countermagic is moot against jund

I actually think daze is not moot against jund. With your sinkholes, jund will try to cascade on turn 4 with 4 lands. Thats the perfect time to daze that stupid liliana.

Barbed Blightning
03-01-2013, 10:36 PM
I mean, fair enough... but why not essentially turn off half of their removal and BBE altogether?

KobeBryan
03-02-2013, 01:35 AM
I mean, fair enough... but why not essentially turn off half of their removal and BBE altogether?

If i am the jund player, i'd glady see your chill in the deck. it stops my burns, and my bloodbraid.

i still have 4 dark confidants, 4 goyfs, thoughtseizes, hymns, abrupt decay, deathrite shamans. out of the 16 creatures that they play, you only shut down 4 of them.

Also, you only delay them 2 more mana. its not going to "SHUT THEM OUT" like null rod to affinity.

3 card slots in the sideboard is just too much to waste for mediocrity against jund and burn.

codegoblin
03-02-2013, 03:07 AM
If i am the jund player, i'd glady see your chill in the deck. it stops my burns, and my bloodbraid.

I still have 4 dark confidants, 4 goyfs, thoughtseizes, hymns, abrupt decay, deathrite shamans. out of the 16 creatures that they play, you only shut down 4 of them.

Also, you only delay them 2 more mana. its not going to "SHUT THEM OUT" like null rod to affinity.

3 card slots in the sideboard is just too much to waste for mediocrity against jund and burn.

I can attest (as can others around here) that it doesn't exactly shut them off, but definitely evens the playing field. I'm running two, not three. Sorry, but for the current meta it's a great sb option. Burn has almost been an auto loss for me too ... which I can't stand, so the chills stay.

Recently I've noticed a slight resurgence in W decks, particularly mav and D&T. This might be particular to my meta, but god damn does D&T just own BUG tempo. Anybody else noticing this? If it gets any worse I might have to throw in a couple dread of nights, at least for my friday night tourneys (also good vs lingering souls).

Anybody else taking TA to Vegas this weekend??

StoneColdEffy
03-02-2013, 04:15 AM
My updated list:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Thoughtseize
1 Dismember

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
4 Sinkhole
1 Life from the Loam
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
1 Thoughtseize
2 Golgari Charm
1 Krosan Grip
2 Disfigure

Valarne
03-02-2013, 04:18 AM
D&T is definitely a bad matchup, and a really underrated deck with tier 1 potential. Its pretty popular in my meta, but it also takes a lot of skill to play optimally, so its not for everyone. Dread is obviously awesome, but pretty narrow, eh? Golgari Charm is good and more versatile I think.

The Chill seem narrow too from my perspective. i don't think burn is an autoloss at all. Hymn is very good, and so is Deathrite Shaman. We can ctualy construct a gameplan, leading up to a DRS untapping with them more or less hellbent. Its not a good matchup for sure, but not something that I think I would skew my sideboard with Chill for. The thing is also, that Chill doesn't stop their topdecks, which are the ones that kill us turn 6. Turn 2 it is probably at least as good just to drop a Goyf to block.
If I was dedicating slots towards Jund and Burn, I would prefer Obstinate Baloth. It wrecks Liliana at any +1 activation stage of the game, and destroys Burn if we get to play it. Double green is a bit tough, but it could be worth a couple of sb slots. I haven't gotten there personally yet, but it seems better than Chill.

Edit: What are your mirror sb-plans? It isn't unlikely to face, and I personally want some ways to deal with opposing Tombstalkers. I run 2 Dismembers main, but feel better if I have a bit more answers in the board, like Jace - which should be good in the mirror.

Barbed Blightning
03-03-2013, 09:10 AM
Made 12th at Jupiter, taking out Scapewish, 12 (or whatever number) Post, Reanimator and Storm. Losses were to LED Dredge and UWr Helm Combo.

Question: what is the plan for Miracles-archetype decks? Do we want to keep in countermagic, or go aggressive with sinkholes etc?

Regardless, got a Russian Clique out of the deal, which will be replacing library in the main.

mike1987
03-06-2013, 04:30 AM
Made 12th at Jupiter, taking out Scapewish, 12 (or whatever number) Post, Reanimator and Storm. Losses were to LED Dredge and UWr Helm Combo.

Question: what is the plan for Miracles-archetype decks? Do we want to keep in countermagic, or go aggressive with sinkholes etc?

Regardless, got a Russian Clique out of the deal, which will be replacing library in the main.


Congrats man. I would think I might board out some FOW and dazes for miracles, board in some pierces, thoughtseize and sinkhole to be on the aggresive. With the addtion of sinkholes, your pierces are gonna be much better. Do you board in sinkholes against nic fit? I just realise once their explorer-therapy thingy gets going, its gonna be pretty hard to stop them as they are gonna be dropping deeds, thragtusks and what nots. Whats your general game plan against them?

Barbed Blightning
03-06-2013, 10:27 AM
Congrats man. I would think I might board out some FOW and dazes for miracles, board in some pierces, thoughtseize and sinkhole to be on the aggresive. With the addtion of sinkholes, your pierces are gonna be much better. Do you board in sinkholes against nic fit? I just realise once their explorer-therapy thingy gets going, its gonna be pretty hard to stop them as they are gonna be dropping deeds, thragtusks and what nots. Whats your general game plan against them?

Against nic fit, take out decays and dismember. Bring in sinkholes and an amount of surgicals (there's an argument to take out dazes on the draw; I say, nic fit loves tapping out). Goals are always to get an early delver flipped, counter explorer and top, hit them with hymn early and kill them before they naturally hit thragtusk. Sinkholes are to blow up forests first, then swamps, then whatever flavor land they chose.

If you get early pressure and keep them down with this, it should be a cakewalk.

EDIT: also, Tombstalker is a pimp against deed-reliant decks.

wcm8
03-08-2013, 10:15 AM
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=10309&iddeck=75138

I like the list above. Going up to 16 threats seems like a good idea right now, especially the 3rd Tombstalker since he's such a beast against everything that isn't playing Swords to Plowshares. I also like the 3/2 split of Decay/Dismember. I personally would still want to fit a Sylvan Library in there. Not sure about the sideboard choices but it obviously worked out for him. Phantasmal Image is a cool choice to deal with Legendary Creatures or just double up on a threat.

bosoxdave
03-08-2013, 01:08 PM
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=10309&iddeck=75138

I like the list above. Going up to 16 threats seems like a good idea right now, especially the 3rd Tombstalker since he's such a beast against everything that isn't playing Swords to Plowshares. I also like the 3/2 split of Decay/Dismember. I personally would still want to fit a Sylvan Library in there. Not sure about the sideboard choices but it obviously worked out for him. Phantasmal Image is a cool choice to deal with Legendary Creatures or just double up on a threat.

I am surprised to see the three Flooded Strand over the in color shocks. I would imagine that it was a semi-budget choice, not that Strands are cheaper, but perhaps he doesn't have enough Delta's and/or Catacombs. Besides that I like the look of the deck. I imagine that the Phantasmal Images helps the S&T matchup giving you one more chance to draw into an answer cheaply if they can cheat an Emrakul into play without an answer in hand.

aznepyon7
03-08-2013, 03:18 PM
What does everyone think about moving ponder from 4 to 3?

I remember I used to only run 3 Ponders and I've found it to be pretty good. But then again I wasn't running Delver then and rather 2 Cliques. Also I am concerned about the U count. I don't like going below 21 count for FoW.

Also running 3 TS is pretty awesome. Ever since Abrupt Decay became a thing, TS has become a much bigger threat.

nitewolf9
03-08-2013, 05:12 PM
I think I would want to punch someone if I opened a 1 lander on the play with a Vendilion Clique staring lustily into my eyes instead of a good ol' pair of merfolk titties.

Barbed Blightning
03-08-2013, 10:06 PM
I think I would want to punch someone if I opened a 1 lander on the play with a Vendilion Clique staring lustily into my eyes instead of a good ol' pair of merfolk titties.

I'm not a huge fan of Ponder (who is, really?) but I agree: it sucks when you have no cantrip to dig into more mana. 4 is needed.

That said, Clique has been testing swimmingly; I'm also considering cutting Dismember for some other removal. The issue is, there's really no other good removal to run: Vapor Snag was the best thing I found.

Thoughts?

aznepyon7
03-09-2013, 12:31 AM
I'm not a huge fan of Ponder (who is, really?) but I agree: it sucks when you have no cantrip to dig into more mana. 4 is needed.

That said, Clique has been testing swimmingly; I'm also considering cutting Dismember for some other removal. The issue is, there's really no other good removal to run: Vapor Snag was the best thing I found.

Thoughts?

I think Disfigure is much better. It removes the vast majority of threats from most non-cheating creature-based decks that Abrupt Decay/Dismember can remove.

It won't kill a goyf by itself but it can pretty much kill everything else in Jund and unlike Abrupt Decay, it can kill BBE. Not to mention that casting it turn 1 to get rid of a DSR or a Confidant instead of waiting until turn 2 means you can start the Sinkholes and Hymns a turn earlier. I also run Snapcasters on SB so the recursion of the Disfigure is just gravy on top of all this. It's true that Dismember can fill that role but sometimes that extra 4 life would be really nice.

Barbed Blightning
03-09-2013, 01:13 AM
I think Disfigure is much better. It removes the vast majority of threats from most non-cheating creature-based decks that Abrupt Decay/Dismember can remove.

It won't kill a goyf by itself but it can pretty much kill everything else in Jund and unlike Abrupt Decay, it can kill BBE. Not to mention that casting it turn 1 to get rid of a DSR or a Confidant instead of waiting until turn 2 means you can start the Sinkholes and Hymns a turn earlier. I also run Snapcasters on SB so the recursion of the Disfigure is just gravy on top of all this. It's true that Dismember can fill that role but sometimes that extra 4 life would be really nice.

My thoughts were more on the "dealing with tombstalker" side. Dismember does that, but is overkill for DRS/Bob. Losing 4 is also not fun vs Jund.

Snag basically removes tombstalker, increases clock/tempo marginally, and is FoW pitchable.

Asthereal
03-09-2013, 09:27 AM
Vapor Snag doesn't cut it for me. It's card disadvantage, and that one life doesn't really make the difference. Seal of Removal would perhaps even be better, since it gets rid of the occasional Emrakul.

If you are willing to invest the mana, Recoil is an option. That one is not card disadvantage, and also pitches to FoW. Doesn't really do work in the tempo department though, since it's so slow.

My money is on Disfigure as well. Does a lot of work in the early game, wins Goyf wars. Tombstalker is a nuisance still, but there's always the sideboard.

Barbed Blightning
03-09-2013, 09:53 AM
Vapor Snag doesn't cut it for me. It's card disadvantage, and that one life doesn't really make the difference. Seal of Removal would perhaps even be better, since it gets rid of the occasional Emrakul.

If you are willing to invest the mana, Recoil is an option. That one is not card disadvantage, and also pitches to FoW. Doesn't really do work in the tempo department though, since it's so slow.

My money is on Disfigure as well. Does a lot of work in the early game, wins Goyf wars. Tombstalker is a nuisance still, but there's always the sideboard.

Id sooner run Go For the Throat than recoil.

Ultimately, it's one slot in the 60. I guess I have been underwhelmed by dismember.

aznepyon7
03-09-2013, 11:46 AM
My thoughts were more on the "dealing with tombstalker" side. Dismember does that, but is overkill for DRS/Bob. Losing 4 is also not fun vs Jund.

Snag basically removes tombstalker, increases clock/tempo marginally, and is FoW pitchable.

The tempo you get from Snag is so much worse than Submerge. The benefit from Snag is also so narrow (unless you know everything you see in TA or some Tombstalker abusing deck like Eva Green), it's not worth it. Snag on BBE is just godawful for example and it sucks mid-late game. Disfigure would just be better at all stages.

No one plays FoW against Jund so I wouldn't worry about that. If I wanted something to pitch and up the blue count while being overall useful, I could use something like Clique in that spot instead.

If you want to remove Tombstalker, a 4th Liliana is better - it's the only real safe way to remove Tombstalker if you play Jund. With PF Jund, not much should be on the opponent's field anyway. If you're talking from TA's side, it should be a second dismember instead of 4 Abrupt Decays - In fact, I'm starting to dislike 4 Abrupt Decays, Tombstalkers or not.



Id sooner run Go For the Throat than recoil.

Ultimately, it's one slot in the 60. I guess I have been underwhelmed by dismember.

Yes that's probably the best option against Tombstalker. But if TS is that much of a problem for Jund, it should be maindecked already or at least on sideboard. Liliana is still Jund's best bet IMO. There's just too much for TA to deal with against Jund unless we run the Disfigures and/or Darkblast. i've tried the Darkblast/Disfigures and it works better against Jund; killing the DSR and Confidant T1 is so essential for the Sinkhole plan to work. If you get it early, your chances are good. If not, then you're probably going to lose unless you do something quick. I hate paying 4 life to get rid of Confidant/DSR but it's worth it if you need the Sinkhole plan to work. Of course I could avoid all this by just playing Disfigure.


EDIT: Forgot to put another response.

lordofthepit
03-11-2013, 04:34 AM
I'm not a huge fan of Ponder (who is, really?) but I agree: it sucks when you have no cantrip to dig into more mana. 4 is needed.

After losing way too many games due to not being able to find land (or getting flooded), even with Brainstorm, I have become a huge fan of Ponder. If I'm playing a blue deck, I will almost certainly be running some number of Ponders (and if I'm not playing Top/Jace, you can bet it will be 4 copies of Ponder).

Barbed Blightning
03-11-2013, 10:38 AM
Got 9th at the MIQ in Elmira. Beat Burn, Esperblade, Pox and 52-card-pickup (dream halls/omniscience/s&t/enter the infinite). Lost to Elves and Punishing Jund, both due to bad draws in game three.

Notes:

Singleton Clique was a boss all day. Saved my team from supreme verdict twice, and was generally amazing whenever it dropped.

Dismember is warming up to me. It's simply a matter of how much mana I have to spend, but it was great at popping goyfs.

Sinkholes wrecked jund whenever they happened. Surgical also was awesome. Jund surgicaled both my seas and wastes game 3; that was the primary reason I lost.

Plague was good vs elves, but apparently they don't fear that card. Perish, despite hurting us, is apparently better.

Not a bad day all in all. Got two snapcasters out of it

aznepyon7
03-11-2013, 01:57 PM
Got 9th at the MIQ in Elmira. Beat Burn, Esperblade, Pox and 52-card-pickup (dream halls/omniscience/s&t/enter the infinite). Lost to Elves and Punishing Jund, both due to bad draws in game three.

Notes:

Singleton Clique was a boss all day. Saved my team from supreme verdict twice, and was generally amazing whenever it dropped.

Dismember is warming up to me. It's simply a matter of how much mana I have to spend, but it was great at popping goyfs.

Sinkholes wrecked jund whenever they happened. Surgical also was awesome. Jund surgicaled both my seas and wastes game 3; that was the primary reason I lost.

Plague was good vs elves, but apparently they don't fear that card. Perish, despite hurting us, is apparently better.

Not a bad day all in all. Got two snapcasters out of it


Congrats on your finish! I've tried a singleton Clique and I'm liking it more than the Sylvan Library.

I've stopped going for 4 Abrupt Decays and going 3. I put in a Disfigure in it's place and haven't missed it so far. And yes Dismember is just awesome.

Can you elaborate more on how Perish was better than Plague?

Zombie
03-11-2013, 02:44 PM
The elaboration consists of one word: Progenitus.

EDIT: Also, Deathrite, and GSZ for enchantment removal.

Barbed Blightning
03-11-2013, 04:58 PM
The elaboration consists of one word: Progenitus.

EDIT: Also, Deathrite, and GSZ for enchantment removal.

Abrupt Decay, that's about the size of it. I'm keeping plague for a while, though, since it also interacts with gobs and spirit tokens.

lordofthepit
03-11-2013, 05:09 PM
Do you guys take Hymn out against graveyard strategies? If so, does it depend on whether you're on the play or draw?

I think you want to cut the Hymns against Dredge but keep them in against Tin Fins. I'm unsure against Reanimator, but if you do keep them in, obviously, you want to counter their reanimator rather than their outlets (which I would normally do).

Barbed Blightning
03-11-2013, 05:56 PM
Do you guys take Hymn out against graveyard strategies? If so, does it depend on whether you're on the play or draw?

I think you want to cut the Hymns against Dredge but keep them in against Tin Fins. I'm unsure against Reanimator, but if you do keep them in, obviously, you want to counter their reanimator rather than their outlets (which I would normally do).

Against dredge, it's-4 decay, -4 hymn, -1 dismember, +4 pierce, +3 surgical, +1 crypt, +1 jitte (used to recover from early beats).

Against reanimator/tinfins/oops all spells, I keep in hymn and take out decays and dismember for 3 surgical, 1 crypt, and an approp

Barbed Blightning
03-11-2013, 05:57 PM
Do you guys take Hymn out against graveyard strategies? If so, does it depend on whether you're on the play or draw?

I think you want to cut the Hymns against Dredge but keep them in against Tin Fins. I'm unsure against Reanimator, but if you do keep them in, obviously, you want to counter their reanimator rather than their outlets (which I would normally do).

Against dredge, it's-4 decay, -4 hymn, -1 dismember, +4 pierce, +3 surgical, +1 crypt, +1 jitte (used to recover from early beats).

Against reanimator/tinfins/oops all spells, I keep in hymn and take out decays and dismember for 3 surgical, 1 crypt, and take out an appropriate amount of daze to fit in 4 pierce.

EDIT: sorry for double post; phone app is dumb

phazonmutant
03-12-2013, 01:14 AM
I'm testing for the SCG Open in Atlanta, just did a set against Jund. Sinkhole is pretty much the greatest feeling in the world. Went something like 4-2 and the games felt very good postboard.

What do your sideboards look like? I see Barbed Blightning has 4 pieces of grave hate and a pile of Pierces, are most of you guys playing so much grave hate?
How are the Goblins and Elves matchups? I feel like Engineered Plague is worth a couple slots because it's good against them and it's also pretty good against TES, Belcher, and ANT (mostly for Empty, but also the occasional Bob).

My board right now looks like:
4 Sinkhole
1 Life from the Loam
1 Disfigure
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Engineered Plague
(I'm playing a 3-1-1 split of Decay, Disfigure, and Dismember main)

How do you guys feel about Flusterstorm? It should be better than Pierce against Storm and Reanimator variants, but worse against Sneak and Show. Not sure how much of an issue that matchup is; seems like it could be rough if they get Leyline of Sanctity. Any comments welcome.

Patrunkenphat7
03-12-2013, 01:50 AM
So you guys have all decided that the best way to fight Jund, a Legacy deck with 24 lands, 4 Deathrite Shamans, and a plethora of 1 and 2-cc spells, is to play Sinkhole??? I just don't see how this could possibly be good. Has the Sinkhole strategy actually put up good numbers somewhere?

Barbed Blightning
03-12-2013, 02:59 AM
So you guys have all decided that the best way to fight Jund, a Legacy deck with 24 lands, 4 Deathrite Shamans, and a plethora of 1 and 2-cc spells, is to play Sinkhole??? I just don't see how this could possibly be good. Has the Sinkhole strategy actually put up good numbers somewhere?

You're fucking joking, right?

Yeah its twenty four lands, but four are wasteland and thus don't really count.

The two ccs are either mana intensive (decay, hymn) or relatively easy to deal with (bob is made of glass; goyf is blocked by goyf.)

DRS is dazed or removed early. Lilly is a nuisance, like pfire, but can be dealt with.


What you are completely missing is the fact that the only thing that truly separates us from Jund (and really the only thing they have that I am scared of) is a four cmc BBE. that's what sinkhole is preventing, and it does it admirably.

The idea is dick around as little as possible vs them. Sinkhole generates tempo that allows us to deal lethal before they recover. This is also the idea behind hymn and daze: play it early and pound them in the face before they recover.

But hey I could be totally off base. What's your anti-jund tech?

aznepyon7
03-12-2013, 03:25 AM
So you guys have all decided that the best way to fight Jund, a Legacy deck with 24 lands, 4 Deathrite Shamans, and a plethora of 1 and 2-cc spells, is to play Sinkhole??? I just don't see how this could possibly be good. Has the Sinkhole strategy actually put up good numbers somewhere?

On paper it does indeed look awful. However in practice, it's much better than it looks. TA has an unfavorable match up against Jund; we can't go for the long haul. Our best strategy is to play the tempo game and punish them for playing their bigger spells. It's pretty much a race - can we deal the lethal 20 before they get their game on.

There are some things you need to consider though. If they have an early DSR or Confidant and you don't deal with it early, you're going to have a bad time. It's more about technique and practice; even more so if you plan to run certain cards like Submerge. I also play with LftL so I can make more use of my wastelands. I believe most TA decks do this already.

Maximus
03-12-2013, 04:52 AM
I'm not a huge fan of Ponder (who is, really?)

I am. I love Ponder. Maximizing cantrips is one of the most reliable, skill-testing, and rewarding ways to gain solid win margin over your opponent. Reducing your chances to use your ability/experience is not worth playing with your hand face up by passing with 3 mana open in a tap-out deck.


You're fucking joking, right?

Yeah its twenty four lands, but four are wasteland and thus don't really count.

The two ccs are either mana intensive (decay, hymn) or relatively easy to deal with (bob is made of glass; goyf is blocked by goyf.)

DRS is dazed or removed early. Lilly is a nuisance, like pfire, but can be dealt with.


What you are completely missing is the fact that the only thing that truly separates us from Jund (and really the only thing they have that I am scared of) is a four cmc BBE. that's what sinkhole is preventing, and it does it admirably.

The idea is dick around as little as possible vs them. Sinkhole generates tempo that allows us to deal lethal before they recover. This is also the idea behind hymn and daze: play it early and pound them in the face before they recover.

But hey I could be totally off base. What's your anti-jund tech?

I disagree with 100% of this post.

Wasteland for TA is essentially a spell since the only card common to the deck with colorless in the casting cost if Tarmogoyf. For Jund, it is routinely a land since the deck has many more cards with a colorless mana or two in the cost. Jund also has more lands than we do and basics to ensure getting past being stuck on a low land count. Since we've cut Stifle from the main, Jund's wastelands are almost strictly better than ours in that match-up. I say almost because Wasteland is a stupid card that increases variance and sometimes you'll just "get them" but most of the time Jund has better Wastelands.

Similar to the rest of the deck, it's important to realize that Jund is the control deck vs the TA match-up. This means that the more land drops the Jund player gets, the more you're likely to lose and it forces you to close the game out fast. Normally TA can trade disruption with the opponent favorably because it's undercosted (FoW, Daze, Snuff Out, etc). Due to the nature of Jund's cards, these are losing situations rather than winning ones. For example, it's no good to Daze DRS, because for the most part trading 1 mana and a card in the early game is worth it to trade you a card and set you back a land drop. If you have a clock, the tempo-efficient disruption is a better deal, but Jund overloads on removal or cards that act like removal to remove your clock that can be converted into other utility as needed. Punishing Fire, Lightning Bolt, Abrupt Decay, Liliana of the Veil, any discard effects, or Sylvan Library / Dark Confidant / Bloodbraid Elf going into those cards. Or DRS slowing down your Tombstalker / Tarmogoyf. Or their Tarmogoyf blocking yours. If you've been keeping track, you'd realize that I just listed every spell in the entire deck. All of them can reduce your clock to ensure land drops and a transition into a crushing mid-game. For the same reasons, Jund has better Tarmogoyfs than TA does because Jund hitting land drops for 3 turns is worse for you than you swinging at the opponent for 3 turns is for them even before DRS complicates that. Bob being made of glass doesn't matter because you have the same removal options for it regardless and if it sits there you lose to it. I can keep going, but I think the horse is dead.

My anti-jund tech is keeping in Darkblast to kill Bob (worst card against us), to mitigate how bad Hymn hits, to have a trump for the Tarmogoyf stalls, and to power out Tombstalker through DRS. Even that's not great though because it doesn't solve DRS slowing down Tarmogoyf clocks or Liliana of the Veil. You can finesse through a win sometimes but for the most part it's a bad match-up for the same reasons that Maverick and Goblins are tough and one of many factors to consider when choosing to play the deck. BBE might be the least scary part of the deck because any board control makes your life harder and everything else in the deck does it cheaper than BBE does.

Sinkhole is good because it makes their deck clunky while ours is not and we get to play more cards than they do. Even then, this is much more relevant when you can keep a beater on the table. If they open with some Shamans and don't get land screwed, for the most part Jund can reasonably keep TA off of Goyf/Stalker kills long enough to get back into the game through sinkholes.

catmint
03-12-2013, 05:35 AM
If I would be Jund expecting BUG I would board out my bloodbraid elfs & bring in 2-3 Life from the Loam. I would rely on winning the long game with Bob, Library, Liliana & Punishing Fire. On the play I would focus on a good curve (developing) my board so your sinkhole plan cannot really work out or is at least is much weakened. On the draw I would value lands & pointed discard pretty highly to make sure I don’t play into your “removal/daze/sinkhole” tempo package. Overall I would feel good about my hymns beeing very strong whereas opponents hymns can hit fires & loams. Also I would like that my removal count (some uncounterable or recurrable) (almost) matches the number of my opponents threats. I would play 2-3 red blasts as additional ways to handle delver but focus them on countering my opponents only trumps: cantrips.

Pre-board I would feel pretty comfortable about my ability to handle your threats and develop my manabase. I would accept the fact that BUG Delver can have some pretty strong draws on the play, but overall I would feel positive about my matchup% and smile about people thinking they have an edge since they are in for a surprise meeting me if they make it to the top tables.

phazonmutant
03-12-2013, 09:08 AM
If I would be Jund expecting BUG I would board out my bloodbraid elfs & bring in 2-3 Life from the Loam. I would rely on winning the long game with Bob, Library, Liliana & Punishing Fire. On the play I would focus on a good curve (developing) my board so your sinkhole plan cannot really work out or is at least is much weakened. On the draw I would value lands & pointed discard pretty highly to make sure I don’t play into your “removal/daze/sinkhole” tempo package. Overall I would feel good about my hymns beeing very strong whereas opponents hymns can hit fires & loams. Also I would like that my removal count (some uncounterable or recurrable) (almost) matches the number of my opponents threats. I would play 2-3 red blasts as additional ways to handle delver but focus them on countering my opponents only trumps: cantrips.

Pre-board I would feel pretty comfortable about my ability to handle your threats and develop my manabase. I would accept the fact that BUG Delver can have some pretty strong draws on the play, but overall I would feel positive about my matchup% and smile about people thinking they have an edge since they are in for a surprise meeting me if they make it to the top tables.

Fortunately, I'm not expecting to play you piloting Jund :cool: Your plan sounds very solid. The only reason I'm expecting the matchup in Atlanta is because 3 people top 8'd last time, the invitational is going to have a ton of noobs who want to play modern in legacy and will scrub out and play in the open, and people expect a lot of midrange blue decks at the invitational. Jund hasn't exactly made a splash since SCG Atlanta last.

I'm friends with 2 of the 3 people that top 8'd with Jund, and both had just picked it up for the first time, and neither were the innovative type. I really don't expect that sort of person to be playing Jund, honestly.

As far as thoughts on the matchup after playing it, yes, they have a ton of lands, removal, and threats, but they have no way to draw them at the right time! I did minimal work to keep my opponent on 1 colored source a couple of games, and he drew no lands for a few turns, then got flooded. If they have a nut draw (especially one with PFire), it can be hard to stop from what it seems like, but we have much better tools to find what we need. Sure their Wastelands will always have a target, but our curve is so much lower than theirs. We're filled with 1s and 2s, they're filled with 2s and 3s.

Patrunkenphat7
03-12-2013, 10:13 AM
You're fucking joking, right?

Yeah its twenty four lands, but four are wasteland and thus don't really count.

The two ccs are either mana intensive (decay, hymn) or relatively easy to deal with (bob is made of glass; goyf is blocked by goyf.)

DRS is dazed or removed early. Lilly is a nuisance, like pfire, but can be dealt with.


What you are completely missing is the fact that the only thing that truly separates us from Jund (and really the only thing they have that I am scared of) is a four cmc BBE. that's what sinkhole is preventing, and it does it admirably.

The idea is dick around as little as possible vs them. Sinkhole generates tempo that allows us to deal lethal before they recover. This is also the idea behind hymn and daze: play it early and pound them in the face before they recover.

But hey I could be totally off base. What's your anti-jund tech?

I don't have any kind of awesome anti-Jund tech personally. Divert has proven to be very good in this matchup though. Diverting their Decays, Punishing Fires, Bolts, Thoughtseizes, or Hymns are all really strong plays.

If you Daze the opponent's DRS, your Sinkhole plan is not going to be effective. If they are on the draw, they will still be able to play a 2-drop on turn 2 and a 2-drop on turn 3 after you Sinkhole them on turn 3. If they are on the play, the Sinkhole won't even hit them until after they have played a 3-drop (Liliana) regardless of whether or not you Daze their Deathrite Shaman.

Sinkhole is the kind of card that might win a few games because you get lucky that your 24 land opponent kept a 2-lander and doesn't draw another land for 7 turns, but Sinkhole will lose the game if your opponent's deck operates like percentages say it should and hits its 3rd land drop on turn 3. If you are Sinkholing them, you are probably not killing their Bob that will draw them more lands. If you kill their Bob, you are not Sinkholing them, and the Sinkholes lose a lot of value as the game progresses. Also 4 SB slots is a lot, and it seems like it could be used for something more consistently good against specific matchups rather than a concession to the fact that you can only beat Jund with getting lucky on their manascrew. In the end, I don't know if there is anything you can play to make the Jund matchup actually good, but at least try a couple Divert. Some number of Disfigure/Deathmark are also important so that you keep your opponents' Deathrites off the board in the early game while spending minimal resources to do it.

phazonmutant
03-12-2013, 11:21 AM
Fair, Divert could be good.

It seems like literally the only matchup the thread has talked about for the past 3 pages is jund. How about Sneak & Show? It seems like Leyline of Sanctity would make it difficult to disrupt them enough. Are you all running Pierces or Venser or anything for this matchup?
Any other matchups you'd prefer not to see?

Barbed Blightning
03-12-2013, 12:13 PM
Fair, Divert could be good.

It seems like literally the only matchup the thread has talked about for the past 3 pages is jund. How about Sneak & Show? It seems like Leyline of Sanctity would make it difficult to disrupt them enough. Are you all running Pierces or Venser or anything for this matchup?
Any other matchups you'd prefer not to see?

I have 4 pierce in the board for any combo; surgicals, too, if I can fit them in. At the MIQ I was able to beat enter the infinite combo just by countering stuff, even with a hymn in hand. Maybe he mulled to it because I double-hymned him G1 :cool:

The discussion is jund-trending I think, because combo is relatively easy for TA, at least imo.

@maximus: if you had bothered to finish quoting me, you'd see that I also mentioned the 4 is necessary for ponder. I was simply saying it's nowhere near the level of amazing that brainstorm is, so I don't see your gripe.

Nor do I see your argument against Sinkhole. The best thing you can possibly do, at least in my experience, is lead off with a DRS, then follow that up with Waste and Sinkhole next turn, at least if you are on the play. The draw is more difficult as they will lead with a DRS almost always, so I'd probably play a delver, followed by a hymn or removal for their Bob.

@Patrunk: Percentages are percentages, but they are never guarantees. I really hate it when people complain about luck in MTG, in any form--winning, losing, drawing certain cards, etc. It's part of the game, and part of what makes it interesting. Yes, sinkhole relies on some luck, but so does hymn and, last I checked, no one here has ever complained about that card. And I do agree with phazon that Jund players, as a general whole, are not savvy in Legacy; most of the time they may very well be Modern immigrants, or people who want to drop Bloodbraid and win.

Regardless, as I'm sure everyone on this (and any other non-combo) thread will agree, Jund is never an easy matchup. Sinkhole is good because it can screw them over while also totally blowing out Control and random archetypes (X-Post, NicFit, etc.) if played at the right time in the game.

If we want to talk non-sinkhole, I agree Divert could be good, but like Daze it's stock decreases the more the game goes on. Stifle has proven well in my testing (Cascade, fetches, DRS, Lilly, all worthwhile at some point) and Disfigure/Submerge are also obvious choices. It also is difficult to keep mana up for anything in this deck, esp. against a deck as agressively mana-taxing at Jund, so that, too, might be something to consider.

Question: has anyone ever considered Submerging a Goyf/DRS in response to Cascade? Seems like a great way to prevent them from cascading into something nastier, but also blanks the removal.

Razorwynd
03-12-2013, 02:24 PM
Regarding narrow sideboard options to combat jund, has anyone considered 4 obstinate baloth? Once it gets in in play it is pretty hard to deal with and attacks though everything but goyf. Also reasonable against any other hymn based decks... Just a thought.

aznepyon7
03-13-2013, 01:17 PM
Regarding narrow sideboard options to combat jund, has anyone considered 4 obstinate baloth? Once it gets in in play it is pretty hard to deal with and attacks though everything but goyf. Also reasonable against any other hymn based decks... Just a thought.

Yes it has been thought of before if you look back a few pages. Some people are testing it and we'll see how it works. I believe that other threads are also talking about wilf-leaf liege also as another possibility. The way I see it is that it seems good but it requires testing and it's pretty narrow. You'd have to expect Jund and similar decks that run Liliana and Hymns in order for it to work. Even then there may be better choices.

For now, I'm using that one SB as clique and it's been great.

Barbed Blightning
03-15-2013, 12:24 PM
Been thinking about this recently, wanted some input from y'all:

who do you play first, DRS or Delver?

Say you've got an opener with two fetches, daze, DRS, Delver, Brainstorm, Hymn. Do you drop Delver first to get in the beats? Or DRS to ensure stability?

Obviously it depends on the matchup sometimes; I was wondering from a more general point of view.

Mammutti
03-15-2013, 01:09 PM
Been thinking about this recently, wanted some input from y'all:

who do you play first, DRS or Delver?

Say you've got an opener with two fetches, daze, DRS, Delver, Brainstorm, Hymn. Do you drop Delver first to get in the beats? Or DRS to ensure stability?

Obviously it depends on the matchup sometimes; I was wondering from a more general point of view.

Against an unknown opponent I would say play DRS first, always. DRS shines during early game giving you opportunity (if not disrupted) to play T2 Hymn AND Delver with Daze backup. You can even protect your DRS with your Daze and still be able to hymn next turn.

I would like to hear some scenarios where this line of play is not the correct one.

wcm8
03-15-2013, 01:10 PM
Been thinking about this recently, wanted some input from y'all:

who do you play first, DRS or Delver?

Say you've got an opener with two fetches, daze, DRS, Delver, Brainstorm, Hymn. Do you drop Delver first to get in the beats? Or DRS to ensure stability?

Obviously it depends on the matchup sometimes; I was wondering from a more general point of view.

Given that example hand, the correct choice definitely seems to be DRS first.

Let's say the hand is a little more shaky though. Then we have a real point of discussion.

Against an unknown opponent, I'd drop DRS first. It gives me more options on turn two. However, depending on the matchup, it might be correct to drop Delver first -- both to establish a clock, or sometimes to act as just a lightning rod for removal so you can better protect a DRS.

Maximus
03-16-2013, 04:30 AM
I would say to play DRS turn 1 against everything other than non-GY based combo decks. Even then if you have Hymn in hand against the non-GY combo decks, DRS is probably still the better play over Delver.

MajinV
03-16-2013, 01:20 PM
I think I would apply a similar rule of thumb that I used playing RG Aggro in Standard: run out the Mana Dork on the play - draw if you have nothing better to do - turn 1, and the beater on the draw. Granted, DRS is so much more powerful than your average Mana Dork so it's harder to apply in this case, but it's still valid in some cases. Losing your guy to a counter or removal turn 1 on the draw is rough no matter how you look at it, but I somehow found it worse to lose a Mana Dork because I feel like I've fallen further behind.

lordofthepit
03-16-2013, 03:09 PM
I'm not 100% sure. My tendency is to lead with Deathrite Shaman over Delver, except against non-graveyard-based combo decks, as someone had already mentioned.

However, when I was playing Zoo, I would routinely lead with Wild Nacatl on turn 1 followed by Noble Hierarch (and a Bolt for a potential blocker or a Wasteland as a tempo play) on turn 2, unless I knew I was playing against something like Dragon Stompy. If you compare Nacatl to Delver and Hierarch to Deathrite, it's clear that this is the opposite of the sequence I suggest for Team America.

This may have to do with the fact that Nacatls are almost guaranteed to be "pumped", whereas Delvers get more value when you can set up their flips with cantrips on turn 2 anyway. Also, a turn 2 Hierarch gives you a nice Exalted boost when your Nacatl attacks.

Barbed Blightning
03-16-2013, 09:58 PM
Thanks, I was leaning towards DRS, but there's a lot of non-gy combo (combo in general) in NY state, so I have been forced to run out t1 delvers. I've also found that I have preferred to play against combo with TA, rather than midrangy stuff, simply because it can blow out combo so well.

Has anyone considered stifle and thoughtseize in here? I've considered dropping hymn and something else to make room, but idk if that's bad.

Razorwynd
03-17-2013, 01:11 AM
Has anyone considered stifle and thoughtseize in here? I've considered dropping hymn and something else to make room, but idk if that's bad.

I have been testing thoughtsieze main over hymn primarily for converted mana cost issues. I just like that distribution of one and two mana cards better. This is the same reason why I went to three abrupt decay main instead of four. Plus, I felt that targeted discard is sometime just better at getting that early removal spell to protect DRS, delver, or goyf.

StoneColdEffy
03-17-2013, 04:44 AM
Does anyone have any tech for the mirror/other delver decks like RUG and UWR?

.:saturno:.
03-17-2013, 05:07 AM
creeping tar pit for the mirror.

StoneColdEffy
03-17-2013, 05:10 AM
Also I had a VERY hard time against Rest in Peace today. Turned of all my win cons except Delvers.

Anyway I played a 20man Wasteland event today and came 1st, going 4-1 in swiss (scooped last round to a friend who needed PWP since I was locked 1st seed) before winning out the top8. I've played this deck in 4 events now, winning 2 of them and Top4ing both the other. Currently a combined score of 16-3 in matches played (not including IDs and concessions). Playing a very stock list.

Barbed Blightning
03-18-2013, 08:34 PM
Figured I'd post an updated List since I had some time to spare today.

Creatures

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker
1 Vendilion Clique

Instants & Sorceries

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Daze
4 Force
1 Dismember

Lands

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
4 Sinkhole
4 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Flex spots. Currently: 2 Submerge, 1 Darkblast

The flex spots are the only hard part for me; I'm thinking something to deal with tribal/creature decks/Jund. Thoughts?

StoneColdEffy
03-19-2013, 06:07 AM
This is my updated list:
Creatures

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker

Instants & Sorceries

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Daze
3 Force
2 Thoughtseize
1 Dismember

Lands

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
4 Sinkhole
2 Flusterstorm
2 Disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
1 Divert
1 Go for the Throat
1 Life from the Loam
1 Jace Beleren
1 Krosan Grip

Worth noting my meta has no dredge or reanimator. If I was playing in a GP like event, I'd cut Divert and Golgari Charm for 2 Surgical Extraction

aznepyon7
03-19-2013, 02:46 PM
Instants & Sorceries

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Daze
3 Force
2 Thoughtseize
1 Dismember

.......


Sideboard
4 Sinkhole
2 Flusterstorm
2 Disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
1 Divert
1 Go for the Throat
1 Life from the Loam
1 Jace Beleren
1 Krosan Grip

Worth noting my meta has no dredge or reanimator. If I was playing in a GP like event, I'd cut Divert and Golgari Charm for 2 Surgical Extraction

I personally don't like taking out the 4th FoW but that's a personal call. However if you were to take it out, the 4th should be on your sideboard. Losing to combo when you play TA is just.... well bad. Personally I was all pro for Divert but I thought it was kind of meh overall. I'm not quite sure why GftT is in here. Is this for Tombstalker or something? Personally I like the Jace Beleren and I think it's hilarious to play it against JTMS or have it out before they do; it really pisses people off. And it's quite good too.

What's in your meta? And yeah I would go with the Surgical Extractions but not before the 4th FoW.

Patrunkenphat7
03-19-2013, 08:46 PM
Just wanted to say that I am finding Golgari Charm to be an awesome SB card for the Esper matchup.

Whippoorwill
03-21-2013, 03:56 AM
I've been playing the following list the past 2 weeks:

1 Island
1 Forest
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
3 Spell Pierce
1 Life From the Loam
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
4 Force of Will

1 Sylvan Library

Sideboard:
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Flusterstorm
1 Echoing Truth
2 Krosan Grip
4 Shardless Agent
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Surgical Extraction

Over the past 2 weeks, I'm currently 6-0-1 in rounds. The first week had a slightly different sideboard as I've been trying out different things. I originially started with Dan's GP list, but made changes to fit my playstyle. Mainly I don't care much for Daze without Stifle and I wanted to be more proactive in the games where I would be bringing in Sinkhole.

Week 1:
ANT: 2-0 Abrupt Decay played a major part of winning as I was able to Decay his LED in response to him casting another.
Esperblade: 2-0 Shardless Agent from the board allowed me to put more pressure on him while controlling his threats.
RiP/Helm: 1-1-1 So many Terminuses (Termini?) in game 3.

Week 2:
Manaless Dredge: 2-0
Mono Green Infect: 2-0
B/W Infinite Life + Scepter Chant: 2-0
Maverick: 2-1 Shardless made my clock much faster due to flipping Goyfs.

Regarding some of my choices:
2 Basics - I don't like being dead to non-basic hate. I originally had 1 of each but cut the Swamp week 2 and added the 4th Sea. I may cut it for the 4th Wasteland or another Fetchland.

Clique over Tombstalker - Tombstalker has the bigger body, but I like the flexibility of Clique.

Thrun - For the control match since their only out to it is Terminus (or Humility).

For reference, this is my current meta:
Manaless Dredge
RiP/Helm
Esperblade
Maverick
Spiral Tide (Feline unless she's playing something else)

Occassionally Burn, Infect and other misc decks.

'Nilla Pac
03-21-2013, 09:05 PM
I've been playing the following list the past 2 weeks:

1 Island
1 Forest
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
3 Spell Pierce
1 Life From the Loam
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
4 Force of Will

1 Sylvan Library

Sideboard:
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Flusterstorm
1 Echoing Truth
2 Krosan Grip
4 Shardless Agent
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Surgical Extraction



Interesting adjustments. I haven't found any deck I'm comfortable with lately, although I'm leaning toward something like this for SGC Seattle next month since it has game against pretty much anything.

Do you find this type of build threat light at all or are six 3 power fliers and 4 goyfs enough? I'd also like to read why you chose Shardless Agent for the board.

StoneColdEffy
03-22-2013, 05:49 AM
I personally don't like taking out the 4th FoW but that's a personal call. However if you were to take it out, the 4th should be on your sideboard. Losing to combo when you play TA is just.... well bad. Personally I was all pro for Divert but I thought it was kind of meh overall. I'm not quite sure why GftT is in here. Is this for Tombstalker or something? Personally I like the Jace Beleren and I think it's hilarious to play it against JTMS or have it out before they do; it really pisses people off. And it's quite good too.

What's in your meta? And yeah I would go with the Surgical Extractions but not before the 4th FoW.
Yeah you're probably right about the 4th Force of Will. I added it back into the main, moving the Thoughtseize to the sideboard and cutting the Divert. I haven't tested Divert and I can see where it's sweet but I can also see how it might be bad. Spell Pierce will probably be a better choice. The Go for the Throat is in there as a card I wanted against BUG, Junk, Maverick and other big threat creature decks as another answer that could also deal with cards like Tombstalker. However I have cut it for Dismember now. The Jace Beleren is there for BUG Control and other Jace decks since Jace is obv a huge threat and Jace Beleren seemed to be the best answer I could come up with that was proactive instead of just an answer (like another counterspell).

Also Golgari Charm feels relatively unneeded and I can see one copy being swapped for a Submerge or another Thoughtseize

lambert101
03-25-2013, 01:48 PM
Preparing for my first legacy tournament in like 4 months. Thinking about playing good'ol bug delver. Expecting alot of combo and control with a small amount of jund/junk and random decks. Looking at taking the following list.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker
1 Vendilion Clique

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Daze
4 Force
1 Dismember

4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
4 Sinkhole
4 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Life from the Loam
2 Submerge
1 Darkblast

List is almost the same 75 as BarbedBlightnings. We are good friends and made the list together. Any ideas/comments would be helpful.

Maximus
03-25-2013, 03:11 PM
can someone explain submerge to me? submerge seems like a card rug should be playing when lightning bolt can't do the job. we have black and access to real removal, so whats the point exactly?

lambert101
03-25-2013, 03:21 PM
was going for a free spell in that slot. I was also thinking about adding in 2 Disfigures in place. Thoughts?

MajinV
03-25-2013, 03:28 PM
can someone explain submerge to me? submerge seems like a card rug should be playing when lightning bolt can't do the job. we have black and access to real removal, so whats the point exactly?

I think it's just personal preference, really. I think that having access to Black mana reduces the desire for Submerge, but I don't think you can really fault people for playing it. lambert's meta sounds fairly similar to mine (it's a small group of legacy players), but I think in my case there's enough potential for non-green beatdown decks that I would prefer a card like Disfigure in place of Submerge.

@lambert101 - I really like the list BTW, I'm thinking that I may play something similar to that at my next local Legacy event. I like the 4 Spell Pierces, but have you thought about a split with Thoughtseize? I'm considering a 2-2 split in my SB, largely because there are some matchups where I like to have access to selective discard spells.

lambert101
03-25-2013, 03:41 PM
The list is solid. The spell pierce are for against combo so you have 12 counterspells for combo followed by hymns, surgicals, and cheap beat sticks. The only spot in my board I am not sold on are the 2 submerges. I need something for against the aggro decks namely Jund besides my wasteland/sinkhole/loam package.

pingpong
03-25-2013, 04:05 PM
@lambert

Why v clique ovee something like sylvan library??

Barbed Blightning
03-25-2013, 04:59 PM
@lambert

Why v clique ovee something like sylvan library??

Why not? It has positive interaction against combo and control, and acts as Delver 5. I've always won on the back of Clique

Maximus
03-25-2013, 07:24 PM
Clique can mirror Thoughtseize where it makes all of your spells better and acts as a good mana-efficient clock otherwise. You could make an argument that is sucks to pass with your hand face up having 3 mana open but a lot of the time it doesn't matter either. It's also a great response to most planeswalker activations, something that this deck typically struggles with, or it can double as removal. Worst case situation, it comes in and you tell your opponent that they can keep what they have. How often is your opponent going to win those games?

Clique vs Library is dependent on what you expect to play against. If you expect to go long more often or you want more fluidity, library is the better choice. If you want a threat and disruption in the same card, clique is a great way to go.

Whippoorwill
03-29-2013, 03:12 AM
Interesting adjustments. I haven't found any deck I'm comfortable with lately, although I'm leaning toward something like this for SGC Seattle next month since it has game against pretty much anything.

Do you find this type of build threat light at all or are six 3 power fliers and 4 goyfs enough? I'd also like to read why you chose Shardless Agent for the board.

Sorry for the late response.

I haven't really had any issues with the number of threats aside from the U/W Helm match I had where he had removal every time I had a threat on the board. I did end up changing the 4th Sea to a Creeping Tar Pit as an additional threat.

Agent was mainly because I wanted to be more proactive in the control matches. Instead of worrying about controlling my opponent's plays, I want to make them worry about mine. I was also trying it for the burn matchup due to the card advantage since that's one of the harder matchups I've faced.

mort-
03-29-2013, 04:00 AM
Maybe this is a stupid question, but am I in the wrong thread for lists playing Confidant over Stalker? Or did they get dismissed because this one is superior?

Asthereal
03-29-2013, 04:34 AM
Stalker is a meta thing. Confidant is still a brilliant guy, but it dies to all the Abrupt Decays that are flying around right now. Stalker nicely dodges those.

Maximus
03-29-2013, 04:39 AM
Maybe this is a stupid question, but am I in the wrong thread for lists playing Confidant over Stalker? Or did they get dismissed because this one is superior?

We're here to kill people. Tombstalker does that, Dark Confidant does not. The BUG Midrange thread is probably what you're looking for.

catmint
03-29-2013, 07:41 AM
Mort, ignore this last remark which is either the author beeing too lazy to outline an argument or just a netdecker without thinking for himself. There is no "religious confidant does not fit BUG Delver thing" and certainly Confidant is better in an aggressive deck rather than a controllish (higher curve) deck.

Confidant in BUG Delver is a viable suggestions and there has been also success with confidant lists at the beginning when deathrite/decay came out. The reason why Tombstalker became more popular is due to the fact that he is resistant to the forms of removal which were mostly present: Lightning bolt (punishing fire) and Abrupt Decay.

The roles that both creatures play are also different. Confidant becomes the "go to 2 drop" whereas Tombstalker is mostly played as a 2of that finishes the job. So choosing for either creatures has other impacts on deck design.

You can generally say Tombstalker is better versus B/G and Red decks where it is about a threat that sicks whereas confidant is better versus combo & white decks.

As the meta is shifting or you are preparing for your local meta feel free to innovate & test. The community will appreciate all significant results that you post.

Barbed Blightning
03-29-2013, 10:35 AM
Maybe this is a stupid question, but am I in the wrong thread for lists playing Confidant over Stalker? Or did they get dismissed because this one is superior?

I agree with maximus' statement, but I do love Bob very much. In the current meta TS just kills people. However, I would like to see a possible Bob list. SCG had an article with one in it; I'll post it when I find it.

Do you have a list with Bob?

Intiok
03-29-2013, 04:26 PM
I agree with maximus' statement, but I do love Bob very much. In the current meta TS just kills people. However, I would like to see a possible Bob list. SCG had an article with one in it; I'll post it when I find it.

Do you have a list with Bob?

Here's the bob list I've been running for the past few weeks and I am currently 11-0-1 at my local events. My meta is extremely combo heavy with a bunch of U/W,(Either esper or RiP miracles) this might help explain some of the choices:

Creatures:

Tarmogoyf x 3
Delver of Secrets x 4
Deathrite Shaman x 4
Dark Confidant x 4
Baleful Strix x 2
Vendilion Clique x 1

Spells:

Brainstorm x 4
Ponder x 2
Stifle x 3
Force of Will x 3
Daze x 3
Thoughtseize x 2
Hymn to Tourach x 2
Abrupt Decay x 4

Lands:

Underground Sea x 3
Tropical Island x 1
Bayou x 1
Swamp x 1
Island x 1
Polluted Delta x 4
Misty Rainforest x 3
Verdant Catacombs x 1
Wasteland x 4

SB:
Sinkhole x 3
Surgical Extraction x 3
Spell Pierce x 2
Submerge x 2
Force of Will x 1
Divert x 1
Diabolic Edict x 1
Krosan Grip x 1
Life From the Loam x 1

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Maximus
03-29-2013, 08:20 PM
Mort, ignore this last remark which is either the author beeing too lazy to outline an argument or just a netdecker without thinking for himself. There is no "religious confidant does not fit BUG Delver thing" and certainly Confidant is better in an aggressive deck rather than a controllish (higher curve) deck.

Confidant in BUG Delver is a viable suggestions and there has been also success with confidant lists at the beginning when deathrite/decay came out. The reason why Tombstalker became more popular is due to the fact that he is resistant to the forms of removal which were mostly present: Lightning bolt (punishing fire) and Abrupt Decay.

The roles that both creatures play are also different. Confidant becomes the "go to 2 drop" whereas Tombstalker is mostly played as a 2of that finishes the job. So choosing for either creatures has other impacts on deck design.

You can generally say Tombstalker is better versus B/G and Red decks where it is about a threat that sicks whereas confidant is better versus combo & white decks.

As the meta is shifting or you are preparing for your local meta feel free to innovate & test. The community will appreciate all significant results that you post.

I appreciate that you called out what I now see was a shallow statement. However, it was me being lazy and I stand by the original statement.

Dark Confidant, and by extension Sylvan Library, are tempo-negative plays. that doesn't necessarily make it incorrect to play them (I play a maindeck Library myself) but you have to decide what type of pressure you want to put on your opponent. For Team America, that means putting your opponent on a clock and forcing them to beat it through a varied and under-costed disruption suite. Tombstalker is not disruptive, but it's certainly a good clock. You could argue that Dark Confidant draws you into both, but the speed at which he does it makes him a questionable choice in this type of deck. Even when you see Dark Confidant lists, it's more likely that Confidant himself is absurd on his own more so than it is good synergistic strategy.

We have both already mutually agreed that each card fills a different role. The choice is not a meta decision, it's a deck function decision; do you want to do 20 damage to your opponent quickly? Or do you want to get ahead in game state in the mid-game? I would argue that Confidant is better in a deck with a higher curve because the gains from drawing additional cards adds up the longer the game goes on. For Tombstalker, dodging most of the format's popular removal is a coincidence as much as dodging Counterbalance triggers is. Tombstalker is there to kill your opponent.

Fl0do
03-30-2013, 09:45 AM
Hi guys,

played the following BUG Delver list to a 4 - 1 - 1 finish in GP Trial, 3rd after swiss, 34 players, lost in the quarterfinals.

I expected combo to be the top decks (S&T and Storm variants), that's why I chose BUG Delver as the deck to go.

//Lands
4 Polluted Delte
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou

//Creatures
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant

//Other
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Spell Pierce
3 Daze
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember
1 Umezawa's Jitte

//Sideboard
2 Duress
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Life from the Loam
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Flusterstorm
3 Baleful Strix
3 Engineered Plague

I'm quite satisfied with the Maindeck, sideboard needs some adjustment. I always wanted a second Liliana, Life from the Loam was not needed and 3 Plagues are one Plague too much (though they are nice). A third Surgical is also good I think, as long there is not too much Dredge in the metagame.

R1 vs. Elfs - 2 : 0 - My opponent was quite unexperienced with the format and his deck.
R2 vs. BG Nic Fit - 1 : 0 - Hard fight, Deathrite Shaman and Lili G2 got there.
R3 vs. Miracles - 2 : 0 - Easy, disruption got him both games to the point, where every creature I play is my win.
R4 vs. Esper Blade - 0 : 2 - Vs. teammate, he slaughtered me. Matchup doesn't feel good, any ideas to improve that one?
R5 vs. Elfs - 1 : 1 ID - Vs. another teammate we draw, so both have the chance to make top 8. The games we played I always felt behind, only a Engineered Plague is really gamebreaker, but vs. a fast start it's difficult to compete with.
R6 vs. TES - 2 : 1 - Lost game 1, Engineered Plague forced him to go the Tendrils route in Game 2 and 3, but I have the disruption which is needed to win.

Playoff:
R1 vs. Elfs - 0 : 2 - Teammate from R5, too fast, too much, too elfish. He managed to get into the finals where he lost against TES, my R6 opponent.

Any thoughts about the decklists? Ideas vs. the Esper Blade Matchup or vs. the Elfs Matchup?

Amazing Larry
03-30-2013, 10:01 AM
I think Dark Confidant works just fine in a BUG Delver list, but the typical list being run needs some adjustment. If I'm running Bob, I cut the Hymns for 4 Thoughtseizes. While Thoughtseize does hurt you more, it is important that you grab an opponent's removal with your discard. Here you're relying on Bob for card advantage, so Hymn's inherent advantage is less necessary than being able to pinpoint and grab what you want out of their hand to protect Bob. This does make the Sinkhole SB option a bit less effective, but you can easily try some number of Stifles in the board or maindeck if you wish.

catmint
03-30-2013, 06:57 PM
I am currently also playing a stalker list. Just like everybody to keep having an open mind and try out things.

Lost in the finals of my 19 person GPT today.
Rd 1: Beat Goblins 2:1
Rd 2: Friend scoops
Rd 3: Beat Tin Fins 2:1
Rd 4: ID
Rd 5: Losse vs. RUG 0:2
4th after Swiss
Quarter Beat Sneak & Show 2:0
Semi Beat Omni-show 2:1
Finals Loose Maverick 1:2

I choose to play Thoughtseize over Hymn since I used to screwed myself way to often balancing the casting of Decay & Hymn while not loosing to be wasted of blue. I like that the mana is much smoother and that you get the information + the ability to take what matters. Versus combo it was a big deal! In some situations hymn would have been castable and more powerful but the situations where thoughtseize was the better card was more common. Hymn can be way more powerful but thoughtseize is more consistant. Also I feel that without deathrite the hymn deck-list's curve does not fith the manabase and often doesnt work properly.

Did not go for the Sinkhole package in the side since I did not expect UW or Jund. I mostly prepared for combo, Rug & Maverick.

My list for reference:

4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Tombstalker
1 Vendilion Clique

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
1 Disfigure

Sideboard
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Flusterstorm
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Engineered Plague
1 Sylvan Library
4 Submerge