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Benie Bederios
01-20-2009, 04:55 AM
1. Intro

"Alright, I originally posted this in the Dreadstill thread because the people there were going through a phase where they were discussing the possibility of dropping Standstills; now, they're going through a phase where they've decided anything without Standstill belongs in a different thread, and I've gotten multiple requests to start a new thread for this deck, by virtue of its great and tremendous potential, and though I don't like starting threads for decks I haven't played a single game with, in this case I shall bend to the People's will, so here it is.

-- Illisius"

2. Lists

2.1 Traditional list


// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [GUR] Swamp
2 [GUR] Island
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Polluted Delta

// Creatures
4 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [VI] Vision Charm
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 [MM] Snuff Out

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 4 [UL] Engineered Plague
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 4 [R] Blue Elemental Blast


The first list by Illisius. This is a very basic blue-black list. It's a mix of DreadStill with Eva Green. Fast disruption coupled with Phyrexian Dreadnought and Tombstalker that can come out on turn 2.

[I]2.2 UB Sinkhole list


// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [R] Underground Sea
1 [GUR] Swamp
2 [GUR] Island
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Polluted Delta

// Creatures
4 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [VI] Vision Charm
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 [MM] Snuff Out
4 [U] Sinkhole

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 4 [R] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [FD] Engineered Explosives

Here is a basic list using Sinkholes. The mana-denial plan is just as strong as Team America, only with a stronger manabase and bigger threads.

[I]2.3 UBg list


// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
3 [R] Underground Sea
1 [GUR] Swamp
1 [GUR] Island
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [R] Tropical Island

// Creatures
4 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 [FUT] Tombstalker
3 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [VI] Vision Charm
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 [MM] Snuff Out

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [R] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 2 [DIS] Trygon Predator
SB: 3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
Green gives additional threads in Tarmogoyf and better sideboard options. The manabase is weakened though.

3. Overview

DreadStalker is an aggro-control deck emphasised on aggro. It tries to disrupt the opponent, while playing huge undercosted threads and rides them to victory, before an opponent can recover.

The deck isn’t just hit and hopes though. With the cantrip engine and free counters it can forge its hand to make sure threads resolve and survive. It can also punish weak manabases with its manadenial package.

4. Card selection

[I]4.1 Maindeck

Manabase
This deck can operate on very few lands. With the supreme cantrip engine it can be played on 18 to 19 lands. The deck uses a high amount of fetchlands to accelerate in Tombstalker. Wasteland is played in most lands, to aid the manadenial.

Creatures
Phyrexian Dreadnought and Tombstalker are the two namesakes of the deck. Both huge, undercosted and can come down very fast. Both ignore most blockers and can race most decks. Tarmogoyf is played in the green splash as third big beater. Sometimes it's weak with Tombstalker though.

Cheaters
Stifle can get Phyrexian Dreadnought into play by countering its CITP ability. Vision Charm does almost the same thing and protects it against Sorcery speed removal. It can also be used as a counter, when Dreadnought is already in play. The mill ability, coupled with a fetchland, makes a second turn Tombstalker possible.

Disruption (non-manadenial)
The basic disruption of blue-tempo decks is Force of Will and Daze. In black the main disruption is Snuff Out and Thoughtseize. DreadStalker supports both colours, so there is no reason not to run the best disruption available.

Disruption (manadenial)
Stifle and Wasteland are almost mandatory. Sinkhole can be played in meta's swarmed with weak manabases. Vision Charm can be used, by changing lands from one colour to another. This can save the day against Wrath of God, Oblivion Ring or Warren Weirding.

Cantrips
The cantrips help finding the few threads in the deck, the mana, or the right disruption. It also helps filling the graveyard for Tombstalker and can be used to make discard less powerful.

4.2 Sideboard

The Sideboard can be metagamed against almost anything. The green splash has superior choices though.

The deck normally plays at least 3 Blue Elemental Blasts to fight Goblins, Goyfsligh and Dragon Stompy. A number of Pithing Needle against Survival of the Fittest, Sensei's Divining Top and Pernicious Deed. At least 3 spots for graveyard hate like Tormod's Crypt, Leyline of the Void or Extirpate.

The rest of the sideboard can be extra removal, extra draw or cards specific for certain matchups (like Winter Orb against mono-coloured control)

4.3 Other possibilities

Creatures
As already named tarmogoyf is an option, but Sea Drake, Serendib Efreet or Dark Confidant can be used for the blue-black version. White can be splashed for Meddling Mage too.
Cheaters
Trickbind comes to mind. On 2 mana makes it a little weaker then Stifle, but can’t be countered easily, which is nice.

Disruption (non-manadenial)
Additional counters like Misdirection and Spell Snare can be used. They help winning counter wars. Engineered Explosives, Smother and Diabolic Edict help against heavy creature decks or mirror-like decks like Team America.

Disruption (manadenial)
Trickbind again. Here it's much worse then Stifle, due to the manacost of two though.

4.4 Cards that don't belong

Pernicious Deed, At least not MD. It's far to slow to use reliable with so few lands. It might be possible in the SB, if the meta is swarmed with weenie decks or Enchantress.
Duress. There are very few decks, that can use more than 4 targeted discard spells and this isn't one of them.

5. Matchups

The testing is done with the UBg list posted above. 10 games where played pre-board, 20 post-board.

5.1 UWb Landstill
Pre-board quite even
Post-board Slightly favourable

Pre-board the matchup is a coin toss. Will the Landstill player find enough removal for your threads or can you keep him of balance long enough. Try to get an early thread and disrupt the Landstill player as much as possible. If you can keep the opponent from four mana for long enough you probably win. If you try to win with Phyrexian Dreadnought or Tarmogoyf, you might want to keep a Stifle in hand to stop Engineered Explosives though.

Post-board it gets a little better, because you can bring in more then they can. They might bring in some graveyard hate though. Dark Confidant is great in the attrition war. Trygon Predator deals with Standstill and Extirpate can randomly screw the opponent, especially by removing Swords to Plowshare.

Cards to watch out for are Swords to Plowshare, Force of Will, Standstill, and Engineered Explosives

Boarding
-3 Snuff Outs
-1 Wasteland
-2 Ponder
-1 Vision Charm
-1 Phyrexian Dreadnought

+3 Dark Confidant
+3 Extirpate
+2 Trygon Predator

5.2 UGbw Threshold
Pre-board Favourable
Post-board Slightly favourable

There manabase is weak, it's easily disreputable. Keep them of white if you can so they can't cast Swords to Plowshare or Vindicate. I found the biggest thread in this matchup Dark Confidant. Once it resolves it can't be dealt with and shifts the match a little in their direction every turn. Counterbalance was a lot less worrying. Sure a turn one Sensei's Divining Top, turn two Counterbalance wins the game, but it happened less then I thought.

Post-board it becomes a little worse. Krosan Grip makes Phyrexian Dreadnought less reliable. Trygon Predator comes in to deal with Counterbalance, Engineered Explosives and their Trygon Predators. Pithing Needle is mainly used to stop Sensei's Divining Top, but can randomly hit Engineered Explosives. The single Dark Confidant, seems random but it worked well.

Cards to watch out for are Force of Will, Swords to Plowshare, Dark Confidant

Boarding
-1 Swamp
-2 Ponder
-1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
-1 Vision Charm

+2 Trygon Predator
+2 Pithing Needle
+1 Dark Confidant

5.3 UBw ANT
Pre-board Favourable
Post-board Favourable

Aggro-control beats combo, it's a simple as that. Big creatures beat combo decks, that wants to have an as high life total as possible before going off. Don't let your guard down though. It's a very powerful deck that can power out some unlikely wins, if piloted by the right player. Orim's is your biggest problem. Duress is easier dealt with.
Post-board it stays the same. Extirpate is better then Snuff Out against them. Dark Confidant might be boarded in, but it won't help much.

Cards to watch out for are Orim's Chant, Ad Nauseam, Duress

Boarding
-3 Snuff Out

+3 Extirpate

5.4 RGb Aggroloam
Pre-board Even
Post-board Slightly unfavourable

Both decks can get some pretty sick starts. Pre-board Phyrexian Dreadnought is the all-star of the deck, almost unstoppable. Beware of Burning Wish to Shattering Spree and you should be fine. Tombstalker is a little worse, because it can be raced. It's harder to remove him though. Tarmogoyf is weak, because it most likely gets stalled by Terravore or Countryside Crusher. On the other hand, the Loam player can pull out some fast wins though and early Crusher might get out hand to fast with Loam shenanigans. Chalice for one is a really big problem too.
Post-board it gets a little worse. Extirpate isn't the best hate against them and Krosan Grip deals with the all-star. Try to use Thoughtseize before playing Phyrexian Dreadnought and hop it will win the game. Because Stifle is weaker then Vision Charm, a single copy is boarded out for SB options

Cards to watch out for are Chalice of the Void, Burning Wish, and Countryside Crusher

Boarding
-4 Ponder
-1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
-1 Stifle

+3 Extirpate
+3 Blue Elemental Blast

5.5 Rgb Goblins
Pre-board Slightly unfavourable
Post-board Unfavourable

This is not a nice matchup. They can ignore our counters with Vial and Goblin Lackey, are able to race and has quite some MD answers to Phyrexian Dreadnought. Phyrexian Dreadnought is still the best way to win pre-board. Vision Charm protects it from Warren Weirding and Tin-Street Hooligan. Tarmogoyfs is great to stall the ground, but because the lack of removal it might not be enough to win it.
Post-board it gets even worse. Krosan Grip comes to really stop Phyrexian Dreadnought. Blue Elemental Blasts might help a little, but they can't kill Goblin Piledriver won't stop vialed Goblin Ringleaders. It is great to stop Lackey though, and slow them down to a pace which the deck can handle.

Cards to watch out for Goblin Lackey, Warren Weirding, Goblin Warchief

Boarding
-1 Wasteland
-3 Ponder
-1 Thoughtseize

+3 Blue Elemental Blast
+2 Pithing Needle

6. Rules

Phyrexian Dreadnought
- Reverted to its original wording, this now has a comes-into-play triggered ability. During resolution of the triggered ability, you choose one option or the other.
- Phasing in does not trigger "comes into play" abilities, so you don't have to sacrifice again if it phases in. 502.15d


7. Q&A

To be written

Benie Bederios
01-20-2009, 04:56 AM
Reserved if OP gets out of hand.

BB

Captain Hammer
01-20-2009, 08:09 AM
I note that you left out the UBg lists. So I want to share the two UBg lists I've been switching between...

// Lands
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [UN] Underground Sea
2 [UN] Tropical Island
1 [UN] Bayou
1 [ON] Island

// Creatures
4 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NE] Daze
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [SC] Stifle
3 [VI] Vision Charm
3 [MM] Snuff Out

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [MM] Snuff Out
SB: 2 [OD] Divert
SB: 4 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [DK] Tormod's Crypt

I also switch over to this build on occasion...

1 Island
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

2 Vision Charm
4 Stifle
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
2 Snuff Out

The main advantage of the UBg splash in Dreadstalker is being able to play a reasonable number of threats. As compared to the downright anemic eight threats that TA and decks like Dreadstill and even Thresh play. Many games, you might not even have a threat to cast till mid-late game. And even when you do, you're liable to get the one threat that you do find either StPed, or lost during a counterwar over the creature itself. And if your first threat does get taken out, stolen or matched up vs. their own, you'll be scarmbling like a chicken with it's head cut off to try to find one of the other 7 threats left in the deck, and won't always be able to in time.

In a format where every decent deck plays 4 StP/Snuff Out and 2-4 other removal spells, playing just 8 threats is just asking to get screwed over by poor topdecks imo. The meta is already adjusting to a point where StP, Snuff Out, Edicts and such see a very heavy amount of play in maindecks everywhere to deal with fast threats and decks that are very light on threats.

Edit: Nevermind, I see you've added a UBg list.

GGoober
01-23-2009, 03:05 AM
Here's my list. I played for hours on MWS and didn't lose a single match (I'm not boasting. I was close to losing a few but pulled through).


MU I faced:
UGr Tempo Thresh
Countersliver
X-land Stompy
Burn
ANT
Aggro Loam
Goblins



Here's the decklist:

Lands (19)
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island

Creatures (10)
4 Tombstalker
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Trinket Mage

Counters/Disruption (19)
4 Thoughtseize
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
2 Vision Charm
1 Engineered Explosives

Cantrips//draw (12)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Standstill


Sideboard (15)
3 Divert
4 Extirpate
2 Hydroblast
3 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Pithing Needle


MU analysis:
I'll give a rough MU analysis on what were the defining changes that made me feel this deck is stronger)
MU I faced:

UGr Tempo Thresh:
It was basically war to establish a stable mana base. Turn 1 Fetches into basics were important. I got lucky here with Stifling his fetches/wastes and wasting key lands to stop him from getting Green.

When he did resolve a Goyf, it was around turns 3-4 where I was confident with resolving a Tombstalker safely. And as always Goyf stares blankly into Tombstalker. Tombstalker is almost usually 1 power larger than goyf. This is where I think the Mishra Factories shined. They were useless since they can only chump goyf, but once out with a Tombstalker, you can swing in with Tombstalker, chump Goyfs and clock out the Thresh player.

Conclusion: Mongeese isn't big enough to do anything against Dread Stalker. My list had Factories, which can trade with the Mongeese, or put the thresh player on a clock with Tombstalker out, while chumping goyfs. Resolved Dreadnought = GG, unless they're playing UGw Thresh.

Thoughtseize is absolutely cheating in this deck. It tells you when it's safe to resolve Nought. This is a strength that traditional UR Dreadstill does not possess. I've played Dreadstill and many times I crack my head thinking of possibilities the opponents can do against my creatures, worried for a 2 for 1. Thoughtseize takes all that away and optimizes your play of threats.

Countersliver:
This was an interesting MU. I think Counterslivers just gets destroyed by EE.dec. 2 Trinket Mage fetched for EE in 2 games, and ended it fast. The main issue here is their StPs. I didn't play out anything in turn 3-4 since I seized his Force, leaving him with 1 StP, 2 Spell Snares (lol does nothing against this deck). I ended up wasting Tundra (his only source of white) and safely casted a Dreadnought. I was low on life, but again, I could afford to swing with Dreadnought instead of leaving him to block, while letting my factories chump.

Standstill was amazing if they do not resolve a Vial. Playing Dreadstalker, you have many ways for Vial. Thoughtseize, Daze, FOW are all there to kill it. They simply just do not have enough to deal with EE since Countersliver is only effective with a board position, so focus on denying their board position.

Conclusion: I can't stress that without factories, I would have been forced to a position to stall out with Dreadnought as a blocker at low life, leaving them a chance to recover board position. with Factories as early beaters, and as chump blockers in the mid-game, you can immediately put the pressure by swinging with Nought rather than leaving him to block. That's the important thing I noted about the Dread Stalker shell. 8 threats is simply not enough to play out smoothly. The UBg Stalker lists with Goyfs are good since they run 12 threats, but this is about UB stalker with Standstills, and obviously Factories + Standstill is an automatic inclusion. Here, we really see the Factories function as both threat and pseudo clock (i.e. they clock your opponent by allowing your threats to attack when they could not have attacked).

X-land Stompy (shitty deck IMO).
I lost to 2 games due to berserk and double Seals. I guess Dreadstill with Countertop will rape its ass, but I don't have Countertop. I won the other games though, by resolving turn 2 Dreadnought and Seizing early creatures and FOWing their remaining creature. X-land Stompy is uesless without creatures, and when you resolve a dreadnought, their creatures become next to nothing.

They really can't deal with Standstill either especially when a factory is out in play. I must say that Divert is very fun to play against X-land stompy who doesn't have mana to pay for the divert cost. Directing a Berserk to a summoning sicked creature is lots of fun lol, or berserking your factories and killing their creature is funny too.

Burn
Lost pre-board most of the time since this deck runs non-basics (PoP kills), Fetches and Seizes (imagined if you ran Snuff out too, ouch). Post board was just a winner. Our anti-crusher and anti-goblin cards become 1 mana burn counters. Standstill is most brutal against them. The traditional Dread Stalker list without Standstill would not have been a better matchup since you will run out of counters against them. Standstill also digs deeper for resolving Nought.

Post-sideboard, it'll look like:
3 Divert
4 Daze
4 FOW
4 Thoughtseize
2 Hydroblast
3 Blue Elemental Blast
(4 Standstill, drawing yet more counters)
Too much answer for burn to handle.


ANT
All I can say is that divert is tech against Orim's Chant.
Factories were key for me since they added pressure to their Nauseaus life clock.
Pre-SB was tougher, and they tend to go off before you can clock their Nauseaus life out.
Extirpates on resolved Mystical Tutor is brutal.

Aggro-Loam
Post board BEB and hydroblast owns everything
Stalker and Dreadnought aren't afraid of anything they play except if you're unlucky and they get a 15/15 crusher. That happened for me. I chumped with 2 Factories.

Standstill again was really amazing in drawing more cards and answers, and clock them with Stalker/Dreadnought.


Explanation of the deck philosophy.
I've started out with Traditional UB Tombstalker with 4 Snuff Outs, and swapped those out to Sinkholes, hybrdizing a Team America Build with Dreadnoughts instead of Goyf. I never liked TA, since Green was mostly splashed for Goyf. Having played against many MU with UGr Thresh, I realized that Tombstalker >>> Goyf.

The strength of TA is actually Tombstalker. Goyf puts a pressure on the board but that Green dude just dies to EVERYTHING. At least Tombstalker doesn't die to Threads, Smothers, Snuff Outs, Deeds, EEs, Moats etc. He also flies, which break stalls. Lastly, Tombstalker also has the potential to weaken a Goyf by delving.

Therefore Stalker is a must in this deck, as confirmed by all the people who have tested hard on the Dread Stalker thread. The reason why this deck can pack 4 Dreadnoughts whereas many Dreadstill players pack 2-3 Dreadnought is because we have Vision Charm which acts us Stifles 5-8. Vision Charm's ability are all crucial to the deck, and milling for 4 to fuel an early Tombstalker protected by Counterspells puts out a fast clock. Dread Stalker has far more synergy with Stifle than TA does, and Dread Stalker has far more explosive plays with Dreadnought than Dreadstill does.

So where's the weakness of Dreadstalker?

Comparing with TA and Dreadstill, I found that the weakness in Dread Stalker is card advantage. I reverted back to the old Dreadstill list and played a UB version of it with Countertop. I was annoyed that the deck won a lot of games, but at the same time was sitting with an empty threat density. The problem that Dreadstill player has most of the time is running either low on Dreadnought or Stifle, and resulting to beat with Factories. I analyzed the card choices for Dreadstill and realized a crucial difference. Dreadstill refused to forgo the Countertop engine since it fits flawlessly with the deck's CMC.

However, I've made the decision to take the Countertop engine out, and included 4 Tombstalker, thus hybridizing UB Dreadstill and Dread Stalker.

This made up for the weakness of Dread Stalker. The list I play follows the idea of Dread Stalker closely, countering and setting up the graveyard or hand to play a protected Tombstalker or Dreadnought. However, other than just relying on resolving these 2 pieces, the deck can play out the Landstill way. Dropping Factories and Standstill while sculpting a hand to play out more threats and drawing into more countermagic. This has proven to be very optimal in my testing since setting up Tombstalkers and Dreadnought requires about 2-4 turns depending on the decks you play against. Standstill not only helped me to play a different route, but it was in the idea of sculpting a protected hand to lay out threats, or simply draw more cards to win the mid-game.

Many lists run 3-4 Vision Charms but in my testing, 2 is sufficient. There are many times I wished the Vision Charms were simply counterspell or Ponders/Brainstorm. Having multiples of Vision/Stifle is not useful if Dreadnought/Stalker isn't around. I would very much prefer a proactive hand than an active hand.

The list I played above has the same shell as Dread Stalker, with the only replacement being removing 4 Snuff Out/Sinkhole for 4 Standstill, and adding a colorless mana-base of Factories and Wastelands. The mana-base is destabilized but I had no mana-troubles out of the 30 games I've tested. The only issue is I would really want to squeeze the last Wasteland to add it up to 20 lands (a good number for a still.dec) but I really don't know what to cut in the MD. I did not choose to play Snuff Out due to the philosophy:

Once Tombstalker/Dreadnought resolves, you don't need to worry about creatures attacking you. It ends in 2-4 turns depending if opponents fetched, lost life etc. Mishra Factories help stall out the early game and provides other flexible answers to the deck. Therefore I feel that Snuff Out is unnecessary in the deck. Swarm aggro is our weakness, and the relevant cards to deal with that include the BEBs. Merfolk would be a pain, but EE would be a great help @2.

Regarding the sideboard. 4 Extirpates is NECESSARY. ANT is getting more and more popular, but all you need to do is Extirpate their Mystical Tutor after they tutored, reshuffling Ad Nauseam and setting them back many turns. With 4 Thoughtseize, and 8 Counters, 4 Extirpates, my ANT matchups were 70-30.

Divert is a SB card that I highly recommend in a meta of Threshold, TA and ANT. It's not great against Landstill, MUC but in decks that pack tight mana consumption, it is simply amazing. I've diverted a thoughtseize, a Hymn, a Sinkhole, a STP and many other spells. It's usefullness extends to the mid-game which is fine since this deck seeks to win pre-mid game or latest mid-mid game. And Divert is tech against opposing Orim's Chant, of which I won 2 matches out of the 5 ANT games I played.

In general, I advocate the use of Standstill again in the shell. It's not Dreadstill because Dreadstill is defined by the inclusion of Countertop. Countertop is against the philosophy of this deck. The aims of this deck isn't to stall and lock out via control, but to land the biggest and meanest threat in Legacy safely for 2-3 turns, and win via the clock. Standstill doesn't do that philosophy perfectly, but it helps the philosophy by providing another alternate way to draw/protect/beat, gain tempo for the early and mid game.

Now, with a total of 4 Factories, 4 Stalkers, 4 Dreadnought, 2 Trinket Mage, the threat density has increased to a potential of 14. A very sexy number. Sure, Goyf >>>> Trinket Mage and Factories, but honestly, Goyf is answered much more than anything else in Legacy, and Splashing green destabilizes the manabase as much, if not more than playing with Standstills and Factories and Wastelands.

Rood
01-23-2009, 03:21 AM
In general, I advocate the use of Standstill again in the shell. It's not Dreadstill because Dreadstill is defined by the inclusion of Countertop. Countertop is against the philosophy of this deck. The aims of this deck isn't to stall and lock out via control, but to land the biggest and meanest threat in Legacy safely for 2-3 turns, and win via the clock. Standstill doesn't do that philosophy perfectly, but it helps the philosophy by providing another alternate way to draw/protect/beat, gain tempo for the early and mid game.


Not all Dreadstill lists run Countertop. There have been decks we've tested with Tombstalker maindeck in Dreadstill, although none of us gave it too much testing. Dreadstill is defined by the inclusion of Standstill, that's why it's called Dreadstill and not DreadTop. Also, Thoughtseize < Spell snare in your deck. Ripping 3 off of Standstill then being able to Snare is sooo good. Whereas Seize is dead under Standstill.

darkalucard
01-23-2009, 05:39 PM
You have a very long and detailed primer, but other than that why does this deck deserved to be in Established Decks? Has there been any proven results? Any Top 8's? If so please post some links to them.

kabal
01-23-2009, 06:20 PM
Any Top 8's? If so please post some links to them.

Here (http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?type=DreadStalker&format=Legacy)

Benie Bederios
01-26-2009, 07:45 AM
crz87:

Great if it works for you, but 19 lands with 7 colourless is to few for my taste. You might want to drop a Dreadnought, because it's tutorable, for another land.

I tested Standstill in the list as well and wasn't satisfied. This deck is a little more aggressive then DreadStill and Standstill can hamper your own development. Standstill is still a powerfull card though, so testing is worth it.

Don't you miss any answers against Humilty or Moat in your Sideboard?

I will test it agains with your list with the following changes:

-1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
-1 Wasteland
-4 Thoughtseize
-1 Ponder

+4 Spell Snare( as suggested by Roodmistah)
+2 Island( 14 coloured lands is still low though)
+1 Pithing Needle

Roodmistah:

Can you give the list? I agree for the rest of the post.

darkalucard:

It topped eight in touranaments, but it doesn't actually need any to be posted in established.

Kabal:

Thanks I will post them in the opening post. I also will add some rules about Vision Charm too.

BB

Poron
01-26-2009, 07:57 AM
sorry but how can Goblin be a bad matchup for UB? Just play 4 Enginereed Plague in SB

Skeggi
01-26-2009, 09:52 AM
sorry but how can Goblin be a bad matchup for UB? Just play 4 Enginereed Plague in SB

Goblins (and other tribal decks) can often play around Engineered Plagues because of their lords. I suggest Infest (http://magiccards.info/ala/en/80.html) (or Hideous Laughter (http://magiccards.info/chk/en/115.html) if you insist on playing an instant) as a more viable choice to kill off Goblins, unfortunately, this is ofcourse a one time shot instead of a permanent effect.

Also, Goblins is packing a load of Blue hate in the sideboard.

GGoober
01-26-2009, 05:54 PM
@Benie: Yeah, I've been doing heavy testing with the list, and I'm thinking of upping the land count to 20, and playing with 7 colorless.

I'm not sold on the -4 Thoughtseize. They are incredibly powerful on turn 1, taking away a Force or a removal and setting up for turn 2 dreadnought. You are right that my deck isn't as aggresive as Dreadstalker, but the threat density is much higher than Dreadstill, and in all honesty, it plays very well. Countertop seems too much investment to set up. Dreadstill plays like the combo/control player while Dreadstalker plays as the aggressive/control player. The list I conjured is in between.

Anyway, more to be tested, but Spell Snare does fit the curve and nature of the deck much better than thoughtseize. I might end up cutting:
-1 Ponder
-1 Thoughtseize
-1 Dreadnought

+3 Spell Snare

I usually don't have problem with 13 colored lands (20lands with 3 waste, 4 factories). stifles do a lot for the deck against wasteland. HOWEVER, my Stax matchups were HORRIBLE. Once crucible comes online, it's pretty much game over unless Stalker is in play. My latest list splashes 1 Trop to activate EE at 3 to kill creatures such as crushers/trygon/crucible etc. And the 1 Trop lets me play 2 Trygon Predator sideboard. Not sure if it's worth the risk.

Tombstalker >>> any other creature I've seen in the deck. He's ALWAYS 2 mana for a 5/5. He escapes dazes super and seriously puts a 3-4 turn clock all by himself. I'm definitely enjoying the Standstills in turn 2 (uncountered) or the mid-game stalls.

To all the people testing the number of vision charms. I found 2 to be ideal. 3 Vision charms upped the chances of them sitting useless in my hand except to mill for 5 cards to fuel an anticipated or topdecked tombstalker. 2 has been the perfect number for me, with 4 Dreadnought and 4 Stilfe + 2 Vision Charm, the number is great.

Any idea what the UB list can do against Stax, or worse, against MUC? The only thing I am happy with the UB Dreadstill Stalker list that I made is that it makes the MUC matchup better since Factories add pressure. But a B2B will kill everything.

Rood
01-26-2009, 06:29 PM
You may want to post that list in the Dreadstill thread, I find it very interesting to say the least.

Benie Bederios
01-28-2009, 09:53 AM
sorry but how can Goblin be a bad matchup for UB? Just play 4 Enginereed Plague in SB

A particular list was tested that wasn't metagames against Goblins/Merfolks and Faeries.

Sure if I had 40 spaces in my sb I would play 4 Engineered Plague, 4 Darkblast, 4 Blue Elemental Blast, 4 Hydroblast and totally kille Goblins.

So for my build it's not favorable, because there isn't that much goblins in my meta.


Goblins (and other tribal decks) can often play around Engineered Plagues because of their lords. I suggest Infest (http://magiccards.info/ala/en/80.html) (or Hideous Laughter (http://magiccards.info/chk/en/115.html) if you insist on playing an instant) as a more viable choice to kill off Goblins, unfortunately, this is ofcourse a one time shot instead of a permanent effect.

Also, Goblins is packing a load of Blue hate in the sideboard.

I don't know... Engineered Plague seems the best against Goblins and Faeries. Quite hard to remove and Lords are played less this days. It totally nukes faeries Bitter Blossom.

Against Merfolk your choices are better though, because of there eight lords.

BB

Eatatjoes
01-28-2009, 12:37 PM
Engineered plague is really good right now. There are alot of tribal themed decks running around at the moment, gobs/elves/merfolk, and faeries to a lesser extent. They are good against other decks as well, because of splash damage

Benie Bederios
03-17-2009, 07:14 AM
Hi went to a tourney last weekend with 9 persons :rolleyes:

Anyway there where only 5 Established decks, the rest was scrub. I played my list from the OP

Match 1 against Mono-Green.

This was nothing special, it was his first deck and there where alot of one-off's and odd choices in the deck. I won game 1 of a Tarmogoyf and a Dreadnought.
Game 2 I went turn two Dreadnought, turn 3 Dreadnought win. The fourth turn I could cast my Tombstalker.

1-0(2-0)
Boarding: none

Match 2 against MBAC

Another not really top-deck, but he played about 15/20 creature destructions. I lost game one after seeing my Dreadnought, Tarmogoyf and Tombstalker die due to various Edicts effect and Ichorid beats.
He gave me game 2. He was on 4 life and I'm on 7 with on my side a Phyrexian Dreadnought, a Dark Confidant(tapped) and Tombstalker(tapped). He had a Hypnotic Specter. It was his turn and he scooped, while he could beat me to 5 and I had a Force of Will on top of my library. Game 3 was fast with a turn 2 Dark Confidant helped by a Phyrexian Dreadnought.

2-0(4-1-0)
Boarding: -3 Snuff Out, -2 Ponder, -1 Thoughtseize, +3 Dark Confidant, +3 Extirpate

Match 3 against TES

After a mix-up game 1 we decide to draw the match. We played it out anyway for fun and he wins 2-1.

2-0-1(4-1-1)

Match 4 against Ichorid

I know what he plays and keep an aggresive hand. I started with Delta, he Draws and discards GGT. I play a second turn Phyrexian Dreadnought. On his turn he dredges into nothing and playes Cephalid Coliseum and Lion's Eye Diamond. I Daze the Diamond and he pays with his Coliseum. I beat him to seven and use Vision Charm on his upkeep on LED. He uses Coliseum in response but dredges into nothing.
Game 2 I keep a hand with Force of Will in hand. He starts with Carefull Study, wich hit my Force of Will. A second turn Breakthrough gets hit by a topdecked FoW. From there I land double Tarmogoyf, wich seals the deal, while he is trying to get to 8 cards to DDD.

3-0-1(6-1-1)
Boarding: -3 Snuff Out, +3 Extirpate( I should have boarded Dark Confidant for Daze too, probably.)

All in all I'm quite happy with my list, but I will swap Pates out for Tormod's Crypt next time.

BB

HdH_Cthulhu
03-17-2009, 08:34 AM
Cheaters
Stifle can get Phyrexian Dreadnought into play by countering its CITP ability. Vision Charm does almost the same thing and protects it against Sorcery speed removal. It can also be used as a counter, when Dreadnought is already in play. The mill ability, coupled with a fetchland, makes a second turn Tombstalker possible.



Dont get the part with sorcery speed removal. It protects it very good against instand- non split second removal.

deadlock
03-18-2009, 08:13 AM
I still think that the best approach to Nought / Stifle is a control shell. Its just to easy to get 2-1nd and you would fare better with just Tombstalker and Tarmo in an aggresive shell.
This said and considering the results of GP Chicago i am reevaluating the black splash for Dreadstill. I post in this thread because i intend to remove the Standstills from this hypothetical list.

The core would look like this:

3-4 Nought
4 Dark Confidant
2 Tombstalker
0-2 Trinket Mage

3-4 Counterbalance
3-4 SDT

4 Fow
4 BS
4 Stifle
0-2 Trickbind
x Spell Snare / Thoughtseize
1-2 EE

20-21 land
May cut Mishra's here, because of the lack fo Standstills and the increased SDT count may allow to cut a land. This manabase could support an additional Wasteland, maybe an Academy Ruins or a basic Swamp with Back to Basics from the board.

Thoughts?

BreathWeapon
03-18-2009, 11:10 AM
You're probably better off just cutting the spot removal slot from Threshold and running the Stifle/Nought package with the full 8 U cantrips. If you're running Goyf and Bob, I'd automatically run Volrath's Stronghold along with Sensei's Divining Top because the card is nutty fucking good in the aggro-control mirrors. Along with Academy Ruins for either Sensei's Divining Top or Engineered Explosives, it's pretty much the Legacy equivalent of playing Library of Alexandria in old Vintage control mirrors.

Benie Bederios
03-19-2009, 07:57 AM
Dont get the part with sorcery speed removal. It protects it very good against instand- non split second removal.

I didn't expres myself clearly. I meant to say if you use Vision Charm to cheat Dreadnought into play, it's protected that turn against sorcery speed removal too.

After that I mentioned it's a counter if Nought is already in play.


I still think that the best approach to Nought / Stifle is a control shell. Its just to easy to get 2-1nd and you would fare better with just Tombstalker and Tarmo in an aggresive shell.
This said and considering the results of GP Chicago i am reevaluating the black splash for Dreadstill. I post in this thread because i intend to remove the Standstills from this hypothetical list.

The core would look like this:

3-4 Nought
4 Dark Confidant
2 Tombstalker
0-2 Trinket Mage

3-4 Counterbalance
3-4 SDT

4 Fow
4 BS
4 Stifle
0-2 Trickbind
x Spell Snare / Thoughtseize
1-2 EE

20-21 land
May cut Mishra's here, because of the lack fo Standstills and the increased SDT count may allow to cut a land. This manabase could support an additional Wasteland, maybe an Academy Ruins or a basic Swamp with Back to Basics from the board.

Thoughts?

The problem I found with Counterbalance is, that Tombstalker( and Force of Will) messes up your curve. Looking at your list the 2 CC spot is underpresent and you have 27/29 cards that fall of the curve( Lands, Force of Will, Engineered Explosives and Tombtalker).

The mainreason I don't play Counterbalance though, because it's slow. The nice thing about DreadStalker that it can win before most hate comes online. With LD it can outrun Pernicious Deed and Wrath of God. Your deck only got 4 outs against a Wrath of God and Humility.

My build has 12 outs against Wrath of God. Sure CB is good in stopping Swords to Plowshare, but that's about it.



You're probably better off just cutting the spot removal slot from Threshold and running the Stifle/Nought package with the full 8 U cantrips. If you're running Goyf and Bob, I'd automatically run Volrath's Stronghold along with Sensei's Divining Top because the card is nutty fucking good in the aggro-control mirrors. Along with Academy Ruins for either Sensei's Divining Top or Engineered Explosives, it's pretty much the Legacy equivalent of playing Library of Alexandria in old Vintage control mirrors.

Just would you still play Tombstalker? And Nimble Mongoose? Not sure how the list would look like. With Tarmogoyf I like the spot removal though. Tombstalker and Phyrexian Dreanought can ignore most creatures, but having a Goyf Stand-off, when it's your only tread is risky.

BB

Justin
04-02-2009, 08:55 PM
Because this deck wants to be so aggressive, I think that Chrome Mox would be a perfect fit. It allows you to power out a turn one Dreadnought. It also lets you Thoughtseize and Cantrip at the same time. The disadvantage of losing a card to the imprint doesn't seem like that big a deal, considering that this deck is meant to overpower the opponent. That the deck runs so many one and two-drops makes Chrome Mox even better.

Dark Confidant also seems like a good choice. The extra card draw seems very helpful, and this deck should not mind the pain too much. I'm thinking something like this:

4 Underground Sea
6 Fetch
4 Basics
4 Chrome Mox

4 Dreadnought
4 Tombstalker
4 Dark Confidant

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Vision Charm
2 Open slots (Duress, Snuff Out, Sinkhole, Trickbind, etc.)

humppa
07-20-2009, 05:14 AM
Hi,
is this deck still alive? A didn't many decklists on deckcheck.net and this topic is really small and "old"

I'm very interested in this deck, so any more information/reports/new decklist will be great, thanks :)

Maveric78f
07-20-2009, 05:33 AM
I think that the synergy between stalker and nought is inferior to the synergy between confidant and nought. Moreover, once you play Vial, you can protect your critters from countermagic and you can devote your mana to disrupt your opponent mana base

odabella
07-20-2009, 06:36 AM
Hi,
is this deck still alive? A didn't many decklists on deckcheck.net and this topic is really small and "old"

I'm very interested in this deck, so any more information/reports/new decklist will be great, thanks :)

I'm testing this deck actually, because I want something different to Dreadstill. It's fun to play.To take it to a tourney... I don't know.

There could be two reasons not to play it right now:

- Path to Exile is printed. Many Decks are playing now Sword + Path, at least in SB. EDIT: + Pridemage if GW.
- No good new card to fit in. Mabye somebody knows any ...

On the other side: TA should have the same problem. I'm realy unsure about Dreadstalker. Not solid enough?

BreathWeapon
07-20-2009, 07:09 AM
Pridemage is a big problem for your threat density, Dreadstalker and Dreadstill have big issues with 4 MD Disenchants.

Maveric78f
07-20-2009, 07:19 AM
I don't really agree with this. Qasali is a threat for sur but it is quite easy to disrupt, either with a proactive snuff out or submerge, or with a stifling effect. Morover getting 3 manas to play and activate it is at least difficult to gather. I think that noble is a bigger threat to the deck because you open yourself to fetch+noble on the draw with you not having much outs.

BreathWeapon
07-20-2009, 08:47 AM
I don't really agree with this. Qasali is a threat for sur but it is quite easy to disrupt, either with a proactive snuff out or submerge, or with a stifling effect. Morover getting 3 manas to play and activate it is at least difficult to gather. I think that noble is a bigger threat to the deck because you open yourself to fetch+noble on the draw with you not having much outs.

Have you actually played the UGW match? MD Pridemage and SB Path send this deck's threats home, it has no way of really dealing with it.

Maveric78f
07-20-2009, 09:51 AM
I agree that Bant Thresh rapes dreadstalker but I think it would not be the case if it did not play noble hierarch (or/and vial sometimes). That's purely theoretical and subjective, so no need to discuss it further I think.

ScatmanX
07-20-2009, 02:47 PM
Doesen´t Vision Charm and FoW and Seize help agains´t the StP and PtE problem?

Doesen´t Stifle, Fow, Seize, Charm and Snuff Out help agains´t Pridemage?

I think this deck has planty of awnsers, proactive and reactive, and big enough threats, to be considered in a tourny.

keys
07-20-2009, 05:16 PM
DreadStalker has too many dead cards. Vision Charm is only useful if you have 'Nought in play or need to cast Stalker after Relic. 'Nought is only good when you have Stifle.

Conditional 2 card combos aren't very good when you don't have any form of absolute (Standstill,Trinket Mage/Imperial Recruiter) or virtual card advantage (CB-Top) to make up for the card loss.

That's why Team America and DreadStill have been more successful.

leander?
07-20-2009, 06:19 PM
DreadStalker has too many dead cards. Vision Charm is only useful if you have 'Nought in play or need to cast Stalker after Relic. (1) 'Nought is only good when you have Stifle.(2)
I'm sorry but that doesn't make any sense.

a) 2 is false becouse you can do that with a Charm, 1 is false becouse it makes it possible to semi-Chant your opponent, to cast 2 or 3 Stakers in one game easily, get rid of an artifact for one turn, acts like a fetch after a Brainstorm and "counters" things like mystical tutor and academy ruins/volrath's stronghold.
b) You're saying "Charm isn't good w/o PD" and "PD isn't good w/o Stifle(/Charm)". So they're basically the same statements. Besides, the second doesn't state anything becouse you run 7-8 Stifles and Charms. And the first doesn't really either becouse of the uses I listed above.

keys
07-20-2009, 10:33 PM
It's still a 2-for-1 without any form of card advantage.

deadlock
07-26-2009, 06:27 PM
Is this still tested? What do you think of a build like this:

// Lands
2 [RAV] Island (1)
4 [B] Underground Sea
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [TE] Wasteland
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (2)
1 [LRW] Swamp (2)

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tombstalker
4 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought

// Spells
4 [MM] Snuff Out
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [VI] Vision Charm
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [NE] Daze
4 [OD] Standstill

I tried to reduce some disadvantages of TA namely the mana base and card advantage in the mid game.

NesretepNoj
01-25-2010, 05:32 PM
I'm currently running the UB Sinkhole list from the OP with a modified mana base. I don't ever wanna see two basic islands, and the deck needs som shuffling in order to get rid of excessive Noughts (and to fill the yard for TStalker). With that in mind my list look like this:

4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland

My testing so far, even though it haven't been very thorough yet, has yielded positive results. I've tested it against Domain Zoo, Team America and T.E.S., all of which has been even to favorable, especially the Domain Zoo matchup is great, as you are able to seriously colour screw them.

I haven't decided on a final sideboard yet, and if someone have some good suggestions I would be glad to hear them. It is tempting just to re-use the Team America sideboard, but the lack of green makes it a bit more challeging (no no-brainer KGrip). If I were to play the deck tomorrow, this is would I would run:

4 Blue Elemental Blast (Goblins, Burn, Zoo, Sligh)
3 Diabolic Edict (Thresh, TA)
3 Extirpate (Dregde, Combo, Thresh, TA, Loam, Lands)
3 Pithing Needle (Top, Vial, LED, Deed, EE)
2 Tormod's Crypt (Dregde, Loam, Lands)

I will bring the deck to my next legacy event at the local game store and possibly the next large local event (~30 players).

Jon Stewart
01-25-2010, 05:43 PM
The problem with the deck is that 8 threats really isn't very many in a format packed to the brim with removal.


Hi,
is this deck still alive?

It's semi alive right here...

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?15258-[Deck]-Eva-Nought

especially thanks to the new card...

Dispel U
Instant
Common
Counter target instant spell

To give you yet another answer to removal/countermagic.

Benie Bederios
01-26-2010, 04:48 AM
Well the deck doesn't need more threads, because the threads finish the game in 2 to 4 turns... I still sometimes play the UBg build. I found Sinkhole/Wasteland/Stifle a little to much in a format with such a low curve. I rather keep the opponent off the removal colour.

After the GPT for Madrid I will play the deck again too. Please keep us updated how you do in the tournament.

- Benie

NesretepNoj
02-22-2010, 03:39 PM
Sorry, didn't run the deck as I said I would. Made a last minute call for the UBr Tempo Faeries deck (Stalker, BBlossom, Sprites). I think I'll run it next time, and be testing Perish in the sideboard. I haven't lost fate in the deck yet and definitely think it has some potential.

[..] Please keep us updated how you do in the tournament.

- Benie

BreathWeapon
02-23-2010, 06:14 AM
IMO Spell Pierce gave the deck a little bit of breathing room, you can safely keep your opponent off of plow/path for sometime if you're running Sinkhole as well.

uprite
03-03-2010, 07:38 PM
creature [14]

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

4 Spellstutter Sprite

4 Tarmogoyf

2 Tombstalker

instant [20]

4 Brainstorm

3 Daze

4 Force of Will

3 Snuff Out

4 Stifle

1 Trickbind

Sorcery [7]

3 ponder

4 thoughtseize

land [21]

1 Bayou

1 Forest

1 Island

4 Polluted Delta

1 Swamp

4 Tropical Island

4 Underground Sea

2 Verdant Catacombs

3 Wasteland

61 cards

Hey guys this is my current list of this dreaded fishish deck that I am running got any suggestions? I have been thinking about snuff outs vs smothers vs doom blade since this deck does not get much mana and I decided to keep snuff out due to its alternate cost. However I hate having to use thoughtseize and a snuff out and losing 6 life one 1st/2nd turn and yes I am one of those greedy players that wants to run 61 cards.

NesretepNoj
03-14-2010, 11:56 AM
Legacy XL @ Holbæk, Denmark

I took the deck to a 45 man tournament yesterday. It was probably the worst deck-choice I've ever made, as the meta consisted of about 90 percent aggro. I expected a lot of ANT, Reanimator and Dregde (which explains my sideboard). Only two Reanimators showed up, and NONE of the others...
Anyway, I went 4-2 (only loosing to Merfolks) resulting in relatively satisfying 10th place.

Here's my list:

UB Sinkhole-based DreadStalker
// Creatures (8)
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Tombstalker

// Spells (34)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Vision Charm
3 Snuff Out
4 Thoughtseize
4 Sinkhole

// Lands (18)
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Marsh Flats
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wastelands

// Sideboard (15)
2 Perish
3 Pithing Needle
3 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Extirpate

The following report is written of my mind as I didn't take notes. Some games I remember in detail more than others. Finally, keep in mind this is my first report.

Round 1: Morten (UB CounterTopStalker)
I go first and Thoughtseize picks a Counterbalance. I also see a Daze + Stifle. He puts down a fetch but do not crack it. I put down a fetch land and crack it. He respond be cracking his fetch land and I stifle it. His next lands gets a Sinkhole and Waste, so the following Nought gets the job done easily.
1-0

Out: 3x Snuff Out. In: 3x Pithing Needle.

Same, except he forces my Stifle on Nought. I had two Noughts in hand, and topdeck the second Stifle next turn. My opponents life in both games went: 20, 19, 18, 6, scoop.
2-0
(1-0 in matches, 2-0 in games)


Round 2: Kristoffer Nielsen (U Merfolks)
Mull to five with a shitty hand. My single land gets wasted...
0-1

Out: 3x Snuff Out. In: 3x Pithing Needle.

About the same
0-2
(1-1 in matches, 2-2 in games)

On a site note: If anyone recognizes the name, then the answer is yes. He was the only Dane who was undefeated on day one of GP: Madrid.


Round 3: Simon Cortsen (U Merfolks)
Turn one ponder reveals Nougth, Charm, Sink. My hand has Daze+Force. Turn two Nought gets the job done.
1-0

Out: 3x Snuff Out. In: 3x Pithing Needle.

Mull to three and concede.
1-1

Didn't change anything for game three.

He don't do much. Neither do I. I get a Stalker down, but unfortunately it cannot race his fish.
1-2
(1-2 in matches, 3-4 in games)


Round 4: Michael Madsen (UWR Scepter-Chant Combo)
Turn three or four Dreadnought with counter backup. This deck loves three colour mana bases.
1-0

Haven't seen much of his deck, so I don't board anything (Should have been Needle over Snuff).

He gets to imprint StP on Scepter, but I keep him off lands entirely. Stalker gets the job done.
2-0
(2-2 in matches, 5-4 in games)


Round 5: Kenneth (RGW Zoo)
He begins with Steppe Lynx. I thougtseize a Path. He beats for four and puts down a Nacatl and another Lynx. I play a second turn Nought. He attacks with all three creatures. I block a Lynx and Snuff the other. Nought wins the race.
1-0

Out: 2x Thoughtseize, 3x Snuff Out. In: 2x Perish, 3x Blue Elemental Blast.

My hand consist of something like this: FoW, Nought, Stifle, Ponder, Land, Brainstorm, Thougtseize. He goes Mountain, Kird Ape. I draw a second Brainstorm. I go for the fast Nougt, so I Ponder into FoW, Waste, Fetch. I take the FoW. He puts down Platau, Nacatl, beats. I draw the Waste put down Nought. He puts down another dual, go. I brainstorm, get a second Waste, and kills both his duals. Swing with Nought and he concedes.
2-0
(3-2 in matches, 7-4 in games)


Round 6 : Jesper (U Merfolks)
He begins with Island, Vial: I Force, he Forces. I Thoughtseize, he Forces. He wastes. I topdeck a land and Thoughtseize. Don't remember the rest, but I get Stalker who races his fish. I get a second Stalker the round before he can beat for lethal, so I win.
1-0

Out: 3x Snuff Out. In: 3x Pithing Needle.

My hand consist of something like Ponder, Stifle, Daze, Thoughtseize, Needle, Land, Land. He puts down a vial. I thoughtseize and probably pick a counter. In my second turn a put down the Needle on Vial on probably do something else, as I get my Nought down third turn. He gets the job done.
2-0
(4-2 in matches, 9-4 in games)

I don't know if this report is useful. I still believe the deck is very strong, especially in a meta with lots of combo and multi-colour control decks.

Jon Stewart
03-14-2010, 12:24 PM
To anyone that thinks this deck has a tough time for some reason because of all the removal, why not just play the third list in the OP (the one with the green splash for 4 goyf). Goyf gives you an additional 4 threats to act as a wall against your opponent, to draw their removal, and to put them on a clock. Only eight threats is kind of low. But with 12 threats, plus all your counters, no opponent plays enough removal to keep you off of all of them.


[SIZE="3"] It was probably the worst deck-choice I've ever made, as the meta consisted of about 90 percent aggro...
Anyway, I went 4-2 (only loosing to Merfolks) resulting in relatively satisfying 10th place.


Congrats on your finish. If you think aggro is a bad matchup, I really suggest playing the third list in the OP.

NesretepNoj
03-14-2010, 01:53 PM
To anyone that thinks this deck has a tough time for some reason because of all the removal, why not just play the third list in the OP (the one with the green splash for 4 goyf). Goyf gives you an additional 4 threats to act as a wall against your opponent, to draw their removal, and to put them on a clock. Only eight threats is kind of low. But with 12 threats, plus all your counters, no opponent plays enough removal to keep you off of all of them.
I agree and I'll test it. I have previously been playing Team America, but didn't ever like the manabase. However, as the meta has shifted away from LD, I think it is worth a try.

Adding four Goyfs probably means adding a 19th land, cutting 1 Tombstalker, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Sinkhole and 1 Snuff out.

I've also considered cutting Snuff Out entirely as all creatures in this deck are faster and more powerful than any other creature in the format. I guess adding Goyfs will justify this even more.

Jon Stewart
03-14-2010, 03:20 PM
I don't think you should cut Tombstalker, even when drawn in multiples, he goes great with Vision Charm. Maybe cut a Ponder instead.

How useful was the LD strategy for you overall? Has it won you any games yesterday. Has it ever been completely useless (you are well into the midgame where the Sinkholes you drew did nothing). If not, do you think it might be worthwhile to just drop Sinkhole and possibly even Wasteland from the gameplan?

NesretepNoj
04-28-2010, 05:23 PM
Small local tournament @ Dragon's Lair, Aarhus, Denmark

I took the deck to a small local tournament with about 14-20 players. Changed the deck a bit compared to last time I took it for a spin.

Here's my new list:

UBG DreadGoyfStalker
// Creatures (11)
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf

// Spells (30)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Vision Charm
3 Thoughtseize
4 Sinkhole

// Lands (19)
4 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
9 UBG fetches
4 Wastelands

// Sideboard (15)
2 Perish
3 Pithing Needle
3 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Krosan Grip

The following report is written of my mind as I didn't take notes. Some games I remember in detail more than others.

Round 1: Jens Elmose (RG Goblins)
Jens always plays Goblins, so my second turn Nought with Force for his Stingscourger takes home a quick victory.
1-0

Out: 3x Thoughtseize. In: 3x Blue Elemental Blast.

I try to use Charm for a 2nd turn Stalker, but he uses REB. I drop a 2nd turn Goyf instead, which paired with heavy LD keeps the preassure. My fifth turn Stalker seals the deal.
2-0
(1-0 in matches, 2-0 in games)


Round 2: Simon Cortsen (UBW ANT)
Double Thoughtseize, 2x Waste and a sink, makes it easy for Goyf
1-0

Nothing relevant in my board.

Mull to six with 2x Force, Stifle, BS, 2x Nought. I never get a second land, he double Duress away my Forces and goes of without much resistance on my part.
1-1

Heavy LD + a 3/4 Goyf keeps the preassure. He goes off at 9, but fizzels.
2-1
(2-0 in matches, 4-1 in games)


Round 3: Lasse Andersen (Next Level Dregde/Ichorid Combo)
He don't do much and can't race a third turn Nought
1-0

Out: 3x Thoughtseize, 1x Daze. In: 4x Leyline of the Void.

My hand consist of: 2x LotV, Force+BS, Waste, Nought, Goyf. He thougt I would board in Traps (which he would answer with Nix), so he scoops immediately to my double LotV oppening.
2-0
(3-0 in matches, 6-1 in games)


Round 4: Peter Godtlieb (Mono R Burn)
2nd turn Nought races his burn
1-0

Out: 3x Thoughtseize. In: 3x Blue Elemental Blast.


Mull to five and draw shit. My third or fourth turn Goyf can't race his burn.
1-1

My 2nd turn Nought get's a tripple Shattering Spree. I'm however able to put down another one on turn four. He empties his hand, and my Daze on the final PoP saves the day.
2-1
(4-0 in matches, 8-2 in games)

I win the tournament as the only one with 12 points. This deck can seriously be the bomb. Sometimes you just draw shit, but most of the time, the opponent can't keep up with massive suite of giant creatures and tempo-based LD/disruption. A think everyone who likes Team America should try this version of the deck. The increased threat desity really helps and gives almost auto-wins against random-crap-decks. They also greatly improve the Merfolk, Goblins and Zoo match up.

Over and Out

Jon Petersen

cjva
07-20-2010, 07:05 AM
I have always been a big fan of dreadstill, my biggest problems with that deck have always been the fact that it can have very strange opening hands, topdecking bad and thee fact that people (me for some time as well) seems to think that browbeat is a good card if its blue (standstill).

First I'll post the list I have been running with some moderate success at local ~20 mans.

2 Underground Sea
2 tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Academy Ruins
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Wasteland

4 Phyrexian Dreadnaught
4 Tarmoguyf
4 Dark Confidant
2 Vendillion Clique
2 Trinket Mage

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Counterspell

4 Stifle
2 Trickbind

4 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Engineered Explosives

1 Open slot (have been running Jace 2.0, but gonna switch to Executioner's Capsule)

My list doesn't run stalker. Its a card i feel just is another tarmoguyf, and a card that syncs rather bad with said card.

The strength I feel that this deck have had over dredstill is the higher amount of threats it can play, and the good CA engine as opposed to standstill.

Vendillion Clique fills pretty much the same role as duress/thoughtsieze with the addition of being a threat after the duress-effect have been used.

CB/top is a good interaction, but it my local meta the decks where it rely shines have started to fade away, two counterspell's instead makes for better protection against crazy things, and creature removal.

Overall I feel that this is a bit more controllish then the regular dreadstalker, but not as landstll ish as regular dreadstill.

GGoober
12-27-2010, 05:10 PM
Time for a necro.

I know many people don't play this deck, but personally I feel the deck has strong disruptive elements that have good matchups againt many of the tier decks (combo, goblins, Bant).

Here's my list that I've been testing over the past 3 weeks.


Lands: 18
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea

Threats: 10
4 Tombstalker
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Vendilion Clique

Cantrips: 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Disruption/Counters: 17
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Stifle
2 Trickbind
4 Daze
4 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will

Removal: 3
3 Snuff Out

SB:
3 Dystopia/Hibernation (depending on meta, I will play Dystopia in more Stax/Enchantress heavy metas and Hibernation is Zoo/Bant-Heavy metas)
3 Mind Harness
3 Extirpate
3 Spell Pierce (good against combo, but mainly against Enchantress/Stax/Decks playing Top/Vial/Planeswalkers)
3 Flex slots


Why did I choose to necro this deck again? Because having played the deck for a few months (2 years ago), I realized that I was piloting the deck incorrectly. Dreadstalker on paper seems to be a tempo deck like BUG Thresh, Team America (It currently looks like UB Team America with StifleNought). You can sure play the deck in its tempo role and do well, because those games are won by the sheer power of disruption of Stifles, Wastelands and Hymn.

However, when I was re-looking into what made Dreadstalker different from Team America or other Tempo decks, I could not really pinpoint a reason, and I always felt that Dreadstalker is just a tier below those decks (perhaps it still is) but I realized that there is one fundamental thing that I missed out about Dreadstalker.

It was a tempo deck that wasn't meant to be played as a tempo deck. How and why do I say this? If you look at the creatures that Dreadstalker runs, you'll notice that outside of Emrakul and Progenitus, nothing else can stop them. Dreadstalker is a deck with the format's biggest and unstoppable beaters, and interestingly designed in a tempo shell. Now how does this translates into the tempo-role mismatch? A tempo deck is primarly designed to win the tempo war, disrupt, drop a creature and whittle in while making your opponents unable to develop board position. Dreadstalker can certainly take the tempo role and win games as such, but then issues arise where you burn out of resource to maintain the war in protecting your creatures. We are not gifted like Team America having a playset of unconditional 4x Goyfs to beat face, but at the same time, you are gifted with the creatures that totally scorn at those Tarmodoodles.

What makes Dreadstalker inherently a non-Tempo deck lies in this: Dreadstalker can afford to let the opposing board develop, as long as the board is irrelevant to its gameplan. For Team America and other tempo deck, a resolved Goyf is usually problematic since it requires a removal to be drawn before you can push in with their creaturebase. This translates to another additional card spent to deal with a threat e.g. countering or smothering the Goyf. In dreadstalker, you can afford Goyfs to get in with the knowledge that Tombstalkers and Dreadnought both trump Goyfs. As such, you save your counter/removal for more relevant targets.

Dreadstalker's sole appeal after I finally realized this mismatch of the tempo role was this. I don't care if a Noble Hierarch resolves. I don't care if my opponent has Goyfs or two Lord of Atlantis. As long as my clock is protected and faster than yours, that's all I care about. For other tempo decks, having a Goyf and two Lord of Atlantis is problematic because you can't swing without risk of losing to an opposing beatdown. For Dreadstalker, you assume the tempo role only when it considers to the tempo that actually matter to you, i.e. Pridemage, StP, Lackey, Vial, Counters are the only thing you care about. You can ignore everything else and you will most likely still be able to race because your answer-density is higher.

The next question to ask: Then why play Dreadstalker at all? Why in a tempo shell? Why not just run Show and Tell Emrakul because in the same philosophy as I said: "If I drop Emrakul I win games"? This is because the tempo shell synergizes with Dreadstalker. Tombstalker benefits with all the fetches/Wastelands/Cantrips that increases overall deck consistency. Tomstalker + Dreadnought are tough to deal when the deck is so dense in counters/disruptions. More importantly, the deck's only true deadweight is Dreadnought (having to require Stifle to function), but having Stiflenought is less clunky than SnT/Emrakul, and argubly, easier to pull off against more decks e.g. Merfolks.

This deck should not be compared against Dreadstill either. The two decks are entirely different. Dreadstill aims to create a position where opponents lose to CBTop or lose to the Dreadnought that is heavily protected with the CBTop engine (or with counters). Dreadstill will pull off fast wins regardless when it needs to and so will this deck. However, Dreadstill is inherently the slower more defensive/controllish version whereas Dreadstalker is the aggressor i.e. despite my countersuite, the only cards that I'm ever concerned are things that stop my creatures, so the density of answers is directed to answering all those cards while ignoring everything else. Dreadstill has to worry about its position and protecting Dreadnought but Dreadstalker has this freedom degree. The decks are very different. If a comparison is to be made, it should be Team America v.s. Dreadstalker v.s. BUG/Canadian Thresh. However, I pointed out how Dreadstalker is fundamentally different from these two decks as well, due to the core philosophy raised above.

In practicality, you won't be able to say "I don't care about anything except cards that stop my beaters" because Legacy is a tough format, and you will lose to opposing creatures that apparently don't mess with your beaters. It's interesting though, because I used to run UGB Dreadstalker with Goyf (or Team America with Dreadnoughts). Decks are fast, decks are diverse. And this is the beauty of the deck in which I see. It's positioned in a tempo shell, with heavy disruption elements, yet it has the freedom to ignore and conserve on answers to protect its own win-conditions to victory.

The funny thing was Goyf was the problem seemingly. It sure won games, but in many games against opposing Goyfs, my gameplan slowed down where instead of Goyfs and having answers that protect Dreadnought and Tombstalker, I would have won games. Not to mention the UGB manabase to be horrid or requiring more than 18 lands. Currently, UB Dreadstalker relies just on 18 lands without the need to waste more slots on lands to support UGB. I lose Goyfs, Grips and EE, but in my defense, Mind Harness, Dystopia are all unfair cards when I myself am not playing green. With the UB manabase, I can afford a basic swamp without screaming like I used to when I drew a swamp in the UGB versions. The basic swamp is highly critical in this deck, powering out Snuff Outs, turn 2 Hymns and tombstalkers consistently. Manabase stability with just 18 lands was a big reason to give up green for Goyf and the other big reason was: Goyf was actually not doing enough for the deck after I realized the mismatch of the deck's philosophy.

Currently, this is my list, although I feel that the flex slots of 3 Hymns, 2 Cliques can be worked out. Perhaps more removal in the form of Ghastly demise would be better than Hymn, but I always feel leading off with a Hymn into Dreadnought or Tombstalker is more game winning than having a deadweight Ghastly Demise against more controllish players.

This list is for you Tombstalker.

GGoober
12-27-2010, 05:26 PM
I wanted to clarify a little by what I mean by Dreadstalker's Tempo v.s. Tempo Tempo.

E.g. 1
Zoo player fetches for a land, I have a Stifle. Tempo player will Stifle usually just to retard board position. Dreadstalker will likely do the same, but Dreadstalker doing this in more in fear of Pridemage resolving, i.e. the Dreadstalker player can ignore the existence of Goyf in their deck and only worry about Path and Pridemage in this matchup while the Tempo player is worried about both Goyf + Path + 2 drops in this matchup

E.g. 2
Merfolk player leads with Vial. Tempo player FoWs. Dreadstalker player FoWs. In this situation, both players are thinking the tempo game in the same light. I need to FoW the Vial because Merfolks can race me. However, interestingly if the Merfolk player FoWs back again and both Tempo and Dreadstalker player have FoWs, I as the Dreadstalker player will not FoW back simply because I know that after they have burned their 5 cards, I just need Tombstalker or Dreadnought to race anything they present whereas the Tempo player is caught up with worrying about Merfolk drawing LoA and beating with Mutavault. In this situation, Dreadnought is a key decision in the difference of play choices made by the seemingly similar decks.

E.g. 3
Bant plays Pridemage, Tempo player lets it pass and counters the next Goyf he plays. Dreadstalker player counters pridemage and ignores the Goyf Bant plays.

I hope this highlights the differences in play choices in the 3 easy examples, which fundamentally demonstrate how this deck plays very differently from other Tempo decks. Tempo only has meaning for this deck when it affects its clock. It's not true-tempo in a sense, and is almost psuedo-tempo masked from the way the deck was originally designed.

NesretepNoj
12-27-2010, 06:01 PM
In my list (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?12531-[Deck]-DreadStalker&p=451440&viewfull=1#post451440), I've entirely abandoned creature removal. As you point out, all creatures in this deck are the largest of the format barring Emrakul and hence you need not remove them.

How have Spell Snare been working for you? I don't see why you need them. This deck has to drop a creature and then protect it until victory is secured. This is done by either disrupting the opponent's mana base or countering the removal pointed at your creatures. Spell Snare isn't capable of either. Neither is Hymn to Tourach.

At the time I played the deck I used Thoughtseize, but Spell Pierce might be better.

About Tarmogoyf vs. Vendilion Clique. I might test it some day. Tarmogoyf sometimes act as an attacking wall, and is proparbly a must if you chose to abondon removal.

Lastly, I don't understand the two Trickbinds. It cost two, so it won't counter any fetchlands (until the late game, when it dosn't matter). If you haven't tried them, you should really try Vision Charm. It can put both the Stalker and Dreadnougt into play, protect the nought, cut your opponent off mana for one turn, mill away bad top decks if you don't have a fetch, phase out a Trinisphere, sometimes phase away LED against bad TES/ANT/Belcher pilots, kills top-deck tutors and Doomsday ... and much much more :D

EDIT: Hope I don't sound too negative. This is my all time favorite pet deck and is glad others like it too. If we can tune it into becomming (even) better, than it already is, I would be very glad :smile:

GGoober
12-27-2010, 06:39 PM
Nah dude, my playmates insult me playing jank, so that's as harsh criticism I get for playing Legacy :P It's not really my pet-deck, but the old Dreadstalker list with 4 Sinkholes was definitely one of the first decks (other first decks were Dragon stompy and White Stax) I ever played.

I was testing Thoughtseize before Hymn. The decision to play Hymn was an analysis (not a mathematical one although one can be mathematical about it) done on currenty decks playing Thoughtseize v.s. Hymn. For instance, Hymn is played in Team America, for a good reason. Hymn is just much more powerful than Thoughtseize. My initial philosophy playing Thoughtseize was founded on "Nothing stops my creatures", and perhaps it's the better card to play. But as I mention in practicality, that philosophy is an ideal one. You still have to deal with decks/threats and sometimes even 1-2 Goyfs can end up stopping your wins or even race you. I play Hymn mainly because of the efficiency of Hymn. We do not necessarily need to Hymn on turns 2. Hymn's strength is based once again on what you want to achieve with Hymn. For decks like Eva, you want to Hymn early to hit lands and early spells, therefore an early Hymn benefits that deck. This deck you want to Hymn when your opponents are down to around 3 cards to hit their removals/counters that stop your win. Thoughtseize perhaps does this the best, although after playing with Thoughtseize, I realized Thoughtseize fit more in the Tempo Tempo mentality more than Hymn. i.e. When I thoughtseize, I am trying to take their best card, but what if they have 2 cards against my win condition? My mentality eventually was when I Hymn, I'll take 2 cards (out of a 3-4 card hand) and with Countermagic backup, I can usually force my way through.

I don't know, like I said, Hymn is still an experimental slot, I might go back to Thoughtseize again, but the feeling of 2-1'ing opponents with Hymn is also a good backup plan, or if your hand is Waste/Stifle heavy, you can go eva style and hit lands as a gameplan.

Spell Snare was there mainly because the list was developed pre-Survival ban. It is also mainly there because I cannot deal with these cards if they resolve:
- Argothian Enchantress (yes this is bad for you, aka more elephant grasses, more Confinements, no more outs)
- Counterbalance (doesn't hurt you too much but stops all non-tombstalker wins and your counters to protect it)
- Bob (As the saying goes, you can race but you can never race card advantage)
- Pridemage (this is the biggest reason)

I ran a 3-2 split of Pierce/Snares before this list. The philosophy then again was to stop anything that stopped Tombstalker/Dreadnought and that's why Pierce is very solid in the deck because it strengthens the deck's core philosophy and win-conditions. However, Snare is very seldom dead weight. With a combination of Hymn/FoW/Daze or Thoughtseize, you have enough outs against StP and removal (and remember, your dudes only eat a number of removal in the format). Since Spell Snare solves a limited number of removal, but hits the fearful pridemage and countertop which you can't deal with, and being less deadweight, I went with it.

You are right on removal. I could use a list without one, but I won't be comfortable. Things will always slip through, and as much as this deck can afford things to slip through, some creatures are exceptional: Lackey, Pridemage, triple Goyf. When you consider Snuff Out to be a free 1-1 spell, it becomes an additional resource to be used. But yes, ideally if I made no play mistakes and the deck doesn't crap out on me, I should be able to play with no removal. But running no removal with Goyf makes sense and at the same time doesn't make sense to me. If you have Goyf wars, you are simply stalling, and a Snuff Out would have won that stallwar.

The only reason I abandoned Goyf is because many decks play Goyf/Knights these days, and Goyf usually jjust sits there and blocks or does nothing until you grab tombstalker/Dreadnought. Instead of UGB, I opted for UB with lower land count (more business spell), no annoyances with running basic Island and basic Swamp, and having a sideboard that is entirely unfair to green decks (Dystopia, Perish, Mind Harness) lol. Also, when I no longer have to worry about my attackers not dealing damage or getting through, I have focused my gameplan on a simple strategy. Goyf IMO just isn't for the deck. I'd rather have a pre-emptive Clique to follow up into a Tombstalker, both of which flies, and don't have to wait for a secondary spell to clear an opposing Goyf/Knight before I can start swinging. The 3-color manabase was a big reason for me to drop UGB, so I can cut lands, run 2 basics comfortably and play more business spell. I used to play UGB Big Beats (Goyfs, Stalkers, Dreadnought), it was fun, but those were the issues I ran into. Goyf is still awesome though :P

Sigh I used to play Vision Charm, now you're convincing me to do so again! Trickbind's only problem is that it's 2cmc, but every ability of VIsion Charm isn't useless. Mill 4 hits opponents and fuels a turn 2 Tombstalker, Charm works with Dreadnought, Charm timewalks by turning lands into Mountains or Mountains into Islands lol. I'll have to test more a little. I like Trickbind for its uses outside of Dreadnought. I think the applications of Stifle-effect outside of Dreadnought outweighs the applications of Vision Charm. It's just the 2cmc that is problematic, although it severely punishes 'smart' players who want to 2-1 your Stiflenought by not countering Dreadnought and coutnering the stifle instead.

WTR
02-07-2011, 06:03 AM
Hi there,

I am building a DreadStalker.dec on my own at the moment and this Thread did already help me a lot. But I want to test it in three colors: Ubr. The benefit of this is obvious: Much better removals without the normal problems of white removals (Path does not fit the manadenial-plan and Swords are sometimes too much time for an enemy). So I splashed for Terminate and Lightning Bolt.

Here is my Alpha-List, which is not good tested till now because I am still collecting the last cards for the deck:

Lands: 20
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Badlands

Threats: 8
4 Tombstalker
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

Cantrips: 4
4 Brainstorm

Protection/Disruption: 20
4 Thoughtseize (I think it's better than Hymn in my list because I got less cantrips so I got more free mana in the first turns)
4 Stifle
2 Vision Charms
2 Sinkhole
4 Daze
4 Force of Will

Removal: 8
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Terminate

SB:
3 Perish
1 Emrakul (good against Painter to prevent mill effects)
3 Red Elemental Blast (effective to counter/kill Jace or to handle Merfolks)
3 Pithing Needle (the omnipotent Needle, it is always good to take it in against Maze, EE or Planeswalker, maybe even Vial)
5 empty Slots

What do you think of the list? What will be major problems? What should I fill up the empty slots of my sideboard with? Are the sinkholes useful (got almost the BB to cast it in some testgames)? Should I add Clique as additional threat or do I need more cantrips?

Rune
02-07-2011, 07:38 AM
3-4 Ponder/Preordain is really a must for decks like this. Your current list will struggle to find the right cards at the right time, and you will often die due to bad topdecks.

GGoober
05-09-2011, 03:07 PM
Because this is one of my favorite decks, and because it's not a tier 3 deck so it has a chance out there in an established meta, I cast Necro on thread:

MM brings much more power to this deck than other decks (aside from TA). It fits perfectly in the "drop a Dreadstalker and protect it" gameplan

Lands: 18
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Delta
3 Mire
1 Strand

Creatures: 9
4 Tombstalker
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 Vendilion Clique

Permission/Disruption: 25
4 Mental Misstep
4 Daze
3 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
3 Hymn to Tourach (could be thoughtseize but 2-1'ing can be important than removing targeted removal on Dreadstalkers, should be Dismember although more testing needs to be done)
4 Stifle
3 Vision Charm

Cantrips: 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

SB:
3 Perish
3-4 Tribal hate cards (Plague for Goblins or Dismembers/Snuff Outs)
3 Extirpate
6 meta flex slots (Pithing Needle, BEB, etc)


The build is UB for a straightforward stable manabase of 1 basic of each. Team America is always the comparable reference deck for Dreadstalker, so recall that Dreadstalker plays like TA except that tempo in Dreadstalker means a little different than Tempo in TA. In Dreadstalker, Tempo is really just protecting Dreadstalkers for 2-4 swings into victory. You are not required to keep constant permission/tempo checks on an opponent as long as they cannot touch your creatures. Goyf is awesome creature but Tombstalker and Dreadnought really just don't care about getting blocked all day long and will win games in 2-4 swings. Also, without green, you get a more stable manabase, and asymmetrical Perish against GWx decks.

With MM, your protection for Dreadstalkers has increased a ton:
4 MM
3 Spell Pierce
4 FoW
3 Vision Charm (on noughts)
4 Daze (opponents usually play around Daze)

Get some love for Dreadstalkers!

NesretepNoj
05-10-2011, 04:26 PM
MM brings much more power to this deck than other decks (aside from TA). It fits perfectly in the "drop a Dreadstalker and protect it" gameplan

Agreed, I've been testing this list a bit:

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Tombstalker

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
4 Stifle
3 Vision Charm
3 Sinkhole
3 Snuff Out

1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland

SB
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Mind Harness
3 Pithing Needle
2 Disrupt
3 Blue Elemental Blast

Notes: The most "controversial" slots is proparbly Preordain and Sinkhole.
-- Even though my current testing is limited, I actually like Preordain better than Ponder. I remember many times casting Ponder looking for a specific card, it showing me one useful card and two more or less useless like lategame Dazes or excess lands. I know fetchlands, can solve this, but not beeing dependent on fethes, or being able drop a wasteland without having to draw bad cards is nice.
-- It is proparbly a matter of personal preference, but I've never liked Hymn. I know a lot of factors talk against playing Sinkhole, but a lot (actually all) of them can be answered with Mental Misstep (Noble Hierarch, Vial, G. Lackey, SDT). Paired with MM, Daze, Waste and Stifle, you really have an excellent LD suite. When MM becomes legal I will do a lot more testing on this, however.

Oxmo39
05-11-2011, 08:54 AM
Hello guys! First i would like to thank you for this great job in this thread. very helpful for new players for this deck, like me ;)

Metalwalker : you have clearly mentionned and concluded the differences between the strategies of this deck and TA (or other tempo decks).
I agree with all of your points but the one with Goyf, which i'm not totally sold on it.

As a TA player, i have to argue that Tarmo can bring to the deck more than you may think.
Playing 8 critters is quite low, even if your strategy is to drop a fattie and to protect him in any way FTW.

Your first choice will always be for dreadnought i guess, a two-turns kill, not more to say about that. ok.
But theory and really are often way different and you won't always be able to find one, protect it or tombstalker won't be strong enough to insure a faster clock than your opponent. Not to mention you don't play any removals.
Those kind of situations should happen quite often. The same is for TA. In those games, having a tarmo ready to block would allow your stalker to fly over ftw. Hence i want to increase the amount of critters to 11-12.

I have tried Clique, but always found it subpar, disrupting but way to small.

Another little pro for Goyf is that it can grow very quickly thanks to hymn to tourach and vision charms.

Sure, goyf weakens the manabase on his own and that's his main lack.
But i think he may be worth the inclusion.

@ removals : how do you feel without any removal ? I still find hard to think tha you play black but no removal :) Sure agaisnt aggro, stiflenought is enough, but against merfolks (who should be stronger and more played with MM), isn't your MU too though ? Do you maybe feel that your SB is enough ?

By those comments, i don't want to offence you nor your obviously long experience with this deck, but i simply want to understand your choices to knwo how to pilot this deck more efficiently.

GGoober
05-11-2011, 10:37 AM
I don't have a long experience with the deck. I've played the deck for about 3 months 2 years ago where the meta was quite different, and when Pridemage was printed, the deck took a break because there were not enough tools to fight decks with Pridemage + removal. Granted that recent sets have given Dreadstalker a few more tools, namely Spell Pierce and now MM, I feel that its worthwhile to look into the deck again.

I have played the green splash but I'm not a fan of it. Nesretepnoj has had much success with the green list. The only recent time I tested this deck was 4 months back with my friend, but I put it aside again for reasons you mentioned: Sometimes your opponents still outnumber the permission you play to protect your Dreadstalkers. In all fairness, I was playing against a CABJace variant that ran a ton of removal (Maze, EE, StP, Cunning Wish, Jace 2 which kills this deck).

I feel that Goyf would work great aside from manabase instability, which simply requires fetching correctly for optimal play. However every dual out there can't avoid Wasteland so there is an inherent inbuilt weakness in the manabase. My only issue with Goyf when I played him was:

1) He's no longer necessarily big these days. Opposing Goyfs are actually stronger than your own Goyfs e.g. Zoo has Goyf + burn, Bant has Goyf + exalted, other decks have Goyf + equipment. Knight is bigger than Goyf etc. I'm not here to troll Mr. Goyf but I'm stating from my experience, whenever I played a Goyf that couldn't swing in, those 2 turns on board-stalling could have easily translated as faster wins by playing either more cantrips/disruption/discard.

2) 3rd color splash offers cards like Trygon/Grips etc, which honestly are not needed in Dreadstalker given the heavy early game permission/disruption. It's almost difficult for opponents to reach 4 land drops and play 4cmc spells when playing against Dreadstalker. But when they do, I'll admit this is the weakness of this deck. I personally prefer just UB, because this infinitely makes my matchup against GWx decks more favorable when Perish kills everything in the GWx matchups, rather than running on 1-1 cards like Submerge/Mind Harness (these are great cards, but once again in Dreadstalker v.s. Team America, you are less bugged down by an opponent's board position as long as you can race their clock), so it also fits in line on letting them overextend to race your clock, then suddenly lose to a Perish protected by a ton of countermagic.

@removal: Previous lists I played ran 3 Snuff Outs. Nesretnoj mentioned dropping them due to the deck's ability to simply ignore creatures. I was more comfortable with 3 snuff Outs (see the Hymn slots in my above list) because it allows you to save your counters in hand and let some creatures through and use your counters to protect your Dreadstalkers. Snuff Out's main targets that you're worried are:
1) Pridemage
2) 5/6 Goyfs (faster clock than your deck and paying 4 life for Snuff Out is worth a persistent 5 damage coming in)
3) Dreadnought
4) Knight of the Reliquary

In all honesty, the new Dismember should be played because Dreadstalker is also worried about Tombstalker, Dark Confidant resolving. Dismember can't hit Dreadnoughts and Knights as well but opposing Dreadnoughts can be fought better with the inclusion of MM (on stifle or nought) and Knight can be solved a little better with postboard Perish. I'll need to get down to testing.

@Clique: I play Clique as an unsituational easily castable creature within the color-pie UB. There is hardly any other creature in UB that can fulfill this role in a tempo deck (Bob does for 2cmc but that's a nobo with Tombstalkers). Clique is good because of flash, and a 3/1 flyer can whittle about 6-9 damage before your next Dreadstalker seals it up. She's also very good at killing Jace since you can flash her EOT and get in there for 2 turns (if they are forced to bounce her after taking a hit).

Oxmo39
05-12-2011, 07:45 AM
Thanks for your quick inputs!
I think i will try first the U/B version.

One other thing i forgot to mention, regarding the amount of critters.
With the new fashion cards (thoughtseize & hymn) played in many decks for the moment, i'm a bit afraid of seeing one creature discarded. this can sometimes hurt a lot. But i guess this is another reason you play spell pierces over snuff outs.

NesretepNoj
05-12-2011, 08:44 AM
[..] One other thing i forgot to mention, regarding the amount of critters.
With the new fashion cards (thoughtseize & hymn) played in many decks for the moment, i'm a bit afraid of seeing one creature discarded. this can sometimes hurt a lot. [..]

This is my fear as well. I will be testing Disrupt and/or Divert to counteract this trend. Especially the latter open up for som broken plays.

I will proparly test Dismember as well. Being able to kill Dark Confidants (and pretty much every other creature) is pretty cool. In order to handle Knight of the Reliquary my plan is to board in Mind Harness.

With regard to the low creature count, I think our new protection-spell (Mental Misstep) will make up for this in an acceptable way.

GGoober
05-12-2011, 10:27 AM
Yupp, Dreadstalker has a ton of flex slots in the SB. If your meta is Junk dominant, then Divert is an all time star against black decks. Also note that with MM, you can now pair up Divert with MM to hit their Thoughtseize (on the draw i.e. a way to protect your diverts) and then Divert their Hymn. Also, Divert is insanely strong at protecting Dreadstalkers (something that was a bonus to playing Dreadstalker with Diverts in the SB and in the older builds with Sinkholes).

I think Dismember will be an important addition. It usually gets Goyfs, and rarely Knights, but if you play the UB build, you just let them overextend into a Perish postboard while use your countermagic on yuor own game plan. Dismember will hit the things that actually affect your game e.g. Bobs and Tombstalkers. Outside of a Dreadnought, Dismember + Perish should be able to deal with most creatures in the format.

EDIT: less talk, and I'm slinging this up for next weekend and playing it for a few months. I'm out this weekend so sadly can't afford to play this weekend. Always has been one of my favorite decks in legacy. I think with Perish + MM + Spell Pierce, the deck has gained quite a lot more tools than it had before. Aside from heavy control and CABJace variants with large amounts of basic lands, I can see Dreadstalker performing pretty well in established metagames.

Koby
05-12-2011, 04:04 PM
Smother looks like it's a good candidate in the current metagame. About the only targets it can't kill are Tombstalkers, Ringleaders, and Sower of Temptation. It kills just about every other creature that we worry about. I think this is stronger choice than Go for the Throat, but not Dismember.

Quick question:

how many times have you guys used Vision Charm as a Silence effect? It seems that turning all their lands to another color is a good way to utilize the Charm to buy a turn in a clutch. For instance, Islands become Mountains, acting as a one-shot Blood Moon. Is this a common play, or do you guys generally find that you hold the charm to protect Dreadnought?

GGoober
05-12-2011, 04:09 PM
Good point ruckus, yeah forgot about the classic Smother. It costs mana, but you can always EOT smother (Goyf/pridemage/knight/bob), next turn setup

In the past, using Vision Charm as a timewalk effect is about less than 5% for me. Probably only 2 games out of all the games I've played. It's not ideal unless you are trying to stop something like Maze of Ith (as a Stifle effect in this case). I think this trick can be more often utilized with playing Thoughtseize. If you have some information, you won't blindly waste a Vision Charm to buy a turn. For most parts, you want to save the Charm to protect your nought, or go for a fast Tombstalkers (another less ideal play). The nice thing about Charm is you can use your Stifles aggressively on fetchlands or plays that buy you enough tempo to win games rather than worry about saving them for Noughts (sometimes Dreadstill has to think twice about Stifling lands when they see a hand with potential to go turn 2 Stiflenought).

Oxmo39
05-17-2011, 05:06 AM
Hi guys!

I've done some little testings with the U/B list against a junk deck. This is a really rough MU.
I always had to use my countermagics against their early thoughtseize and hymn to protect my hand. MM was great to counter TS, but after that when i could drop a bomb, he could just destroy it easily with stp or vindicate or EE!

I think i will replace the snuff outs by more counters and/or cantrips to help to protect or recover faster.
We did play without SB, so i can not say if mind harness and perish can turn the MU in our favor (but i guess they do ;) ).

I think i will change the hymns by duress or thoughtseize. like mentionned above, targeted discard seems to be what we want most of time, to get rid of these pesky removals or counters.
I will try first duresses (over TS) since i cut the removals, avoiding the 2 lifeloss can be relevant in many MU's, (because a single tarmo can be enough to kill us) and duress catch most of the cards we want to remove.

Here's the list i will test when i will get time :


Lands: 18
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Delta
1 Mire
3 Strand

Creatures: 8
4 Tombstalker
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

Permission/Disruption: 24
4 Mental Misstep
4 Daze
1 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
4 Stifle
3 Vision Charm

Cantrips: 10
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain


SB
2 Perish
2 Mind Harness
3 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Not sure about those slots : Null Rod or (EE for merfolks)

GGoober
05-27-2011, 11:07 AM
Hey guys, did some testing. And immediately Hymn became Thoughtseize. 2-1'ing is nice but the BB requirement is sometimes steep (if you fetch a basic Island against Wasteland decks). Thoughtseize on the play/draw turn 1 is still incredibly powerful but gives the deck exactly what it needs: taking out removal/counters on Dreadstalkers.

The list I tested (did over 20+ games against Junk/Team Italia/Imperial Painter) was:

Lands: 18
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Delta
2 Mire
2 Strand
4 Sea

Creatures: 9
4 Dreadnought
4 Tombstalker
1 Clique

Removal: 3
3 Dismember (I see Tombstalkers/Bob being a bigger threat than Goyf/Knights when playing this deck)

Cantrips: 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Disruption: 22
4 MMS (insane in this deck...)
4 Stifle
3 Vision Charm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize

I would love to fit the 2nd Clique. I'm thinking if dropping the -1 Nought, -1 Charm for the +1 Clique and +1Thoughtseize/Preordain/Spell Pierce would be better. I feel that this deck usually drops a Dreadnought on turn 3 (you drop a turn 2 Nought with a strong MMS hand or against decks that don't have outs to turn 2 Dreadnoughts).

Current SB: 15
3 EE (against faster decks/Chalice)
3 Spell Pierce (Against control/mid-range)
3 Pithing Needle (decks with Jace etc)
3 Perish
3 Extirpate (control/rock/mid-range)

GGoober
06-12-2011, 02:22 AM
Split Top 2 at a local tourney (fairly small 4 rounds)

Lands: 18
4 Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Wasteland

Dudes: 10
3 Dreadnought
4 Stalker
3 Clique

Cantrips: 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Permission: 18
3 Thoughtseize
4 Mental Misstep
4 Daze
4 Force
3 GFTT

Others: 6
4 Stifle
2 Vision Charm

SB:
3 Ghastly Demise
3 Perish
3 EE
3 Pierce
3 Extirpate

Round 1: Thomas with Blue Zoo
We tested this matchup for about 8 games before, it was usually in his favor, but at that point, I was running Dismember/Snuff Outs which did not favor the Zoo plan very well. I convinced myself that Dismember > Snuff Out because it hit Bobs/Tombstalkers (which are more relevant against this deck than Goyfs/Knights etc) but eventually concluded that losing 4 life to Dismember paying 1 doesn't justify it. Took me awhile to realize that since I'm playing black, I can just pay 1 fucking more mana and save myself matches where I lose to the 4-8 life from Dismembers/Snuff Outs. Seemed to work out well. In addition, the games we tested previously involved Blue Zoo drawing the nuts for most parts. He's not going to do this again! :P

Game 1: Stifle his fetch + wasteland turn 2 into Ponder into Tombstalker backed by Misstep. Having 8 cantrips allows me to get around 3 cantrips before the game ended, keeping a solid hand that goes the distance.

Game 2: -1 Nought, -2 Vision Charm, -2 Daze +3 Spell Pierce, +2 EE
I sided out Daze on the draw and kept 2 Noughts MD instead of 3 knowing that he is bringing in Grudges. The games ended short with a Ponder into a Wasteland (holding yet another one in hand). He beats me down to 10 but cannot handle a fast Dreadnought on turn 3 while being low on cards.


Round 2: David with NOBant (SFM, NO, Cliques, Jace)
How the fuck does Bant pack everything good in it? I have no clue but I know I need to beat Bant because I hate green dudes.

Game 1: We both had very strong starts but mine was stronger despite him being on the play. He had the Misstep advantage so my Thoughtseize could not penetrate to dig (what she said) information. He ends up playing a SFM tutoring SoFF and I Stifle SFM. He thinks awhile Missteps Stifle, I misstep back, he Daze. I thought I lost the game here. I told myself I needed a Thoughtseize to get out of this. I Ponder on my main phase, saw Thoughtseizex2 but sadly I'm forced to crack a fetch so I can only Thoughtseize once. I see a hand of SoFF/Jace/3rd land drop. I thought for awhile and took the SoFF and attempt to Daze Jace. He gets Jace out and I double Daze. I drop Tombstalkers and eventually went the distance. That was a tough one to crawl back from.

Game 2: This game is lame. Let's just say SoFF beats Team America, and hence beats Dreadstalker to some extent. He has a BoP, and I got Tombstalkerx2 in play. He equips SoFF to Pridemage swings for 5, then untaps lands equip SoFF on BoP. Guess who won that race? :P

Game 3: This is probably a really close and intense game of Legacy I had. I really can't remember the details much but I think it involved winning through a Jace on my Tombstalker when I have x2 Tombstalkers in play. Jace owns Dreadstalker. What an asshole. lol



Round 3: Mason with NOBant (Zenith no SFM, no Jace, 2 Jittes)
Game 1: Mason's a good Bant player, and I got a game 1 with Thoughtseize/GFTT and getting in with Tombstalkers.

Game 2: -3 Dreadnought, -2 Vision Charm, -2 Daze, -1 Ponder, +3 Pierce, +3 Perish, +2 Ghastly Demise
I figured I kept him off mana dorks with Demise and not risk losing to Bant's good outs to a resolved Dreadnought. We fight a war of attrition but an exalted Arbor hits for 6 damage and Pridemage closes the gap while I proceed to draw below average (he wasn't drawing great either but an arbor + Hierarch/Pridemage is good enough).

Game 3: boarded back +2 Daze, +3 Dreadnought, +1 Vision Charm and boarded out the Cliques (he plays them too) and something.

I like having the Dreadnought package on the play. Sometimes you juist force them to have the answer and if they don't they lose in short. Dreadstalker is a deck that can protect Dreadnought very densely in the early game, so I gambled on it. I got a Dreadnought on turn 3 protected with Daze/Misstep/FoW. He Grips. Frown town. We play the longest game of Bant v.s. 'Team-America' draw outs. He draws a bunch of lands, I draw a bunch of lands. He plays dudes, Demise/GFTT/Perish takes care of them. I find out that he has boarded 7 StP+Path to my 7 creatures. We were at the point of the game with ~20 cards left in library, so go figure who lost this one. I did lol.

Round 4: Eugene with Sneaky Show
Game 1: He wins die roll, I keep a solid hand of Wasteland, Thoughtseize, Daze, MMS, Force, Brainstorm Fetch. He tries to go off turn 3 with Show and I dazed which he Forced and I forced back. MMS snabs a cantrip and I pulled ahead while he doesn't get the quality draws from Brainstorm, just enough time for Stalker to go the distance.

Game 2: -3 GFTT, -1 Vision Charm, -1 Tombstalker (didn't want these clogging up), -1 Ponder, +3 Pierce, +3 Extirpate
We play some turns. I thoughtseize a Show and Tell and he reveals Trinisphere, Sneak attack, Emrakul with enough mana to both cast Sneak and activate it. I made a punt by Extirpating Show and Tell instead of Trinisphere (which I dazed another copy earlier). I have double Daze sitting in my hand which can counter the Sneak Attack and give me 2 turns to win with Dreadnought. He plays a Trinisphere and I'm fucked because he has enough mana to pay for it with Tombs. I daze he pays, so now I have no outs but he did take 2 damage going down to 12. My only chance is to topdeck Wasteland since my other Daze in hand is dead under Trinisphere. I topdeck Wasteland and he is locked under his own trinisphere with Tombstalker closing the game in 2 turns. I was a little pissed I made the mistake in Extirpating Show and Tell instead of Trinisphere. At that point, I should know that despite him having the chance to draw Show and Tell, I almost lost this match because I let the Trinisphere which I knew could screw me over resolve. Thank god Wasteland is amazing, and Topdeck card was lucky!

Top 4: Jeremy with NOBant (SFM, NO, Jace)
Once again, how does Bant pack all this shit in??? Jeremy is probably one of the better Bant players out there, and I would say he's the best that I can ever play against (although I'm sure I can't comment much to this given that I don't attend big events on a regular basis). Anyway, he's definitely a careful opponent that barely make no mistakes. He mentions that his SB will screw me over, and I take note of that by SB;ing out my Dreadnoughts (he ended up having 2 Trygon, 2 Grips, 1 Pridemage in his MD that I can kinda ignore :P)

Game 1: We play some really tight games since our lists both have full Dazes and Missteps/FoWs/Wasteland/Brainstorms. He gets a SFM with SoFF and I GFTT in response to equip, Stifled the second attempt to equip and GFTT the 3rd attempt while having an early Tombstalker in. I kept him off of white with Stifle/Waste. At this point, he finds a white source but is down to 7 life. He plows and I FoW. On my turn, I topdeck Thoughtseize and won by taking another StP in his hand. He was unable to misstep my thoughtseize because that would put in to 5, enough for Tombstalker to win the game. I won this in a close game. I mean the game could have been fine even if Tombstalker was StP'd since he didn't really have a good board position but I think he was +3 cards above me so that didn't help.

Game 2: -3 Dreadnought, -2 Vision Charm, -2 Daze, -1 Ponder, +3 Pierce, +3 Perish, +2 Ghastly Demise
He gets the nut opening of Trop/Hierarch/Daze my Misstep/Wasteland my land putting me 2 turns behind. He gets SFM which I stifle and he runs out a Knight that I can't deal with. I struggle with cantrips to find a 2nd land which I did smoothly but wasn't doing any good with me being 2 turns behind and having to tap out on my turn to find land drops. Knights beat me down before GFTT mattered.

Game 3: -3 Dreadnought, -2 Vision Charm, -1 Ponder, -2 Stifle, +3 Pierce, +2 Perish, +3 Ghastly Demise
I know that Jeremy's list is a little more filled with lower toughness creature than the other bant list and leveraged the power of Hierarch/SFM to play out a strong early mid game. I decided to cut Stifles since I didn't want to risk holding onto a dead Stifle in hand when I could be pondering/Brainstorm/Ghastly Demising. It's also not optimal plan to 'tempo' a deck that abuses more tempo than you (GSZ/Hierarch/SFM). I still kept 2 Stifles but I wanted to minimize my draws of cards bad in multiples and wanted cards that really do something in this matchup.

I keep a strong early game hand of MM/Fetch/Brainstorm/Pierce/Ghastly/GFTT/and lead with a fetch. He GSZ for 0, possibly signalling a low land count. I MM resolves. I wasted his Trop and he draws a Hierarch which I Ghastly Demise. He fetches and I stifle, then Pierce another GSZ@1 aimed for a Hierarch. At this point he was quite behind on cards and land. He missed 2 land drops and that was enough time for STalkers to finish it up, with a GFTT aimed at another Hierarch.

Revenge for me since he owned me the same way game 2!


Props:
Deck was really good. I really missed playing Tempo decks with 8 cantrips. Cantrips are just very powerful in eternal format. It'll be awhile until I fully learn how to optimally use these.

Vision Charm was pretty awesome in milling chaff out of a bad Brainstorm (not too much harm here since I rather not have chaff and it helps that the 2 cards to filter good draws also help fuel any additional Tombstalkers).

The list ran very smooth with the exception that I found myself boarding out Dreadnoughts alot (against decks that pack removal AND run MMS). To be fair, I played 5 out of 5 decks with MMS and still didn't have too much issue with Dreadnought. 4/5 of those matchups were Bant, which I would deem an unfavorable matchup for Dreadstalker (unfavorable around 45-55 depending on the build). I felt Noughts weren't worth it for the Bant matchup, and definitely have new insights on what tweaks to make.

I know that I want the 4th Clique for simple reasons that if I board out 3 Noughts, I can still maintain 8 threats in a BU tempo shell. I know that I do not enjoy 4 Dazes simply because I am boarding Daze out on the draw. I think that 3 Daze MD is definitely optimal. Thoughtseize is rock solid in this deck in setting up Dreadstalkers, so I need to find space for the 4th.

Ghastly Demise was great. It was primarily played for Merfolks/Gobs but didn't do terrible against SFM/NO-based decks. EE/Extirpate aren't useful but EE is mainly there to address the possible very unfavorable Chalice@1 matchups. Extirpate is quite narrow outside of my Sneakyshow matchup. It's also there for Dredge which isn't too popularly played these days.

Changes to the MD that I'll be making is:
-1 Daze +1 Clique (not sure what to cut for 4th Thoughtseize)

COMMENT: If there's one busted equipment other than Jitte, it's freaking SoFF. This card is very underrated and is amazing against TA/BWx decks/Junk/Zoo/Bant. The ability to equip swing in to discard a card and re-equip to a blocker is backbreaking. I think I was more terrified of SoFF than Jitte (although I guess I was playing Dreadstalker and not Goblins :P). But seriously, this card seems a whole lot stronger than Batterskull for most parts. My friend hardly tutored up Batterskull, and SoFF was possibly the most insane card right now that I can think of as a SFM target against a sea of green/black creatures that are popular in recent Legacy.

Oxmo39
06-15-2011, 08:56 AM
Thanks for the report Metalwalker and gg's for the results ;)
I see that you made several changes to your list, changes that make lot of sense to me : switching hymn for thoughtseize and bringing removals back in the main.

I haven't played this deck much but the addition of 3 cliques should definitely bring more consistance to the deck. When i played it, i often felt like 8 critters was not enough, especially with all those f**** control decks emerging.

I know that you didn't face any, but the merfolk match up look thougher now, since they play dismember. does you extra-removal suite in the board is usually sufficient ?

I would love to test this deck a bit more if i could find enough time.
This deck seems to run pretty good and to be really pleasant to play.
Keep us posted.

GGoober
06-15-2011, 10:54 AM
Updated list will be:

Lands: 18
4 Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Wasteland

Dudes: 11
3 Dreadnought
4 Stalker
4 Clique

Cantrips: 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Permission: 17
3 Thoughtseize
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze
4 Force
3 GFTT

Others: 6
4 Stifle
2 Vision Charm

SB:
3 Ghastly Demise
2 Perish
2 EE
2 flex slots
3 Pierce
3 Extirpate

Yeah this deck really doesn't need Hymn. Although last week against Bant, boarding out the Dreadnoughts in 4/5 games made me realize that I was playing Team America without Goyfs. I was surprised to pull through games with just Clique and Tombstalkers. At that point, I was thinking maybe Hymn would have been better since I was playing without Dreadnoughts, but I'm sure that if I wasn't paired against that many Bant matchups, I would have prefered Thoughtseize over Hymn any day. Also, Thoughtseize is just incredible at disrupting an opponent's future tempo plays. Hymn might still leave them with a recoverable hand. But the main reason is, you only really want to discard a number of things that stop your deck, you don't care if they can play a KotR/Goyf as long as they can't race you.

From playtesting and the tournament, I knew that I won most of the games off cantrips i.e. my opponents and I were both in an attrition war recovering and since I played 8 cantrips, I pulled off ahead in most games. I know the only time I was cursing at the deck was not drawing cantrips. I was fully confident that I could stay ahead of the game had I drawn one. Aside from the cantrip rant, I usually do board down to 7 cantrip on the draw against faster decks (-1 Ponder). This is because on the draw against aggressive decks, you can do more than just tapping out to cantrip an opening hand that is already good (it should be good otherwise you should mull it).

@Merfolks Since I didn't play a lot of Dreadnought games last week 3/5 matchups were against Bant, I can't say I've abused the deck's full power. I know that testing about 10 games against Merfolks, they really can't deal with a resolved Dreadnought. If Merfolks pack Dismember for Tombstalkers, then it's bad for us, but for most parts, you have Thoughtseize/Pierce (you almost always bring Pierce in postboard against ANY deck because you know they are going to have non-creature answers). I addressed my Merfolk problems with Ghastly Demise and EE in the board. Basically your job is to try to keep the Dreadstalker package (board out Cliques in this matchup and keep the bigger dudes), and force their way through while nitpicking their lords with Ghastly Demise/EE/GFTT. I don't think this matchup is favored on the draw, but should be favorable on the play.

I'm testing with some friends today again. I swear by Vision Charms since they enable fast Tombstalkers, but for most parts, I realize I'm casting Dreadnoughts around turn 3 (to play around Daze) so I'm looking into Trickbind again, and I just remembered how insane Trickbind is against Mental Misstep. Most players let the Dreadnought resolve and MMS your Stifle to 2-1 you, so Trickbind is actually very strong in a post-MMS environment. This way, the only condition that Trickbind has for the deck is hitting 3 land drops to cast a resolved Dreadnought. This may or may not be better (a turn slower is defintiely relevant but against blue decks, you are usually not going for a turn 2 Dreadnought unless you have the nuts hand), but Trickbind definitely has some big benefits in allowing you to play around MMS, and keep your own MMS against their removal. That's something to look into for sure.

Oxmo39
06-16-2011, 06:47 AM
I really think that Trickbind can make the cut and win many games against MM-deck.
It could be a good sideboards tech (switching them for stifles).
Waiting a turn later to drop dreadnoughts is not relevant against those decks, whom are generally slow.
And like you said, playing trickbind will save up our counters-suit in hand to deal with their removals, which is the main weakness of the deck imho.

Trickbind could also help against cursecatcher.

@the 4th clique : i used to play 3 cliques in another decks : believe me : you will hate having 2 in hands. Sure you can pitch it to Fow but...
I would stay at 3 and bring back the 4th nought...

Oxmo39
06-17-2011, 07:00 AM
I was also wondering how hard the control mu's should be (the landstill variants). i guess the Ubg should be really though with all their mixed removals.
Those decks are becoming more and more popular for the moment.
Has anyone tested the Mu ?

This could be a reason good enough to pack trickbinds.

GGoober
06-17-2011, 10:42 AM
i tested the matchup with a friend, 7 games pre-board, 4 games postboard.

It's not an easy matchup. If their removal is primarily GFTT and Innocent Blood, you have an easier time (MM innocent blood and counter GFTT and Stifle deed). If they are packing a mix of removal and odd ones like Edict and the less commonly Putrefy (which my friend did), it's not easy.

Regardless, the MVP in this matchup singlehandedly is Clique. Clique does 3 things:

1) Pwn them when they play Standstill (I'm a landstill player so this is the worst feeling ever).
2) Jacekiller
3) Clique very often baits a removal since she nullifies their Jace/Standstill. This is important because if Clique resolves and eats another removal, you can take yet another card and try to force your Tombstalkers in.

Early Stifle/Wastes can definitely benefit you. Postboard 3 Pierce + 3 Extirpate is a must and I took out -2 Ponder, -3 GFTT, -1 Tombstalker (to reduce early game clunkiness).

Sorry if I didn't address the question on 4x Clique. i know drawing 2 Clique is 'bad', but this is not true. In most games I play, I always want to draw more and more clique, because if my opponent does not deal with Clique, I will be winning shortly (3 damage a turn, and assuming all my disruption is aimed at stopping from letting my opponents do anything). When they remove Clique, another Clique comes in and make their worse hand look much worse, or put you ahead again. Also, Clique is extremely good in the meta right now. People really like their SFM and Jace and tons of 'controllish' decks or playing with their Natural Order and Show and Tells. Clique is more than just a disruptive beater, she single-handedly takes their game winning spell away while putting them on a clock.

If the meta shifts to a lot more Zoo/Bolts/Lavamancers, it's time to pack away some Cliques, but even then, you can only imagine that resolving a Clique against Bolt.dec = taking away 2 Bolts (1 bolt kills clique, trigger resolves taking another Bolt away).

Jackehehe
06-18-2011, 04:10 PM
how do you play that with only 18 lands?

Oxmo39
06-19-2011, 01:03 AM
This deck can work with two lands. It drops the dudes for 2 manas, except for cliques.
It also only runs 2 colors with allow to a lower land count.
Furthermore this deck runs 8 cantrips to find extra-manas if needed.

@Metalwalker : I have two planned tournaments within' 2 weeks, and won't bring this deck as i haven't test it enough. Afterwards, i will pack for more intense testings ;)

Tombstalker
06-20-2011, 05:00 PM
Greetings! I am a long time haunter first time poster here at the Source. I have been playing legacy off and on for many years but only started to be serious about it in the last year. Decks I play include The Gate, Eva Green, and a homebrew U/B tempo deck very similar to Dreadstalker, which brings me to you guys. I really like my U/B tempo deck but it seems that with only a few small changes I can morph it into Dreadstalker which seems like a huge improvement. I would probably enjoy playing TA except their creature selection is just too anemic for my tastes. Below is my proposed list:

Lands 18
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
4x Underground Sea
4x Wasteland
1x Island
1x Swamp

Creatures 13
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
4x Dark Confidant
3x Tombstalker
2x Vendilion Clique

Counters 14
4x Mental Misstep
4x Stifle
3x Daze
3x Vision Charm/Trickbind

Draw 7
4x Brainstorm
3x Ponder

Removal 3
1x Darkblast
2x Snuff Out

Disruption 5
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Duress

I would really like to here your thoughts on this list. I am aware of the dangers of tombstalker + bob but I I feel with 7 cantrips the risk is worth the reward. As for cards I Do not currently own any thoughtseize or Force of Will as I sold my playset when I left the game 2 yrs ago :(. I also only own 1 phyrexian dreadnought although I am on the verge of purchasing 3 more (which is why I need your help). So, is dreadstalker a bad idea now with MMS, QPM and other hate? Also if I were to acquire a set of FoW, what are your thoughts on SBing it? FoW has saved me many times in the past vs. combo, but Im not sure how necessary it is in the maindeck. Thanks in advance.

GGoober
06-20-2011, 05:26 PM
Hey tombstalker, awesome name :P

Regarding your list, I know many people enjoy squeezing 4 Bobs + 2 Tombstalkers. I would advice that you play only 2 Tombstalkers if you're playing 4 bobs. sometimes I always wished I played Bob in a UB tempo shell, but Tombstalkers are just really good at finishing games fast. The trend is the less Stalkers and more bobs you play, the more controllish you are approaching the deck. Dreadstalker isn't a deck that wants to take its time. It's a deck that only takes it's time to make sure you can swing in with Dreadstalkers. Once you Thoughtseized and find that you're safe, you want to immediately start applying pressure. Dreadstalker can definitely take the role of a pure tempo deck, tempoing every play your opponent has, but at the same time, there's the added benefit that Dreadstalker can just ignore your opponent's plays once you know you can guarantee your Dreadnoughts to safe victory (although this is a double edged sword because it's not easy to make sure Dreadnought goes in safely these days, but if you do, that's the added bonus in playing this deck).

In your list, I recommend cutting the 3rd Stalker and the 2 Snuff Outs (this is terrible with bobs :/). Go For the Throat has been pretty impressive and I really like Ghastly Demise in the SB against tribal and even NOBant. Other than that I think Inquisition is interesting. It hits Bob/StP/Pridemage/KotR/Misstep, which are our prime enemies without the life loss. I'll try out the Inquisitions. I would personally play 8 cantrips. I would love to play as many as I can, but I feel it's hard to squeeze slots unless you're cutting some creatures. My only issue with cutting Cliques down to 2 is in matchups where Dreadnoughts are terrible (against Bant), you are very low on threats when you play post-boarded games. I tried to address this issue by testing some Mind Harness against the GWx matchups but felt it wasn't worth it since they are packing Grips/Pridemages postboard. So I currently run a 4 Clique/4 Tombstalker package against Bant, boarding out Stifles/Trickbind/Noughts bringing in more removal and pierce and just ride the flyers to victory. Against Merfolks, I board out 4 Cliques and keep the Dreadnought package because Clique is weak against folks.

Against combo/control, Clique is devastating. Multiple clique is never bad, because in this matchup, having just 1 Clique in play is usually what it takes to swing games in your favor. Against control, they have to remove Clique, and you follow up with another one.

Trickbind has been great in testing! I obviously would prefer Vision Charm, but I think post-MM, Trickbind is more important than Vision Charm's flexibility.

I tested a couple of games against Merfolks, and it seems not as abysmal as I thought it would be. A fast Dreadnought is GG. This is something that Team America doesn't have against Merfolks and other matchups.

Tombstalker
06-20-2011, 05:40 PM
Wow thanks for the fast reply! I really enjoyed your report and insights into this deck btw. Its true that I have been hurt by the deadguy + tombstalker a few times but the power is just so tempting. My thoughts for including IoK is that it hits most if not all of the threats that this deck would actually worry about without the life loss of thoughtseize, thereby justifying bobs inclusion.
I may have to switch Snuff Out to GftT although I admit to having an unhealthy obsession with Snuff Out :). I also feel a little naked without my customary hymns so those are currently in my board.
I am torn on whether to choose vision charm or trickbind. Vision charm seems more utility and cheaper but without any testing of my own I am not sure which I prefer.
Also what are your thoughts on a single Lim-Dul's Vault in place of a ponder?
Why is this deck not more popular? It seems to have everything relevant that TA packs except with more threats.

GGoober
06-22-2011, 06:39 PM
Vision charm definitely makes the deck a lot smoother since it serves 3 functions for the deck and is hardly a deck card unless you run out of cantrips. I opted for Trickbind because the current meta is too flooded with blue/Misstep decks. Having the Dreadnought into Trickbind (because most opponents want to 2-1 you) is quite deadly, fighting past Daze/Misstep/FoW/Pierce.

I will almost play the Ponder over LDV. This deck isn't really digging for a particular card to win. Ponder costs just 1 mana which is critical for a deck that plays very tightly. LDV is much stronger in Aeon Bridge, which is an even more combo approach to the 'play big beaters and win-games'.

The deck isn't as popular because as much as it has the added benefits of having a more stable manabase and threats that generally 'get there' (unlike Goyf these days since Goyf can be blocked/slowed down a ton), there are weaknesses of Dreadstalkers that TA doesn't have to worry about.

Dreadstalker is very weak against matchups that have favorable matchups against Dreadnought e.g. Bant/GWx/Jace. It is weak when green is a good color to splash for Deed/Grips e.g. the Counterbalance control matchup is a weak one for Dreadstalker (thankfully CB control lists are no longer popular these days).

It's a balance, because Dreadstalker is very strong against matchups where a fast Dreadnought is relevant e.g. Merfolks (TA still has problems with Merfolks), control decks, combo decks, etc. There are many times when you can win random games by having a FoW/Thoughtseize protecting a turn 2 Dreadnought and you steal lots of game 1 and random games. Personally I enjoy Dreadstalker because outside of Jace/GWx matchups, you are very favored or reasonably favored against any deck. You can easily steal game 1, and abuse the fact that they are boarding in hate for Dreadnoughts, and board out Dreadnoughts if you feel they are bringing in more than 4 cards for it, and play the tempo role without Dreadnoughts while they sit on dead cards in their hand while your tempo becomes even better since they can be aimed at the remaining relevant cards in their hand.

That's my opinion. Team America is overall the better deck, because it just plays so many of the best cards in the format. It's like the only Legacy deck that only plays the best cards in the format :P But one of the big reason I'm attracted to the idea behind Dreadstalker is:

Tempo in Dreadstalker is only meant to stop anything that can race your clock. Your clock with Tombstalkers is 3-4 turns, that with Dreadnought is 2 turns. In a deck like Tempo Thresh and Team America, you are playing Tempo at every point in the game, because you cannot afford to give opponents any tempo gain or you maybe behind. In Dreadstalker, you can arrive at situations where you really don't care if your opponent is on par or ahead of you in terms of tempo, all you're concerned is that they cannot race your clock, which comprises on evasive Tombstalker/Clique/Dreadnoughts. I find Goyf to be less spetacular than he used to be since his clock is not consistently 3-4 turns unless they have no creatures in play. Tempo decks and TA play the tempo game by almost always making sure that they have a superior board to take advantage of Goyfs. In Dreadstalker, they can have a superior ground position, but as long as they can't race your clock, you are fine. This is what I really love about the deck. You have a choice in how you want to play the tempo game, and don't always have to counter/tempo everything they play. However, I would say that majority of the time, this ideal situation of ignoring opponent's tempo is not as frequent as stated here. Good players and depending on the matchup would force you to actually play the deck like a regular tempo deck, and thankfully Dreadstalker isn't awful at playing as a regular tempo deck, but once there is an opening for you to execute your Dreadstalker plan, you can totally ignore whatever they have and win with hands like "Brainstorm, Thoughtseize/FoW, Daze, Stifle, MM, Dreadnought, Fetchx2"

Tombstalker
06-22-2011, 09:35 PM
Awesome description Metalwalker and thanks for taking the time. I have recently purchased another PD and I wonder, do you think 2 PDs would work, perhaps with a trinketmage tutor package including EE, pithing needle etc?

Tombstalker
06-24-2011, 09:26 PM
So ive been messing around with this deck and after some testing ive come up with what feels like a decent incarnation. Heres the list:


Land
1x Island
1x Swamp
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
4x Underground Sea
4x Wasteland

Creatures
4x Tombstalker
3x Phyrexian Dreadnought
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Sower of Temptation
1x Phyrexian Metamorph

Counters
4x Mental Misstep
4x Stifle
3x Daze
1x Trickbind

Draw
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder

Disruption
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Hymn to Tourach

Removal
2x Snuff Out
1x Go for the Throat
1x Darkblast


This list version focuses a little more on disruption and includes 2 AoW as potential tombstalkers 5-6. So far AoW as a 1-of has been surprisingly good tech, especially when both players are in topdeck mode. 2 can occassionally clog but with 8 cantrips this shouldnt be too much of a problem. On vision charm vs. trickbind- I opted to include a single trickbind to keep people honest, and while it does seem to be superior to vision charm the higher casting cost can definitely be an issue.
I have avoided FoW because I currently dont own any (see my original post). Hymn seems an adequate replacement and also makes up for the inherent card disadvantage of PD while also enabling a fast AoW. Any comments would be mucho appreciated.

EDIT: also how to I get these card tags to work? John Cox- Thanks brother.. :p
Double Edit: The AoWs changed out for 1 each of sower and metamorph. A single AoW has usually been great but occasionally not, whereas both sower and metamorph are excellent silver bullets.

John Cox
06-25-2011, 01:32 AM
For the card tags just use [/cards] instead of the second [cards].

Tombstalker
06-30-2011, 09:53 PM
Just wondering what peoples thoughts were on the inclusion of ancestral vision in this deck. I know space is tight but it would make a great turn 1 play and late game could become force fodder.
Something like this:


Lands 18
1x Island
1x Swamp
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
4x Underground Sea
4x Wasteland

Creatures 10
4x Tombstalker
3x Phyrexian Dreadnought
3x Vendilion Clique

Permission 13
4x Force of Will
4x Mental Misstep
4x Stifle
1x Trickbind

Draw 10
4x Ancestral Vision
4x Brainstorm
2x Ponder

Disruption 6
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Hymn to Tourach

Removal 3
3x Go for the Throat

GGoober
07-01-2011, 10:57 AM
Visions is good on paper for this deck i.e. it's good because it draws 3 cards. It's not good because it is too slow when you actually need the cards. The only good AV play in this deck is turn 1 Visions, otherwise you are waiting another 3 turns after you first suspend it to draw the cards to do anything. In a deck like this, Brainstorm/Ponder is far stronger than Visions because you only need relevant cards and not card advantage (card advantage is relevant if you're playing against attrition based decks).

I was spending some time working out an interesting list, which answers the Merfolks matchup more favorably and the SFM/Clique/Bob metagame. It splashes red for Bolts/Fire//Ice/REB in the SB and has been pretty impressive in shoring up those matchups. The only loss with splashing red is the inability to play basic swamp, which proves to be an issue sometimes, but you're a deck playing with stifles i.e. an opponent thinks twice about wastelanding you when you have a blue source open, and the only BB spell in the deck is Tombstalker so it doesn't hinder you too much.

It's almost like Canadian Thresh but a full turn slower (Tombstalkers/Cliques are slower than Mongoose/Goyfs) but packs a creature package that is almost entirely evasive. Not playing green also lets you play Perish, and not get destroyed by opposing Perishes :P

Lands: 18
4 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn

Cantrips: 7
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder

Creatures: 10
3 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Tombstalker
3 Vendilion Clique

Removal/Burn: 7
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Fire//Ice (flex slot if your meta isn't the popular SFM/Bob/NOBant/NORUG/Merfolks, then feel free to play Hymns or GFTT)

Permission: 18
4 Mental Misstep
3 Spell Snare
3 Daze
4 FoW
4 Stifle

SB: 15
3 REB
3 Extirpate
3 Spell Pierce
3 Perish
3 EE (flex slots, can be Submerge/Threads of Disloyalty/Jace/Sower/Pyroclasm/Hymn depending on your meta).

The red splash does a lot for the deck. The Bolts/Fire//Ice are great at dominating against decks that don't play big green creatures: Elves/Merfolks/Goblins/BWx/NORUG/NOBant/Bob/SFM.dec. The burn is also impressive against Jace, and especially against Merfolks where Dreadstalker still pulls a 50/50 or 45/55 matchup at best. More importantly, Bolts allow tombstalkers to go from a 4-swing win to a 3-swing win, a turn faster. This is highly important and Bolts cut the clock of the deck much faster, and provide a way to win by burn-reach in the late-game if your creatures are unable to get in (opposing Jace).

The REBs in the sideboard are great against Merfolks, Jace, blue.dec and the current metagame is dominantly blue so this is always a good tool. I've still kept Perishes and with a combination of counters/bolts and resolving a tombstalker, you can force your opponents to run into situations where they overextend and Perish them off. Dystopia is another option that I really like but that demands a tighter game against green decks and only works if you have a threat on board.

SB TIPS:

MERFOLKS:
On the draw: -3 Daze, -3 Clique, +3 REB, +3 Pierce
On the play: -3 Clique, -1 Ponder, -1 Daze, +3 REB, +2 Pierce
(Daze is good but sometimes losing a landdrop against Merfolks can cost games if you fail to win the counterwar)

GOBS:
On the draw: -3 Clique, +3 flex slots (EE is not too great but Clique is terrible in this matchup)
On the play: see On the draw.

NORUG/NOBant:
On the draw: -3 Dreadnought, -4 Stifle, -2 Spell Snare, +3 REB, +3 Spell Pierce, +3 Perish
On the play: -3 Spell Snare, +3 Spell Pierce (if they still plan on keeping TONS of dreadnought hate, board according to on the draw, but if they realize that you boarded out Dreadnought, going first and fighting against no-hate is good to have the dreadnought pacakage again).

SFM/Bob.dec:
Your maindeck should be solid. If they're playing blue-versions, board in REB. If you have Hymns in your SB, board in Hymn on the play. Never let SFM resolve (i.e. don't let it resolve if you can counter it) since once they grab an equipment, you're fighting an uphill battle even if you can remove the SFM. If your meta is very SFM heavy, Pyroclasm is a nice tool that works great against Gobs/merfolks/elves/BWx/NORUG/NOBANT

Jace Control/Landstill:
Clique is solid in this matchup, board in +3 REB, +3 Pierce, +3 Extirpate and board out Dreadnought Stifles and Fire//Ice. Keep stifles if they are greedy on their manabase i.e. BUGStill (3-color decks playing 4 Factories and 2-4 Wastelands).

Combo (Hive Mind/ANT/TES):
Bring in 3 REB, 3 Extirpate, 3 Pierce, board out some Dreadnought and a few cantrips and Fire//Ice.

I should be playing this deck this weekend because I'm still waiting to get a Batterskull and 4 SFM and SOFF for my Steel Stompy deck :P

Tombstalker
07-01-2011, 01:36 PM
Visions is good on paper for this deck i.e. it's good because it draws 3 cards. It's not good because it is too slow when you actually need the cards. The only good AV play in this deck is turn 1 Visions, otherwise you are waiting another 3 turns after you first suspend it to draw the cards to do anything. In a deck like this, Brainstorm/Ponder is far stronger than Visions because you only need relevant cards and not card advantage (card advantage is relevant if you're playing against attrition based decks).

When it comes to posting I am not the most articulate person but ill try to get my ideas across successfully. Anyway, I have done a small amount of testing with visions and found it to be hit or miss, potentially amazing T1-2 and dead fairly often after that. Still, with our supreme cantrip engine the chances of a T1-2 AV is pretty high, but is it high enough? IDK but I felt recent success in landstill decks warranted some testing.

Now, obviously AV was suggested because of the tendancy for Dreadstalker and similar tempo decks to run out of gas, especially with the inherent card disadvantage of FoW coupled with stiflenought.
Otoh I have actually been testing dark confidant for quite some time and as we all know he is amazing.
Bob is a must answer CA machine that also provides board presence. The downside is his dissynergy with tombstalker/FoW. I think we can all agree that stalkers/FoW are more integral to this deck than confidant. However, In approximately 50 games I can honestly say I have yet to lose because of a confidant flip, although in several games I was only saved by sheer luck. This is running 3 each of bob/stalker/nought/clique.
The reason I am still testing confidant in this deck is due to the insanely fast clock this deck can bring which, in conjunction with 8 cantrips allows us to largely mitigate the damage dark confidant can cause while fueling some of the broken plays this deck can muster.
Usually I find confidant is answered rather quickly, becoming a lightning rod for removal. However, in the games in which he sticks for more than a single turn I almost always win, in spite of his damage. I use him very aggressively, swinging for 2 every turn once I have refueled with him, forcing the opponent to take damage or block and kill him off. He also makes a great chump blocker and again brings early board presence to flush out removal/counters. So far my hardest matchups by far have been vs. maverick and bant. Maverick in particular is just brutal with 11-14 answers to dreadnought pre-board! In these matchups I feel any form of CA is almost mandatory.
Anyway none of this is news im sure, just wanted to share.

EDIT: Found this list for reference. While I have been testing with 3 stalkers vs. 2 note that he also includes 2 JTMS. http://http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38344 (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38344)

Metalworker: Interesting take on this list! I have been toying with a deck that actually maindecks REB as a 3-of. When you consider the current meta of popular decks REB can really be seen in the same light as creature removal. That is to say relevent against the majority of decks and occasionally dead and subsequently boarded out games 2-3.
Im not really sold on fire/ice in the flex spot as I think hymn and/or GftT still deals better with the decks you mentioned.
Question: have you tested at all with only 4 stifle effects + 3 dreadnoughts? The reason I ask is that I am considering dropping the lone trickbind I currently run but I havent tested without it yet so I would be interested in your experiences.

GGoober
10-01-2011, 12:07 PM
Giving this list for a spin today :)

Lands: 18
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarns
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Dudes: 12
2 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Delver of Secrets (the new 3/2 flying transform for U)
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Tombstalker

Removal/Reach: 4
4 Lightning Bolt

Cantrip: 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain

Permission: 18
4 Stifle
3 Spell Snare
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Hymn to Tourach

SB: 15
2 Submerge
2 Perish
2 EE
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 REB
3 Extirpate
3 Spell Pierce

The creature package is a little awkward with 2 Dreadnought, but I am trying a less balls-in-the-wall approach. In the past 4 Dreadnoughts required running 2-3 Trickbind/Vision charm to smooth some draws and even then hands without the 2 card combo are awkward. I liked the 3 Dreadnought configuration with 5 stifle/charm effects in the past but I'm trying just 2 Noughts for now. Delver is a card that I'm very impressed, Dreadstalker doesn't play green (you can play G for Goyf) but Delver fits perfectly in the evasive creature package and is a 1-drop so it smooths the turn 1-2 plays much like Nimble Mongoose is regarded as more powerful than Goyf in Canadian Thresh at times.

The red-splash really shores up the Merfolk matchup, and provides a little reach and flexibility for removal since Bolt can be used as either removal or reach. Postboard, I bring in 2 Lavamancer, 2 EE, 1 REB against Merfolks and side out 3rd Tombstalker and Cliques against Merfolks (Dismember sucks for Tombstalker).

Against combo/control, bring in 3 Pierce, 3 Extirpate, 1 REB. Against Zoo/Bant/GW.decks, just pray that they don't resolve multiple Goyfs/Knights. Ideally, Bolt can help out against early Goyfs with Daze/Spell Snare. If you have the board under control, EE/Perish can win the game there.

The list is focused on evasive beaters and all the mana open after dropping creatures should be digging for answers and disrupting. I'll let you guys know how the games go today! :)


EDIT: just cut the 2 Dreadnoughts for 4th STalker and 4th Clique and the deck is much smoother. Still undecided if these 2 slots should be 2 Fire//Ice but that depends if the meta is looking more control/combo than aggro/tribal. Looks like this list won't be posted on this thread in the future if it does well without the dreadnoughts :/

Esper3k
10-01-2011, 05:54 PM
Why don't you play Ponder instead of Preordain?

GGoober
10-01-2011, 06:14 PM
It's Ponder, typo error :P

Went 3-1 split top 4. Losses were to Spiral Tide drawing double Wastelands 2 games. I didn't like Hymn to Tourach main. Delvers were insane. I'll look into Delvers in this deck/archetype for the next few days/weeks. I went into a lot of situation where Delver + Delver/Clique/Tombstalker puts up a 2-turn clock with a bolt in hand.

Optimal lines of play are ideally: turn 1 Stifle/Brainstorm, Turn 2 Delver + Stifle/Brainstorm/Snare, flip Delver, Turn 3 Hymn/Bolt/Ponder/Delver/Clique, Turn 4 Tombstalker and finish them off.

kavu-karl
10-10-2011, 07:07 PM
Hi guys,
I'm currently playing nearly the same version of this deck ("dreadless dreadstalker" ;-) as Metalworker and i'm pondering on the following thing at the moment:
My only difference to Metalworker's list is -3x Vendilion Clique and +3x Dismember to cope with opposing fatties (such as knight of reliquary (--> maze just sucks) or tombstalker).
How do you handle them preboard? Maverick has so much cards we won't see on the battelfield, so it often comes to the point, where we can't counter a knight, which brings them the victory.
I've been testing mainly against maverick (only preboard games) and this is a problem i'm facing regularly (even with Dismember), so i'm interested in your experience...
As you said, i'm not sure if this is the right thread, since our decks are wothout Dreadnoughts, but your startet it :-P
Just reading your last post again and i was wondering if you found an alternative for the hymns main. I must say, i'm a fan of them. It's fun to screw them with Stifles and wWstelands and ruin there hands with hymn at the same time. true tempo play ;-)

GGoober
10-14-2011, 01:29 AM
I went back to the deck's roots, because the UBr nought-less lists were feeling too much of a tempo/control list than what the deck originally is. The original philosophy of the deck is to smash and win. It was a little mentally tiring playing the noughtless lists in the past even thought the heavier tempo-shell was still great. But the deck is really played as a tempo/combo shell (using tempo only to protect your win-conditions). Since most Legacy decks these days are still decks that want to kill you, it's a little tiring playing more alongside the tempo/control role, so I'm back to the roots of the deck :)

I think Delver completely changed how the deck could function (a big reason why I decide to test the older lists/philosophy). The traditional list was more of a all-in 'tempo' deck. It had the tempo role only to resolve and push Dreadstalkers to victory, but without enough protection, you can be very set back despite gaining some tempo. With Delver, your beaters of Delver+Tombstalker really backup the tempo gameplan, so that's your plan B in case your plan A on winning with Dreadstalkers fail.

I moved back to 4 Thoughtseize and 3 Noughts and 3 Vision Charms. This allows us to use Stifles aggressively if we want to play the tempo gameplan. I really love Clique but I think after testing Delver, I prefer the 1 mana v.s. 3 mana. This deck really just functions off 2 lands

The list is trying to win in 2 ways:

1) Tempo plan backed with Delver + Stalker (if you get 2 Delver or 1 Delver + 1 Tombstalker to stick), it's a very fast 2-3 turn clock
2) Thoughtseize/Daze/Fow riding the back of a tombstalker/dreadnought..

Here's the list:

Lands: 18
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Wasteland

Cantrip: 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Dudes: 11
4 Delver
4 Tombstalker
3 Phyrexian Dreadnought

Protection/Permission: 16
4 Thoughtseize
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Snuff Out

Nought-enablers/disruption: 7
4 Stifle
3 Vision Charm

SB:
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Darkblast
3 Extirpate
3 Submerge
2 EE
2 Spell Pierce
3 flex slots (Hymn/Duress, Hymn sucks maindeck for this deck :/)

The spell Pierce over Spell snare because the only 2cmc thing you should care about is GFTT/Pridemage/Counterbalance, which are dealt equally with a pre-emptive Thoughtseize or by Daze/FoW. You worry about removal/cantrip/Top more than GFTT/Pridemage/Counterbalance/Goyf, all of which aren't popular right now.

kavu-karl
10-14-2011, 08:12 AM
Nice list. Sometimes i also feel like going back to the nought would be the right thing. However, at the moment i'm playing a very tempo oriented build of TA. If this brings me disappointing results, maybe i'll also stick to nought again.
How does it work out? Any (perhaps competitive) results?

arebennian
10-14-2011, 10:44 PM
Have you ever tried Mother of Runes in this shell?

It acts like counterbalance by protecting your big threats but also can act like a Goyf wall too, although without the upside of killing anything.

GGoober
10-15-2011, 03:24 AM
My friend played a UGw build with Goyfs and Motther in the past. It was really solid. He called it Noughty Mom. I think the sdeck is still good but it definitely doesn't fall under the dreadstalker philosophy. In fact I realized all the past builds I've posted tended to drift away from the combo-tempo philosophy of the deck. I am going back to the roots. Delver really help I believe. I will test and play the list tomorrow in my local and report any thoughts.

Peace. Benie (OP) you need to play this deck! It's always a deck in my heart that I don't sleeve out because Dreadnought always seem to meet an unhappy meta at every big phase in Legacy in the past: Counterbalanace, then Pridemage, then Misstep, but now it's time to sleeve the beast out again.

Iron Buddha
10-15-2011, 09:02 AM
This deck looks great. It's a pity that I don't have dreadnoughts. All of your card-choices look very reasonable.
Thoughtseize over Hymn, because Thoughtseize is better at protecting your beaters.
Spell Pierce over Snare, since your beaters are big enough to deal with Gofys.
But why Snuff Out over Dismember?

kingsey
10-15-2011, 10:26 AM
My friend played a UGw build with Goyfs and Motther in the past. It was really solid. He called it Noughty Mom. I think the sdeck is still good but it definitely doesn't fall under the dreadstalker philosophy. In fact I realized all the past builds I've posted tended to drift away from the combo-tempo philosophy of the deck. I am going back to the roots. Delver really help I believe. I will test and play the list tomorrow in my local and report any thoughts.

Peace. Benie (OP) you need to play this deck! It's always a deck in my heart that I don't sleeve out because Dreadnought always seem to meet an unhappy meta at every big phase in Legacy in the past: Counterbalanace, then Pridemage, then Misstep, but now it's time to sleeve the beast out again.


Got a list? Sounds interesting

GGoober
10-15-2011, 12:05 PM
@buddha:

Trade for Noughts when they're still cheap now (MM is gone so Dreadstill, Dreadnought decks can be more viable again).

I changed my list a little bit but I'll post it and any results after today.

I'm always mixed on Snuff Out v.s. Dismember. You are really looking at a few things when you're debating on Snuff Out/Dismember.

1) Do you want to kill Bob
2) Do you want to kill Tombstalker
3) Do you want to kill KotR/Pridemage/Goyf/non-Bob/non-Tombstalker etc
4) Do you want to pay 1 mana or none.

For me, 4) always weighs out in the end. The deck is really mana hungry when playing out turns 1-2 using Daze/FoW/Snuff Outs to gain an extra 0.5-1 turn. Since my meta doesn't play both Bob/Tombstalker, I opted for Snuff Out. There are some nice things about Snuff Out being entirely free. You can Thoughtseize/Snuff Out on the same turn or Wasteland/Snuff Out on turn 2 with blue mana floating for Pierce/Brainstorm/Stifle.

But if you fear Tombstalker/Bobs more (and in fact Tombstalker/Bobs are much bigger threats than KotR/Pridemage/Goyf), then feel free to run Dismember. My meta isn't bob/tombstalkers at the moment, that's why I went with Snuff Outs. But the tweaked list I'm playing today is running neither.

Benie Bederios
10-15-2011, 01:49 PM
My friend played a UGw build with Goyfs and Motther in the past. It was really solid. He called it Noughty Mom. I think the sdeck is still good but it definitely doesn't fall under the dreadstalker philosophy. In fact I realized all the past builds I've posted tended to drift away from the combo-tempo philosophy of the deck. I am going back to the roots. Delver really help I believe. I will test and play the list tomorrow in my local and report any thoughts.

Peace. Benie (OP) you need to play this deck! It's always a deck in my heart that I don't sleeve out because Dreadnought always seem to meet an unhappy meta at every big phase in Legacy in the past: Counterbalanace, then Pridemage, then Misstep, but now it's time to sleeve the beast out again.

Yeah, I really want to play this deck... But last year I sold my collection and now I only own LED-Dredge... Maybe if I do well next week in Amsterdam I will get some more cards so I will work again on this baby.

GGoober
11-07-2011, 08:51 PM
Here's the latest list that I felt comfortable playing. We only had 6 players so it was more like playtesting games last weekend:

LANDS: 18
4 Delta
2 Misty
2 Marsh Flats
4 Seas
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland

DUDES: 11
4 Delver
3 Tombstalker
3 Dreadnought
1 Clique

PERMISSION: 14
4 Thoughtseize
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce

CANTRIPS: 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

OTHERS: 9
2 Snuff Out (should have been dismember but I don't own any)
4 Stifle
3 Vision Charm

SB: 15
2 EE
1 Darkblast
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Perish (weakest slot)
2 Submerge
2 Extirpate
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Spell Pierce
1 Clique

A few notes about the list and playing the deck out:

1) 4 Delvers has definitely pushed this deck from Tier 2 to 2.5 to Tier 2 to 1.5 (IMO). Delver is an unsituational beater in the deck that demands attention (as much attention as the traditional Dreadstalkers). With the disruption+tempo package, you can sometimes easily steal wins with a turn 1 Delver.

2) I played a 3/3 Tombstalker/Dreadnought split because despite having 3 Vision Charms and 8 cantrips, I really hate seeing double Tombstalkers/Dreadnoughts. This is a deck where you play cantrips to continue powering a strong gameplan, rather than to fix your draws. I replaced the 4th Tombstalker with a lone clique, which functioned as both a disruption/protection-for Dreadstalkers, and a win-condition (more on that later)

3) 2 Spell Pierces were pretty impressive in the maindeck. I've tried all kinds of spells in this 2 slots (Hymns, Removal, Snares) but I'm pretty sold on the Pierces. It helps keep your Delver/Stalker AND Dreadnoughts alive, while being able to hit game one broken non-creature spells (Top, Natural Order, combo etc). I feel that 2 is the right amount. 3 or more Pierce in the maindeck might create dead draws against heavier aggro matchups (something you want to avoid since your other permission suite is still solid in game 1)

4) The more I play around with the list, the more I realize that the safest turn to ensure Dreadstalker is not turn 2 (unless you open with Thoughtseize into Daze/FoW) but turn 3. With turn 3, you can Stifle/Nought, keeping a mana open for Vision Charm/Pierce/Brainstorm/Stifle. This maximzes your chances of resolving dreadnought safely (on top of Daze/FoW/Thoughtseize). As a result, playing the deck is more than just thinking how you should pressure your opponents while trying to win fast, but rather, it's really about knowing what your deck can do during turns 1 to 2 before going to the critical turn 3 to safely resolve Dreadstalkers.

To emphasize point 4), the real beauty of the deck from what I've been testing is the dense turn 1 plays you can play out without running into any risk of passing the turn and losing tempo. There are situations when playing Tempo Thresh where you play land-go and your opponent plays around Stifle, therefore potentially killing a turn (brainstorming EOT turn 1 is often a bad play although it's not always a bad play depending on the situation). This deck can do almost everything that Tempo Thresh can on turn 1, but has the added ability to run out an additional Thoughtseize plays on turns 1-2 depending on your hand. Thoughtseize not only disrupts an opponent, but it provides information and protects your win-con, so it benefits doubly in those respects, while being able to fit very tightly in the early turn 1-2s.

Another little note with the deck is: the list above is entirely Spell Snare free. My friend was pointing that out to me that he felt Spell Snares were useless against me, and it only then occured to me that the list is 2-cmc free. This is a slight plus in a meta of plentiful of Snapcaster+Snares.

A few thoughts that I've been having and will be testing out when I have time:
1) I have only tested 4 Ponder 4 Brainstorm in this list and I'm intending to try out Preordain. With 8 shuffle effects, I feel that sometimes Ponder was simply not finding the correct card that I wanted. The weakness of Dreadstalker is that it can still run into terrible dead draws (drawing Noughts and double Tombstalkers) and Ponder sometimes creates those situations where you would see a card you need but a card that you don't need, which you can't afford to shuffle it out. I feel that this deck is really digging for one critical spell (whether it's Pierce/Thoughtseize/Stifle/Vision Charm/Dreadstalker) so I'll be giving Preordain some playtesting.

2) I feel that the deck needs 19 lands. Despite being so 1cmc heavy, this deck needs to hit 2-lands to shine whereas Tempo Thresh can still function on 1 land for most parts. The deck needs to hit 3 lands to secure very safe casting of Tombstalker/Dreadnought. I'll be reworking to see if I can fit the 19th land. I was thinking of dropping 2 Dismember for the 19th land and 3rd Pierce but I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that. I do feel that 2 Dismember + 8 cantrips may sometimes not be enough anyway in game 1 against the more problematic aggro matchups so it's better to just streamline the maindeck in being aggressive and then board accordingly against aggro with the SB.

Before this weekend, I was testing the UBr build for a good month. It felt good on paper, but the 3-color manabase just does not work if you're playing Tombstalkers and 18 lands (even with 8 cantrips). It's also a reason why most Team American lists have gone up to 20+ lands because Tombstalker puts a constraint on the manabase. I decided to give up on the UBr build despite lightning bolt being incredible with a maindeck of Delver + Tombstalker with bolt reach, and bolt hitting almost everything and not being dead in the meta right now.

Scrum
11-17-2011, 11:00 PM
I have been playtesting this deck lately, and I'm wondering if Dark Confidant could be included again. If so, what would a version with Dark Confidant look like?

NesretepNoj
11-18-2011, 03:08 AM
I have been playtesting this deck lately, and I'm wondering if Dark Confidant could be included again.

To my knowledge, Dark Confidant has never been a part of the deck?

Even though Bob is a great card, he doesn't belong in this deck. This is a tempo-based semi-combo deck. Playing Dark Confidant on turn two is counter productive. You should either be playing a game winning thread or be disrupting the opponent in order to accomplish the former goal asap.

bradstone
11-29-2011, 12:34 PM
I've been looking into this deck and I'm a little confused about vision charm. If you play a dreadnaught and phase it out before its trigger resolves, does it phase back in as a dreadnaught with no trigger?

Michael Keller
11-29-2011, 12:46 PM
That is correct. With Phyrexian Dreadnought's triggered ability on the stack, you phase it out with Vision Charm. Since the Dreadnought is no longer in play, the trigger will 'fizzle.' Phasing does not trigger "enters the battlefield" effects, so the Dreadnought comes back onto the battlefield ready to go.

GGoober
11-29-2011, 02:19 PM
Hollywood explained it, essentially phasing is a mechanic on its own, when an object phases in and out, it's doing exactly what the card says i.e. phasing. All Auras/equipments attached to the phasing object phases out with it as well, so they do not fall off, unlike the case for 'coming into play/entering the battlefield'.

Another important thing to note is that Vision Charm acts a little differently from Stifle in regards to the Stiflenought plan. For people wishing to learn and pick up the deck, Vision Charm provides additional benefit that Stifle does not when you are on the Stiflenought plan.

Vision Charm phases Dreadnought out, so that on your turn and your opponent's turn, the resolved Dreadnought is no longer in play, hence immune to any removal until your next untap phase where it phases back in after your upkeep. At this point, you have mana open for either digging with a Brainstorm or countering removal with Spell Pierce or Stifling an EE/Pridemage trigger or using another Vision Charm to phase Dreadnought out in response to removal.

Vision Charm after a resolved Stiflenought is essentially a 1cmc spell that protects Dreadnought from removal. StP dreadnought in response Vision Charm etc.

There are some cases where you should use Stifle instead of Vision Charm for your stiflenought plan if you have both charm/stifle in hand. Usually I will use Stifles if I need Dreadnought to block a turn (usually in the mid-game) or I have previously casted Thoughtseize and found no removal in my opponent's hand. This way, when you untap you can potentially still have a Vision Charm in hand against an opponent's removal if he draws it a turn later.

Some subtleties but they are important when playing the deck more optimally. I still make a number of mistakes. I used to scorn a little when I draw multiple Charms, but saving them in your hand for cantrips digging into multiple Dreadnoughts/Stalkers or feeding them towards a Brainstorm are all decent plays. Don't blow your Vision Charms needlessly the way blowing cantrips needlessly is a bad play. Another note with the deck with my configuration below is: the safest turn to resolve Dread/stalker is on turn 3. If you have a bunch of Daze/FoW/Thoughtseize in hand, you can usually go all out for a turn 2 Dread/stalker, but on turn 3 you should be able to guarantee safer resolved Dread/stalker, keeping the 3rd mana open for Brainstorm/Pierce/Vision Charm.

Anyway, here's the latest list that I've been tweaking last week. I was uncomfortable with 18 lands for the deck, and wanted to ensure that I hit at least 1-2 lands more frequently by turn 2. Aside from the added 19th land and 9th cantrip (taking the slots of 2 Dismember that I've moved to the board allowing for a more aggressive game-one playout), the list is essentially the same ever since Delver has been spoiled. And all these Delver/Stalker/nought lists floating around out there, it's essentially Dreadstalker :P

19 Lands:
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

9 Cantrip:
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Preordain (was considering 1 Top instead of Preordain but I wanted straightforward consistency with FoW and Delver)

11 Dudes:
4 Delver
4 Tombstalker (I cut the lone clique for the 4th Stalker again. Clique just isn't too good in this deck when you're trying to kill by turn 4)
3 Dreadnought

14 Permission:
4 Thoughtseize
4 Daze
4 Fow
2 Spell Pierce (2 feels like the optimal number from many testing)

7 Others:
4 Stifle
3 Vision Charm


15 Sideboard:
3 Submerge
2 EE
2 Dismember
1 Darkblast
2 Extirpate
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Spell Pierce
2 Vendilion Clique

bradstone
11-29-2011, 03:25 PM
How has a build like that been working out for you tournament wise? I'm trying to build something for this weekend and I'm debating a dreadstalker build vs. UB Tempo with snapcaster, delver, and stalker.

GGoober
11-29-2011, 04:09 PM
Our locals are small 10-14 players. I've had successes and failures with the deck. I've succeeded more with the recent straight-foward UB build as opposed to the UBr build with Bolts MD and lavamancers/REBs/Firespout in the SB. I Top 4'd three times in about 5-6 tourneys but given the small sample size it probably isn't very empirical evidence. The deck does play smoothly and strong compared to the old lists without Delvers.

Whether it is better than UB snapcaster + delver/stalker I don't know because I have not tested those lists, but i know that this is a much more aggressive list than regular Tempo lists that I have played in the past (Canadian, UB Faeries etc).

The deck can shit on itself when you draw multiple Stalkers or Dreadnoughts or have a lone-dreadnought answered after blowing resources, but I blame it more on myself for not knowing how to pilot my plays correctly and not optimizing card-slots and deckspace.

ImpinAintEasy
12-01-2011, 03:10 PM
I've been messing around with a build on MTGO. Testing has been minimal so far, but I plan on doing much more over the weekend. I like the Torpor Orb idea to shut off all those SFM's and Snappys running around, not to mention V Clique.

I haven't really missed the charm effects, spend early turns disrupting their removal or save counters to protect your dude much like New Horizons did in the past.

Here is my list. (Sorry no card links atm)

Lands (20)
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Island
4 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Academy Ruins

Creatures (10)
4 Phyrexian Dreadnough
4 Dark Confidant
2 Hunted Horror

Artifact (4)
4 Torpor Orb

Sorcery (11)
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize
3 Hymn to Tourach

Instants (15)
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Snare (Maybe this should be Spell Pierce?)

Sideboard (15) - still needs work imo
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Go for the Throat
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Energy Flux
2 Spell Pierce
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

GGoober
06-06-2012, 10:11 AM
Interestingly, Jace's Phantasm has a slight fit to this deck.

Jace's Phantasm (U)
1/1 Flying, +4/+4 if opponent has 10 or more cards in Graveyard.

The idea how Jace's Phantasm fits naturally in the deck is its slight synergy with Vision Charm (milling your opponents for 4). In the same light where you can Charmill yourself for 4 to setup for Tombstalker, I'm somewhat convinced that the Phantasm is potentially more effective in the mid-game than Tombstalkers.

Some rough notes (I will need to test at some point)
Tombstalkers usually come down on turn 3 in the deck (you want to keep a mana open against Daze, for Brainstorm or Pierce for protection to maximize the effectiveness of Tombstalkers surviving). So ideally, you are swinging with Tombstalkers on turn 4 with protection.

Jace's Phantasm will ideally come down on turn 4 or 5 depending if you setup with a Vision Charm, so it will be 1-2 turns slower and that's the biggest drawback of running this guy instead of Tombstalkers. However, once you hit the mark of 10 cards, every Jace's Phantasm becomes increasingly mana-efficient than subsequent Tombstalkers. I need to see if shifting the deck towards more early disruption and focusing on kills on turn 6-7 is worthwhile. For most parts, it is not easy to get turn 4-5 kills with this deck since it would mean that you need to bank on Dreadnought/Tombstalker surviving.

Of course, Delver isn't the card that's replaced, but a hypothesized list for Charmnought could follow as:


Lands: 18
4 Wasteland
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Underground Sea
2 Island

Creatures: 12
4 Delver
4 Dreadnought
4 Jace's Phantasm

Cantrips: 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Deck-enablers/disruption: 8
4 Stifle
4 Vision Charm

Permission: 14
4 FoW
3 Pierce
4 Daze
3 Removal


I personally think that you can even go with a monoblue build running Dismembers for removal and adding some Mishra's Factory for some added threat density with this given build. You dodge the BB restriction of Tombstalker's cost, so depending on what you're fighting against, a UR build with Bolts and Forked bolt and REBs in the SB could also be decent.

Just an idea throwing it out.

Madmankevinx
01-05-2015, 06:36 PM
Anyone else think this deck needs a comeback!? I think it could be viable right now with perhaps a green splash for abrupt decay. In testing, counterbalance is a problem and so are random creatures that just get there against this deck while you are trying to get a fatty out after having your first attempt thwarted.