[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

[Kanabo]

Would extirpate be a good sb card for this deck?

[SpencerForHire]

Would extirpate be a good sb card for this deck?

It depends? What are you worried about playing against? What does extirpate do to rectify those things and in which circumstance would you prefer it over a card in your maindeck?

It is hard to accurately judge if a card like that is right for you for this deck in your metagame with out further information.

[Kanabo]

well my meta consists of alot of combo, and exturpate could be useful by removing tendrils, or brain freeze.

also, its a flexable card that can be useful against any deck imo.

also, does anyone know of a good sideboard that can be used in any setting? (fnm, casual, big tourneys)

[SpencerForHire]

How often is a deck reliably putting Brainfreeze or Tendrils into the yard that you rely on Extirpate to remove it? Are you sure those combo decks aren't already going for the throat when they finally play that kill spell?

My main concern with this card as of late is how powerful is it really? It can remove threats from a deck which is huge, but it requires your opponent to be openly exposing cards for you to do this? In many of these situations they have already Chanted you, Thoughtseized you or are winning with the first Storm card cast. Hardly ideal for Extirpate.

That being said it can be very good against other combo decks such as Entomb decks.

[Kanabo]

well i try to play a turn 1 thoughtseize, so if i can do that then i can extirpate their wincon.

[SpencerForHire]

well i try to play a turn 1 thoughtseize, so if i can do that then i can extirpate their wincon.

Although this is no doubt a legitimate gameplan, I find that this is in itself narrow as you are effectively relying on two cards to hate them out and hoping when the one connects that they do indeed have the card you wish to hit which is not always going to be the case. Oftentimes proactive hate such as Relic of Progenitus, Leyline, etc... will offer more efficient / less erratic solutions if these are decks you are having issues with.

[Kanabo]

yes i agree. well, if thoughtseize resolves, then extirpate is no problem because it has split second. and you would use it as a follow up to thoughtseize/

[SpencerForHire]

yes i agree. well, if thoughtseize resolves, then extirpate is no problem because it has split second. and you would use it as a follow up to thoughtseize/

That is not my point. The point is when going for the Thoughtseize/Extirpate command the following have to be true:

You have Thoughtseize in hand.
You have Extirpate in hand.
Your opponent has their win condition in hand.

If even one of these in untrue the entire plan is kaput. Not to mention you have to go all in more or less to even see if they have the win condition. Along with this, in many situations, if you do not have the Extirpate then you are going to want to hit things other than the kill condition (making this a poor multi-turn plan).

Lastly we assume they are not running Burning Wish or Cunning Wish (not to say every or any lists are but it is something to consider) and just win anyways.

[Kanabo]

ok, but if we seize them and they dont have the wincon, we just wait for it and counter it. then maybe follow it up with the extirpate.

[SpencerForHire]

The examples you used of a "wincon" are storm cards. By definition I don't believe countermagic is going to win that fight.

[Kanabo]

The examples you used of a "wincon" are storm cards. By definition I don't believe countermagic is going to win that fight.

oh yea i guess your right. but you also can take out key cards like ad nauseum or dark ritual. but yes i agree with you that i would have a hard time winning that battle.

[popeye79]

hi,
this forum is blocked from my work so i don't post here much, but i used to play counterslivers for a long time, then swithched over to eva green for a long time. now based on my meta i think TA might actualy be the right plan. i've never actualy played TA before, but i'm a decent player and think i know the game plan/how to play it pretty well.

so anyway, i just want some constructive critisism for what i'll be playing this week. please tell me both good and bad, what you think. i'm especilay concerned with no basic lands in anyones deck lists.. my meta is chop full of wastelands, and i think it more appropriate to fetch out a basic so i don't have to save my stifles to protect my duals.

4 goyfs
3 tombstalkers

4 brainstorm
4 ponder

4 fow
4 daze
4 stifle
3 spell peirce
2 spell snare

2 thoughtseize
4 sink hole
3 snuff out
1 smother

4 wastes
4 deltas
2 catacombs
2 mistys
3 undergrounds
1 trop
1 bayou
1 island
1 swamp

2 k.grips
2 Bob's
2 tormods crypts
2 E.E.
2 annul
2 edicts
3 REB's

also, does anyone think word of command (beta) might be useful in this deck?

[from Cairo]

my meta is chop full of wastelands, and i think it more appropriate to fetch out a basic so i don't have to save my stifles to protect my duals.

Stifling an opponent's Wasteland nets you the same tempo as Stifling their fetchland. In both cases they're down a mana source and you're not. The basics seem like they limit one's lines of play and could negatively effect your game plan if you don't draw into the right lands to complement them.

Is there a reason for splitting the 1cc disruption up between proactive and reactive? AKA: Thoughtseize vs Spell Snare/Pierce? It seems like Thoughtseize would just be better since it gives you the information of what's in their hand and can remove opposing Creatures.

[popeye79]

thoughtseize is never going to be the optimal turn one play though. you'd much rather be stifling, piercing, pondering, bluffing, or possibly even snaring.

thoughtseize should really be used later to clear the way for your own creature. while early info is good, you can usualy get the same info from reading your opp. in the beginning you're trying to gain tempo, not take their win con or removal for a creature you're not going to drop for several turns.

and spell pierce is simply amazing in this deck.. i'd almost want to bump it to 4, but that would be over kill and clog up your hand against stuff like goblins or zoo. combined with all the LD we pack, pierce is just amazing for this deck.

edit..
also, i was thinking about taking out a single ponder or brainstorm for the 4th tombstalker. comments? is 3 stalker enough (don't want him cloging early hand). if i remove a cantrip, which would it be? ponder lets you shuffle w/o a fetch if need be. but brainstorm is so great. ???

[Kanabo]

what about playing Massacre in this deck?

[chokin]

what about playing Massacre in this deck?

Against? It only kills Qasali Pridemage and Grim Lavamancer against Zoo. Meddling Mage and Teeg aren't really issues for this deck are they? In a pinch, maybe you could kill Elspeth's Soldier Tokens or Decree of Justice Soldier Tokens :P If your meta happens to have Kithkin or Soldiers, I guess. But I don't see the point in Massacre.

Why play Extirpate? That's an honest question. In my experiences, it's kind of sucked. If you're talking vs combo, I'd think that the tempo package already in the deck is enough...Force, Daze, Stifle, Wasteland, and Thoughtseize. If you play Spell Pierce, that's extra hate. Toss in the quick clock of a Goyf or Stalker and you're set. So why play Extirpate?

[Kanabo]

Against? It only kills Qasali Pridemage and Grim Lavamancer against Zoo. Meddling Mage and Teeg aren't really issues for this deck are they? In a pinch, maybe you could kill Elspeth's Soldier Tokens or Decree of Justice Soldier Tokens :P If your meta happens to have Kithkin or Soldiers, I guess. But I don't see the point in Massacre.

Why play Extirpate? That's an honest question. In my experiences, it's kind of sucked. If you're talking vs combo, I'd think that the tempo package already in the deck is enough...Force, Daze, Stifle, Wasteland, and Thoughtseize. If you play Spell Pierce, that's extra hate. Toss in the quick clock of a Goyf or Stalker and you're set. So why play Extirpate?

yeah i am changing around my sb and took out the extirpates. but massacre could also kill a uw merfolk deck. also, is 2 crypts enough to fight ichorid?

[GtF]

These are the cards you really should be running 4 of as they make the core of the deck:
tombstalker
goyf
fow
daze
stifle
brainstorm
ponder
thoughtseize
All these cards are integral to the decks gameplan. Thoughtseize on turn 1 has been really good for me every time I've done it, it allows you to sculpt your gameplan and disrupt theirs. The spots to mess with are the sinkholes and snuff outs. The creator of the deck has said that sinkhole is the worst card but there just isn't anything better. Snuff outs are great in some matchups and useless in others, but the point is you usually dont need one early unless they resolve a goblin lackey. I've been playing with 3 of each and added 2 trygon predators as additional threats, but there may be something better as this was a while ago. I recommend any card you add to the main be blue, as the more cards you have the option to pitch to FOW the better. I have hated spell snare every time I've tried it, it's just been too conditional, I'd rather have mana leak or counterspell. Brainstorm is the best card in the entire format, and combined with fetchlands allows you to negate the disadvantage of having a tombstalker early (just shuffle it away if it's not useful). However even if you do have a tombstalker early, you can end up playing him very quickly and I've rarely been sad to have multiple tombstalkers, as they are incredibly hard to deal with in this format.

The reason to play basics isn't for wasteland so much as it is for blood moon effects. The problem is, your threats cost G and BB, so you'd need to run 2 swamps and a forest, all of which are seriously bad to fetch up early since they limit your ability to play blue spells. But it is annoying to straight up lose if they resolve blood moon so it may be worth it. The printing of misty rainforest actually makes running a single forest a viable option, which it wasn't before since you couldn't fetch it.
Massacre isn't worth it in the main, and even in the board it seems like deed or EE would be better options. 2 Crypt is not enough to fight dredge. Even 3 is pushing it.
Extirpate is bad, for so many reasons. Playing it against tendrils decks is pointless, you should already have a good matchup against them, but if you want a card, hymn to tourach really bones them.

Hope this helps, let us know how you do in this upcoming tournament, I am curious if this deck is still viable.

[keys]

You could play a Forest in the SB along with Grips so you have an out against resolved Blood Moon, but maindeck is too awkward IMO.

[Kanabo]

so what would be a good sb that i can take to any event?

[DerFern]

If you want to play as canadian (but I don't think this is the right way to play this deck), cut sinkhole and other sorcery spell.

I gave it a try this past sunday and played some kind of mix between TT and TA which looked like this:

// Lands
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest

// Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

// Spells

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare

4 Stifle
4 Sinkhole
4 Snuff Out

3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Rushing River
1 Wipe Away

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Extirpate
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt

even though I ended up 3-3 I would not change a single thing maindeck. SB was Ichorid Hate all alone since about 10 ppl out of 33 were playing Dredge... unfortunately I never got paired against them. Extirpate was MVP all day long, espacially against Tempo Thresh (Extirpate Tropical turn2, gg).

I crushed Tempo Thresh, and had a really close game against Balanced Bant by srewing him off white with Extirpate. Merfolk lost to Plague with all my LD going for Mutavault.

I lost to MonoR Burn due to 1 land in 12 Turns (g1) and mull to 4 with 2 Wasteland game2. Both other losses were made by myself just screwing it all up (letting choke resolve, tapping out with 2xSpell Pierce on hand against ANT).

Next time I would build a SB like this:

// Sideboard
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Infest
SB: 4 Extirpate
SB: 4 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Thoughtseize

I strongly recommend testing this Tempo version since it is quite versatile and hell of fun to play! I only missed the hand destruction against ANT so I chose a harder counter base. Spell Pierce is just amazing with 12 LD effects.

[popeye79]

i disagree about thoughtseize being an auto 4 of. turn 1 seize is not the optimal play.. 2 was just right for me, as i like to save them to push through a threat, and save the early turns for land disruption, counters and tempo.

i played my list above to a second place finish (small thourny, but mostly great players) only loosinging to canadian threash.. but it was a real battle. back and forth so many times, freaking mongoose went all the way in the end.

spell pierce was simply amazing, and just what this deck needed. but in order to be effective- DO NOT take the sinkholes out.

spell snares were less than impressive.

i'm going to go -2 spell snare, -1 smother, +2 edict, +1 tombstalker (it was stupid of me to take one out, and i need the edicts to take care of mongoose).

also, the two basics worked well for me.

[Kanabo]

Has the universal list (list on first post of this thread) changed since this thread was created? it seems like this deck never gets updated...

[Illissius]

That's because it sprang fully-formed and perfect from David Gearhart's forehead, and you don't mess with perfection. Also because they seldom print new cards that can vie in efficiency with the ones already in it. It did recently gain axis-colored fetchlands, and Spell Pierce probably has a place at least in the sideboard if not the maindeck.

[Kanabo]

so do you think the list could be updated soon?

and which is a better to have as a 3 of instead of a 2 of in sb: kgrip or deed?

[Kanabo]

sorry to double post...but can anyone please answer my question above? its been 8 days since i asked it...

[Benie Bederios]

If you want the list to be updated, the best thing you can do is try yourself...

I played the list in the OP with 1 Snuff Out less for a Vendillion Clique and Zendikar fetches( so I could fetch all lands with all fetches.) The best bet is to start with the OP-list and work from there. If you make some changes to that list you like, you can post it here and we can comment on it. This sounds lazy, but with this deck it's probably the only way.

As for SB, play 3 Krosan Grip, 3 Pernious Deeds is to manahungry, unless you play in a meta infested with Enchantress or something.

Good luck.

- Benie

[GtF]

T16 tourney report at SCG 5K St. Louis.

So yeah I played the deck at the 5k and got 12th. I'm not sure whether I should have been higher or lower, since I punted a match but at least two of the people I beat also did.

Here's the list I ran:

4 wasteland
9 UBG fetches
4 underground sea
2 trop island
1 bayou
4 ponder
4 brainstorm
4 goyf
4 tombstalker
4 daze
4 FOW
4 stifle
4 thoughtseize
3 snuff out
1 smother
3 spell pierce
1 reanimate

SB:
2 infest
1 engineered explosives
1 smother
3 krosan grip
3 tormod's crypt
1 ravenous trap
2 blue elemental blast
2 hydroblast

The split on hydroblasts and bebs is pretty pointless now, it used to be for goblins with cabal therapy. Split on trap/crypt is for dredge, since crypt is better but keeping them guessing is always good. I ran the reanimate main because looking around before the tourney I saw all kinds of different decks, many with tarmogoyf, and it is good in such a field. If not main I'd definitely want 1 in the board, unless I added other creatures like trygon predator or bob, both of which are ok in some matchups. I played the infests because I was expecting a lot of merfolk and ee was too slow against them in the few games I tested. I don't know if it's actually good, or if it's even worth the slots in the board. I was also expecting a lot of zoo, hence the extra smother and EE. I ended up not playing either one on the day. Spell pierce replaced sinkhole. It was very good, I am pretty sure it was better than sinkhole overall. Fitting both in might be nice but I am not sure how.

R1: BGW Rock
G1: I stifle his mana sources and land a fattie. He dies with a vindicate in his hand and an unmorphed exalted angel.
G2: He is able to cast most of his spells this game, which is bad for me. I manage to trade tombstalkers which is good for me because I have no other way to get rid of his and I'm behind in life. He topdecks vindicate for my goyf though and kills me.
G3: I fetch, thoughtseize him turn 1 and take tombstalker. I reanimate tombstalker turn 2 (That puts me at 9 on turn 2 for those keeping track :D). I FOW a swords and proceed to draw lands. He hymns me when I have 2 cards and gets two lands. The next turn he casts vindicate but I have drawn the daze like a champ and tombstalker kills him.

R2: GBU counterbalancetop
G1: We wasteland each others mana sources, and I have some stifles, but he has island-top. He can't shuffle his library though and he isn't getting more lands. I land a goyf and it gets there.
G2: See game 1, but with tombstalker. He lands a bob but I have the smother and it resolves. He has two lands towards the end and I know he has smother in his hand, I have the choice between playing a second tombstalker or reanimate on bob and play a goyf when he's at 7 life. I choose to play the tombstalker since I want another threat that won't get killed, if he has two removals he could kill goyf and bob. He fails to draw a land, but shows me maelstrom pulse that would have killed both my tombstalkers. Whoops! Noted for future reference.

R3: Burn!
G1: I stifle a rift bolt, but I don't land a goyf for a few turns, so his burn has me way behind. An ankh of mishra prevents me from playing more than two lands, but I basically just die to not having enough hard counters for all his fire.
G2: I stifle a rift bolt again and land a goyf (or maybe it was tombstalker) earlier this time. I draw some BEBs and counter his magma jets, which proves to be key because he was stuck on two lands and holding ensnaring bridge.
G3: I boarded out thoughtseize for game 2 but I decide I should bring it back for game 3 since I feel it will save me damage and making him pay mana for the burn won't be as relevant since he's on the play and will have plenty of time to do so. I get a goyf and start racing but I am pretty far behind and it's only attacking for 3. My hand is stacked with pierce, brainstorm, fow, daze, ponder, fow and a land. I have the option of pondering or brainstorming but there's not much better I can hope to get, and I can't really afford to tap out for another threat. Fortunately I am drawing really well and draw BEB, hydroblast to counter two price of progress. When he's at 8, he goes for it, he magma jets and I force, he floats 2 and fireblasts, I force that and have the choice of pitching brainstorm or daze. For brainstorm to be good I'd have to draw another FOW and another blue spell, I have no mana for pierce or beb to be played, so I pitch brainstorm. He tries to fork (!!!) with his last two and I daze it. I play wasteland so that POP will deal me 0 if he draws it and win a few turns later with goyf. If he'd waited 1 more turn, the extra land would have let him pay for daze and maybe kill me with another burn spell. Very close.

R4: White stax
G1: It gets to a point where I've got him to 4 but I keep drawing extra creatures instead of disruption. He plays out his second ghostly prison and has geddon in hand. I know I'm dead if he plays it so I think about scooping but I might as well wait till he actually does. Instead he plays baneslayer angel. This would be good enough to stop my attack if I didn't have snuff out. I pay 4 life then pay 4 mana to attack and kill him.
G2: He gets turn 1 chalice for 1 off a city of traitors, crippling my hand. I have grips in my deck but don't draw one. I burn brainstorms to be able to play a tombstalker but it's not quick enough and he locks me out.
G3: I thoughtseize him and see geddon, smokestack, 2X prison, karmic justice. I have k. grip and EE in my hand, so I take geddon and plan to counter justice, grip smokestack if necessary, and use EE to hopefully get his two prisons. It takes me a long time to find a 3rd colored mana source for EE since I embarrassingly have 2 useless wastelands against his all plains/flagstones draw. They end up not being so useless though since I eventually I get it my 3rd colored mana and use all 5 mana to play EE and explode 2 prisons and a trinisphere. The smokestack comes down too late to matter, as the artifacts and enchantments make goyf gigantic in this matchup.

R5: Aggro loam (he won the tourney)
G1: I mulligan a hand I probably should have kept (something like spell pierce, fow, snuff out, and either stifle and 3 lands or 4 lands) and keep a questionable hand with goyf and snuff out but not much else. I get him low with goyf but I have no real disruption and he lands a bob. It gets him pretty low but he has LFTL and lands a seismic assault. If he'd played a goyf or countryside crusher I could have won, since I not only had a useless snuff out but a tombstalker without enough graveyard to play it. As it is, when he's at about 3 life he stabilizes and dredges lftl a bunch to kill my goyf, then kills his own bob so as to not die to it. Once he does that I pack it in.
G2: We both keep and then he puts two leylines into play. I look at the two tombstalkers in my hand. Awkward. I am slowly annihilated by bob and countryside crusher.

R6: Canadian Thresh
G1: I punted this game really badly. We spend the early turns stifling and wasteland each others lands. It gets to a point where I have a fetchland and a bunch of really good cards in my hand, but no other land. I know I'm not drawing a land from an earlier brainstorm. He has no lands and I should just crack my fetch and ponder. I don't want to leave my land open to wasteland, but by passing I leave it open to stifle. My thinking was that if he has a fetchland and cracks, I can crack mine and stifle in response, but that would be a pretty bad play by him if he can wait a turn to do it, and was pretty greedy of me. As it turns out he just has a regular land and stifles me. Justice is served as I never draw another land.
G2: This game I misplayed too, though not quite as obviously. I plan to thoughtseize him next turn and so with my brainstorm I shuffle away two goyfs. My plan was just to take his goyf after thoughtseize with reanimate and use the ample disruption in my hand to ride it to victory, since really the only thing that deals with a goyf in this matchup is another goyf (or submerge, kinda) and I would have just taken one of his. I thought he had one since he'd pondered, but he actually just had two vindillion cliques. I take one of them and reanimate it, but it is much worse than goyf and he stabilizes at a low life. Eventually he gets two goyfs to my goyf and tombstalker. I will kill him next turn if he has stone nothing, but I know this is quite unlikely. He has ice for my tombstalker for the win. This game went on for quite a while but I think I really lost on the second turn by brainstorming wrong. I didn't take enough time to think in either of these games and it cost me. I am sure they were both winnable.

R7: WBUr control
G1: His mana draw is very awkward, he has a bunch of plains and nothing else. I spell pierce/daze a spell at one point to tap his wasteland so I can wasteland it, putting him back to 3 mana since I have some stifles for fetches he may draw. Eventually he succumbs to goyf/tombstalker beats with a bunch of uncastable spells in hand.
G2: Basically the same as game 1. I thoughtseize him and take a wrath, seeing two extirpates (basically mulligans) and and a decree of justice. His two extirpates later remove my FOW and spell pierce (after I've used 1 of each of course). They can't remove my win conditions though because he hasn't been able to kill them first. I counter a swords and he can't find another wrath. Cycled decree for two delays his death for a turn by blocking goyf but tombstalker finishes it.

So I end up 12th. In a diverse metagame, this deck is very good. I still need to figure out how to deal with leyline and if more is needed to do so, like trygon predator, which I had for a while and was decent. I'll be on the lookout for good stuff in worldwake. Anything like ponder/brainstorm/tarmogoyf would also bump the deck up another level.

[nitewolf9]

Nice report and good finish! I have switched Sinkhole to Spell Pierce as well in my list but haven't had much of a chance to test it. It seems like they served you well though, so that is promising. I like your maindeck.

I think infest is bad against Merfolk, I have tested that extensively. Cursecatcher, along with Lords, make it come down too late to matter. Additional spot removal like Ghastly Demise is better overall, but I'd probably play more EE (great against Zoo and very versatile) and even try out Trygon Predator. He is surprisingly very good against Merfolk and a bomb in a lot of random situations. Just don't play him in the main.

Next time top 8! :smile:

[keys]

Did you test the Zoo matchup before this tourney or did you not expect to see a lot of it? I'm surprised you didn't get matched with any. Nice job beating burn, and kudos on the report. Spell Pierce is the new Sinkhole.

[Valdez]

I've toyed around with the following SB:

1 Volcanic
1 Badlands
3 Pyroblast
2 Firesprout
3 T.Crypt
3 Hydroblast
2 Krosan Grip

I'am not sure bout it, but red proved itself quite solid in a few test games vs. VG and vs. CB-Decks (Supreme U & Dreadstill).
I've also thought bout playing one of the duals in the maindeck, to be able to play the third Sprout.

[nitewolf9]

Just for reference this is my latest list:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
4 Spell Pierce
3 Thoughtseize
2 Snuff Out
1 Smother
2 Engineered Explosives

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

Board:
4 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Krosan Grip
2 Trygon Predator
1 Smother
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Ichorid Hate (3 Tormod's Crypt, 1 Ravenous Trap seems very good)
*As much as I hate to say this, if Lands! and Loam becomes more popular,
there could be an argument to run *gasp* Extirpate here. It's probably
still terrible though. The fact that it still doesn't do enough against
Ichorid is the main strike against it.

Ever since I added 2 MD EE I've been extremely pleased. It helps drawing it in the midgame vs Zoo and solves many problems. I cut the 3rd Snuff Out a while ago for an alternate removal spell (Smother) because of the life loss against Merfolk, surprisingly enough. I don't want to draw 2 in that matchup.

As for Spell Pierce, I think you should be running 4 before you run 4 Thoughtseize. It is great but you want Pierce early even more than you want to see Thoughtseize imo, and Seize really shines by hitting removal before you play a threat in the midgame anyway. Things like Vial and Top that you really worry about as turn 1 plays are stopped more effectively by Pierce, and it also enables Stifle more often (mainly why I think it should be the 4 of over Seize).

[Deep6er]

*As much as I hate to say this, if Lands! and Loam becomes more popular,
there could be an argument to run *gasp* Extirpate here. It's probably
still terrible though. The fact that it still doesn't do enough against
Ichorid is the main strike against it.


You're out of the family.

[nitewolf9]

You're out of the family.

That was just for you.

[Kanabo]

which ichorid hate card is better for this deck? Tormod's Crypt OR Leyline of the Void?

and why are sinkholes being taken out?

[GtF]

You're out of the family.

I lol'd.

Your explanation for the 4X pierce makes sense. I will probably play that list but cut an EE for thoughtseize. Good to know about the infests. I had no chance to test it and just kinda hoped it would be good enough, fortunately I didn't get to find out firsthand that it wasn't. Trygon predators are definitely going back in, I have played them before and they were solid.

Extirpate could be fine. I think the disruption gives the deck enough game against dredge that you can afford to have a graveyard hate card that is slightly worse against them as long as it does something to disrupt them. I'd run a mix of extirpate and crypt.

Sinkholes have been replaced by spell pierce because it does more and costs less. It is kind of absurd that a 2 mana LD spell isn't good enough though.

[nitewolf9]

It is kind of absurd that a 2 mana LD spell isn't good enough though.

Yeah, it was pretty hard to let go :cry:.

[DerFern]

Even though I do admit that Spell Pierce is insane it is even more ridicilous in addition to Sinkhole. How could an opp pay 2 more if we have 12 (!) ways to destroy Lands? Right now I´m playing 4 Sinkhole/3 Pierce and I really love it. I did drop Seize completely though and added Clique for basically the some reason as playing Seize (picking removal) and having an additional Beater...

that´s it at the moment:

//Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tombstalker
2 Vendilion Clique

//Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
2 Spell Snare
3 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
3 Ponder
4 Sinkhole
5 Snuff Out/Smother

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

[deadlock]

nitewolf, while i agree on your choice of cutting down on Snuff Out and Thoughtseize, i dont know about Pierce in the main over Spell Snare.
While Snare and Size fullfill in some cases the same role (if you' re on the draw and need to stop there second turn play), it doesnt contradict to run both in some amounts.
Dont get me wrong - Spell Pierce is insane, but i am not sure if they are good enough for the maindeck over other choices. I still fear to get run over by creatures - EE helps there but its also kinda slow. Its versatility makes up for it though i guess.
If the format somewhat slows down and control decks emerge again i happily reinclude Sinkhole..

[Kanabo]

why dont people use deed instead of ee?

[Nidd]

why dont people use deed instead of ee?
Because it's even slower, I guess.

[Kanabo]

ok, and is it still worth it to play bayou even though sinkholes have been replaced by spell pierces? and what would the benefit be by going 8 fetches, 8 duaks, and 4 wastelands?

[Pltnmngl]

I'm trying to build a budget (~$40) version of this deck. I know I'm going to grab the following:

Tombstalker
Brainstorm
Ponder
Spell Snare
Snuff Out
Smother
Daze (probably)
Spell Pierce (probably)

Beyond that, I plan on using some sub-par replacements for cards. While nothing can truly take Tarmogoyf's place, is there a reasonable card that helps serve it's purpose? I'm thinking Vampire Nighthawk. Does anybody have any suggestions?

[keys]

I'm trying to build a budget (~$40) version of this deck. I know I'm going to grab the following:

Tombstalker
Brainstorm
Ponder
Spell Snare
Snuff Out
Smother
Daze (probably)
Spell Pierce (probably)

Beyond that, I plan on using some sub-par replacements for cards. While nothing can truly take Tarmogoyf's place, is there a reasonable card that helps serve it's purpose? I'm thinking Vampire Nighthawk. Does anybody have any suggestions?

Yeah just don't play green. Nighthawk or Vendilion Clique will work.

[kabal]

I'm trying to build a budget (~$40) version of this deck. I know I'm going to grab the following:

Tombstalker
Brainstorm
Ponder
Spell Snare
Snuff Out
Smother
Daze (probably)
Spell Pierce (probably)

Beyond that, I plan on using some sub-par replacements for cards. While nothing can truly take Tarmogoyf's place, is there a reasonable card that helps serve it's purpose? I'm thinking Vampire Nighthawk. Does anybody have any suggestions?

Yes, it will really be "subpar". In fact, not even the same deck anymore. Anyhow, what are you replacing the fetches with? As for the duals, even if you used the Ravnica ones you are going way over $40.

[Illissius]

Not Nighthawk. Something aggressive. Clique, Hyppie, Negator, whatever.

[Kanabo]

Is this deck honestly still any good? It seems to never win against aggressive decks and struggle to beat combo. Also, what do you guys think about maelstrom pulse?

[Nidd]

Is this deck honestly still any good? It seems to never win against aggressive decks and struggle to beat combo. Also, what do you guys think about maelstrom pulse?
Sorry, but how come a deck like this has a hard time against combo?

FoW, Daze, Wasteland, Spell Pierce, Discard...
And a brutal clock.

[stu55]

Why are people saying not to run sinkhole? Isn't that the whole purpose of the deck?

[GtF]

The point isn't exclusively to blow up lands, it's to disrupt the opponent while huge creatures kill them. Bizarrely enough, sinkhole ends up being the worst disruption spell among all of them (including the new spell pierce) and so got cut, at least from my list. It's still not awful, but I just think there are better cards to run now that do what you need.

If you are having a hard time against combo something is wrong, that is supposed to be what the deck feasts on.

I haven't personally tried pulse but everyone says it's really good in other decks so it could be ok.

[Benie Bederios]

At leat Sinkhole helps a matchups(Zoo) where it keeps cats and apes small and form a lock with Stifle and Wasteland, where the opponent only got a 1/1 critter. Spell Pierce helps Control( good winnable) Combo( can't be lost). If you want to replace Sinkhole with something it would probably be creature removal like Smother or Pulse. But than your mana-disruption is just as good as Tempo Thresh and you will give up your control matchup. In fact at that moment it's probably better to play Tempo Thresh.

- Benie

[Kanabo]

What do you guys think about this list?

4 tarmogoyf
4 tombstalker

4 force of will
4 daze
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 stifle
4 snuff out
4 thoughtseize
4 maelstrom pulse

4 wasteland
4 tropical island
4 underground sea
4 misty rainforest
4 polutted Delta

SB
3 pernicious deed
3 blue elemental blast
3 krosan grip
3 pithing needle
3 tormods crypt

[Illissius]

I don't think spells which cost more than the things they're trading with are a great idea in this deck.

[GtF]

Cutting the bayou doesn't make sense. Even without sinkhole, you've still got tombstalker which costs BB, that's why you ran it. I also prefer 9 fetchlands to feed tombstalker/make brainstorm better and haven't had any issues running that many. Maelstrom pulse is definitely doing something different than sinkhole or spell pierce and it doesn't really seem like something you want/need 4 of if you're also running 4 snuff out.

[Kanabo]

Well now that sinkhole is gone, I don't have to worry about having bb on turn 2. Plus I'd rather have more blue sources.

[deadlock]

Just keep the Bayou to keep the deck operational at 2 mana.. The deck creators really put a lot of effort in designing the manabase. Run the orginal one with -3 Flooded Strand, -2 Bloodstained, +5 Zendikar Fetch - this has been said about a couple of times now.

With the removal of Sinhole i would keep the deck more instant based too, it gives you more flexibilty and strengthens Stifle. 4 Ponder and 3 Thoughtseize is fine. Personally i would play 4 Spell Snare before 4 Spell Pierce in the maindeck. Definitly run 4 Pierce in the board though.

Also just comparing to Canadian ******** which runs bounce, i just want to trow out Recoil as a possibilty.

[Kanabo]

Would a couple of pernicious deeds be a good possibility? It seems strong because of the lack of non land permanents we Run. Also, why would we run spell Pierce if our worst matchup is aggro?

[GtF]

The spell pierce is still good vs some of the best cards in aggro decks (Price of progress, FOW, aether vial) as well as just being really good in the deck in general.

I wonder what is different about the metagame in europe that people like spell snare so much there? I don't see it in US versions but see it all the time in european versions of the deck.

[nitewolf9]

Deed is a turn too slow. At least with Explosives it costs 3 mana on one turn to sweep away 1 drops, or you can break up the mana cost over a couple of turns. I've tried Deed in the board and hated it. It's also stricter on color requirements. I have been running 2 or 3 EE in the main and they have been awesome though.

Spell Pierce can actually help against Zoo by stopping Path, burn, and Library. Path is something that needs to be stopped most of the time and Pierce is very good at doing that (along with stifle/waste). EE also goes a long way here.

Against merfolk Pierce helps you stop Standstill, and gives you a better chance of stoppipng vial. I usually lose to Merfolk when they are able to pull ahead with that card. If they try to match you threat for threat, card for card, they are in an uphill battle. Standstill breaks your balls.

Pierce is also excellent against Counter/Top decks, and that matchup is very close. And it helps you against storm combo. Like you needed that. Just saying.

[Kanabo]

Would it be worth it to do a split of 2/2 between spell Pierce and spell snare?

And is deed a good choice for a sb card? And are 3 needles too much for my sb?

[Koby]

Against merfolk Pierce helps you stop Standstill, and gives you a better chance of stoppipng vial. I usually lose to Merfolk when they are able to pull ahead with that card. If they try to match you threat for threat, card for card, they are in an uphill battle. Standstill breaks your balls.


I usually board out Spell Pierce for this matchup. While it is a good card vs Standstills, it's pretty much dead for all the other times. Spell Snare is better in this matchup than Pierce.

[nitewolf9]

I usually board out Spell Pierce for this matchup. While it is a good card vs Standstills, it's pretty much dead for all the other times. Spell Snare is better in this matchup than Pierce.

I think it's the second card to board out behind Stifle. That is unless they run fetches. I usually bring about 6 cards in against them (trygon, jitte, and smother for the board config I have now), so that's about -4 Stifle, -2 Pierce. Trygon has been very good.

[Kanabo]

What should I cut for 2 ee? I was thinking 2 ponder or 2 spell Pierce. And what about the 2/2 splints between snuff out/smother and spell Pierce/spell snare?

[DerFern]

What should I cut for 2 ee? I was thinking 2 ponder or 2 spell Pierce. And what about the 2/2 splints between snuff out/smother and spell Pierce/spell snare?
It depends on the rest of your deck. I´m running 3 Snuff Out/ 1 Smother and 2 Spell Snare / 3 Spell Pierce. I made the room by removing Thougtseize and adding 2 Clique... love it

[Kanabo]

Well, do we have to run 8 cantrips? I was thinking of taking out 2 ponders because some times they can be a dead draw and the fact that we would still run 6 cantrips.

Opinions?

[Illissius]

I was thinking of taking out 2 ponders because some times they can be a dead draw

You might want to refresh your memory about the definition of a "dead draw".

[Kanabo]

Okay it may not be a dead draw but I don't think that having 2 less cantrips would hurt this deck too much would it?

[Joon]

I don't get why people start to cut cantrips in tempo decks like Canadian Threshold or Team America. Sure, in a deck packing Tops it might be worth it to cut down the number of Ponders...but in this deck? Seriously? The only source of card quality is reduced to Brainstorm and Ponder and you think it's a good idea to cut those?

In my oppinion the first cards to cut when you want to adapt to something are the cards you board out often. Not the cards you want always.

[Kanabo]

Well, I see no other part of the deck to cut. I'm also tired of getting starting hands with ponders because they don't work at instant speed like brainstorm. Also, I'm gonna test with only 6 cantrips (4 brainstorm, 2 ponder) and see how it goes. I really think 6 is enough though.

Edit: which is better for this decks graveyard hate option: tormods crypt or leyline of the void?

[stu55]

Here is the list I have been running for the past year:
Decklist:
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Sinkhole
3 Ponder
3 Stifle
3 Spell Snare
3 Snuff Out
1 Thoughtseize
2 Pernicious Deed
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacomb

SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Thoughtseize
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Chill
2 Threads of Disloyalty



Now, a few thoughts after reading this thread:

Sinkhole: The way the see the format, Wasteland might slowly become worse, the more there are, the more people adapt and play more basics. Makes sinkhole just as good.I don't see myself ever cutting this card from my deck.

Spell Pierce: I don't see it competing against Sinkhole, but Spell Snare. At some point I am going to make a list of relevant spells that each hit and don't hit and see where it matches up. It hits Vial if you are on the play so that could be huge.

Thoughtsize: I like the one of, you never have it for turn one and you can usually find it by the time you need it. I might consider Terravore instead of it in the MD because 8 kills just doesnt seem enough with so many StP running around.

Land Base: I 100% want to work an Island and Swamp into the deck. Blood moon effects, like Dragon Stompy, are just so annoying that Swamp/Snuff out might be the only out some times.

[Kanabo]

@ Stu55: I like your list but I am wondering why you have a single thoughtseize. wouldnt it be better to use another stifle/spell snare/snuff out?

btw here is a reference to my most recent list:

Mana:
4 wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Polluted delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs

Creatures:
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

Spells:
4 Stifle
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
2 Snuff Out
2 Smother
4 Thoughtsieze
2 Pernicious Deed

Sideboard:
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Diabolic Edict
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Krosan Grip

[gamegeek2]

I would play Putrefy or Pulse over Deed.

Also, why no sinkhole?

[stu55]

Kanabo: The singleton is basically there to make room in the SB with thoughtseizes. It will probably turn into a creature because 8 is just not enough I think.

Gamegeek: Deed > putrefy and pulse. With enchantress and stax becoming bigger, mass removal is 10x better. It is also a lot better against Goblins and threshold. It can easily 3 for 1 or more at times.

[Kanabo]

@gamegeek2, as stu55 said, mass removal is a must because if all the Aggro and stax/enchantress flooding the meta. It also cant hit tombstalker.
also, I decided to remove sinkholes because i was tired of them sucking in the late game. I switched them in for 2 snares and 2 deeds. deeds helps against everything, and with so many 2 drops and goyfs spell snare is a good card. i also was tired of only having only 8 counterspells. having 10 has helped me alot recently.

[stu55]

@gamegeek2, as stu55 said, mass removal is a must because if all the Aggro and stax/enchantress flooding the meta. It also cant hit tombstalker.
also, I decided to remove sinkholes because i was tired of them sucking in the late game. I switched them in for 2 snares and 2 deeds. deeds helps against everything, and with so many 2 drops and goyfs spell snare is a good card. i also was tired of only having only 8 counterspells. having 10 has helped me alot recently.



I think that thinking that sinkholes suck in the late game is the wrong way to go about it, it is better to say they are better in the early game is why you want them. You should be in control late game, and with bstorm and ponders, i never really have a problem with getting sinkholes when i dont want them

[Kanabo]

true, but wouldnt you want something that can solve serious issues such as staring down a bunch of aggro? sinkhole just doesnt seem to impact those decks as much as a pernicious deed or other mass removal.

[Rallye]

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker
2 Vampire Nighthawk

instant [19]
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Snuff Out
4 Stifle

sorcery [11]
3 Ponder
4 Sinkhole
4 Thoughtseize

enchantment [2]
2 Pernicious Deed

land [19]
2 Bayou
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
61 cards

This was the latest list i was running.I wanted to put in more creature, cause sometimes it too long before i run into one.Pondering, and brainstorming into nothing.
De nighthawk was the best option, in my opinion. Ok it's the most expensive creature in this deck (cc),but the lifelink and deathtouch ability safes my ass multiple times.It also lets me run 1 less snuff out.
I chose for deeds over explosives main. I know, it's slower, but takes away a lot more than explosives.And in the aggro meta down here, deeds seems for me the right board sweeper.

About the sinkhole's, i like them a lot.And they won me a lot of games.Late-game they suck, but early-game they can win you the match! It's also a card i board out a lot, for pierce, for example against zoo.But i wouldn't cut them.

[stu55]

dont run 61 cards, dont run nighthawk...cut a stifle imo

Proper capitalization is required when posting on these boards. Please use it in the future. Thank you. -zilla

[Rallye]

I don't mind if you have comments on my deck choices, but if have at least explain youre opinion.Giving comments it's not hard at all....

[DerFern]

2 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Thoughtseize

This was the latest list i was running.I wanted to put in more creature, cause sometimes it too long before i run into one.Pondering, and brainstorming into nothing.

Did you consider Vendilion Clique? I had the same feeling about only 8 Critters and Thoughtseize never seemed to help me a lot so I chose to play 2 Vendilion Clique instead of TS. It fits the tempo gameplan quite good and is an EOT Thoughtseize to remove our opponents Removal.

Even though I do like Nighthawk in certain decks I´m not sure about him in TA bescause his impact on the board is just to small for 1BB.... but any StP on Nighthawk will help Stalker survive so he could be worth testing...

Since a lot of people in this thread think that 8 critters are not enough - which could be a good choice? Right now I could only think of
-Clique
-Predator (slooooow)
-Nighthawk
-Terravore (as stu mentioned)

[Joon]

While I agree, that eight critters are not enough to immediately start the beatings when you've successfully disrupted the opponent, the question is as always in deckbuilding: Is there anything we can cut? In Team America this problem gets even worse. Nearly all cards are auto 4-offs. While you can get away with playing only three Snuff Out or three Thoughtseize, these changes are not vital for the deck as a whole. Nitewolf tries to get slots for new cards by cutting entire playsets from the deck (in his version Sinkholes for Spell Pierce). I'm not sure if that is the correct way to go, but it seems to work out for him.

I for my part have decided that I want more critters. Even Canadian Threshold plays often creature #9 and #10 and they have Mungos which grant immunity to most spot removal.

I've tested Predator, he was way to slow in killing the opponent, more often than not he got just pitched to Force of Will.
Then I tried the Vampire Nighthawk from the new set, but that guy was also slow. While guaranteeing a life swing of four points in every attack phase the option of not attacking and keep the opponents Goyf from attacking you is often too appealing. And that is not what this deck wants to achieve, so Nighthawk wasn't the right choice, too.

After that I tried Vendilion Clique. I don't know why nobody plays this nasty little faerie in Team America, but I highly recommend to do so. It is potential disruption, or as it is sometimes called a "Thoughtseize combined with a recurring Lightning Bolt". Clique has flash to either come into play on the end of an opponent's turn or to play it right after the draw step. It can handle annoying recursive strategies like life from the loam or just be a 3/1 with flying if you want to. It can also cantrip useless spells on your hand away as you can target any player.
It can also be used as a pseudo removal spell by flashing into play after the attackers have been declared, killing smaller guys that aren't snuff-able (Confidant for example) or have Shroud (Mongoose comes to mind) or creatures you don't want to waste a snuff on (Pridemage/Witness). I'm really in love with this card.

In my current list I cut one Thoughtseize and one Snuff Out for it. While it sounds contradictorily to the first part of my post it worked out great for me due two reasons:
1. Clique somehow replaces the missed Thoughtseize by having a similar effect.
2. Because of the aggressive strategies in Legacy you usually want to cast only one Snuff Out over a match.

Maybe one could also get away with cutting one Stifle, as you usually only mindgame the opponent about having it than really use it to stop fetchlands. Then you could play the full set of Thoughtseize again, maximizing your chance of getting one on the first turn.

To sum up what I said here is my current list:

04 Underground Sea
01 Tropical Island
01 Bayou
04 Verdant Catacombs
03 Misty Rainforest
03 Polluted Delta
04 Wasteland

04 Tarmogoyf
04 Tombstalker
02 Vendilion Clique

04 Force of Will
04 Daze
04 Brainstorm
04 Ponder
04 Stifle
04 Sinkhole
03 Snuff Out
03 Thoughtseize

SB
04 Spell Pierce
03 Engineered Explosives
03 Tormod's Crypt
03 Hydroblast
02 Krosan Grip

Please share your thoughts.

[GtF]

You definitely can NOT use clique to get rid of extra lands. Read the card again.

I like to run a single reanimate in unknown fields because I know a lot of decks will be running tarmogoyf and you usually want to kill counter or discard their goyfs. Paying B and 2 life for a goyf is actually better than paying 2 mana in this deck. However even when I do this I admit that it is a little loose. You shouldn't really need to run more than 8 creatures. Every once in a while you will lose a game because you never draw a creature even after brainstorming/pondering a bunch and that is just the price of playing a deck with such few but powerful threats where the rest of the cards are devoted to disruption.
Out of the actual creature options, Clique seems like the best one. It is blue so you can pitch it to force, it does all those other things you said so it seems reasonable, especially as a way to get rid of bob who can be a huge problem for the deck.
I personally am convinced that spell pierce is just straight up better in the deck than sinkhole and it is good in just about every matchup, so I see no point in having it in the SB. If they are drawing enough lands to make pierce bad, they are drawing enough to make sinkhole bad too. So for that reason I feel it is a waste of space to have it in the SB when those spots could be devoted to cards to other matchups. Other than that it looks fine.

I think the spell pierce vs. Spell snare comparison chart is a good idea. I'll probably work up something like that when I have more time.

[Joon]

I somehow linked "dead cards in hand" automatically to "lands". I know that Clique can only pick non-land spells. If you prefer playing with eight threats nitewolf's list seems like the best, as Engineered Explosives can solve a lot of problems.

[Kanabo]

Has anyone ever tried to put the Hexmage Depths combo in this deck? It seems like the deck has the perfect shell to protect the combo, and still have a strong disruption package.

thoughts?

[pandabaer]

Hi,
i played Team America in a 56 man GPT today. It was the first time i played the deck and sadly i didn't look through this thread before. So i started with the list Mendian posted some weeks ago (GtFs list) and after some chatter with my friends my Maindeck looked exactly like the one nitewolf9 posted(the one with 2 explosives etc...).
But my sideboard was a bunch of thrown together cards and after the tournament i can say i only liked 4 cards of those.
SB:
3 Tormods Crypt
1 Extirpate
(so these are the only 4 slots i liked ^^t)
2 Divert
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Engineered Plague
1 Hdyroblast
2 Blue Elemental Blast

In the end i went 4 - 2. Loosing 2 times to Zoo. Winning Against Loam, Canadian, Combo, RB Burn/Discard
I have to say i like the deck alot and i will make more commands after i learned to play the deck better and tested with a real sideboard(and sideboarded right...) ;) (will try the one nitewolf9 posted first). Since i really liked how it played and my god tombstalker is so good ;).
But from a theoretical view i think it still is a really strong deck if you can handle the aggro matchup someway.
And im not sure about the Krosan Grips in the sb since Explosives takes care of most targets and spellpierce prevends them from even hitting the table. I know the power of the card but im not that sure if it is really needed.

[GtF]

Cool, glad you like the deck. You will probably realize this from reading some of the more recent posts, but trygon predator is a reasonable inclusion in the SB as a way to handle artifacts/enchantments if you don't like grip. I've found them to be pretty good but if you're running explosives and predators too then i could see maybe not needing them. As for handling aggro, some mix of EE, smother, or ghastly demise seems best.

[pandabaer]

Yes thats the reason i asked if they are still necessary because nitewolfs last posted Sideboard and Maindeck alltogether included:
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Trygon Predator
4 spellpierce
and hydroblast (if its about moons or so ... )

In addition he also had 2 Krosan Grip.
Maybe i am wrong and i underestimate some artifacts and / or enchantments who make it necessary to have even more answers because i do not have that much expierence with the deck right now.
But as far as i can tell i would think it is necessary to add 2 more cards for worse matchups like zoo and meerfolk.

[Kanabo]

would it make sense to play extirpate in the sb now that the meta has changed to lands, aggro, and combo?

[BreathWeapon]

Considering Zoo, is replacing Snuff Out with Shriekmaw possible for decreasing the damage and increasing the threats at the same time?

[Kanabo]

no, the usual replacement for snuff out in this deck is smother. I play a split of 2 snuff out and 2 smother, and love it.

[nitewolf9]

Having EE in the main goes a long way in the Zoo matchup. I was actually thinking about the BEBs in the board, and after cutting Thoughtseize and adding Pierce, I don't know if they are really necessary. They help against Goblins in addition to Zoo, which is a big reason I'm playing them, but I think the deck might have gotten a bit stronger against red decks with the current configuration. Besides, the deck is already pretty good against Goblins and not many people are playing it right now anyway.

I was thinking about adding Submerge in, as it is a complete house against Zoo, but it always seemed a bit narrow. Demise might be better anyway since it actually kills things and can be brought in against Merfolk, if spot removal is even the right call for those spots. Anyway, something to think about.

[pandabaer]

i also think that a real removel is better then submerge because we need something for the meerfolk matchup to. but ghastly demise can be hard to use effective when they board in relics.
why did you cut the thoughtseizes? i really liked them as protection for my few creatures and as additional disruption for the combo matchup.
what did you add for these 3 cards compared to the last list you posted?

Proper capitalization is required when posting on these boards. Please use it in the future. Thank you. -zilla

[nitewolf9]

This is the list I am testing right now:

4 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
3 Snuff Out
3 EE

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

I have no idea if Clique is any good at all, and I was never impressed with it on paper. But so many people have been using it and I can see as an instant speed threat it might be worth it now that the deck isn't really running many sorceries. In short I'm going to give it a chance and test it. We'll see how it works out (even though it probably sucks against zoo, zoo is not everything).

I cut thoughtseize because I was becoming less and less impressed with it as I faced more and more aggro. It just trades a card for a card, and even though it gives you valuable information the loss of 2 life in the process is actually becoming relevant. I think tempo is more important in this deck and even though seize is great against combo and control, pierce might be even better. I'm not totally sold on cutting seize but I am simply adapting to my experiences. My board is a mess right now. Need to test more. All I can say is yard hate is probably really good right now (3 Crypt and 2 Ravenous trap has been good for me), Predator is great, and a couple of Jittes might actually be the right call as well.

[pandabaer]

The change with the Vendillion Clique seems great to me since it supports the more instant speed based disprution the deck is using right now with Spellpierce, Stifle and Daze.
I think i will run 3 Crypts and 2Extirpate for the graveyardhate because loam decks are really popular around here right now. As for the rest cards i will try to find a fitting mix of cards who i think can beat aggro :).

I will test it out thursday with my friends and saturday at another GPT and i will post my resulst afterswards if i find the time so we can discuss.

[DerFern]

I made 2nd place in a 22ppl tournament this past weekend with this list (http://www.deckcheck.net/print.php?deck=31794):

//Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tombstalker
2 Vendilion Clique

//Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
3 Snuff Out
2 Spell Pierce
4 Sinkhole
2 Spell Snare
1 Smother
1 Rushing River

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


//Sideboard
3 Extirpate
3 Ravenous Trap
2 Krosan Grip
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Submerge
2 Pernicious Deed

In fact, Clique won me a lot of games. Played EOT it is basically 3 to dome and and instant Thoughtseize. That´s why I dropped Seize and never missed it all day long. Even though Seize is great against combo, this load of counter and disruption is absolutely enough.
My board was made to beat Loam and other gy-based decks, which worked quite well. Adding Submerge to the board helped me against Bant Aggro and Zoo.
The only thing that bothers me is the auto-loss against Moon effects, which makes me think about 2 or 3 BEBs in the board.

This deck only plays 18 lands, but if Canadian Thresh can do it, TA can do it too. I never had mana issues that day and Stifle prevented my opps from wasting my lands. Fetch USea, fetch Bayou and you can basically play anything relevant.

so, to sum the past discussions from my view:

Sinkhole is way to important to drop from this deck. Since there are more and more basic lands being played, this card can easily mutilize a lot of decks (destroy Plains and Tundra in Bant, gg for example). Combo decks typically only need one mana to work and with the addition of Wasteland and Stifle we have 12 effects of land destruction on our side.
Spell Pierce is insane and supports our gameplan like no other card recently improved. When you´re playing such a heavy mana denial plan, Spell Pierce is some sort of hard counter.
Vendilion Clique should be our Beater of choise, if we consider 8 to be too few. Since I had trouble getting a 2nd Stalker on the board, I chose to play 3 Stalker/2 Clique.
Thoughtseize is a great card, but losing 2 life is indeed relevant. Picking the opponents removal can be done with Clique, too. In addition, Clique is a way better Topdeck midgame.


Give it a try, it works reaaally good, is a lot of fun and has a good matchup against most Tier1 decks (except Merfolk maybe).

[jeanbathez]

I made 2nd place in a 22ppl tournament this past weekend with this list (http://www.deckcheck.net/print.php?deck=31794):

In fact, Clique won me a lot of games. Played EOT it is basically 3 to dome and and instant Thoughtseize. That´s why I dropped Seize and never missed it all day long. Even though Seize is great against combo, this load of counter and disruption is absolutely enough.
My board was made to beat Loam and other gy-based decks, which worked quite well. Adding Submerge to the board helped me against Bant Aggro and Zoo.
The only thing that bothers me is the auto-loss against Moon effects, which makes me think about 2 or 3 BEBs in the board.

This deck only plays 18 lands, but if Canadian Thresh can do it, TA can do it too. I never had mana issues that day and Stifle prevented my opps from wasting my lands. Fetch USea, fetch Bayou and you can basically play anything relevant.

so, to sum the past discussions from my view:

Sinkhole is way to important to drop from this deck. Since there are more and more basic lands being played, this card can easily mutilize a lot of decks (destroy Plains and Tundra in Bant, gg for example). Combo decks typically only need one mana to work and with the addition of Wasteland and Stifle we have 12 effects of land destruction on our side.
Spell Pierce is insane and supports our gameplan like no other card recently improved. When you´re playing such a heavy mana denial plan, Spell Pierce is some sort of hard counter.
Vendilion Clique should be our Beater of choise, if we consider 8 to be too few. Since I had trouble getting a 2nd Stalker on the board, I chose to play 3 Stalker/2 Clique.
Thoughtseize is a great card, but losing 2 life is indeed relevant. Picking the opponents removal can be done with Clique, too. In addition, Clique is a way better Topdeck midgame.


Give it a try, it works reaaally good, is a lot of fun and has a good matchup against most Tier1 decks (except Merfolk maybe).

Gratz on your finish:smile:
We hadn't discussed that on saturday , which decks did you play ?
And how on earth belcher on place 1 ?

[DerFern]

We hadn't discussed that on saturday , which decks did you play ?
Enchantress
Baseruption (Ugbw CounterTop)
ANT (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=31796)
Bant Aggro (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=31795)
Belcher (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=31793)

The Belcher guy only had great matchups and a shitload of 1st turn kills, since he never faced a permission deck all day. When we got paired in the final round, I lost intentionally since he´s from my crew and so we made 1st and 2nd, whereelse he would´ve been 4th or 5th.

[dr.knockers]

How is the landstill match-up for this deck? What do you guys board in/out and what's the strategy?

[Kanabo]

So is playing sinkhole a question anymore? because I just picked up a set of sinkholes and am wondering if its was an absolutely bad idea. what takes its place?

[Plague Sliver]

Hi, longtime lurker here. I've been playing Eva Green for some time but I decided to switch to TA recently. Was getting a little bored of Eva Green, and I really wanted to play a "good stuff.dec" that could combine the powers of Tombstalker, land destruction, and blue spells in one package. After reading more than 20 pages of this thread over the holiday season, I decided on the following build:

4x Tombstalker
4x Goyf
2x Vendilion Clique

4x FoW
4x Daze
3x Stifle
3x Spell Pierce
2x Spell Snare

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder

3x Sinkhole
2x Snuff Out
1x Smother

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

Sinkhole is sub-optimal here, and I wasn't sure if I would miss running Thoughtseize, but decided to give it a try. In my testing and goldfishing, I wasn't happy with just 8 threats so I added the 2 Vendilion Cliques. Based on others' suggestions here, I ran Spell Pierce and cut a Snuff Out for a Smother.

The 3x of Stifle and 3x of Sinkhole seem kind of random, but that's because I don't have a playset yet. Given the choice I would probably cut 1x Spell Snare and 1x Clique for 4x Stifle and 4x Sinkhole.

My meta has quite a few Goblin decks, random Zoo decks, one Merfolk, and random stuff like Stax. Absolutely no combo - combo would have a field day in this meta, I even told one of the players to come back with ANT next time :laugh: Here's my sideboard:

3x Krosan Grip
3x Tormod's Crypt
4x Engineered Plague
4x Blue Elemental Blast / Hydroblast
1x Smother

My mini tournament report...

We played 4 rounds, I went 2-2. A couple of play errors and bad mulliganing decisions cost me. Still, it was an educational experience and I had fun.

Round 1 vs. 4 color Zoo

Game 1: I Stifle/Sinkhole a couple of his lands early on. A resolved Pridemage gets through alone for a series of beats, getting me into single digits. Didn't draw into cantrips or any Goyfs. By the time I land Tombstalker it was too late, as I didn't have counter backup and he lightning helixes me twice and bolts for the win.

Sideboard:
+ 4 BEB
- 3 Sinkhole
- 1 Snuff Out

Game 2: Didn't get off to a great start. I keep a hand without much countermagic but had some removal. No cantrips - probably should have mulliganed. Didn't see BEB the whole game. I Snuff his Nacatl early on. He lands Lavamancer and that little guy starts causing me a lot of problems. To compound the problem I "over-tempo'd" - I mean to say that I Daze him twice which really slowed me down in terms of land drops. He is able to resolve a Dark Confidant which lets him draw into more business. In the end I get a Goyf and Tombstalker going but he overwhelms me with a Knight of the Reliquary, 2 Pridemages and a Kird Ape.

I knew Zoo was a sub-optimal matchup for this deck, but I could have made the games closer had I played tighter. Sometimes I fetched for the wrong lands (stupid moment: not getting a Bayou so that I could have BB for Tombstalker earlier as well as Goyf). Other times I countered the wrong stuff or played the wrong spell at the wrong time. First tournament playing Brainstorm and friends, what can I say :tongue:

Round 2 vs. Burn

Game 1: He gets off to a decent start with a couple 3 damage spells. Spell Pierce and Spell Snare were MVPs as I am able to counter Price of Progress and some Bolts. I Daze some burn as he was on 2-3 land for awhile. I resolve double Goyf which helps me get there. Was very nervous in this one as burn seemed like a good matchup vs. TA.

Sideboard:
+ 4 BEB
- 2 Snuff Out
- 1 Smother
- 1 Stifle

Game 2: He was pretty mana screwed here. For the first couple of turns he only had 1x Mountain in play. Even though he has 2x Price of Progress, 2x REB in his grip I am able to counter most of his stuff. Stifle wasn't a dead card as I get one of his Rift Bolts. Clique and Goyf race his burn for the win.

Round 3 vs. Counterslivers

Game 1: He has a bit of a slow start. He doesn't play anything first turn, second turn plays Muscle Sliver. I let the single Sliver hit me for a couple of turns while I Sinkhole and Wasteland his lands. He never really gets going, and I drop one Goyf and one Tombstalker to finish the game relatively quickly.

Sideboard:
+ 4 Engineered Plague
- 1 Smother
- 3 Stifle

Big mistake siding in the Plagues. I wanted to take the Stifles out of maindeck because he wasn't playing fetches. But Plague was definitely a mistake.

Game 2: I'm off to a pretty slow start, and should have mulliganed a grip of 4 lands. His first turn play is Mutavault, Relic of Progenitus. He starts beating down early with the Mutavault, plays a second Mutavault, and even plays a second Relic! My Goyfs are helpless as he beats me down for 4 a turn. It turned out to be a long game but I scoop when the end gets near. There was never a moment that I wanted a Plague, because no Sliver was ever 1/1.

Sideboard:
- 4 Engineered Plague
+ 1 Smother
+ 3 Krosan Grip

Game 3: My deck works as it should. I deny him mana, Daze some early stuff, land triple Goyf. He isn't able to play a Relic even though I had the Grip hate ready for it. To his credit, he had some bad draws...Brainstorm didn't get him any removal or "answer" cards. But a win is a win, I'm happy to take it.

Round 4 vs. Ichorid

Game 1: Terrible game for me. He dredges for a 2nd or 3rd turn win. Wasn't able to nuke his Paradise or any lands.

Sideboard:
+ 3 Tormod's Crypt
- 2 Snuff Out
- 1 Smother

Game 2: I am getting very good at keeping bad hands. I have Goyf, Daze and FoW in the opener with absolutely zero cantrips. I keep? (yay me.) I'm able to Daze his first turn Tribe but he soon destroys me as I can't draw into a blue card to save my life. Just an absolute travesty of an opening hand by me.

Conclusions

Overall I think the deck served me well. I was pretty inexperienced with it, but I saw the potential was there. It felt good to play Tombstalker almost every game, and Goyf was Goyf. Even though I lost Rounds 1 and 4, I learned from my mistakes.

I wasn't so impressed with the Smother. I like the idea of playing removal for free, even if it costs me 4 life.

I definitely need a 4th Stifle in there. Just too good in just about any situation.

Spell Pierce is a GREAT card, it's almost never dead and works against so much out there.

One sideboard change I may consider making is to go with 4x Leyline of the Void. It helps me mentally because I'll know to mulligan until I start with one. From then on, it's pretty easy to protect the Leyline with countermagic.

[GtF]

Plague I have 2 words for you:
Engineered explosives

Looking at your report and your decklist, EE would have helped you tremendously in your matchups against zoo and counterslivers (actually a pretty rough matchup despite their intense mana requirements because of aether vial). I absolutely prefer it to engineered plague, goblins is not a matchup you really need the plagues for since you are pretty good against them already mostly because stifle just happens to be insane against all their enter the battlefield effects. I prefer EE to E plague in the merfolk and countersliver matchups, and it is obviously better against zoo and all kinds of random decks.

You have the right attitude, you can't expect to be a master with the deck the first time you play it. Actually it's a pretty tricky deck to play and I notice myself making mistakes almost every round even though I've played it a lot.

Snuff out has more synergy with the deck, Smother is basically a concession to the fact that sometimes you can't afford to pay 4 life that many times, plus it deals with dark confidant.
Glad you are on board with stifle and spell pierce.

Against landstill I would probably just board out whatever creature removal I have for whatever krosan grip/trygon predator effect I have.

As for replacing sinkhole, right now I am on board with the switch but it's hard to say if it's completely correct since there just aren't enough legacy events/results with people trying out different versions. Personally I think it's right though.
On that note, what do people think of the idea of cutting a land (down to 19) if you replace the sinkholes with spell pierce and thus lower the mana curve? Is this too crazy? What land would you cut if you were to cut one?

[Plague Sliver]

Plague I have 2 words for you:
Engineered explosives


You're totally right. EE at 1 or 2 solves a lot of problems against aggro - even stuff that slips through like Jitte. I suppose E-Plagues only work against one type of deck, and I've already got the BEBs against goblins too.

I like Nitewolf9's list. My question to you is - would you run the EEs main?



You have the right attitude, you can't expect to be a master with the deck the first time you play it. Actually it's a pretty tricky deck to play and I notice myself making mistakes almost every round even though I've played it a lot.


Thanks - I like to be very frank with my experience level. Not having played a lot in the past, I'm trying to "get in shape" for one of the SCG open events in a couple months and am really hoping to run either this or Eva Green.

Yes I could play Canadian, but it certainly wouldn't be as fun :cool:

I'll test it some more and post results soon.

[Kanabo]

So can anyone give me some advice for my list? Here is what I am currently running:

Mana:
4 wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Polluted delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs

Creatures:
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

Spells:
4 Stifle
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Sinkhole
4 Snuff Out
4 Thoughtseize

Sideboard:
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Tormods Crypt
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Krosan Grip

[DerFern]

So can anyone give me some advice for my list? Here is what I am currently running:
Play a full set of Verdant Catacombs; most opponents run into a Stifle if you play catacombs, go.
-2 Thoughtseize, +2 Clique -they do basically the same thing, they don´t cost you 2 life and they are 3/1 flying.
-1 Stalker, -1 Snuff Out, +2 Smother
I love to have Smother as an additional removal, especially against black decks. You just can´t hit Bob with Snuff Out... -1 Stalker since you can´t cast two of them most of the time.
And -but that´s just my way to play this deck- I´d play 2 less lands for 2 Spell Pierce main. Loved.Them.All.Day.Long

[badjuju]

@nitewolf9

Ever get around to testing the EEs vs. Zoo and the likes? I'm interested in your results.

[nitewolf9]

EE has been great vs Zoo, and just a good all around card in many other matchups. I've been trying 3 in the main, up from 2, and it is usually a blowout if you can resolve one on turn 3 or 4 against Zoo. I've been trying Spell Pierce out and haven't been as impressed with it in the main. Spell Snare almost seems more justifiable.

[DerFern]

I've been trying Spell Pierce out and haven't been as impressed with it in the main. Spell Snare almost seems more justifiable.
Did you try Spell Pierce in the Snares Slot or instead of Sinkhole? I am really excited about Spell Pierce, but in addition to Sinkhole. Right now I´m playing 3 of them main without any Spell Snares and that deck went 4-1 in our last tournament (20 ppl, 1st place)

[badjuju]

Did you try Spell Pierce in the Snares Slot or instead of Sinkhole? I am really excited about Spell Pierce, but in addition to Sinkhole. Right now I´m playing 3 of them main without any Spell Snares and that deck went 4-1 in our last tournament (20 ppl, 1st place)

His latest list doesn't include Sinkholes, so I assume it was in place of that. Do you think this takes away from TA's gameplan?

[1rakete]

@gtf

Could you please tell my why you prefer ee in the merfolk mu over plague? In my eyes, EE is totaly worthless against folks. A removal which is counterable AND can be dealt with by Stifle - I dont see its benefits, except, that if it resolves on 2, makes Standstill a dead card. Additionally, merfolk plays usually about ~ 20 guys which are spread (cc1 4, cc2 8, cc3 4+) the way that explosives is quite slow.

Of course, plague is not the nemisis of merfolk either. But it kills 8+ guys if there is no lord outside, it really slows down their clock and if you ever have 2 they have a big issues. Bigger then the 2x EE issue.

What I see as the best weapon available here is deed. Of course, also comparably slow and gets killed by stifle but nevertheless if you can ever detonate it successfully the complete folks-board will be gone, including vial.

[Wargoos]

@gtf

Could you please tell my why you prefer ee in the merfolk mu over plague? In my eyes, EE is totaly worthless against folks. A removal which is counterable AND can be dealt with by Stifle - I dont see its benefits, except, that if it resolves on 2, makes Standstill a dead card. Additionally, merfolk plays usually about ~ 20 guys which are spread (cc1 4, cc2 8, cc3 4+) the way that explosives is quite slow.

.

Though I would rather drop EE on Turn 1 or 2 and blow the folk board the next turn then saving for a spell till turn 4 (avoid daze) that won't probably do not much.
(Folklist play 8-12 lords)
Go with EE - its more versatile than e.plague and does stuff in almost any matchup.
Also it makes the zoo matchup A LOT easier - which is another problematic matchup while plague does nothing there.

[Kanabo]

Has anyone ever thought about running 4 Nimble mongoose? Also, why does this deck run 4 Tombstalker? isnt that too many?

[Wargoos]

Has anyone ever thought about running 4 Nimble mongoose? Also, why does this deck run 4 Tombstalker? isnt that too many?

One of the main differences TA - CT is that you run actually bigger critter in form of Tombstalker.
If you want Mongeese - play CT.

How many Tombstalker would you want to play?
4 is the right number you want mainly to win with those. Tombstalker have evasion and thus are the main threats.
If you draw some copies you don't need then just shuffle those away with Brainstorm.

[Kanabo]

Well, I feel like this deck should make better use of the green splash. i dont feel that we are using the green splash to our fullest abilities.

Anyone else feel this way? the only thing we currently splash for in the MD is Goyf, even though there are many other green cards we could add.

[GtF]

The only other green card I've played with main has been 1 trygon predator, which was ok (I should note it is also blue). But that's a metagame call.
One card I'm gonna try out is maelstrom pulse, I have heard great things about it and I think it would help with some of the decks problems. I'm not sure how to find room for it though. No other green card really seems worth including to me.

As for the EE v. plague argument, EAD basically covered it. I don't think plague is much better against merfolk, if at all (both kill a limited number of creatures, but at least EE can kill any of the ones they may have out at the moment, which makes up for them being able to stifle it imo). It is also better overall against a wider variety of decks. Goblins is a good matchup already so you don't need plague for that, and goblins is horribly positioned in the metagame to boot, so plague seems like a waste of SB space, whereas EE is good against a ton of stuff. I think the best solution against merfolk is more spot removal, and of course counter their vials and standstill if necessary. If you can get it to a cursecatcher and a lord staring down a tombstalker and a goyf, I like your chances. This is why I want to try out maelstrom pulse since it is more mana efficient than deed and also deals with multiple types of permanents.

You can't play mongoose in this deck. It doesn't make any sense bc stalker eats your yard, and mongoose is really quite awful if you don't have threshold. This is the main reason I like this deck so much more than canadian threshold. If you cut some tombstalkers for them or something you are really losing the most powerful component of this deck and making the deck work against itself. Just play canadian if you love mongooses so much. :P

I have considered cutting 1 tombstalker and 1 other card for 2 other creatures, because every once in a while I will have a tombstalker I can't play and won't be able to shuffle it away. But about half of those times, I get to play it a little bit later, and it is still awesome. No creature packs the punch tombstalker does, the only candidates in my mind are trygon predator and vendilion clique. I've played trygon and it was fine, but most of the time it just got pitched to FOW cause I didn't need it to win...because I had tombstalker beating down. I think having 2 predators in the board and boarding out 1 stalker if you expect to face leylines post-board is an ok plan though.
I'm interested to hear how nitehawk is finding the cliques. It's also too bad you aren't finding spell pierce to be good. It maybe has to do with matchups, I didn't play against zoo or folk, but I liked spell pierce a lot.

[DerFern]

His latest list doesn't include Sinkholes, so I assume it was in place of that. Do you think this takes away from TA's gameplan?
Even though I do think this, it´s not the point of the discussion. The point is wheteher it is relevant enough to deserve being played main. I do think it does, but this surely depends on a meta and from the experience in the played matchups. Playing maindeck Sinkhole increases your chances to win worse matchups like Zoo a little, but on the downside it does not improve your merfolk matchup (which Spell Pierce does not improve, either).
So I personally made the experience that Sinkhole won me so many games, just because I could screw my opponent from one of his colours (white for StP or PtE mainly).




Could you please tell my why you prefer ee in the merfolk mu over plague? In my eyes, EE is totaly worthless against folks. A removal which is counterable AND can be dealt with by Stifle - I dont see its benefits, except, that if it resolves on 2, makes Standstill a dead card. Additionally, merfolk plays usually about ~ 20 guys which are spread (cc1 4, cc2 8, cc3 4+) the way that explosives is quite slow.
Basically you "only" need to kill their lords, which are 4xcmc2 and 8xcmc3, so EE on 3 might win you games. Getting rid of Vial and Cursecatcher with EE1 will also be okay every now and then. I tried Infest (in addition to 2 Deeds) in my board against merfolk and it did quite nothing. I will get back to EE in this slot or try


This is why I want to try out maelstrom pulse since it is more mana efficient than deed and also deals with multiple types of permanents
Yeah, looks like we got a candidate for our sideboards. I wasn´t impressed by pulse so far as I looked at it like some sort of removal, which mostly does not trade good for us (kill our own Goyfs for example), but I guess it improves those bad matchups like merfolk. Definitely worth trying!


You can't play mongoose in this deck. It doesn't make any sense bc stalker eats your yard, and mongoose is really quite awful if you don't have threshold
I think his point was Mongoose instead of Stalker, but the result is the same: don´t play mongoose in this deck! Since CT is definitely a DTB and Mongosse is their most annoying critter, decks have been constructed to handle this. Even though you can drop mongoose on turn 1 you don´t want it most of the time. So you want to play him turn 3 or 4, when his manabase was mutilated and you gained control of the board. At that time you can play Tombstalker as well and he´s got a way bigger body and evasion. Thois should be our choice in this deck.


How many Tombstalker would you want to play?
4 is the right number you want mainly to win with those. Tombstalker have evasion and thus are the main threats.
If you draw some copies you don't need then just shuffle those away with Brainstorm.
I am really satisfied with three of them and adding 2 Cliques. I tried 4 Stalker / 4 Goyf but died a lot of games without drawing a creature, so I dies often with 2 Stalkers in hand. Even though I do admit that raising your card quality with Brainstorm is a big part of playing the deck, there are several times where you just need to brainstorm to get a threat or an answer. So there will often be times where you just can´t shuffle one of them away. There have not been many games so far where I haven been able to get tweo Stalker on board, so most of the time I did not want to draw another one. Three are fine. Really.

[nitewolf9]

The absense of Sinkhole could in fact have made Spell Pierce a bit weaker, so perhaps focusing back on the mana denial aspect could be strong. I will try testing this list with Sinkhole and Pierce:

4 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
3 Sinkhole
3 Snuff Out
3 EE

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

I'd rather have the 4th Pierce than the 4th Sinkhole, as the former is stronger in the early game and helps set up plays with Stifle. I have also cut a land (fetchland) to see how the deck operates. With EE in the main and Spell Pierce you also have more reliable answers to Vial, which is kinda good vs low land count Merfolk decks that rely on that artifact to hit their 3cc dudes. Sinkhole also helps mitigate multiple swords effects from Zoo, but it could still be too slow. The one thing I like with EE and Sinkhole is that you can trap Zoo players into playing out their one drops while you focus on mana denial, and sweep the creature horde in a single swoop that would have previously eaten you alive. Something to consider.

One thing I'm also happy with is Trygon Predator (3 right now) in the board, along with Jitte (2). Seems to be the only really effective answer to Merfolk while also being a bomb in some corner cases (Dreadstill, Stax, Dragon Stompy). If anyone tests this let me know how it turns out. Bant counter/top is an annoying matchup but it has been close to 50/50 in testing. Noble hierarch is public enemy #1 there.

[GtF]

So I am procrastinating doing work and decided to make everyone's favorite, an excel spreadsheet. The question of cutting a land from the deck has been raised, and so I figured I'd use Canadian threshold (the most similar deck probably, and one that runs 18 land ubiquitously) to see if it's a good idea. Things like engineered explosives and tombstalker (variable mana costs) make it tricky though. For ease of reference I used nitewolf's list from a the last post. For Tombstalker I used mana costs of 2 2 3 3 based on what I estimate I pay on average over the course of a tourney. For EE I used 3.5 for each, factoring in activation costs and figuring that you'd usually pay 2 but sometimes 1 to play it. It's a rough estimate, I put those in the last columns so people can mess with them if they want easily. The columns are all labeled with what card it is and everything.
For the CT list I used Sam Blau's list from LA because it plays v. cliques instead of lavamancers, which raises the mana cost: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=30745
I'll post the .xls but the bottom line is:
CT avg mana cost: 1.09
TA avg mana cost: 1.23
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqwfoZKlci2NdGNzd3N3NUFEVjF1ekdnbnJGTXpHTHc&hl=en
So what to conclude from this?
One way to look at it is this: 1.09/18 = 1.23/X, where X is the number of lands TA should play with that average mana cost. We may have our issues with CT but I think we all agree the mana is pretty good. Granted, its wastelands aren't always used as mana producing lands, but team america is in the same boat there so for comparative purposes it's fine.
Doing that equation yields a land count of 20.3. So it would seem that with that list you should play 20.3 lands. Now if you want to bump down the value of EE or tombstalker mana costs you'll get a different result.

[DerFern]

excel spreadsheet
Even though I do respect the work you invested, I don´t like this general conclusion, that TA needs to play 20 lands. CT is a quite tight deck with only 2 flexible slots, which are both @cmc3. TA on the opposite side is a deck where a lot of slots are being discussed right now. Choosing a cmc of 2,5 for Tombstalker and 3,5 for EE seems a little too random for me. Nontheless, a more scientific investigation of the mana base might be a good idea. As a conclusion of my feeling and personal experience, 18 lands have been fine for me... but this, too, might be a result of different playstyles.

Tonight I´m gonna test my version of TA (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=32331) again, which got me great results recently.

[GtF]

No doubt, there are issues with the EE and tombstalker and I pointed that out. I'm not trying to say 20.3 is the lands that everyone should play, I'm just saying that there's a relationship between the spells in your deck and the number of lands you should run. I made it for myself mostly and then figured I might as well post it and if other people want to use it that's fine, just change the values based on what's in your deck. I recalculated it for my own version and my avg mana cost ended up lower than CT's (at 1.08). So I'm definitely not saying it's wrong to cut a land or two, but it does matter based on what you are playing.

[inside88]

i play this TA avg mana cost : 1,12

CT avg mana cost: 1.09
TA avg mana cost: 1.12

>> 19 lands : the deck works very well with 19 lands


// Lands
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [R] Bayou

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
4 [M10] Ponder
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [DD2] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
3 [MM] Snuff Out
1 [ON] Smother
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives

[talon7331]

So I realize that this has been gone over in this thread, but I am going to pose my question as it regards a slightly different build of TA.

What if you were to cut Daze and Sinkhole and Snuff Out and replace them with 3 Trinketmage, 1 Dreadnought, 1 Tormod's Crypt, 1 Relic of Progenitus, 1 Sensei's Divining Top, 2 Engineered Explosives, 3 Pernicious Deed.

Also, I have been running 4 Ponder, 4 Thoughtseize, and 2 Duress (no brainstorm).

Will somebody please talk some sense into me? I realize that I am making sub-optimal card choices, but I am unfamiliar with the deck.

Thanks

[GtF]

Update on this deck:
I played it at the 5K in indy, trying out a bunch of different and new cards. I ended up lucky 16th (7-2) after swiss, here's what I played and my conclusions:

Artifacts
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei's Divining Top

Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

Instants
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force Of Will
3 Snuff Out
3 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle

Sorceries
4 Ponder
1 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize

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

Sideboard:
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Dark Confidant
2 Trygon Predator
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Smother

So I tried out 19 lands and a top as an extra brainstorm/ponder type effect. I almost cut it before the tournament for the 20th land but kept it in after drawing a practice hand while they were collecting decklists (very scientific I know). I drew it a TON during the day, even though there's only 1, so I got a good idea of how it is in the deck.
First off, top is a really really good card. This is obvious to anyone who's played with it a lot, I hadn't before this. It almost makes me want to switch to counterbalance.
In team america however, it has its issues. I'm sure you can guess what these are: You are playing 19 lands and with a normal draw, don't have a lot of mana to spare messing around with top. Doing so makes you lose tempo and tempo is this decks biggest strength. However, when I got flooded or got to the midgame, top really was incredible. Especially in postboard games where I boarded in dark confidants (I'll get to those in a bit). The thing was, it was only incredible because I had a bunch of lands in play to use it and also play other spells. Therefore, if you play top, you don't want to cut a land for it, you want the full 20 lands, especially the 9th fetchland.
I personally am going back to 20 lands after this tournament. I don't like having to mulligan with this deck, and I ended up mulling a lot of 0 or wasteland only hands in this tourney. Getting flooded is a problem, but getting choked on mana early is a bigger one.
What I want ideally is a card that is both good early, blue, and helps stop you getting flooded late-midgame by either regulating your draws or trading excess lands (in play or in hand) for other cards. Top would be decent at doing this. Another card that I thought of is sylvan library. These would both work well with bob in the board. Other suggestions are very welcome, if anyone has tested opt or slight of hand, I'm interested to know how they were. A few notes on other MD cards:
Reanimate: OK, I've played 2 tournaments with this main and I can finally admit that it is more cute than good. It's really not necessary, and the format is diverse enough that you aren't guaranteed to hit a tarmogoyf deck where it will be really good (or a reanimator, which is already a good matchup). This is going out next time, either to the board or gone completely.
EE: Still a solid card, I can't decide if I want it main or board. It is worth having 2 for sure somewhere in your 75.
Ok, on to the SB
3 Dark confidant: These were incredible all day, and I boarded them in against Ad Nauseum, Enchantress, Belcher, Landstill, reanimator, dream halls, and BW control. I don't know about you, but most of the time I could care less about taking 8 against any of these decks. The theory is that all your MD cards are so good (except snuff out, which comes out), that all you want to do is draw more of them. He does that. Especially good if you keep playing top. He was really was the all star in my board during the day and won me the above matches except Landstill (where I got no green mana or 3rd land forever) and BW control (where I never drew him).
The rest of the board is pretty standard. Never boarded in my crypt/trap but still wouldn't cut them. Might change the trap to extirpate for the lands matchup. Even though bob is amazing I could see going down to 2 if you move EE to the board.
I will probably play the same deck but with 20 land and trying something else out in those pesky 2 slots that does what I talked about before.
I should note a version made T4 that was running the 2 clique 3 tombstalker configuration. I may try that out as well.

[Plague Sliver]

GtF: nice build. How did you find 4x Thoughtseize? Did you find Thoughtseize critical vs. decks like combo/reanimator?

Also, did you face Merfolk or Zoo in your matches? Curious how those matches went, and if 2x EE in your 75 was enough to handle that matchup?

[nitewolf9]

GtF, nice finish, and I'm glad people are still trying to make this deck work. I don't agree with many of the choices in the top 4 list, but I do want to know what you thought of the maindeck Spell Pierces. I don't think Confidant is necessary in your board and I think you drew the same conclusions on top that I would have said. Library was tested and was pretty good, but I don't know if that spot is better as more removal or not. I cut Thoughtseize a while ago as I wanted to focus more on tempo generating plays, but I would also be curious about how they ran for you.

I am testing a newer list of this deck and I'll post it here, as I'm mainly working on Reanimator right now, for people to play with and share thoughts on. You might like it:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
3 EE
2 Snuff Out
2 open, either Library or Smother/Diabolic Edict (Maelstrom Pulse could also be interesting)

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

Board:
4 Submerge (spot for zoo that is also versatile, can be BEB as well)
2 Coffin Purge
2 Ravenous Trap
3 Trygon Predator (for merfolk, with many auxiliary uses)
2 Umezawa's Jitte (also for merfolk, also with aux uses)
2 Krosan Grip

Engineered Explosives has gotten much better than Snuff Out as removal lately, with Merfolk and Zoo being the main concerns of this deck. I used to run 2 copies in the main and 1 in the board but have since moved all 3 to the main. The card is not very efficient alot of the time but is extremely versatile and solves a lot of problems. The only real way I have found to boost the Merfolk matchup is with a combo of Trygon Predator and Jitte post board, coming in for the Spell Pierces and a couple of Dazes (Submerge obv coming in vs Green splash as well). Did you play vs any Merfolk that day? Also, Dave Gearhart had a great point about Spell Snare and really justified it as a 2 of in this deck. The card can be unreliable, but maintains value throughout the game, so I feel it is acceptable to run it as a sort of "filler" to supplement the counter suite. I think this build gets a lot more mileage out of Stifle as well as it can hold mana up more often.

[Minos]

Hey I'm new :) and excuse my english but it's a long time that i didn't use it (shame on me :( )

I tried Team America 2 weeks ago and I wasn't particulary happy with this deck... Sinkhole wasn't interesting and it never helped me, so I decided to cut them for more control.

This is the list I played last saturday

4 Tarmo
4 Tombstalker
2 Vendilion Clique (8 isn't enough for me... I need some more kill :))

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 FOW
3 Daze
4 Spell Snare
4 Spell Pierce
3 Doom Blade
2 Smother (Black Metagame so it's difficult to use snuff out or doom blade)
1 Darkblast (Metagame Aggro with plenty of Elves Dark Confidant Grim...)
2 Engineered Explosives (Mass Removal)

4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainsforest
1 Island

I cut sinkhole Thoughtseize & Stifle because I would like to play more control than mana denial. What do you think about this option ? I would like to put STifle and cut 2 EE, 1 Smother & 1 Tombstalker or maybe Darkblast ?? Good idea or not ?

I really like this deck and Sinkhole but it's too weak.. Two weeks ago, I played against Ichorid, Merfolk with VIal, WW with VIal & Landstill... What can I do with my sinkhole ??? except slowing down the guy but never enough ?

[GtF]

Thanks guys. First off, I never played against merfolk or zoo (nor did I at the last 5K). This is pretty lucky, although the BW control deck I played in round 1 had more removal spells than I had creatures in my deck and SB combined, so that was pretty much an autoloss.
Based on the decks I listed as having played against (the other 2 were goblins and NO countertop), I think you can guess that the thoughtseizes were really good, and they were. I love this card and I will not ever be playing less than 3 unless the metagame gets seriously warped. Yes, they aren't AS good against decks that actually plop down creatures and attack you, but they are still serviceable. Meanwhile against the decks I played against, and many others, they are amazing. They don't generate tempo but they don't lose you much either since they cost only B, and there are certain cards that give this deck a really hard time and I think it's worth it to be able to get those and also to see what your opponent has so you know what to do, what to brainstorm away, etc etc.
Snuff out was dead and got boarded out a lot, so yeah it might be worthwhile to run a 2-2 split of them and EE. Generally speaking if you are EEing for 2 it's decent, 1 or 0 it's amazing, and 3 or more it's pretty bad.
I keep meaning to make a list of all the cards that spell snare counters in legacy. Once I do that I'll have a better idea if it's something this deck actually wants. In the limited amount I've played with it, I really have not liked it, often it sits in my hand doing nothing, and this deck already has enough cards that can do that.
nitewolf: you don't board out stifles against merfolk? Also I'm not sure we came to the same conclusion on the Top. I still think 1 could be fine as a way to help your draws in the lategame, as long as you play the full 20 lands. Sylvan library seems appealing as well. Any reasons why you prefer the library to top?
Also I forgot to post my original reason for the bobs, which was to board into against any deck that is boarding leylines against you. Getting an 8 mana tombstalker stuck in your hand can be devestating, and in legacy you can pretty well guess which decks board leylines and which don't. It just so happened that vs the decks I played against, I wanted both (I usually boarded out 1 stalker if I was boarding in 3 bobs but not always). It might not be strictly necessary but it really was very good during the day.

[stu55]

Just some thoughts on reading this discussion. The last 3 times I played this deck, I won all 3 tournaments with it. Never once did I run spell pierce.
The first few turns I am using sinkhole/wasteland/stifle to give me tempo or ponder/brainstorm to build up to a turn 3-4 tombstalker.

You guys say that Sinkhole is unexciting but it is possibly one of the best cards in the deck. Any deck not running counters and gets sinkholed on turn 2 is in a lot of trouble. Even if they Force it, I will gladly take a 2 for 1 with that card. Force is a great card, but unless you are stopping a game-winning spell, it is so average.

Snuff out- This card could be the one to be changed. Smother is looking more and more inviting with Bobs running around.

Only qualms I have about this deck is the lack of kill options. 8 is just not enough sometimes. Another problem is the 50-50 matchup with zoo and the bad matchup against merfolk. Here is my gauntlet for GP Cbus testing:

Aggro:
Zoo
Merfolk
Goblins
RDW

Control:
43 Land
UW Thopter
Ctop Survival
Ctop NO
Landstill
Stax
MBC

Combo:
ANT
Reanimator
Charbelcher



Looking at that list, it isn't as exciting as it was before when Goblins and C-top decks where the majority of the field.

[Clark Kant]

If you're light on threats, have you thought about maybe playing...

3 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Vision Charm/Trickbind (the latter only if a very large portion of your meta consists of fetchlands and storm decks).

to supplement your deck.

Dreadnought lets you race Goblins easily and even race combo decks like Reanimator, Ad-Nauseum or Ichorid when combined with all your countermagic. It can both be played, and protected with Stifle and Vision Charm. Hell it can even be played to bait a counter (if your opponent thinks you play Trickbind) and sacced to give your Goyf +2/+2 or feed your yard for Tombstalker (though I don't see myself using it like that). It seems like a terrible waste of a 12/12.

When Vision Charm isn't being used to either cast Dreadnought, or to serve as protection for a Dreadnought already in play, Vision Charm reduces Tombstalker's cc by 5, letting you play multiple Tombstalkers per game. It can also serve as a Giant Growth for Tarmogoyf messing your opponents combat damage. On the key turn where you are about to swing for lethal, you can use Vision Charm to cut your opponent off from their removal color.

And the absolute worst case scenario, you can either shuffle it away with Brainstorm or pitch it to FoW.

You can always side out those 5 cards for all your sideboard hate right as you opponent bring in all their enchantment/artifact destruction giving you virtual card advantage game two (you dont play many artifacts).

Hell, if you end up loving Dreadnought. You could even go up to...

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2-3 Vision Charm
1-2 Trickbind

All your low threat count problems solved.

[keys]

The reason I am hesitant to remove Sinkholes and/or Stifles is that LD powers up Daze/Spell Pierce.

[Khurtz]

Howdy all,

Haven't posted in awhile but since I pilfered your decklist and I've been getting consistent top 4's here in Rochester that past month or so I feel obliged to post. First, my list:

4 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm

4 Stifle
4 Spell Pierce
4 Daze
4 Force of Will

3 Thoughtseize
3 Snuff Out
2 Pernicious Deed

3 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand (don't ask)
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland


SB:
1 Hydroblast
1 Snuff Out
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Submerge
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Krosan Grip
4 Blue Elemental Blast

I'll list a few cards here that are still negotiable and add my thoughts:

Spell Pierce - So far working pretty well although my meta is becoming less combo heavy so it may get cut down to a 3 of soon. There's only a few matchups I've hated seeing this guy against and most of the time it just gets boarded out in those anyways : - )

Thoughtseize - I'm slowly starting to doubt this card but in general it's helped make some amazing plays for me. I'm probably still going to run it for a few more tournaments to see how it fairs before deciding to cut or not.

Snuff Out - I have no intentions of cutting this card to fewer than 3 due to the massive tempo I get out of it. It rarely gets boarded out and the life loss really hasn't made much of a difference in most of my matches.

Pernicious Deed - I prefer this over EE for my meta as there's a lot more oddball decks that dump out massive amounts of creatures with varying casting costs. As an example I played against 2 different "Red elemental" theme decks the past 2 weeks and Deed was definitely superior to EE for those matches. If the meta picks up a bit I might try working with the EE's, or possibly try them over Thoughtseizes.

As far as my board goes, the BEB's and Hydro's are in because I'm seeing a lot of burn/gobbo/red aggro in my meta and that's something I don't feel confidant the deck can handle without some decent SB support.

Submerge unfortunatley hasn't done jack for me yet but that's most likely because there's one Bant Survival and one Pro-Bant in the meta so I don't always have the opportunity to use it.

Grip is in there for the random Scepter/Chant deck that pops up here and there and in support of the extra deeds to handle the Stax and Enchantress decks that rear their ugly heads here and there (I played in a meta with 3 Stax decks a few weeks and Grip/Deed really helped).

Relic is in there since I feel there's enough early counter to make it so I don't need to have a 0 drop to deal with graveyard decks and I think being able to ping off reanimate/loyal retainer targets consistently is more useful than a graveyard dump.

I haven't used Trygon because I don't consistently see Enchantress and Stax and Deed handles them when I do in addition to helping with random aggro. I'm finding Gobbos is still a tough matchup for me even after boarding in 5 BEB effects and another Snuff Out so I'm thinking of trying to find 1-2 other options that I can try out.

So far I haven't gone under 3-1 in a tournament and we usually get around 20-24 players here in good ole Rochester, NY.

My questions to everyone:

1) Are some of your maindeck choices (EE, Trygon, Smother) more dictated by your meta or just because those cards seem to work better for you in general?
2) What kind of meta are you running your list in and what modifications have you made to your maindeck and board to adjust?
3) What are you seeing as your worst matchups?

Let me know whatcha think. Thanks!!!

[GtF]

Stu your success with sinkhole is noted. I assume you cut thoughtseize so you could have pierce and sinkhole together?
For extra threats, that's the issue I was trying to address by adding the 1 top. No other actual threat seems good enough, but if you put some extra library manipulation and cantripping, you're more likely to find one of the ones that's in the deck sooner.
I really can't get behind dreadnaught.
Khurtz: Those cards you list are definitely meta dependent but some have more uses than others.
Smother is good vs. merfolk and zoo (as extra removal) and dark confidant. Goyf decks too but i find unless they are really creature heavy I just prefer snuff out.
EE: This is a weird card because of how powerful and versatile it is. I really think it might be one of the unrecognized stars of legacy. Mainly I want it for merfolk and zoo as additional removal but I always find it having fringe uses, like against enchantress to blow up enchantresses or belcher to explode goblin tokens or xantid swarms. It's not great vs most decks but I find it has some use against almost anything. That's not to say you shouldn't board it out if you have something better though.
Trygon: Good against those decks you mention as well as against merfolk.
The meta is anyone's guess to me. I don't get a chance to play locally much, when I go to big events I play against all kinds of different decks. Not merfolk or zoo in the past two events, despite how popular everyone says they are.
Bad matchups: I'll start with the worst and go from there.
Monoblack control (or any non-green monocolor control deck for that matter): Control decks with tons of removal and stable manabases are the worst thing that could happen to you and your 8 actual creatures. They outcontrol you and you can't outaggro them. Nightmare matchup.
Eva green: The 2 color cousin of this deck is a pretty bad matchup in my experience. Their mana isn't easily disruptable, they have hymn to wreck your hand, dark confidant, tombstalker, vampire nighthawk, none of which you can kill easily if at all, and plenty of removal if they want it.
Merfolk: The fish aren't nearly as bad but they are still tough. Nitewolf seems to have found a way to beat them so I'd go with his advice if your meta is heavily in fish. For larger events, I don't want a card as narrow as jitte in my board, and I'll take my chances with some extra removal and my bigger creatures.
Zoo: This matchup is I would say just barely in their favor. It's kinda surprising but their manabase is the main reason. Attacking their lands can not only keep them from casting spells but shrink their creatures too. You have to play the control deck for a while but you can't keep doing it the whole game or you'll get burnt out. Negotiating how to switch roles is tricky, but crucial to winning.
Goblins: I think this matchup is slightly favorable. I have found thoughtseize to be really good. Their goblin cards are actually pretty expensive so a thoughtseize can disrupt and slow them down enough for goyfs and tombstalkers to start racing. Another card that's insane vs. them is stifle, as it basically acts as a counter for the important part of their matrons/ringleaders/incinerators/siege-gangs, etc etc.
Something to note about this deck is it can have trouble with random aggro decks. If they have a stable (1-2 color) manabase and lots and lots of creatures, well, this deck isn't equipped to handle that kind of attack. Goblins is the exception to this rule mainly cause of stifle. EEs and deeds can help here, but they also make the deck worse in other matchups. Any pure combo deck or any deck that relies heavily on one or two cards is what TA will feast on. Any deck in the middle is, well, even.

Nitehawk: just realized I never answered your original question. I liked the 3 spell pierce on the day. There were situations where they weren't good but those situations few other cards would have been good either. But most of the time they did just what I needed.

[Minos]

I don't understand why all of you prefer mord EE than pernicious deed... We are playing black and Green so we can have deed with any problem... I should miss something maybe.

[Jon Stewart]

If you're light on threats, have you thought about maybe playing...

3 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Vision Charm/Trickbind (the latter only if a very large portion of your meta consists of fetchlands and storm decks).

to supplement your deck.

Dreadnought lets you race Goblins easily and even race combo decks like Reanimator, Ad-Nauseum or Ichorid when combined with all your countermagic. It can both be played, and protected with Stifle and Vision Charm. Hell it can even be played to bait a counter (if your opponent thinks you play Trickbind) and sacced to give your Goyf +2/+2 or feed your yard for Tombstalker (though I don't see myself using it like that). It seems like a terrible waste of a 12/12.

When Vision Charm isn't being used to either cast Dreadnought, or to serve as protection for a Dreadnought already in play, Vision Charm reduces Tombstalker's cc by 5, letting you play multiple Tombstalkers per game. It can also serve as a Giant Growth for Tarmogoyf messing your opponents combat damage. On the key turn where you are about to swing for lethal, you can use Vision Charm to cut your opponent off from their removal color.

And the absolute worst case scenario, you can either shuffle it away with Brainstorm or pitch it to FoW.

You can always side out those 5 cards for all your sideboard hate right as you opponent bring in all their enchantment/artifact destruction giving you virtual card advantage game two (you dont play many artifacts).

Hell, if you end up loving Dreadnought. You could even go up to...

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2-3 Vision Charm
1-2 Trickbind

All your low threat count problems solved.

This idea seems solid. Psedo Dreadstalker that can transform into TA when a bunch of hate shows up. Have you or anyone tried this?

[Kanabo]

Has anyone tested Dreadnaught in this deck yet?

[keys]

Has anyone tested Dreadnaught in this deck yet?

1. There's a thread on the deck called "DreadStalker" which is very similar but doesn't play green.

2. Yes, it's been tested and discussed here. Please read the thread.




I've been playing this deck for about a year now, ever since the start of this of thread and I've made a couple observations.

This deck is arguably a metagame deck designed to destroy counterbalance (Stalker and Snuff Out being the key cards here). Right now Bant CounterTop is probably the DTB, which is why this deck is doing well again. If CBTop dies down again, Canadian Thresh is probably the better all-around tempo deck.

Spell Pierce is the single biggest contribution to the deck in all of Zendikar block, and its repercussions are huge. There are a lot of different ways to include the card, but in my opinion the most obvious card to cut for it is Thoughtseize --it's not tempo, it's not blue, it's sorcery, and it makes the aggro matchup more painful. I've been playing Spell Snare in its place for a while, but Spell Piece is even better. The merits have already been detailed but I want to reiterate how perfectly in tune it is with the decks land-destruction/tempo strategy. It answers turn 1 plays like Blood Moon, and is just all around incredible versus Burn and Eva Green, which are two of the hardest matchups.

It's also great that people are experimenting with board sweepers to address aggro. Against Zoo and Merfolk, Snuff Out just doesn't cut it. EE/P Deed, although slow, are extremely effective and deserve at least 4 SB spots if not 1-2 maindeck spots. Merfolk will always be the deck to avoid at all costs, but with sweepers it's not exactly an auto-lose if you can keep your manabase intact long enough to play them.

Congrats to all those who have been placing at tournaments with this deck and keep up the good work!

[popeye79]

Has anyone tested Dreadnaught in this deck yet?

A very sucessful deck (by one of the decks pioneers) ran a singleton. I guess people moved away from it becasue it's not needed more often than not. If you're going to add a creature, at least a clique can be pitched to fow, and has the added bonus of pulling a card, and has flash.

[GtF]

After playing the deck in some tournaments over the weekend I'm starting to come around to the idea that you need sinkholes to keep your spell pierces and dazes good into the midgame. Much as I love thoughtseize, I will probably cut it (maybe move it to the board if there's room) for sinkholes and see how that does. Probably also will try out the 2 clique config after drawing three tombstalkers one too many times this weekend.

[DerFern]

After playing the deck in some tournaments over the weekend I'm starting to come around to the idea that you need sinkholes to keep your spell pierces and dazes good into the midgame. Much as I love thoughtseize, I will probably cut it (maybe move it to the board if there's room) for sinkholes and see how that does. Probably also will try out the 2 clique config after drawing three tombstalkers one too many times this weekend.

qft
Are you going to try 4 Goyf / 3 Stalker / 2 Clique? This configuration impressed me quite a lot. I´m playing 4 Daze / 2 Spell Pierce main with 4 Sinkholes.

What is your overall opinion about 1 random Reanimate? I tested it lately and it basically was Tarmogoyf No. 5. Unfortunately I didn´t draw it against Reanimator, which would´ve been a whole lot of fun...

[inside88]

After playing the deck in some tournaments over the weekend I'm starting to come around to the idea that you need sinkholes to keep your spell pierces and dazes good into the midgame. Much as I love thoughtseize, I will probably cut it (maybe move it to the board if there's room) for sinkholes and see how that does. Probably also will try out the 2 clique config after drawing three tombstalkers one too many times this weekend.

something that looks like this:

// Lands
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [R] Bayou

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
4 [M10] Ponder
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [DD2] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [SC] Stifle
3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
3 [MM] Snuff Out
1 [ON] Smother
4 [A] Sinkhole
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives

[GtF]

Pretty much like that except I had 2 EEs no smothers and 2 V cliques 3 tombstalker and -1 sinkhole.
DerFern I liked the reanimate when you are only running 4 tombstalker 4 tarmogoyf as your threats, but if you think the 3 stalker, 4 goyf, 2 clique configuration is better, I wouldn't bother with the reanimate. You don't need it against reanimator even though it is fun, and there are some decks where it really won't do anything so I don't think it's ultimately worth it.

[GtF]

I keep losing in the T8 of local tournies where the payout is much better if you make the T4 and it is very frustrating. The last one was due to horrible mana flood and the most recent was due to me getting stuck on 2 with a k. grip and v. clique stuck in my hand the whole game. =[
I tried out the sinkholes and 3 stalker 2 clique config in this last one. I am starting to think it is very important to have differing SBing strategies on the play vs. on the draw with this deck. Sinkholes were good sometimes and terrible sometimes, pretty much as I remember them, but they are much worse on the draw. I am pretty sure thoughtseize would have been better. I still haven't played against zoo OR merfolk in the last 4 tournaments O_o
The 2 cliques won me 2 games and lost me 2 games (though 1 of those was my fault) by either being 3 mana or not being tombstalker. Now I have absolutely no idea which is better. Maybe I'll go to 1 clique 3 stalker 1 reanimate?
What can be done to make this deck more consistent? What can be done to improve the counterbalance matchup to better than 50/50? I am considering Jace, the mindsculptor and opt/sleight of hand again, as well as predict. Has anyone tried any of these? Is anyone out there still playing this deck?

[DerFern]

Is anyone out there still playing this deck?
Still playing, loving and improving the deck...
I share the same experience, that Sinkhole might be terrible sometimes, but that is against any lands.dec, Loam or monocolored decks. Even though these matchups are tough preboard I still like the fact that there are some cards easily to be boarded out. In most games, Sinkhole just won it for me... I guess it really depends on the expected meta.


have differing SBing strategies on the play vs. on the draw
agreed


What can be done to make this deck more consistent? What can be done to improve the counterbalance matchup to better than 50/50? I am considering Jace, the mindsculptor and opt/sleight of hand again, as well as predict.
It looks like we have very differing experiences with this deck. A few reasons why I think Counterbalance (Bant) is easy to win:
maindeck Manadenial really hurts them
Tombstalker and Snuff Out won´t get hit by CB
our critters are bigger
3xSubmerge out of the board
This matchup will be tough if they are playing 4StP and 2-3PtE out of the board, but basically I haven´t had much of a problem so far. Since most CB-Lists tend to be Supreme Blue nowadays they have some dead cards (Firespout), too...

Last tourney I tried 3xFirespout and 1 Volcanic Island out of my Sideboard. It really worked fine for me, since most mass removel (Deed, EE) was a little too slow for me. Firespout can hit and clean on turn 3, which is huge.

I can´t see why Jace 2.0 should be good in this deck. With only 8-10 critters we won´t be able to protect him at all. Being at cmc4 even makes it worse I guess (I´m playing 18 lands).

What I experienced is a lot of lifelost from Fetching and Snuff Out. Is there a (good) way to solve this problem? I was considering Vampire Nighthawk somewhere, but I´m not really satisfied... Jitte in the SB? Thinking...

[GtF]

I played against a slightly different version of cb-top in that tournament, he was running regular counterspell, which was really good against me. He also had a 4 drop in Jace to counter my snuff out =/
Inquisition of Kolizek is probably a card that is worth considering. I think I would probably stick with thoughtseize since the lifeloss isn't usually relevant, but there are only a few cards that inquisition won't hit that matter (force, ad naseum, tendrils, blecher, empty the warrens, probably missing something else). I'd probably stick with thoughtseize for this reason. What does everyone else think?

[Arsenal]

I'm thinking of sleeving this up as I'm disassembling my Tempo Thresh deck (making Merfolk instead) and I'll have some left over pieces to use. The main thing holding me back is Sinkhole... I don't own any. Now, I've seen some lists in here that forego Sinkhole, but I think that makes other spells a bit weaker (Spell Pierce, Daze, etc). I really, really don't want to shell out $150 for a playset though as Sinkhole is quite narrow and not able to be widely used in other decks. How much worse (or better) is Team America minus Sinkhole?

[Skeggi]

You can replace Sinkhole with Hymn to Tourach. There are in fact people who think it's better. I disagree, but I have played the deck only at a few tournaments so I'm not the biggest expert on this matter.

[GtF]

I'm not completely convinced that sinkhole is even better. You could easily run hymn or thoughtseize on those spots if you don't want to shell out the bucks.

[royal]

Hello,

i know TA plays not very good against MUC and Merfolk but could you describe your strategies against these decks ?

I´m new to TA and haven´t played many games yet, but this match against MUC was terrible ...

Thanks a lot and sorry for my clumsey english ^^

[royal]

Hi again,

i´ve played this deck now a few times and want to know, what you think about my list:

creature [8]
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

instant [20]
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle

sorcery [12]
4 Ponder
4 Sinkhole
4 Thoughtseize

I would be very happy if you could take a look at it,

thank you very much,

royal

[Kanabo]

Do You play Snuff out? or any removal?

[Nelis]

Against Zoo and Merfolk, Snuff Out just doesn't cut it. EE/P Deed, although slow, are extremely effective and deserve at least 4 SB spots if not 1-2 maindeck spots. Merfolk will always be the deck to avoid at all costs, but with sweepers it's not exactly an auto-lose if you can keep your manabase intact long enough to play them.


Let me start by saying I've no experience playing this deck at all. But I'm thinking of sleeving this deck up to try it out for a while.

I have one question, would Inquisition of Krozilek (combined with EE/Deed) be better instead of Snuff Out? It has it's downsides of course but doesn't let's you lose life and is also good vs most non-creature matchups.

I understand that it doesn't do anything against a creature that's already on the battlefield but it's much more versatile. Could this work or is it really necessary to run Snuff Out?

[Team America]

Hi again,

i´ve played this deck now a few times and want to know, what you think about my list:

creature [8]
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

instant [20]
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle

sorcery [12]
4 Ponder
4 Sinkhole
4 Thoughtseize

I would be very happy if you could take a look at it,

thank you very much,

royal

You should consider some creature removal, something in the line of snuff out / smother / ghastly demise. I run 3 snuff out and 2 smother main. Also you might want to consider adding a vendilion clique or two, good hand disruption and 3 damage evasion helps since out threat density is so low.

[DerFern]

100% agreed to TA

I´m having serious problems beating UW-Control (NoGoyf) and Goblins so far. I tested 3 Firespout (and 1 Volcanic Island) out of my sideboard but it didn´t impress me that much. In those both matchups I may not drop the Volcanic too soon since both play Wasteland. So I do depend on Firespout AND the land being in my hand in the very right moment. Additionally, I could not play Verdant Catacombs, which got me hit a lot of opponents with an unexpected Stifle.

How do you guys handle those decks? Right now I´m about to test 3 Pernicious Deed and 2 Darkblast (having some synergy with Tombstalker, too).

[Team America]

I agree with you on firespout I found the same when testing 3 board with a single volcanic. I tried pernicious deed and though it was amazing against stax and enchantress it was too slow against merfolks and goblins, not many eva green run it and they have a more stable manabase and dark ritual. I run 3 ee board and they're great as an answer all, but not a board sweeper since merfolk and gobs creature cmc varies. I'm going to test 3 infest in the board since my weekly tournament is swarming with merfolk.

[Plague Sliver]

I just lost 0-2 to Merfolk in a tournament match last night.

I'm running the build with 3x EE...in the SB. 4x Sinkhole, 3x Spell Pierce maindeck without Thoughtseize.

First game I *thought* I had it in the bag. Early mana denial, Sinkholing an island and cleared his Vials. But he comes back with a couple of Lords and I can't stop them fast enough.

Game 2 I side in 3x EE and 2x Grip but his early Relic keeps me off Tombstalker long enough to get there. Didn't have the speed.

The deck is disadvantaged from the start vs. aggro. I might follow the suggestions given and just maindeck the EE's. Without them it becomes very hard to win Game 1.

[GtF]

The matchup vs aether vial decks is kinda bad and if they get aether vial going it's very bad. Having EE main does help against merfolk.
Goblins I have found to not be that tough though, since stifle is really good against them and so is tarmogoyf. I play 3 blue elemental blasts in my board that I bring in against goblins, which helps as well. The version with black is a lot harder to beat because of warren wierding.
Against merfolk your general plan is to keep aether vial and standstill from resolving, drop a guy and remove some of their lords so that they just have a bunch of weak crappy dudes and can't swarm you. Obviously a lot has to go right, but I think the best approach is just having enough spot removal (and countering standstill, which is a real ballbuster). Nitewolf claimed he had success with umezawas jitte postboard but I think you'd have to be boarding into at least 10 creatures for that to be worth it.
Monoblue is pretty straightforward: disrupt them and get a quick beater out and kill them before their powerful but expensive spells get the better of you.
derfern: it definitely seems worth it to maximize your blue fetchlands if you are boarding in a volcanic island. Getting them with a verdant catacomb/stifle is cute and all but being able to cast your spells seems more important.
I don't think inquisition would replace thoughtseize because there are some spells you really want to be able to thoughtseize and I think overall the 2 life is worth it (force, moat, empty, belcher, ad naseum, tendrils, probably some others). But I could maybe see it getting played in addition to thoughtseize. And if your meta is only zoo and none of those decks that use the above cards, then feel free, but in an unknown metagame it doesn't seem worth it to me.

[Plague Sliver]

The matchup vs aether vial decks is kinda bad and if they get aether vial going it's very bad. Having EE main does help against merfolk.
Goblins I have found to not be that tough though, since stifle is really good against them and so is tarmogoyf. I play 3 blue elemental blasts in my board that I bring in against goblins, which helps as well. The version with black is a lot harder to beat because of warren wierding.
Against merfolk your general plan is to keep aether vial and standstill from resolving, drop a guy and remove some of their lords so that they just have a bunch of weak crappy dudes and can't swarm you. Obviously a lot has to go right, but I think the best approach is just having enough spot removal (and countering standstill, which is a real ballbuster). Nitewolf claimed he had success with umezawas jitte postboard but I think you'd have to be boarding into at least 10 creatures for that to be worth it.
Monoblue is pretty straightforward: disrupt them and get a quick beater out and kill them before their powerful but expensive spells get the better of you.
derfern: it definitely seems worth it to maximize your blue fetchlands if you are boarding in a volcanic island. Getting them with a verdant catacomb/stifle is cute and all but being able to cast your spells seems more important.
I don't think inquisition would replace thoughtseize because there are some spells you really want to be able to thoughtseize and I think overall the 2 life is worth it (force, moat, empty, belcher, ad naseum, tendrils, probably some others). But I could maybe see it getting played in addition to thoughtseize. And if your meta is only zoo and none of those decks that use the above cards, then feel free, but in an unknown metagame it doesn't seem worth it to me.

I would say that Goblins is an easier matchup than Merfolk. You're totally right that Stifle (tutor effects) and Goyf counters a lot of their strategy. All I'm saying is that I'm starting to come around to the conclusion that in an aggro meta this isn't the best deck to play. On a personal note, I'm switching back to Eva Green.

[Vacrix]

Have you guys tested Crop Rotation? Besides finding wasteland, Its a bomb that finds Bojuka Bog (also on color) against anything that like to put stuff in its grave ie. Reanimator, Dredge, Loam, IGG, etc. It can also color fix, respond to an opponents wasteland, and find The Tabernacle at Pendril Vale which is absolutely nuts in a mana denial strategy and it fixes your issues against aggro. I have no idea what you'd cut for it but it looks pretty strong.

[DerFern]

Have you guys tested Crop Rotation? (...) I have no idea what you'd cut for it but it looks pretty strong.
this
Besides a few flexible (meta-)choices I just can´t find space in your basic 60 to support Crop Rotation. It is true that it is a bomb with Tabernacle / Bog, but I would not drop anything for that. Since I´m playing only 18 lands, saccing one to Rotation hurts even more.

@GtF/PlagueSliver
What do you think of Darkblast? On paper it impressed me quite a lot since it is recurring removal and does not cost you life like Snuff Out does. It helps against 1st turn Lackey, against stalling Goyfs and some Merfolk. When played in your Upkeep, Dredge, played again it might kill most lords. I´ll definitely try it, but I´m not sure if it is a slot in my SB or MD. I think we need at least 5 Removal MD. Right now I´m with 3 Snuff Out/2 Smother, but 2 Snuff Out/2 Darkblast/1 Smother might be fine.

[GtF]

Ya, I've tried darkblast and it was pretty good, I could see running 1 or 2 between MD and board. The problem is how to make room for it.
I think I would rather just have the ability to straight up kill a lord against merfolk with something like ghastly demise or smother.
It would be very strong against something that ran dark confidant and goyf, since it kills bob and wins goyf wars, but no decks are really doing that right now. Some are running noble hierarch though, and that card is incredibly good against TA, so I can definitely see it being good there.
Also good vs turn 1 lackeys, though not as versatile as BEB.
It was randomly insane against that UW goyfless deck and monowhite aggro, which are the only matches I actually got to play it in.
Not as good against zoo, in fact it seems basically unplayable there.
I play 2 EE 3 snuff out, I keep thinking about changing 1 of the EEs or snuff outs to something else but I never do it. Darkblast seems like a sideboard card to me.

Plague Sliver - I agree with you about goblins being a better matchup than merfolk and about not playing this in an aggro meta. In a relatively dispersed metagame I like TA more than eva green, but against all aggro decks, eva green is probably better.

Vacrix - crop rotation is not exciting to me. I can usually find a wasteland when I need one, and sacrificing a card to get it doesn't seem worth it. I don't play tabernacle, and I have found tormod's crypt to be sufficient as graveyard hate. Also I don't know where the room would come from.

What does everyone think of possibly playing see beyond? It is kinda annoying that you don't discard the card instead of shuffling it back, but I often find myself flooded in the midgame and 1 or 2 of these seems like it could help a lot to find some action and shuffle away some useless cards. Kinda like a bad brainstorm 5-6.

[Cavius The Great]

Why are you guys still running Green? You can play Abyssal Persecutor, Innocent Blood and Cabal Therapy, and not get screwed by Wasteland...

[Jon Stewart]

The Gate, with a blue splash!?

I know that was meant to be a joke suggestion, but it actually sounds pretty interesting.

[Plague Sliver]

I'm not sure you can compare a 2 CC card to a 4 CC one...

It's very hard for this deck to get 4 lands consistently, and you don't want to tap out to play a threat.

[DerFern]

This past Saturday I went to our local Tourney with my lovely pack of hate (aka Team America). We´ve been 32 people and hell, I´m reaaaaally annoyed by my performance...
In the past I´ve tried 2x Pernicious Deed, I´ve tried 3xFirespout out of my sideboard, right now I played 3xDeed in my board AND 2xDarblast main, but

I

just

can´t

beat

fucking

ugly, green

Goblins!!!1111!

I just don´t get it. What else can I do to improve this matchup?! In two weeks there is Bazaar of Moxen and ever since our team decided to go there I´ve been testing TA to be my deck of choice. I´m really annoyed by the deck, our meta and got beaten the shit out over and over and over and over again by this fucked up straight forward dumbass shitload of lackey, bam, fuck you, dead.

Don´t get me wrong, on paper I guess Goblins is about 50/50, but it just seems to be my nemesis. I hate it...

Please help me...

[Ozymandias]

I think you have to realize that your role here is the beatdown. Goblins has so much inevitability on you with its CA chains, and just dumping a swarm of guys, that you must must must get in there quickly or lose. Mono-Red is harder than the splashes, precisely because you can't waste their nonbasics and stifle their fetchlands.

Obviously countering a t1 lackey or vial is clutch. Don't be afraid to to lay tombstalkers and goyfs and start bashing ASAP. Don't forget you can stifle: Matron and Ringleader triggers, pildriver triggers, vial add counter and put into play triggers. Don't use Goyf as a wall- use it as the Abyss but Green. Their only outs to Tombstalker are Stingcourger and their splashes--if they have five goblins to incinerate it, you've already lost. Don't be afraid to tap out to sinkhole--screwing them is a possiblity in land-light builds, and keeping them off of RR is also cool.

[rancOr_]

I think the best way to beat goblins in this kind of deck is to just play 4 Engineered Plague sb. I've had the same problems with Tempo Faeries which has the same weak MU's(zoo,goblins md) and gave me alot of good results. I must say since I've played E. plague I didn't lose to goblins yet in any tourney(and i've faced it like 5times now..). Sure u can play stuff like firespout,which obviously helps alot,but in a threat like deck as TA,they can just recover too fast. 2x E. plague= GG against goblins since all the lists dont play green.
With the amount of cantrips u play u can get there quite easily. U just need to survive first turns, maybe put some BEB's side if u didnt't alrdy and keep forces/(stifle lackey trigger if needed)- for important stuff. The way i play vs goblins is just try to lock them out of the game,not race/remove creatures,since it wont ever work that well. And i board out dazes,since I want my 3lands asap. Hope this helps,Grtz

[mcnubbins2t]

I think you have to realize that your role here is the beatdown. Goblins has so much inevitability on you with its CA chains, and just dumping a swarm of guys, that you must must must get in there quickly or lose. Mono-Red is harder than the splashes, precisely because you can't waste their nonbasics and stifle their fetchlands.

Obviously countering a t1 lackey or vial is clutch. Don't be afraid to to lay tombstalkers and goyfs and start bashing ASAP. Don't forget you can stifle: Matron and Ringleader triggers, pildriver triggers, vial add counter and put into play triggers. Don't use Goyf as a wall- use it as the Abyss but Green. Their only outs to Tombstalker are Stingcourger and their splashes--if they have five goblins to incinerate it, you've already lost. Don't be afraid to tap out to sinkhole--screwing them is a possiblity in land-light builds, and keeping them off of RR is also cool.

Some really good info. I used to play goblins and just a heads up also save stifles for their Wastelands. If they're mono red or with a light splash for the warren weirding then they are probly running the Wasteland/Port Package. Waste their ports, Stifle their Wastelands. One thing is goblins sometimes runs out of gas, so you may want to try the control route and stall their early game, sweep, and then beat them down. I'm still trying to find something effective enough, but Engineered Plague seems acceptable. Is Consume the Meek too slow?

Also as an aside, i've been looking at playing Team America and read through the forum here so I should be posting more regularly, and apologize if my lack of experience with the deck makes me say something dumb.

[menace13]

Some really good info. I used to play goblins and just a heads up also save stifles for their Wastelands. If they're mono red or with a light splash for the warren weirding then they are probly running the Wasteland/Port Package. Waste their ports, Stifle their Wastelands. One thing is goblins sometimes runs out of gas, so you may want to try the control route and stall their early game, sweep, and then beat them down. I'm still trying to find something effective enough, but Engineered Plague seems acceptable. Is Consume the Meek too slow?

Also as an aside, i've been looking at playing Team America and read through the forum here so I should be posting more regularly, and apologize if my lack of experience with the deck makes me say something dumb.

One of my Favorite archetypes to play with, ever. That said i wouldn't run this into a random/unknown meta as it has problems with fast agrro. Consume The Meek is way over the curve in TA, even getting to 4 Lands out-after facing and deploying Wastes-while only playing 19-20 lands at most is a task. E. Plague and Early Hymn are pretty good vs Gobs.

[GtF]

It'd be easier to tell why you're losing if you described how you're losing. But to just give some feedback, I agree totally with whoever said you must be the beatdown. You can disrupt them but you can't control them, the goblins deck is the one with card advantage, whereas you have tempo. That is why stopping vial and lackey should be your first and second priorities, and landing a tarmogoyf or tombstalker as early as possible is the next most important thing. I think you aren't playing thoughtseize, but I have found it to be very good, usually nabbing warchief or ringleader. Certain cards get really awful (incinerator, piledriver) without a critical mass of goblins out, so the seize is especially helpful there since you can create virtual mulligans for your opponent by taking certain key cards. Eventually they would recover of course, but the idea is that they'll be dead by then.
If you really want to beat goblins for sure 1000 percent, engineered plague would do it. But I haven't found it to be necessary.

[DerFern]

Thank you for your feedback so far
The most problems have been with the Rb Goblin list. There are basically too many things that need to be destroyed/countered/handled. Maybe it was just bad luck that day, but when I had a quite good start (handling 1st turn Vial, wasting their land, Snuff Out on 2nd turn lackey) he just drew anything he needed and wasted three of my lands, dropped Lackey and beat the shit out of me. When I had a Goyf he played Weirding which I could not counter.
I tried 2xDarkblast main that day of which I drew not a single one (except against MUC-fail!) and Deed out of the board could never be played due to his wastelands. I´m still not sure what to do with Stifle. In the Rb list I guess I should stifle his fetches when I can handle Vial/Lackey, but then I got overwhelmed by Ringleaders and Matrons.
For Bazaar of Moxen, I guess I´ll play my standard list (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=32331) with a sideboard of
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Ravenous Trap
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Extirpate
1 Krosan Grip
3 Submerge
2 BEB / Hydroblast
1 Darkblast
That should give me a good matchup against this particular deck as well as a few more decks I expect quite a lot (Ichorid, Zoo, Reanimator). Any other suggestions?

[GtF]

Yes, the version with black is much harder to beat because of warren weirding. If they get your one creature it gives them all the tempo back, most of the time you have to counter it to win. I don't really have a good solution except to say try your best to counter it or thoughtseize it. If you aren't playing thoughtseize, that halves your options. You could play spell snare but it is bad against everything else in their deck, and I don't really like it in general against the field.
It doesn't seem like P. deed would be very good against goblins since they have a lot of high casting cost creatures, so you're going to have to spend a lot of mana that you might not have or want otherwise. I wouldn't even bring it in.
Good luck at the tournament!

[coraz86]

Thank you for your feedback so far
The most problems have been with the Rb Goblin list. There are basically too many things that need to be destroyed/countered/handled. Maybe it was just bad luck that day, but when I had a quite good start (handling 1st turn Vial, wasting their land, Snuff Out on 2nd turn lackey) he just drew anything he needed and wasted three of my lands, dropped Lackey and beat the shit out of me. When I had a Goyf he played Weirding which I could not counter.
I tried 2xDarkblast main that day of which I drew not a single one (except against MUC-fail!) and Deed out of the board could never be played due to his wastelands. I´m still not sure what to do with Stifle. In the Rb list I guess I should stifle his fetches when I can handle Vial/Lackey, but then I got overwhelmed by Ringleaders and Matrons.
For Bazaar of Moxen, I guess I´ll play my standard list (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=32331) with a sideboard of
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Ravenous Trap
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Extirpate
1 Krosan Grip
3 Submerge
2 BEB / Hydroblast
1 Darkblast
That should give me a good matchup against this particular deck as well as a few more decks I expect quite a lot (Ichorid, Zoo, Reanimator). Any other suggestions?

If you're having problems with Goblins, think about Chill; it plays into the mana denial theme pretty well and doesn't require you to sit around with mana open (unlike BEB/Hydroblast). Also seems like it could be all right against storm, making their red rituals cost more to slow them down; it's something to take your spot removal out for, at least, so you don't have to sit around staring at those Snuff Outs while they goldfish.

On a related note, unless one expects a fair amount of combo, I'd stay away from Hymn to Tourach. Something about it just doesn't feel right. I played in a small local tourney, went 3-1 with the deck playing against random jank (losing to Elves because I didn't think to put Perish in the board), and wasn't ever really happy to see it. I think I'd rather have either EE or Spell Pierce in that slot, depending on whether your meta is aggro or control. I love Hymn, don't get me wrong, but it just doesn't feel like flows well with the rest of the deck.

[royal]

Hi,

1) What are the best matchups and what are the worst matchups for Team America in the current meta?

2) Whats the best meta for Team America and whats the worst meta for Team America?

3) What do you think about adding one Dreadnought? What would you cut for it?

4) Do you think, Eva Green would be a better choice in the current meta?

Thanks a lot,

royal

[GtF]

TA has good matchups vs. combo decks, decent vs. multicolored control, usually bad vs monocolor control.
Burn and goblins are average, I think zoo is about 50% as well, as is counterbalance (it was a lot better before everyone started playing noble hierarch)
Merfolk is pretty bad, but it is possible to address with enough SB slots.

Generally the more broken interactions a deck has, the better TA is against it because of its disruption package. The harder to disrupt it is, the worse TA is against it. So for instance a deck with all basic forests and elvish warriors would probably be a pretty bad matchup.

It seems like people are starting to gravitate towards more powerful decks in legacy, which would seem to make TA a better choice now than before.

I dislike adding a dreadnaught but another threat might be in order, since drawing more than 2 tombstalkers is kinda rough. I think terravore might warrant some consideration. I usually fetch out U sea, U sea, bayou as my lands but with some forethought it's easy enough to get a tropical island.

[DerFern]

I dislike adding a dreadnaught but another threat might be in order, since drawing more than 2 tombstalkers is kinda rough. I think terravore might warrant some consideration. I usually fetch out U sea, U sea, bayou as my lands but with some forethought it's easy enough to get a tropical island.
This weekend I tried 4 Goyf/3 Stalker/2 Clique/1 Sower and I loved it. Sower is a maindeck answer against Iona, which might be a good solution since Reanimator gaining popularity on and on. I usually fecth USea/Bayou/Tropical, so I can play anything in the deck on turn 2.

[Plague Sliver]

Here's what I'm thinking as a contender for a meta containing Combo, Stax, Goblins and Merfolk:

(Yes, I know I should probably play something else. It's just that I've developed a certain fascination with Tombstalker.)

3x Tombstalker
4x Goyf
2x Vendilion Clique

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x FoW
4x Daze
4x Stifle
3x Spell Pierce

2x Engineered Explosives
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Snuff Out
2x Smother

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

Sideboard:

4x Tormod's Crypt
4x Engineered Plague
3x Krosan Grip
1x Engineered Explosives
3x Blue Elemental Blast / Hydroblast

Taking a cue from Nitewolf's book, I'm removing the Sinkholes and maindecking two EE's. The 2 Inquisitions are lifeloss-friendly and act as pseudo-removal against Lackey/Goyf/etc. It's just too hard running 4 Snuff Outs so I'm trying a compromise solution with 2/2 split between Snuff Out and Smother.

Engineered Plague may be too slow without Ritual to power it out. But with this deck it's conceivable that I could get 2 on the board fairly consistently.

What do you guys think about running 2/2 split between Crypt and Yixlid Jailer? He's small, but still a "beater" (ha!). Only works against Dredge though, and not Reanimator.

[char89]

hey guys im just starting to get back into legacy again! have you guys ever thought about mealstrom pulse either MD or SB it seems pretty good against goblins and merfolk?

[GtF]

I've tried it, it's ok. Generally I like engineered explosives more though. Not against goblins, but pulse doesn't seem amazing there either, usually it'll just be a 1 for 1 sorcery speed removal that kills something that either cost less than it did or gave them card advantage already.

[Plague Sliver]

hey guys im just starting to get back into legacy again! have you guys ever thought about mealstrom pulse either MD or SB it seems pretty good against goblins and merfolk?

Having played the Merfolk matchup, I'd say it's hard to do more than a 1:1 with Pulse. At least with Explosives you're killing a bunch of 3 CC lords.

3 mana to get rid of 1 creature is too much of a tempo loss in my opinion.

[GtF]

I know this might be annoying, but has anyone tried Jace, the mindsculptor in this deck? I tried it out the other day: Pitched it to force of will once and shuffled it away with brainstorm once. There were definitely situations where topdecking it would have been awesome though. Still, now that I've seen a deck do well with 3 portent, maybe I should just run that.

[GtF]

Anyone else excited to try out preordain in this deck?

[nitewolf9]

Wouldn't Portent be better in a deck whose primary plan is to mana screw their opponent for a few turns? Seems like it to me, although it does sound appealing to have 12 "give me the card now" cantrips in a very streamlined build.

[GtF]

I guess I envision wanting to use the effect on myself more than my opponent most of the time. Also, waiting a turn to draw the card seems like it would hurt a lot more in this kind of deck than in counterbalance. Still, I haven't actually tried portent so maybe it is better than preordain. Hopefully I'll get some time to test out both, or if anyone else does, post your results to the thread.

[sigfig8]

I have a question for this forum. I've been playing Legacy for about 7 months now, and the only two decks I have experience with are ANT and Team America. Now that ANT is severely weakend by the banning of mystical tutor, I need to find something different to play in Columbus. Is Team America a legitimate Tier 1 deck to play? Has it been strengthened at all by the banning of MT? Are there any main deck changes you would recommend based on the shift in the metagame?

Thanks in advance.

[nodahero]

I personally think with the loss of ANT, Team America is decently placed depending on the shift. I personally expect a large uptick in the Zoo decks... If I am wrong though Team America seems alright.

Personally IF I went to Columbus... and I might it is currently up in the air... I would prolly play either Enchantress or one of the SI variants. They both do a number on Zoo and are both solid against Lands!!!

[sigfig8]

So Team America does not have a good matchup with Zoo? Zoo's mana base is a bit greedy with 3 colors, so wouldn't it be easy to lock them down using wasteland, stifle, sinkhole? I've even considered maindecking 4x spreading seas. Seems to provide additional mana hurt for Zoo, Enchantress, and New Horizons while also cantriping. At that point the only weak matchups in my view are goblins and merfolk, which is where 4x Engineered Plagues in the sideboard come in handy. What do you think?

[DerFern]

So Team America does not have a good matchup with Zoo? Zoo's mana base is a bit greedy with 3 colors, so wouldn't it be easy to lock them down using wasteland, stifle, sinkhole? I've even considered maindecking 4x spreading seas. Seems to provide additional mana hurt for Zoo, Enchantress, and New Horizons while also cantriping. At that point the only weak matchups in my view are goblins and merfolk, which is where 4x Engineered Plagues in the sideboard come in handy. What do you think?
I had the same issues with Gobbo and Merfolk, so 4xPlague found the way into my sideboard as well. I agree that it is possible to screw Zoos manabase and I did not have that many problems with this matchup so far. Spreading Seas looks like a nice idea but I just can´t find any room to give it a try. Legacy has been a quite blue-dominated format so far, thus I don´t think it would be that effective. However, with a slight metashift due to the weakaning of ANT/Reanimator it might prove to be a solid choice. If you should try it, please report about your results!

[sigfig8]

I had the same issues with Gobbo and Merfolk, so 4xPlague found the way into my sideboard as well. I agree that it is possible to screw Zoos manabase and I did not have that many problems with this matchup so far. Spreading Seas looks like a nice idea but I just can´t find any room to give it a try. Legacy has been a quite blue-dominated format so far, thus I don´t think it would be that effective. However, with a slight metashift due to the weakaning of ANT/Reanimator it might prove to be a solid choice. If you should try it, please report about your results!

Thanks for the confirmation. I've tried the 4x spreading seas strategy once already and it was decent but didn't seem optimal. Then again, my matchups were Goblins, Countertop, and Elves so I didn't get maximum value from them. Spreading seas replaced my discard slot, which I'm still a bit unsure of. The deck is pretty tightly crafted, so the only flexible spots in my opinion would be in number of ponders (I'm considering 2), discard, and number of creatures (7-9). Doesn't yield a lot of room. I'll definitely provide a more detailed summary next time I try this.

Pros of spreading seas:
1. Emphasizes the mana-screw aspect of the deck
2. Cantrips
3. Makes goyf bigger (not many decks play enchantments)
4. Can be tossed for FoW

Cons of spreading seas:
1. They often get killed due to daze
2. They don't hurt blue decks as much
3. They don't destroy the land

[GtF]

I think the cons outweigh the pros for spreading seas.

As for the position of Team america, it is hard to say yet whether it gets better or worse.
On the one hand, reanimator and ant were both good matchups and those will presumably be played even less.
Zoo is in my opinion a pretty even matchup, you could probably tip it in TA's favor with the appropriate SB.
However the big deal is that if zoo gets more popular and combo gets worse, there is less of an incentive for people to play merfolk, which is by far the worst matchup among commonly played decks (maybe new horizons is worse, I haven't tested it). So the weakening of combo might end up being a good thing for TA.

[Plague Sliver]

Team America tournament report

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18290-[Report]-Delve-for-six-Alex-13th-Place-with-TEAM-AMERICA-at-the-Mirkwood-Cup

Went 4-2-0 over the weekend, hope you enjoy the report.

[stu55]

I still think with less Mystical Tutor to worry about, Sinkhole is probably a lot better than Spell Pierce

[Plague Sliver]

Finished 3rd today in a 14-man tournament. 3-1 overall.

Revised decklist:

4x Tombstalker
4x Tarmogoyf

4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Daze
4x Stifle
3x Spell Snare

2x Thoughtseize
3x Snuff Out

1x Sylvan Library
3x Engineered Explosives

4x Wasteland
4x Polluted Delta
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
1x Swamp

Sideboard:

2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Ravenous Trap
3x Pithing Needle
3x Krosan Grip
3x Dispel
2x Ghastly Demise

Round 1 vs. Shelldock Isle Doomsday

Game 1 - He opens with Thoughtseize. I have Ponder, Force and Thoughtseize in hand and let it resolve. He takes Thoughtseize. I start cantripping and counter his 3rd turn Doomsday. He can't go off, I resolve Tombstalker about 10 turns in (slow hands by both of us) and win.

Game 2 - Open on Needle naming Top, wasteland his duals, get there with Goyf / 'Stalker.

1-0-0

Round 2 vs. Life

Game 1 - Beat down quickly with Goyf. I 2-for-1 his Vial + Nomads at one point using Explosives.

Game 2 - First turn Needle naming his just-played Vial. Second turn Needle naming Nomads en-Kor. Beat with 3x Goyf.

2-0-0

Round 3 vs. Stax

Game 1 - Both of us mull to 5. Critical misplay. I shuffle away Tombstalker and go for Goyf beats. He has wastelock package. I should have fetched the basic Swamp and played 'Stalker instead of shuffling it away. I needed one more turn, he has Elspeth, and Goyf was 4 power to Tombstalker's 5 power. D'oh.

Game 2 - He mulls to 6, I mull to 5. I keep super-risky hand with only 1x Trop and 1x Wasteland. Tapped out turn 1 to play ponder, found nothing. He is unable to get much going either, gets Smokestack out but I have enough Goyfs to barely win. Key play was Wastelanding his Ancient Tomb, he needed the mana to cast everything else in hand.

Game 3 - I counter Trinisphere, he follows with Ghostly Prison-Chalice @ 1-Smokestack-Elspeth. I can't draw into any of my 3x Explosives or 3x Grip and lose handily to Elspeth. I boarded Needle out after game 2, and Elspeth kills me :-)

2-1-0

Round 4 vs. Mythic Conscription (basically a Standard deck)

Game 1 - I counter his 2x Elspeth, Tombstalker wins race vs. Lotus Cobra.

Game 2 - I can't find lands. At one point I had to pay 8 life to Sylvan Library just to dig deeper. I finally cast Tombstalker when I am at 2 life. I filter cards like crazy, play Goyf. He starts chumping with Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch. I win the game with 1 life.

3-1-0

Definitely an interesting gamut of decks in my meta. There was Goblins and Zoo present but I didn't get paired up with them the whole night.

[nitewolf9]

I made Top 16 in Columbus with this list:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Predict
1 Sylvan Library

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Snuff Out
3 EE

4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Swamp

Board:
3 Krosan Grip
2 Dispel
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Smother
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Ghastly Demise
3 Tormod's Crypt

Didn't board in Tormod's Crypt a single time, although there were a few Lands decks there. Dredge seems all but dead, or at least far enough off the map to maybe start reconsidering this spot. Everything else was good, and the 5 extra removal spells were good vs aggro decks. I think I want more smothers though. Anyway, Hymn and Predict are very good. I ID'd in the last round as I don't think I had a shot at top 8, but that could have been a mistake. Either way I got an invite, so I'm pretty stoked. If anyone is still playing this deck you should try this configuration for the disruption suite, it ran very smoothly. That's all I have to say for now.

[GtF]

I also played in the GP with team america and ended up 27th. I think it's safe to say this deck is still good, and it doesn't seem to get nearly the respect it deserves. It was especially good in the field, lots of different combo decks, there didn't see to be an overabundance of zoo or merfolk. Here's the version I played:

4 ponder
4 brainstorm
4 FOW
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Goyf
4 Tombstalker
3 Snuff Out
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Thoughtseize
3 Spell Pierce
1 Preordain
4 U. Sea
9 UGB Fetchlands
2 Trop Island
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland

SB:
3 Dispel
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Krosan Grip
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Smother
2 Extirpate
1 Thoughtseize

I was happy with the way the maindeck played out. Dispel was great out of the board, my graveyard hate was also probably overkill, I played dredge once and lands once and only drew 1 extirpate against dredge, beating both decks anyway. I would cut a crypt for another removal spell, since two of my losses were to zoo and merfolk.

[Dr. DOOM]

I made Top 16 in Columbus with this list:
If anyone is still playing this deck you should try this configuration for the disruption suite, it ran very smoothly. That's all I have to say for now.

Congrats! I'm going to play Team America this sunday for the first time. I wanted to for a long time but I was having too much fun with my pet deck Faerie Stompy.

I assume that the single swamp is an exit for Snuff Out and the postboard removal against Magus of the Moon and other nonbasic landdestruction?

After having read half this topic from the start onwards, I'm quite surprised of your choice to run Hymn. Is it because too many low cc creatures slip through, in comnination with the use of basic lands, making you waste counterspells on them?

If you can tell me how the changes in this configuration as opposed to the original interact with the current metagame (mostly zoo/merfolk/ANT/Thresh/reanimate matchups if I'm correct) I'd be very grateful.

[nitewolf9]

The swamp is mainly there because so many people are running Path to Exile, and since the only double color requirements for the deck are double black, it made the most sense. Having outs to magus is a nice side benefit.

Hymn is what I settled on mainly because Sinkhole is just not as powerful as it used to be. Decks have gotten faster and hymn is probably the best turn 2 play this deck has vs aggressive decks. I tried running more draw here but that made the deck too light on disruption. Spell Pierce and Spell Snare were way too conditional, and Thoughtseize is too painful right now. Inquisition is OK but not nearly as powerful as Hymn can be. Hymn can also be LD, which is awesome. I also got to go "Hymn, Hymn, I win" a couple of times during the tournament, which was highly enjoyable :).

This build has migrated a bit away from its roots and opted for more ways to generate raw card advantage. The switch has been very strong. I just kept changing things around when I saw something that needed to change, and this is the end result.

[jrsthethird]

What are your opinions on EE vs. Maelstrom Pulse vs. Deed? And Blood Moon seems like gg against you, if it resolves you're screwed.

[nitewolf9]

What are your opinions on EE vs. Maelstrom Pulse vs. Deed? And Blood Moon seems like gg against you, and that seems a lot more prominent than Magus.

Deed is too slow, and EE is better than Pulse vs Merfolk and Zoo.

Sure, if a deck resolves blood moon that's a problem (if I don't have a threat out already, I can still cast removal and countermagic under moon). But what decks other than dragon stompy play that card anyway? Where are you getting that the card is "more prominant than Magus"?



I suppose you can Extirpate it if you know it's coming

Uhhhhhh....what?

[Dr. DOOM]

Wow, thanks for the quick reply, I'm actually sitting at the table building my deck right now.


The swamp is mainly there because so many people are running Path to Exile, .....

Hahaha, you just wanted your free land, lol! I never would expect that. Haven't played for a year, so...


Hymn is what I settled on mainly because Sinkhole is just not as powerful as it used to be. Decks have gotten faster and hymn is probably the best turn 2 play this deck has vs aggressive decks. ..... Hymn can also be LD, which is awesome. I also got to go "Hymn, Hymn, I win" a couple of times during the tournament, which was highly enjoyable :).

This build has migrated a bit away from its roots and opted for more ways to generate raw card advantage. The switch has been very strong. I just kept changing things around when I saw something that needed to change, and this is the end result.

About Hymn, I think it's power is highly underestimated nowadays. Especially at big tournaments, it is not random discard at all. There's so many (amateur) players who just hold their hand of cards in front of you, with their eye fixated on one card "NOOOO!!! DON'T PICK THAT ONE!!!" Or even try to hide the card from you or let one stick out they want you to pick. Some even sort their hands by card type and don't shuffle before resolving the Hymn, go figure... Now you can call that opportunist or cheating or unfair, I call it "I should shuffle and spread 'em out on the table because I cannot deal with random jank mentally"

In fact, my first constructed tournament ever was the Dutch Legacy championship in 2006 and I placed 21st out of 128 players with Pikula's Homebrew. I got there because of Hymn. "What did I jank? Goblin Ringleader? Can I read it, never seen that card before... ":laugh: Then the last 3 rounds of Swiss I lost because those were experienced players.

How do you play predict? You ditch your own card you don't want, or is it another metagame choice I don't expect? Oh wait, I think I get it. Against counterbalance?

[jrsthethird]

Deed is too slow, and EE is better than Pulse vs Merfolk and Zoo.

Sure, if a deck resolves blood moon that's a problem (if I don't have a threat out already, I can still cast removal and countermagic under moon). But what decks other than dragon stompy play that card anyway? Where are you getting that the card is "more prominant than Magus"?




Uhhhhhh....what?

I'm thinking of the Goblins lists that run Blood Moon in the board; I haven't seen Magus in a list except for Dragon Stompy. A search on deckcheck shows that I was wrong though, my bad. I thought more decks played the enchantment since it's generally harder to deal with, and I forgot about Imperial Recruiter lists.

Also, I was confusing Extirpate with Thought Hemorrhage...:facepalm:

But how does casting countermagic or removal help you if you don't have a threat out? All your spells cost BB or G when all you have is a basic Swamp.

[Plague Sliver]

The 1 basic Swamp is extremely good when facing Stax or Lands. Just sayin'.

Thought Hemorrhage? What deck is it played in?

[jrsthethird]

It's not, I looked at Extirpate and thought it was Thought Hemorrhage. For some reason naming a card in your opponent's deck and wiping it for B at Split Second speed did not stick out to me as utterly broken.

[naarou]

But how does casting countermagic or removal help you if you don't have a threat out? All your spells cost BB or G when all you have is a basic Swamp.
Playing your threat is phase 2 of this deck. Removing opposing creatures and countering spells can happen in any phase, and has very little influence from whether or not you have a threat out. (Granted you want to save some countermagic to protect your threat if necessary)

Phase 1 - Land Denial + Cantrip
Phase 2 - Drop a Threat
Phase 3 - Protect Threat/Win

Occasionally you'll play a threat before you finish stifling fetches/wlanding nonbasics, however this is the general gameplan.

Here's my current list, for reference:

// LANDS
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland

// CREATURES
4 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf

// SPELLS
4 Daze
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
3 Snuff Out
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Thoughtseize
2 Spell Pierce
1 Sylvan Library

// SIDEBOARD
3 Dispel
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
2 Smother
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Spell Pierce
1 Thoughtseize

Main difference between my deck and most is Maelstrom Pulse. It's really good, even in legacy, even given how fast the format is. It's not often you get to 2-for-1 with it, but it's basically an out to almost anything. And besides, who doesn't want to blow up 3 mox diamonds vs lands? I do recognize it's occasionally a card that sits in your hand, and it doesnt pitch to force, but with all the cantrips I think it's a very viable utility card. It even snipes counterbalance from time to time.

[jrsthethird]

We're talking about a resolved Blood Moon. With 1 Swamp as your only basic, how can you do win the game from an empty board when all your threats are uncastable?

[Dr. DOOM]

.

[Dr. DOOM]

We're talking about a resolved Blood Moon. With 1 Swamp as your only basic, how can you do win the game from an empty board when all your threats are uncastable?

That's simple. You can't.

But just look at the ridiculous amount of cards that Team America runs to prevent threats from resolving in the first place. Almost enough answers to make your question irrelevant. And ask yourself, how big is the chance of this happening on an empty board?

[naarou]

Oh, yeah, the swamp has nothing to do with being blood moon proof. It's only there for the path target and an out against waste locks (you can drop the second land and play goyf/stalker before it gets wasted). I suppose if there was nothing but moon effects in your meta you could add another swamp and an island, but I really don't see the point.

[sdematt]

If you see that much non-basic hate, I'm thinking the answer here is to not play this deck, and probably just play MUC or something with a bajillion basics.

[Dr. DOOM]

Hi, after a year of not playing legacy, I went to a tournament with this deck. I took Nitewolf9's build with some modifications. I expect lots of Zoo and Merfolk decks, but the Dutch metagame was very unpredictable as always.

This was my build:

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tombstalker
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Sylvan Library

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Snuff Out
3 EE

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

Board:
3 Krosan Grip
3 engineered plague
2 llawan, cephalid empress
2 Diabolic Edict
2 threads of disloyalty
3 Tormod's Crypt

Match 1: RGW Zoo
Game 1
I'm on the play, I manage to keep him off his red mana with stifle and wasteland. Meanwhile he beats me down to 10 after which I resolve Explosives. I get to attack with tombstalker which is removed with Path to Exile. I counter and destroy some more critters after that. I get to play another Tombstalker which goes all the way.

Game 2
I board in more removal and Threads of Disloyalty. He plays an early Gaddock Teeg which I cannot counter. I get an early Goyf which is exiled. Since I have a useless snuff out and explosives in hand, I decide to steal Teeg with Threads of Disloyalty and slap him with his own Teeg. He exiles Teeg in response to Hymn. I get a Tombstalker but I need a second threat because I'm at 6 life and need a blocker. He has two lands when I draw a second Daze. I take some risk and attack with stalker. Next turn he can attack me and then play bolt, but I can play two Daze. He plays a third land, atacks and plays bolt. I should have played more safe here.

Game 3
This is again a close race, I'm winning but time's up.

Match 2: UGB Emrakul combo
Game 1
He plays turn two show and tell, I FOW, he FOW's back, I lose to Emrakul.

Game 2
I can keep him off blue mana and screw up his hand with Hymn and blowing up his two Noble Hierarch with Explosives. He wants to resolve Eureka using Elvish Spirit Guide to reach 4 mana but I stifle the Guide. It takes some time time before I draw threats but eventually I end the game with Stalker and Goyf.

Game 3
Close call. He resolves show and tell, and I stifle Emrakul's annhilator ability. Then I play brainstorm into Diabolic Edict. Unforunately he noticed the Noble Hierarch in play just like I did so Emrakul stays. Bummer...

Match 3: BWG Deadguy Homebrew with Goyf
Game 1 and 2 he rapes my hand, blows up my lands, and gets Confidant/Top online, ending the game with Goyf.

Match 4: BW Deadguy with a shitload of discard and removal and some new tech.
Game 1: he rapes my hand, blows up my lands, and gets Confidant with Jitte.
Game 2: He starts with that new white leyline, rendering my Edicts useless. He rapes my hand, blows up my lands, keeps me off black mana all the time. Game ends with that big flyer that says I can't lose which he plowshares when I'm at -8 life.

Match 5: RGW Zoo

Game 1: Close race, similar to the first match but I win. I advise him to shuffle and spread the cards on the table when Hymn resolves because he glances at the cards he doesn't want to lose while holding his hand of cards in front of me, his face showing some sort of nervous panic. Never resolve Hymn like that unless you practiced your pokerface, lol :-).
Game 2: I screw up his manabase so bad he'll never be able to recover and win easily.

The Good: On the play, this deck can open incredibly strong with Stifle in hand and Daze backup. Especially with follow up from Hymn and Wasteland you can still pro-actively mess with your opponent's gameplan. The single Sylvan Library was a bomb and so were the Stifles.

The Bad: The matchup against B/W discard/land destruction decks was terrible. Drawing a FOW with an empty discarded hand does not help, Snuff Out becomes useless. Plus, they have lots of options for first turn disruption and acceleration, whereas this build slightly underperforms in comparison. And the combo matchup was poor.

The Ugly: What I really miss in this build is a card that enables to be the agressive player, it is a bit too reactive to what the oppponent is doing. That means that the build has to fit the metagame perfectly otherwise it won't perform. I want to put more cards in this deck that will allow me to start doing stuff from turn 1.

Also, Mistbind Clique was nice, but not great. I played this card about three times. The disruption is decent, but the 3/1 body doesn't stick around for very long like a Goyf or Stalker can.

I'm going to test a different build with the following changes:
-1 Snuff out
-2 Clique
-1 Explosives
-1 Sylvan Library
-1 Hymn

+1 Trinket Mage
+1 Sensei's Divining Top
+4 Kozilek's Inquisition

Kozilek's Inquisitions will allow me to see the opponents hand and pro-activily remove a threat, making my starting hand better, especially with daze backup. This makes the disruption from Vendillion Clique sort of redundant. With the Trinket Mage I increase the chance of finding the Sensei's Top, which is not possible with Sylvan Library. The top is also another possible first turn play. The Mage can also find explosives, which I did not need in every matchup right away, or post board crypts.

In the sideboard:
3 Spell Pierce
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Sinkhole

I found the matchup against creature decks already quite good. With this sideboard I hope to stand a better chance against disruption by giving them a taste of their own medicine. The extra disruption from spell pierce may also help against combo decks, or other decks with a low creature count.

[Irenicus]

Game 2
I can keep him off blue mana and screw up his hand with Hymn and blowing up his two Noble Hierarch with Explosives. He wants to resolve Eureka using Elvish Spirit Guide to reach 4 mana but I stifle the Guide. It takes some time time before I draw threats but eventually I end the game with Stalker and Goyf.


Just as a side note: You can't stifle ESG because it's a mana ability.

[sdematt]

Was just thinking the same thing as I read it.

[Dr. DOOM]

Just as a side note: You can't stifle ESG because it's a mana ability.

Oh flip! FAIL, how stupid of me. I'll apologize to that guy next time I see him. Even more reason for me to play spell pierce in the board. Well since I know what makes his deck tick now, it won't ever happen again anyway.

[royal]

Hi,

what do you think about playing two Trygon Predators main? They could make a lot of our matchups much better: Enchantress, Stax, Thopter Foundry, Merfolk/ Goblins (Aether Vial) and of course every deck that runs Counterbalance.
It's one of my favourite sideboard cards and by putting it in the mainboard i would also get some more free Slots in my SB.

[Plague Sliver]

@royal: I would advocate running Explosives, Grip or Vial before considering Predator. Predator is quite slow to get online and those other cards help in other situations.

And of course, the million dollar question is: can you show us your build that contains 2 Predators main? I'm curious where you would find the room for it.

[royal]

Hey,

here it is:

4 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trygon Predator

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Snuff Out
3 Engineered Explosives

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

I´ve been quite successful with a similar list (Sinkhole instead of Hymn) on the last tournament i´ve played with it (4th of 31) and adding the Predators was the next logical step for me because they have been awesome against every match i boarded them in (and that was 3 of 5 games). Perhaps it´s a meta decision (dunno how to call it, hope you understand what i mean^^) but nevertheless i want to hear what you guys think about it.

[keys]

Is EE played over Maelstrom Pulse because it's more likely a 2 for 1? Pulse just seems so much more flexible and resilient. Stifle, Grip, and Pridemage can all ruin EE's day. Pulse also targets a lot of problematic permanents that EE doesn't: Jace, Humility, Vengevines, opposing Tombstalkers... and they both kill mass tokens.

Has this been tested to hell? It's probably close, but I'm curious why EE has become the secondary removal of choice.

[naarou]

Most people play EE to make your goyfs bigger.

[nitewolf9]

EE is better vs Zoo and Merfolk, that's why it is played over pulse.

[Plague Sliver]

Hey,

here it is:

4 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trygon Predator

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Snuff Out
3 Engineered Explosives

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

I´ve been quite successful with a similar list (Sinkhole instead of Hymn) on the last tournament i´ve played with it (4th of 31) and adding the Predators was the next logical step for me because they have been awesome against every match i boarded them in (and that was 3 of 5 games). Perhaps it´s a meta decision (dunno how to call it, hope you understand what i mean^^) but nevertheless i want to hear what you guys think about it.

Solid list. I think it is something I will consider -- to maindeck Predators and free up some sideboard slots. I was running Clique in the past but they weren't as good as I'd hoped.

I will experiment between Pulse and Predator maindeck. I'm not going to get rid of maindeck Explosives, but Pulse may be a good complementary piece in Game 1.

[Dr. DOOM]

Hi,

what do you think about playing two Trygon Predators main? They could make a lot of our matchups much better: Enchantress, Stax, Thopter Foundry, Merfolk/ Goblins (Aether Vial) and of course every deck that runs Counterbalance.
It's one of my favourite sideboard cards and by putting it in the mainboard i would also get some more free Slots in my SB.

Enchantress is a very rare/not present encounter in my meta, Stax is like the random deck in every tournament in my meta, What the hell is Thopter Foundry? I prefer to remove counterbalance with daze/fow/kozilek's inquisition. I agree that Predator is a bomb against counterbalance.




@royal: I would advocate running Explosives, Grip or Vial before considering Predator. Predator is quite slow to get online and those other cards help in other situations.

And of course, the million dollar question is: can you show us your build that contains 2 Predators main? I'm curious where you would find the room for it.

Running Vial? That must be a typing error, lol. I agree with you on the Predator. Running 2 of them main is easy. Take any build with 1 Clique and 4 stalker, remove 1 clique and 1 stalker, 2 predator in. I wouldn't do it instead of explosives but in addition to explosives. But my metagame is not asking for it so it would be overkill against artifacts and enchantments.

[nedleeds]

For those of you in goblin soaked metas what do you do. FoW and 3 Snuff Out seem like poor answers to the ever present turn 1 lackey.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

For those of you in goblin soaked metas what do you do. FoW and 3 Snuff Out seem like poor answers to the ever present turn 1 lackey.

There's also Stifle. And Daze and EE if you didn't go second. I think it's enough for to deal with Lackey fairly consistently.

[nitewolf9]

I almost never lose to goblins with this deck. Also, a couple of Ghastly Demises out of the sideboard help alot. They are also very solid vs Merfolk and Zoo.

[Plague Sliver]

Enchantress is a very rare/not present encounter in my meta, Stax is like the random deck in every tournament in my meta, What the hell is Thopter Foundry? I prefer to remove counterbalance with daze/fow/kozilek's inquisition. I agree that Predator is a bomb against counterbalance.





Running Vial? That must be a typing error, lol. I agree with you on the Predator. Running 2 of them main is easy. Take any build with 1 Clique and 4 stalker, remove 1 clique and 1 stalker, 2 predator in. I wouldn't do it instead of explosives but in addition to explosives. But my metagame is not asking for it so it would be overkill against artifacts and enchantments.

Whoops. I meant to say Pithing Needle, somehow that came out as "Vial". Hmm.

I agree with you, though. It's not a great idea to over-stretch maindeck against a general field. Predator provides no clock, just utility. That's why I'm thinking Pulse or Hymn-Hymn-I-Win as nitewolf suggested. You don't want dead cards Game 1.

[Dr. DOOM]

That's why I'm thinking Pulse or Hymn-Hymn-I-Win as nitewolf suggested. You don't want dead cards Game 1.

With three explosives main, Hymn would be the better choice over Pulse if you don't want dead cards because it helps you negate your opponent's gameplan from turn 2 onwards. Late game you can choose not to draw them if your opponent is in topdeck mode (brainstorm, ponder) At that point you want counterspells and removal and switch to reactive playing. Hymn enables you to be the agressive player and that's what this deck needs. If you're lucky Hymn can enable an early Goyf.

Also, Hymn can protect your creatures before you cast them by removing answers to your creatures. Again you negate your opponent's strategy here. If you haven't played a Goyf or Stalker yet, your opponent's removal will still be in his hand waiting for your critters. Pulse won't help against that.

In the first game, Hymn is also better because it reveals cards from your opponent's hand you may not have seen played otherwise, showing you the right direction for sideboarding in the second game.

With pulse, you have to wait for your opponent to cast a permanent first and you can use Pulse turn 3 at it's earliest. Too my taste that's way too reactive for Team America.

[Plague Sliver]

Dr. DOOM --

I'll definitely be giving the 3x Hymn package a try, T2 Hymn with Force/Daze backup is just awesome. And it's a little bit of +1 card advantage.

I was wanting to find a use for my Pulses, but that's no excuse for trying to squeeze sub-standard cards in.

For nostalgia's sake, I re-read the first 10 pages of the thread. Funny how back then the consensus was that Sinkhole >>>>> Hymn. Of course it was a different time back then. Just goes to show how decks evolve and even come back full circle.

At time of inception, Needle was also considered in place of Stifle but rejected. However, I am still in favor of running 2x of them in the sideboard to address Vial, Maze, Jace and other misc. stuff.

[from Cairo]

Royal would you be able to post an SB to the list you gave. It looks really good, wondering what your using the 15 spots to supplement though. I assume some mix of: more counter magic, yard hate, agro hate and artifact/enchantment destruction.

Also can someone elaborate on why Dispel shows up in so many SBs for this deck rather than Spell Pierce. It seems like Vials, Equipment, CB/T, Planeswalkers, Survival of the Fittest, Vedalken Shackles, Exhume/Reanimate/SnT etc, etc are all things that you'd like to have Spell Pierce against. Dispel just seems really narrow. With the deck running Waste, Stifle, and Hymn the ability to keep them off of the X+2 mana seems very doable for the early-mid game. I could very well be missing something though, thus the question.

[naarou]

Dispel hard counters most removal (all of Zoo's, for example) and every other counterspell in the game. For one mana. Spell pierce is amazing, granted, but there will be games where your opponent has 3 lands out with a path in hand.

[from Cairo]

Dispel hard counters most removal (all of Zoo's, for example) and every other counterspell in the game. For one mana. Spell pierce is amazing, granted, but there will be games where your opponent has 3 lands out with a path in hand.

Ok that makes sense as an anti-Zoo card, for whatever reason I was thinking it was being used as anti control/combo.

[nitewolf9]

Ok that makes sense as an anti-Zoo card, for whatever reason I was thinking it was being used as anti control/combo.

It is for precisely this reason. An anti-zoo card that is also versatile enough to come in vs blue decks and some combo decks. It's really good for this deck in particular.

That being said I would really like to try and squeeze spell Pierce into the board somehow, possibly by cutting the yard hate. I'm not sure how much I should be boarding against lands or dredge nowadays, although I suppose yard hate is kind of good vs the vengevnie decks as well. I'll play with it and let you guys know how it goes.

[DerFern]

For nostalgia's sake, I re-read the first 10 pages of the thread. Funny how back then the consensus was that Sinkhole >>>>> Hymn. Of course it was a different time back then. Just goes to show how decks evolve and even come back full circle.

/still plays Sinkholes over Hymn

Anyway, I don´t want to bring that old discussion of Sinhole vs. Hymn back up, but I do have another question.
Did any of you guys consider Vendetta instead of (or in some kind of a split with) Snuff Out? There have been so many times where I paid 4 life just to kill a first turn Lackey or even Noble Hierarch. That´s kind of annoying and Vendetta does about the same, at the cost of 1mana. Might be a metagame choice, but if you expect a lot of Zoo, Gobbo and Bant, Vendetta might be better...

[Dr. DOOM]

Dr. DOOM --

I'll definitely be giving the 3x Hymn package a try, T2 Hymn with Force/Daze backup is just awesome. And it's a little bit of +1 card advantage.

I was wanting to find a use for my Pulses, but that's no excuse for trying to squeeze sub-standard cards in.

For nostalgia's sake, I re-read the first 10 pages of the thread. Funny how back then the consensus was that Sinkhole >>>>> Hymn. Of course it was a different time back then. Just goes to show how decks evolve and even come back full circle.

At time of inception, Needle was also considered in place of Stifle but rejected. However, I am still in favor of running 2x of them in the sideboard to address Vial, Maze, Jace and other misc. stuff.

Yeah, I'm also wondering how Sinkhole would have helped me in the tournament I played, and I'm quite sure that I would have been able to cut one or two colors from Zoo and Pikula/Eva Green/Rock decks. But if I would have won the second match against Emrakul combo, I would not have seen a single Pikula/Rock/Eva Green deck during the whole day.

When I built my deck I also read the discussion about Sinkhole versus Hymn. It's a metagame call, really. When Team America first came around there were a lot of midrange, mana-heavy slower decks that were popular so Team America had a very good chance of winning with land destruction. Team America was first played in the Netherlands during the Dutch Legacy championships in 2008 and it went top 2 that year.

[Plague Sliver]

Dr. DOOM --

Pretty cool tidbit of info. I did read some stuff about the deck's early success. Are you from Netherlands?

DerFern --


/still plays Sinkholes over Hymn

Anyway, I don´t want to bring that old discussion of Sinhole vs. Hymn back up, but I do have another question.
Did any of you guys consider Vendetta instead of (or in some kind of a split with) Snuff Out? There have been so many times where I paid 4 life just to kill a first turn Lackey or even Noble Hierarch. That´s kind of annoying and Vendetta does about the same, at the cost of 1mana. Might be a metagame choice, but if you expect a lot of Zoo, Gobbo and Bant, Vendetta might be better...

I was thinking the same thing a couple of weeks ago when I saw the card pop up in my Rise drafts.

Admittedly, I haven't tested Vendetta, but wouldn't you say that Ghastly Demise is better if you want to avoid the life loss?
Against T1 Lackey, cracking a fetch will allow it to go online. Or you stifle the trigger which buys you another turn to use Ghastly Demise or play a quick T2 Goyf.
And mid to late game, with Goyfs and Knights you are going to lose 4-5 life anyway with Vendetta.

I have maindeck Snuff Outs and yes it hurts when you use 2 of them in a game, but if you play 3 maindeck and bring in 3 additional targeted removal from the sideboard it seems to work out most of the time.

As an aside...

I played against Saito's merfolk list last night and got hit pretty hard by Submerge. It made me think if I should be siding in Dispel vs. Merfolk every single time. Does anybody else have that feeling? It seems situational, and I wouldn't expect merfolk to really play any other instant not named Force of Will...but Submerge is such a beating. Most of the time I'm trying to race them, resolve EE for 1 and trying not to die to Coralhelm Commander. BTW, Needle naming Coralhelm is super tech.

Maybe I'm just bitter because he had T2 Standstill, 3 Force of Will and I couldn't find mana denial to save my life :-)

Anybody else have the same SB plan w/ Dispel, Needle? Or have any recommendations on battling Merfolk?

[DerFern]

since there was a time when I lost to Merfolk, Goblins AND Faeries I decided to put 4 Engineered Plague into my board. Worked quite good so far... that´s how I (plan to) beat Merfolk. It´s quite hard to compare different playstyles against certain decks if the maindecks vary as they do in Team America.
Anyway, regarding Vendetta or Ghastly Demise: I think Snuff Out has one more major benefit against other removal spells and that is the fact that is is sort of Counterbalance-proof. I´m not sure if this is something to consider since we should beat Bant-Decks anyway...

[Dr. DOOM]

Pretty cool tidbit of info. I did read some stuff about the deck's early success. Are you from Netherlands?



Thanks. Yes, I'm from the Netherlands. The most succesfull decks here are Bant Survival, Merfolk, Zoo, and Ichorid. Having said that, I've only played against Zoo of those 4 decks. I've recently found some people in my area to playtest with so I'm hoping to gain some experience on dealing with Merfolk soon.

[sa17dk]

So here is the manabase I'm currently running

4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
8 Fetches

I dont know what to think of the Swamp. On one hand its pretty nice having it as an out against Waste effects so I can have the Swamp out and play a land and cast whatever I need. On the other hand, this is an insanely color hungry deck. I tried testing a lone Island and I hated seeing it. The Swamp definitely gets the nod over the Island, but even then I often consider running a fetch in its place or even running a single Volcanic to have some Firespouts in the SB.

What do you guys think?

[sigfig8]

So here is the manabase I'm currently running

4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
8 Fetches

I dont know what to think of the Swamp. On one hand its pretty nice having it as an out against Waste effects so I can have the Swamp out and play a land and cast whatever I need. On the other hand, this is an insanely color hungry deck. I tried testing a lone Island and I hated seeing it. The Swamp definitely gets the nod over the Island, but even then I often consider running a fetch in its place or even running a single Volcanic to have some Firespouts in the SB.

What do you guys think?

Your list looks reasonable. I may perhaps consider going to 9 fetches and dropping a Sea since 3 is really enough. Plus, fetching is pretty key when it comes to shuffling and finding answers. Overall I would say it's solid.

As for your question about Volcanic, I think in theory having Firespout available sounds strong but it makes me uncomfortable running 4 wastelands AND 4 colors. The manabase is greedy as it is. I've been playing new horizons and this deck seems to be very vulnerable to 4x stifle and 4x wasteland, not to mention Crucible out of the board. When it comes down to it, consider this: think of all the times you hated seeing Island. Now imagine that the land was volcanic island instead of basic island. Does that REALLY improve things? You probably never want to have Volcanic Island in your opening hand G1. And I definitely wouldn't run 0 basics because path to exile just owns then, and Zoo is pretty happy to run 4x PtE.

I have a question now: are Sinkholes pretty much out of Team America's core now? What are people playing instead?

[sa17dk]

After some testing I'm still undecided on the Swamp. I think I would like it more as a 9th fetch. And youre right about the Volcanic being a meh idea.

21 lands is too much. I cut the 3rd Tropical Island seeing as how I only need them for 4 cards in my maindeck, and I still have the Bayou anyways. I would never ever go below 4 Underground Seas because they are absolutely essential if you want to cast your Tombstalkers/Hymns/Sinkholes with any consistency. Furthermore, if youre running Thoughtseize having a T1 Thoughtseize with Daze for their turn can only be accomplished with an Underground Sea.

Has anyone else tried the 4 Goyf/3 Stalker/2 Clique build? Ive found that I like it a lot more than running 4 Stalkers.

[DerFern]

Has anyone else tried the 4 Goyf/3 Stalker/2 Clique build? Ive found that I like it a lot more than running 4 Stalkers.
I did but I played TA with Sinkholes and without Discard (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=34517) (-1 RR, +1 USea), so my Cliques had the same purpose as the discard: get rid of the opponents removal. Cliques are a maindeck-answer to loam, which was quite huge in my meta and there have been several times when I got stuck with 2 Stalkers in hand without being able to cast them...

[sa17dk]

Hymn + Vendillion Clique is just amazing. Watch them desperately go into topdeck mode.

[Mark Sun]

I played nitewolf9's list at my local today and finished 2-2, after starting 2-0. I had originally planned to play the 4 Goyf / 3 Stalker / 2 Clique version with some Maelstrom Pulses but I PM'ed nitewolf before I went in and he convinced me the merits of Hymns as a more versatile method of disruption. I agree. I didn't have room for the 2 Cliques so I went to 4 Goyf / 4 Stalker.Breakdown of my matchups:


R1) Belcher - Win 2-0. I have a double Hymn opener and he never recovers, he scoops to my onboard Goyf when I delve 6 and announce Tombstalker. Game 2 I mull to 6 to find a Force of Will, and he does not play any disruption. I guess I've been playing Landstill long enough to know when to counter Rituals, I hit a Dark Ritual on the spot and he's one mana short to go off. He looks at the board state and scoops.

+2 Dispel, +3 Krosan Grip, -3 Snuff Out, -2 Predict


R2) BG Eva Rock - Win 2-1. I get raped in the first game because he has a ton of spot removal, and he slowly kills me with card advantage from Bob (which I cannot kill!) and more dudes. I board into black removal pieces, 2 Diabolic Edict and 1 Smother, and decide to add in 2 Jace. I've beat The Gate before using Jace to fill his hand up with irrelevant cards, and it works for g2. I go for the ultimate. g3 he gets mana screwed, I am looking for a threat, and it comes down to the end where I resolve Tombstalker, and am holding both a FoW with blue card for anything he plays, and I Stifle his Gatekeeper.

+2 Diabolic Edict, +1 Smother, +2 Jace, TMS, -1 Snuff Out, -4 Force of Will - g2
+4 Force of Will, +1 Snuff Out, -4 Daze, -1 Stifle - g3


R3) BR Goblins - Lose 1-2. I didn't pack Plagues for this local, and I probably should have. There were 2 Merfolk, Goblins, and Elves represented at this event. I get overrun in g1, he draws no gas in g2, and I get overrun again in g3. Pretty simple stuff. Really needed some extra help, as he had both Edicts and Stingscourgers to deal with my guys. Ugh.

+2 Diabolic Edict, +1 Smother, +2 Ghasty Demise, -2 Predict, -1 Snuff Out, -2 Ponder


R4) Aggro Loam - Lose 0-2. I can't stop the recursion in g1, and he casts Devastating Dreams for 5 to wipe the board and rebuild faster. g2 I draw zero gas after Crypt'ing him twice, and he draws more Goyfs than me. Literally. I lose shortly thereafter.

+3 Tormod's Crypt, +2 Diabolic Edict, +1 Smother, +2 Ghastly Demise, -3 Hymn to Tourach, -4 Stifle, -2 Ponder, -1 Brainstorm


I didn't feel comfortable at any point in the night with such a vulnerable threat density (just 4 Goyf, 4 Stalker)... does anyone else have this problem? I will likely adjust to the metagame if I were to play this again, most likely using Engineered Plagues to have a better tribal matchup. I'm just sampling Legacy decks right now, so this is kind of where I am with everything.

[sa17dk]

Here is the list I've been running.

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tombstalker
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Hymn to Tourach

4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain

3 Snuff Out
1 Smother
2 Engineered Explosives

8 UGB Fetches
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland



1) EE has been good to me. Maybe I'm just lucky. But having an answer to Aether Vial and other stupid one drops is sweet.
2) Smother has been meh. I might replace it with a Ghastly Demise or maybe a Deathmark.
3) Vendilion Clique has been OK, but I definitely prefer them over the 4th Tombstalker.
4) The Preordain has been pretty good so far.
5) I hate seeing the Swamp but I guess its a necessary evil.

[keys]

What's your sideboard like?

Here's what I've been testing...

Sideboard:
4 Engineered Plague - I can't think of any other way to improve the tribal matchups
4 Spell Pierce
3 Deathmark
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Extirpate (Loam and Vengevine seem to be biggest targets these days)

edit: Deathmark is probably better than Submerge in this meta.

[Jonathan Alexander]

What's your sideboard like?

Here's what I've been testing...

Sideboard:
4 Engineered Plague - I can't think of any other way to improve the tribal matchups
4 Spell Pierce
2 Deathmark or Submerge
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Extirpate (Loam and Vengevine seem to be biggest targets these days)

I definitely agree on Extirpate, but I'm not sure about Tormod's Crypt. I'd rather go for Relic Of Progenitus. Of course it removes your own graveyard but it's much stronger against graveyard-based decks in general. I'm not sure about the singleton Engineered Explosives, I think I'd rather go for three Sumbmerges but that might be because I'm playing with 2 Engineered Explosives mainboard. Apart from that I really like the board, it's quite similar to the one I'm running. I'm running Krosan Grip instead of Spell Pierce but I think that's an interesting choice. I might move Spell Pierce to the board, replacing Grip and run Dispel mainboard. This leaves me with more hardcounters against removal mainboard and the more situational cards moved to the sideboard.
I'm going to try out the following list within the next few days:

//Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tombstalker
2 Vendilion Clique

//Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Force Of Will
4 Ponder
3 Smother
4 Snuff Out
3 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle

//Lands
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

//Sideboard
4 Engineered Plague
2 Extirpate
4 Krosan Grip
2 Relic Of Progenitus
3 Submerge

Like I said, I might replace Grip with Pierce and go for Dispel in the main. Note that this is for an aggro-heavy metagame, hence the number of removal mainboard. I never had problems with the manabase, I love it. It's nice to have basics against Dragon Stompy and there's a lot of Wastelands in my meta. It works really well. Also note that I'm neither playing Sinkhole nor Hymn To Tourach so I rarely need to get double-black mana.
Apart from that I don't think there's much to talk about. This deck doesn't have that many flex slots. I pretty sure that 3 Tombstalker 2 Vendilion Clique is much better than just 4 Tombstalker (once again, it's better for the manabase aswell). I'm not entirely sold on Engineered Plague but like keys, I can't think of any other options to fight tribal.

[keys]

I definitely agree on Extirpate, but I'm not sure about Tormod's Crypt. Of course it removes your own graveyard but it's much stronger against graveyard-based decks in general.
Crypt only exiles your opponent's yard. Maybe you're thinking of Relic of Progenitus.

My maindeck would be identical to sa17dk's.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Oh. I forgot to write down a whole sentence haha
Thanks, I'm gonna edit that. I wanted to suggest replacing Crypt with Relic.
But yeah, I think you can cut Explosives from the board for Submerge/Deathmark number three. It's better against since they won't overextend into sweepers anyway. Not if they've seen them in the mainboard before. Paying 3 to remove a Nacatl or Kird Ape seems not cool. Paying nothing seems a lot better.

EDIT: I'm quite sure I'm going to replace my mainboard Spell Pierces with Dispel and replace the Krosan Grips in the board with Spell Pierces. The only real problem this deck has is its threat density, so having a hardcounter for removal seems a bit better than a softcounter for a lot more things. But I have to say that this is a metagame choice, as is playing that much removal mainboard. Krosan Grip doesn't seem to be important at all, I didn't see a single counterbalance during the last tournament but played against four aggro decks in five rounds. I'm sure that Dispel will be better than Spell Pierce. If I should face combo the next time I could still bring in Spell Pierces against them which is much better than not having anything to board in except Extirpate which is a joke in that matchup. I'm sure this confiuration will be strictly better for my metagame.

[sa17dk]

Why why why why why would you run Relic of Progenitus? You do realize that smart players will board in at least some graveyard hate against you so your Goyfs shrink and make your Tombstalkers #2-3 uncastable right?

Have fun wiping your graveyard with Relic and making your Goyfs into 1/2's and making your Tombstalkers cost the full 8 mana.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I almost never use Relic's second ability, in any deck. The reason why it's good is its first ability. Relic is just so incrdibly good in slowing down so many decks. Just take a second and think about the decks where you would board in Relic.
Against Zoo, you should never have a reason to use its second abilty, so you're just shrinking their Knights and Goyfs and they should basically never be able to use their Lavamancers. They can use their Qasali on Relic, that should be fine. I'd rather have smaller Goyfs than my opponent having bigger Goyfs which are bigger than mine (Qasali), active Lavamancers and bigger Knights.
Against Dredge you're usually only using the first ability aswell. If they attempt to slowdredge, Relic ruins their day. If they don't, you can counter they discard-outlets and exile them. But usually they're going to slowdredge.
Against Lands you use Relic to slow them down until you find Extirpate. But I'd rather exile everything and slow down myself a bit than lose.
Then there's New Horizons. Here you might activate Relic's second ability but that just wins against them, so there's no reason to complain, I guess.
In other words, I'm using Relic as a Phyrexian Furnace with an emergency button. I might even try out Furnace in case Relic should be too much of a problem with Goyf and Stalker but until now, it always worked out very well.

[DerFern]

You do realize that smart players will board in at least some graveyard hate against you so your Goyfs shrink and make your Tombstalkers #2-3 uncastable right?
serious?! Whenever my opponents boarded gy-hate against me, I won the match. Most things don´t do anything against TA, especially since many people tend to wait with their Relics until the very last moment and that is where Stifle might be interesting. Leyline is a pain in the ass but otherwise you can easily laugh at them and still race them with your critters. At least that is my experience... dunno, maybe I´ve been lucky...

[sa17dk]

If your opponents are waiting for the last moment to use Relic, they're playing it incorrectly against you. The correct play is to drop the Relic early and use its tap ability, then pop it once the TA player has ~6 cards in his graveyard.

You have to remember that TA's threat base informally works off threshold. I would rather have my opponent hold a swords to plowshares than an early relic. If they plow my Tombstalker I'll at the very least get 5 life for the Snuff Out Foundation, whereas if they keep my graveyard turned off I'll be holding dead cards in my hand.

Think of how much you hate seeing an early double Tombstalker. Now imagine yourself not even being able to cast the first one.

[mctlegacy]

tried Slaughter Pacts instead of Snuff Outs.
pretty decent.

personally im not a fan of losing 1/5 of my life amidst tons of aggro decks hehe