[Deck] Canadian Thresh (a.k.a. RUG Tempo, Tempo Thresh)

[Dewman]

With this logic, there's no reason to play Stifle in the MD, because people are always going to play around it as soon as they see anything that resembles Canadian Thresh (Tropical Island, Volcanic Island, Delver, etc.).

But I found that I needed to punish my meta. So I played 4 Daze and 4 Stifle.

There are plenty of players that don't know how to play around Stifle + Daze

[Asthereal]

But I found that I needed to punish my meta. So I played 4 Daze and 4 Stifle.

There are plenty of players that don't know how to play around Stifle + Daze
Or just cannot. Sometimes it's just impossible to play around Stifle + Daze without mulling to 5 and losing because you have less resources.

[Vandalize]

So... what are people playing in those last 2~3 slots in the maindeck? I've used to use Forked Bolt, when Maverick was a thing, but now it seems so bad. Maybe Fire//Ice could be a fine replacement, or even Chain Lightnings.

My list is pretty standard, as Canadian often plays itself.

4 Wasteland
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
2 Fire//Ice
SB: 3 Submerge
SB: 3 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Rough//Tumble
SB: 2 Divert
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Flusterstorm

Fire//Ice has been working fine. But it still lackluster. Maybe Chain Lightning is a better replacement.

[jin]

With this logic, there's no reason to play Stifle in the MD, because people are always going to play around it as soon as they see anything that resembles Canadian Thresh (Tropical Island, Volcanic Island, Delver, etc.).

With this logic there is no reason to play Daze in the MB, because people will always play around it as soon as they see anything that resembles Tempo Thresh.

[Asthereal]

A friend of mine now plays Chain Lightning and tends to top-8 with it, so he's pretty content with that choice.

[Einherjer]

A friend of mine now plays Dismember and tends to win with it, so he's pretty content with that choice.

Joking aside, I still think that Dismember is the best option to be had. Though it cannot hit the opponent it handles so many problematic creatures like Goyfs, Germs and sometimes Knights. Obv it'll hit smaller creatures too making it a perfect addition to Lightning Bolt. Being Instant and castable from every land is a bonus too.

Greetings

[Barbed Blightning]

With this logic there is no reason to play Daze in the MB, because people will always play around it as soon as they see anything that resembles Tempo Thresh.

...trollololol?

Playing around stuff still generates advantage, even if you don't have it in hand. Obvious, I know, just had to say it

[jin]

A friend of mine now plays Dismember and tends to win with it, so he's pretty content with that choice.

Joking aside, I still think that Dismember is the best option to be had. Though it cannot hit the opponent it handles so many problematic creatures like Goyfs, Germs and sometimes Knights. Obv it'll hit smaller creatures too making it a perfect addition to Lightning Bolt. Being Instant and castable from every land is a bonus too.

Greetings

I also like Dismember. Tempo Thresh has too many problems with Tarmogoyf to not play something that can remove it.


...trollololol?

Playing around stuff still generates advantage, even if you don't have it in hand. Obvious, I know, just had to say it

I thought it was productive. His argument was a fallacy. I was just trying to point that out. Although I don't normally board out Stifles, I have heard that people have been successful with that strategy. Who are we to say this is wrong?

[DragoFireheart]

Just not true. If you think your stifle is shit after Turn 3 maybe thats why you keep it open too often and screw up your game.
Most common game winning late stifles:
Stifle fetch #4+ to make daze a live card
Stifle fetch #n to screw up brainscentral recall and make your opponent draw again his shit.
Stifle Terminus or Entreat
Stifle Storm Trigger
Stifle Batterskull enter the battlefield effect.
Stifle Engineered Explosivs
Stifle liliana -2
Stifle cascade
Stifle the creation of Jitte counters
Stifle Snapcaster Mage come into play
Stifle Stoneforge come into play
Stifle Anihilator 6


If I read again that stifle loses it's value whereas thought-scour has always value my head will explode. Please wcm8, you don't want me dead right? :tongue:

Thought-scour always has value and stifle loses its value.

j/k.

Few more for the list:

Stifle Grislebrand trigger (trolololololol)
Stifle JTMS -1 (especially nice if they were counting on bouncing your Delver or Goyf).
Stifle RiP "enter the battlefield" ability.
Stifle Pernicious Deed (classic one).

Stifle never loses its value. It's a very skill-test card.

[Sigar]

I thought it was productive. His argument was a fallacy. I was just trying to point that out. Although I don't normally board out Stifles, I have heard that people have been successful with that strategy. Who are we to say this is wrong?

If you think people can play around Stifle and therefor board it out, it's a complete waste to run it in the MD in the first place.

[jin]

If you think people can play around Stifle and therefor board it out, it's a complete waste to run it in the MD in the first place.

My point is, if you feel that is true, then the same should hold true for Daze.

[Sigar]

My point is, if you feel that is true, then the same should hold true for Daze.

Yes, that is true for Daze as well. If I thought people could beneficially play around Stifle (or Daze for that matter) I wouldn't be playing those cards in the first place.

Please stop making an argument that's not even there.

[Pherion]

I think we can sum up this argument with the concept of Virtual Card Advantage. With regards to RUG I define it as an indirect advantage related to the play-ability of cards in the opponents hand. For instance, the following situations cause the opponent to virtually have fewer cards in hand followed by the cards that generate this kind of advantage:

The inability to play a spell because of lack of resources (wasteland, stifle)
The inability to play a spell for fear of it being countered (daze, spell pierce, spell snare)
The inability to play a spell for fear of losing a land (stifle)

These are the "playaround" concepts. Just because you aren't playing the card, doesn't mean you aren't generating tempo. Watching an opponent wait until they have 7 mana to play a Jace (to play around pierce and daze) is just fine by me! That's an extra three turns my delver hits him, and it's likely I'll have another threat down then too. At that point in the game, it's likely Jace doesn't matter any more. That just one example of how your opponent being afraid of these cards works.

Now, if they don't see them in game 1 or game 2 - a smart player will not play around them in game 3. So if you actually don't have them, you'll lose all of this implied advantage. If you do have them however, and show them off game 1 and 2, then you get all the implied advantage game 3!

Cheers,
Frank

[jin]

Yes, that is true for Daze as well. If I thought people could beneficially play around Stifle (or Daze for that matter) I wouldn't be playing those cards in the first place.

Please stop making an argument that's not even there.

I just wanted to make clear where your priorities are. I'm not making an argument.


I think we can sum up this argument with the concept of Virtual Card Advantage. With regards to RUG I define it as an indirect advantage related to the play-ability of cards in the opponents hand. For instance, the following situations cause the opponent to virtually have fewer cards in hand followed by the cards that generate this kind of advantage:

The inability to play a spell because of lack of resources (wasteland, stifle)
The inability to play a spell for fear of it being countered (daze, spell pierce, spell snare)
The inability to play a spell for fear of losing a land (stifle)

These are the "playaround" concepts. Just because you aren't playing the card, doesn't mean you aren't generating tempo. Watching an opponent wait until they have 7 mana to play a Jace (to play around pierce and daze) is just fine by me! That's an extra three turns my delver hits him, and it's likely I'll have another threat down then too. At that point in the game, it's likely Jace doesn't matter any more. That just one example of how your opponent being afraid of these cards works.

Now, if they don't see them in game 1 or game 2 - a smart player will not play around them in game 3. So if you actually don't have them, you'll lose all of this implied advantage. If you do have them however, and show them off game 1 and 2, then you get all the implied advantage game 3!

Cheers,
Frank

Thank you. I couldn't have said it better.

[catmint]

The staments are true, but virtual card advantage means a different thing to me. What you describe is more "virtual tempo advantage".

Virtual card advantage in RUG means we get by with only 2-3 lands due to our curve beeing super low (including 8 free spells) whereas a lot of other decks need 4+ lands to cast all their spells and/or play more spells in 1 turn.

So you can see it in a way that the UW opponent needing 2+ more lands to function properly they have to draw 2+ more spells which he can trade to equal our spells.

[Blaze22]

Virtual card advantage is generated when your opponent can not cast some of the cards in his hand, making them virtually dead for a long period of time as if he actually had less cards in hand than you.

I want to present here an interesting situation that happened to me last night in a local tourney:

I know my opponent is on BUG delver, I'm on the play and I open with a fetch into volcanic island. The rest of my hand is "stifle, daze, brainstorm, fetch, waste, pierce". my opponent draws, plays underground sea into delver.

question: do you daze that guy?

[pavlaugh]

I think we can sum up this argument with the concept of Virtual Card Advantage. With regards to RUG I define it as an indirect advantage related to the play-ability of cards in the opponents hand. For instance, the following situations cause the opponent to virtually have fewer cards in hand followed by the cards that generate this kind of advantage:

The inability to play a spell because of lack of resources (wasteland, stifle)
The inability to play a spell for fear of it being countered (daze, spell pierce, spell snare)
The inability to play a spell for fear of losing a land (stifle)

These are the "playaround" concepts. Just because you aren't playing the card, doesn't mean you aren't generating tempo. Watching an opponent wait until they have 7 mana to play a Jace (to play around pierce and daze) is just fine by me! That's an extra three turns my delver hits him, and it's likely I'll have another threat down then too. At that point in the game, it's likely Jace doesn't matter any more. That just one example of how your opponent being afraid of these cards works.

Now, if they don't see them in game 1 or game 2 - a smart player will not play around them in game 3. So if you actually don't have them, you'll lose all of this implied advantage. If you do have them however, and show them off game 1 and 2, then you get all the implied advantage game 3!

Cheers,
Frank

Virtual card advantage diminishes the more aggressive you are (as in your example, a Delver + another threat). A competent player will realize the point at which they need to pull the trigger on their spells and stop playing around possibilities. Perhaps that's one of the reasons RUG is so good, though. Bad play really gets punished (as in your example, with a game loss). And even if you do have threats, VCA will likely allow you to connect with some extra damage.

VCA works very well when you have no threats because your opponent has no immediate need to run into your daze/spell pierce. The problem, of course, is that if your opponent keeps drawing lands and actually hits 7 mana without you dealing most of your damage, you're probably going to lose. I think VCA is ideal when (1) you have little threats; and (2) your opponent has not enough lands to play around daze/pierce/stifle.

[wcm8]

A useful interaction that's frequently been relevant for me lately is the one between Thought Scour and unflipped Delvers. Delver lets you peek at the next draw, and you can then determine if you want to filter it away with Scour. I've always loved Predict, but the extra mana is the problem.

[rancOr_]

Well there are better cards to play then thought scour and fethlands also do that kinda^ I just don't get the need to play scour in this deck. If you play it good it's not needed at all and as said u have way better slots.

[Zorander]

Well there are better cards to play then thought scour and fethlands also do that kinda^ I just don't get the need to play scour in this deck. If you play it good it's not needed at all and as said u have way better slots.

Well i guess this has been discussed over and over but personnaly I love thought scour (still I only play 1). If you have a Mongoose in your starting hand, thought scour will often mean "U instant : target player loses 4 life, draw a card". It also help with submerge, it does some kind of shuffle effect, it can mess with top, it can creates surprising dmg or blocks.( with only fetch moogoose in play and 3 card in the graveyard, your opponend will nearly never predict the upcoming threshold).
And don't forget that it does all of this while only being a 1 blue cantrip.

[Pherion]

Thought Scour is better when the field is full of Combo. If your opponent is threatening to go off on turn 2-3, then a 1/1 Mongoose feels really bad. Thought Scour makes him a 3/3 quick enough to race a combo match. A few months ago when Show and Tell was the deck to play, I ran three Thought Scours, and they destroyed the combo players because I could land a mongoose and have him hit for 3 on turn 2.

When the field is diverse or even leaning towards fair decks as it has been (though Storm is coming up) then Thought Scour is not as good. You don't need to force out that 3/3 mongoose quite as quickly. Still, I'd play one.

[Goddik]

Virtual card advantage is generated when your opponent can not cast some of the cards in his hand, making them virtually dead for a long period of time as if he actually had less cards in hand than you.

I want to present here an interesting situation that happened to me last night in a local tourney:

I know my opponent is on BUG delver, I'm on the play and I open with a fetch into volcanic island. The rest of my hand is "stifle, daze, brainstorm, fetch, waste, pierce". my opponent draws, plays underground sea into delver.

question: do you daze that guy?


First point, i would not have fetched volcanic in the dark because you don't need to and it can put you in awkward spots if you need to brainstorm into bolt. Given that he is BUG delver he most likely doesn't have stifle and will tap out on turns 1-2 anyways so i would have just left the fetch uncracked.

Our hand is really good. Patience is key here. His delver isn't going to kill you anytime soon and there are plenty of answers in the deck for it, but tarmogoyf might get you far behind if you let it resolve => your daze is better left for more important battles. I would say ok to delver.

Plan with that hand is to deny his mana which is pretty fragile if he doesnt have DRS (which I might have dazed). waste him and say go with the plan to brainstorm in t3 looking for wastelands, stifles, threaths and dazes.
If we manage to resolve both stifle and wasteland he is very likely out of lands given that he plays around 20 and most of his good cards cost 2 mana. We have plenty of time to draw lightning bolt or our own delver to match his. The delver wont help him if he has no lands.

[catmint]

Agree on not dazing - trying to win the game "by screw" has huge potential. Even if not winning by total screw being behind on the board and life total can at least be equalized by waste/stifle/daze. If he then goes land non-creature spell I would pierce (especially ponder) so I can have 2 lands next turn and my daze for a creature. The worst case would be land-deathrite which we would need to daze. In that case I would fire the brainstorm to look for a lightning bolt so I have stifle, pierce open with the option of bolt eot.

Interesting that virtual card advantage does not mean what I thought. It apparently focuses more on the opponent having dead cards in hand or him need to play around a lot of stuff. Is there a word for what I described: having more spells to trade because the curve being much lower than the average opponents curve allowing lower land count and filtering lands away with cantrips?

[Goddik]

Agree on not dazing - trying to win the game "by screw" has huge potential. Even if not winning by total screw being behind on the board and life total can at least be equalized by waste/stifle/daze. If he then goes land non-creature spell I would pierce (especially ponder) so I can have 2 lands next turn and my daze for a creature. The worst case would be land-deathrite which we would need to daze. In that case I would fire the brainstorm to look for a lightning bolt so I have stifle, pierce open with the option of bolt eot.

Interesting that virtual card advantage does not mean what I thought. It apparently focuses more on the opponent having dead cards in hand or him need to play around a lot of stuff. Is there a word for what I described: having more spells to trade because the curve being much lower than the average opponents curve allowing lower land count and filtering lands away with cantrips?

Card efficiency perhaps?

[wcm8]

An idea taken from Joe Losset's UW Miracles list: main-decking Misdirection.

Why?
-Still wins a counter-war
-Can lead to blow-outs if you misdirect removal or discard spells
-The current metagame certainly seems to warrant it

Why not?
-Doesn't actually counter things that might need countered
-Can be essentially useless against some decks -- a high-risk, high-reward type of card
-This approach might be more applicable for a control deck. Tempo might not really need/want the effect as much as it needs FoW.

He runs 2/2 FoW/Misdirection, with an additional copy of each in the sideboard. This inclusion goes a long way towards making matchups like Jund and BUG Control lot easier. I find myself siding out FoW a lot of the time against matchups where Misdirection would be golden. I think the justification for this would highly depend on your local meta. I'm definitely planning on giving it a whirl at the next local tourney.

[pavlaugh]

I think the justification for this would highly depend on your local meta. I'm definitely planning on giving it a whirl at the next local tourney.
For sure. It's not good against combo, but it's great against fair decks, especially Jund. Regardless, in RUG I like Divert better than Misdirection.

[Blaze22]

First point, i would not have fetched volcanic in the dark because you don't need to and it can put you in awkward spots if you need to brainstorm into bolt. Given that he is BUG delver he most likely doesn't have stifle and will tap out on turns 1-2 anyways so i would have just left the fetch uncracked.

Our hand is really good. Patience is key here. His delver isn't going to kill you anytime soon and there are plenty of answers in the deck for it, but tarmogoyf might get you far behind if you let it resolve => your daze is better left for more important battles. I would say ok to delver.

Plan with that hand is to deny his mana which is pretty fragile if he doesnt have DRS (which I might have dazed). waste him and say go with the plan to brainstorm in t3 looking for wastelands, stifles, threaths and dazes.
If we manage to resolve both stifle and wasteland he is very likely out of lands given that he plays around 20 and most of his good cards cost 2 mana. We have plenty of time to draw lightning bolt or our own delver to match his. The delver wont help him if he has no lands.

Thanks for your answers, at this point I think I lost that game because i actually dazed that delver... well, I have another question about that matchup, because it seems to become more and more common right now: how do you sideboard against the bug delver? and is it worth to put 2/3 copies of misdirection or divert in the sideboard?

[Goddik]

The matchup primarily revolves around their manabase which is incredibly fragile. DRS needs to die and wasteland is king

With my list i would board

OTP
-2 Force
-1 Pierce
+3 Submerge

OTD
-2 Daze
-1 Pierce
+3 Submerge

They will probably board out their forces and/or hymns to bring in removal. It is better for us if they shave the forces then the hymns as they generally shouldn't have the time to muck around with hymn and force can help them force through key plays that keep their lands/goyfs on the table.

I would not bother with misdirection or divert. If they take out their hymns they become substansially worse and they are already narrow as is. I might be wrong on that one though.

[Blaze22]

I would not bother with misdirection or divert. If they take out their hymns they become substansially worse and they are already narrow as is. I might be wrong on that one though.

I play 3 pierces main and they're pretty bad in this matchup. most of the times I never want to see them at all, whereas a divert or misdirection would be a blowout against them. tarmogoyf is a problem. decay is a problem. misdirection solves them both with a single move if we play smart ;)

what about the 1x life from the loam? should I bring it in after sb?

[Goddik]

Certainly, if you have it in your board then i expect it to be exactly for this type of matchup.

I have personally been slightly dissappointed with loam in canadian as i feel it is too slow/cumbersome to actually make an impact, but it might be its time to shine again. I expect it might also be pretty good against the jund lists.

What is your experiences with loam in the current meta?

[wcm8]

What is your experiences with loam in the current meta?

Having 1 slot devoted to the card is a worthwhile expenditure as long as Wasteland and Dual-heavy manabases are a thing.

[Blaze22]

What is your experiences with loam in the current meta?

I have 1x lftl in side since january and I think it is worth it. yeah sometimes it feels a bit cumbersome because you're basically switching your game plan from tempo to control, but wastelanding one land per turn is huge (vs esper, 12post, jund, mud, mirror, bug control and even more) and sometimes you can also use it as a tempo card by dredging it to pump your mongoose right away.
my doubt is in the bug delver matchup, where they have no basics but their curve is very low and tapping out every turn to waste their lands sometimes is not what you want to do, expecially if they have a threat already going... but still, the mana denial is the key in this matchup so... what to do here?

[Goddik]

I have 1x lftl in side since january and I think it is worth it. yeah sometimes it feels a bit cumbersome because you're basically switching your game plan from tempo to control, but wastelanding one land per turn is huge (vs esper, 12post, jund, mud, mirror, bug control and even more) and sometimes you can also use it as a tempo card by dredging it to pump your mongoose right away.
my doubt is in the bug delver matchup, where they have no basics but their curve is very low and tapping out every turn to waste their lands sometimes is not what you want to do, expecially if they have a threat already going... but still, the mana denial is the key in this matchup so... what to do here?


I think your last sentence really summed up my attitude to loam. Key thing i think, if you choose to play it is to choose wisely when you play it. I.e play it when you have a land drop left over on an empty board for example. It is traditionally the nuts against team america, so it should be the same now.

[xfire]

This is my first post and the topic may have been brought up in one of the OVER 9000 pages of this thread, but i i wanted to know what your guys thoughts on sylvan library in RUG were. I have just added it on modo and up till today have yet to see it come up; then it happened, i had it in a game three against affinity where my opponent, by turn two, had dropped an ornothopter, signal pest, and a vault skrige. tapped a dude with spring leaf to draw two cards. My board is trop, waste, sylvan library, my had is good for the match in my mind, i have a two for one with forked bolt along side a goyf and goose; but looking at this board state i feel a little behind. I assume there is a plating coming next turn to give a dude some srys paints. Sylvan library activation reveals three dead cards, i keep one throw the others away and ponder; the third card down is also a blank and i shuffle to draw another forked bolt. So far i have enough card advantage from the forked bolts, or i feel i do, along with a fresh three cards next turn. I just need to doge a plate or a stone forge for one, and with some luck i do. The next three cards turn up some gas with goyf, volcanic island and another card. i take out his pest and vault and from here the game was down hill and i bury him in card slection and advantage with my two for one and 12 life for three cards when i needed a clear top to dig further with brain storm.
Anyways i was just wondering if this card is something you guys have felt is dominating once resolved or was this just a case of good draws and lucky dodges for a few turns while i built my mana and board state to combat his.

For refferance this is my list
4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
2 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Sylvan Library
3 Force of Will
4 Stifle
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Daze
2 Spell Snare
2 Forked Bolt
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nimble Mongoose

Sideboard
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Submerge
2 Rough/Tumble
1 Krosan Grip
1 Life from the Loam
1 Force of Will
2 Pyroblast

[cheerios]

Which cards should we board out postboard vs jund?

[lordoftheboard]

Hey everybody,

I'm going to GP Starsbourg and still haven't decided how should my main&side look like.
I came up with 2 close builds. With the first one I succeeded to win a GPT and has Lavamancer Main, second is more classic.
1st build:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Nimble Moongoose
2 Grim Lavamancer

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
4 Stifle

4 Lighting Bolt
2 Forked Bolt

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

18 Lands

SB:
2 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Submerge
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Spell Snare
1 Envelop
1 Scavenging Ooze

2nd build:
Main:
- 2 Grim Lavamancer
+ 1 Nimble Moongoose
+ 1 Spell Snare
SB:
- 1 Spell Snare
- 1 Scevenging Ooze
+2 Rough/Tumble

I was really satisfied with how the Lavamancers performed, as they are good even vs. Stoneblade, but I am not 100% sold on them.
Any thoughts about upcoming GP meta and suggestion for how according to you RUG should look like?

[jin]

Which cards should we board out postboard vs jund?

Thoughtscour seems less useful. FOW is generally the card that comes out. It would be a major hit to your tempo to FOW a cascaded card. It all depends on how many cards you need to bring in and what your 75 looks like.

[Pherion]

i wanted to know what your guys thoughts on sylvan library in RUG were.

It is a very good card, mostly against control. I'd take it out for aggro or combo match-ups as it's way too slow to be worthwhile there. If it resolves against Stoneblade, Maricles or BUG Control - you've got a serious advantage. The card advantage is more than enough to push you to the top of the game, but in these matches where your life total isn't being attacked you can afford to spend some life to dig through your deck and find the real good cards.

I'm running one library main deck right now, and I like it. I wouldn't suggest any more than one, and I wouldn't object to seeing it in the board instead of the main either. That all comes down to metta and play style. But by itself it is a great card to include in RUG, especially with the currently slow metta.

Cheers.

[ceustice]

SCG Atlanta Invitational Top 8 had 0 RUG Delver and the Legacy Open Top 16 had 0 RUG Delver lists. What do you guys think of this? Just a hostile meta, pour number of players?

[Arsenal]

SCG Atlanta Invitational Top 8 had 0 RUG Delver and the Legacy Open Top 16 had 0 RUG Delver lists. What do you guys think of this? Just a hostile meta, pour number of players?

Seems like midrange and creature-based decks are still sticking around in the meta, despite the presence of combo, making RUG Delver a less good deck choice.

[cheerios]

Thoughtscour seems less useful. FOW is generally the card that comes out. It would be a major hit to your tempo to FOW a cascaded card. It all depends on how many cards you need to bring in and what your 75 looks like.


Is it a bad idea to board in sulfuric vortex? I was thinking of using it as a means to shutdown punishing fire but it seems like a bad idea since jund is more aggresive of the two. Is jund really that bad of a matchup or is it something like maverick which is 50/50 for me if you know how to ply against it.

[Arsenal]

Jund has more removal (4 of which can't be countered by you) than you have threats, on top of running more creatures than you have counter + removal for. Throw in hand disruption, and Jund is a really tough matchup.

[cheerios]

SCG Atlanta Invitational Top 8 had 0 RUG Delver and the Legacy Open Top 16 had 0 RUG Delver lists. What do you guys think of this? Just a hostile meta, pour number of players?

I think there is a need to bring back forked bolt and even sulfur elemental perhaps? Esperblade can be pretty difficult to beat without forked bolt.

[ceustice]

I've actually been thinking about testing Arc Trail it seems to fit the needs of the deck way better right now. Even though it is at that iffy mana cost area being able to Kill Bob, BBE, 2 souls, a SFM and 1 to the face, or a Bob and Deathrite Shaman seems to really be where this deck needs to be right now.

[jin]

Is it a bad idea to board in sulfuric vortex? I was thinking of using it as a means to shutdown punishing fire but it seems like a bad idea since jund is more aggresive of the two. Is jund really that bad of a matchup or is it something like maverick which is 50/50 for me if you know how to ply against it.

I'm no expert, but others have reported that Sulfuric Vortex is a card against Jund. Tempo Thresh is more aggressive earlier on. Sulfuric Vortex helps get there when the midrange deck's power band kicks in and their cards begin to take over. Sulfuric Vortex is a means to seal out the game if they run out of Abrupt Decays. Tarmogoyf usually draws in Decay, so Sulfuric Vortex has some power. Also, your burns are actually more aggressive, because Jund cuts Lightning Bolt in favour of Punishing Fires and Maelstrom Pulse, which is slower or does no damage to you directly.

The match up analysis really does depend on build and pilot. A poorly piloted Jund deck can be a good match up for you if they run into your Stifles and Wastelands. I would say many match ups are 50% by this alone. Don't worry too much about percentages though. Just worry about your strategy on beating Jund. Where is Tempo Thresh strong than Jund? Tempo Thresh needs to keep Jund restricted of its resources. It needs to beat down and hard before Jund gets up to 5 mana. You MUST take care of the Deathrite Shamans. Everything else just depends on how aggressive you are. Use Spell Snare/Spell Pierce to hit Hymn to Tourachs.

[cheerios]

I'm no expert, but others have reported that Sulfuric Vortex is a card against Jund. Tempo Thresh is more aggressive earlier on. Sulfuric Vortex helps get there when the midrange deck's power band kicks in and their cards begin to take over. Sulfuric Vortex is a means to seal out the game if they run out of Abrupt Decays. Tarmogoyf usually draws in Decay, so Sulfuric Vortex has some power. Also, your burns are actually more aggressive, because Jund cuts Lightning Bolt in favour of Punishing Fires and Maelstrom Pulse, which is slower or does no damage to you directly.

The match up analysis really does depend on build and pilot. A poorly piloted Jund deck can be a good match up for you if they run into your Stifles and Wastelands. I would say many match ups are 50% by this alone. Don't worry too much about percentages though. Just worry about your strategy on beating Jund. Where is Tempo Thresh strong than Jund? Tempo Thresh needs to keep Jund restricted of its resources. It needs to beat down and hard before Jund gets up to 5 mana. You MUST take care of the Deathrite Shamans. Everything else just depends on how aggressive you are. Use Spell Snare/Spell Pierce to hit Hymn to Tourachs.

Thanks for the input. I'll keep these in mind next time I face Jund.

[Blaze22]

SCG Atlanta Invitational Top 8 had 0 RUG Delver and the Legacy Open Top 16 had 0 RUG Delver lists. What do you guys think of this? Just a hostile meta, pour number of players?

I have the answer: there are poor players piloting the deck. I watched all the video coverage of the event and rug was on screen for around 4-5 rounds. every single game they lost due to a stupid/not so stupid mistake.
this deck is very difficult to play, you have to know the meta, you have to know the archetypes... you have to know how to use cantrips, how to use fow, daze, how to PLAY STIFLE, how and when to establish a denial plan. you have to quickly realize wether or not you're the beatdown. you also have to know how to use the sideboard and you must do it perfectly. you have to know when to mulligan. this deck is so hard to play but if used correctly it is really rewarding. even the smallest mistake destroys your game more than any other deck.
I would not suggest anyone to play this deck in a tournament if they did not test enough with it (and it takes really long).

right now the deck is well placed in the meta.
We have the jund which is a very good matchup, just deny their mana and they lose so easily, one goose is game.
There are plenty of show and tell decks and they're our best matchup, but again, you have to know how to play against that deck (the guy on camera on the invitational left spell snares in after sb... lol).
Storm decks are also very good matchup, like every combo decks they're wrecked by tempo decks.
Then we have bug decks... the control/shardless version is the easiest. again, denial is the key here and we stifle their visions.
The bug delver version is a tougher matchup but we can bring it up with our sb and a massive dose of testing against it.
Stoneblade variants are somewhat even... but after sb we go really above them with our grudges and pyroblasts.

so again... i think the deck is fine right now, we just need to practice more and we will be rewarded as I think this is the best deck ever made.

[baboontilt]

SCG Atlanta Invitational Top 8 had 0 RUG Delver and the Legacy Open Top 16 had 0 RUG Delver lists. What do you guys think of this? Just a hostile meta, pour number of players?

The only undefeated deck in legacy rounds was Josh Glantzman's RUG Delver: keep in mind that this was a dual-format event and T8 isn't as telling. For reference, his list:

Creatures (12)

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

Lands (18)

4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
3 Wooded Foothills

Spells (30)

4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
1 Chain Lightning
4 Ponder

Sideboard
2 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Envelop
2 Flusterstorm
1 Krosan Grip
3 Red Elemental Blast
4 Submerge
2 Rough / Tumble

So as to not double-post, I'll add that I played RUG (72/75 Saito's list) for the first time in the Invitational and made several mistakes that cost me a match. I rebuilt the deck (adding stifles) and played the Legacy challenge to test, where I went 3-1. The 3 sideboard Sulferic Vortex were nothing short of excellent, contributing to a significant portion of my g2/3 victories.

[Mark Sun]

The only undefeated deck in legacy rounds was Josh Glantzman's RUG Delver: keep in mind that this was a dual-format event and T8 isn't as telling. For reference, his list.

That list looks beautiful, doesn't it :smile:

[jin]

That list looks beautiful, doesn't it :smile:

Not. Enough. Burn. LOL.

[Mark Sun]

Not. Enough. Burn. LOL.

Heh. I lent the 75 out. That was what I had been playing lately, just +1 Tarmogoyf +1 Spell Pierce, -1 Sylvan Library, -1 Dismember. Didn't feel like playing RUG for the Invitational so I played Goblins instead.

[jin]

Heh. I lent the 75 out. That was what I had been playing lately, just +1 Tarmogoyf +1 Spell Pierce, -1 Sylvan Library, -1 Dismember. Didn't feel like playing RUG for the Invitational so I played Goblins instead.

how do you like being so counter heavy? I find that relying too much on counterspells spells doom for this deck. I actually like the recent turn in which it has become less reactive and more proactive (meaning more aggressive with its game plan)

[lambert101]

Trying to make a RUG list for a friend. Any thoughts on the following:

Creatures [12]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

Instants [22]
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Stifle


Sorceries [8]
4 Chain Lightning
4 Ponder

Lands [18]
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

Board:
4 Spell Pierce
2 Sulfuric Vortex
4 Surgical Extraction
1 Krosan Grip
2 Rough//Tumble
2 Flusterstorm/Pithing Needle/ 1 Life from the Loam and 1 Slyvan Library

[Pherion]

Trying to make a RUG list for a friend. Any thoughts on the following:

Creatures [12]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

Instants [22]
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Stifle


Sorceries [8]
4 Chain Lightning
4 Ponder

Lands [18]
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

Board:
4 Spell Pierce
2 Sulfuric Vortex
4 Surgical Extraction
1 Krosan Grip
2 Rough//Tumble
2 Flusterstorm/Pithing Needle/ 1 Life from the Loam and 1 Slyvan Library

The build looks standard, though it may be a bit burn heavy. I'd drop two Chain Lightning and put in two Spell Pierce, this'll free up two board slots, and make your counter suite more versatile.

In your board, I'd drop the Flusterstorms. Spell Pierce is just better in this deck. You do need some Red Elemental Blast or Pyroblast, and Submerge as a 3-4 of in the board is a must with all the other Tarmogoyf decks running around right now.

It's a good start, just needs to be tweaked a bit :)

[lambert101]

The build looks standard, though it may be a bit burn heavy. I'd drop two Chain Lightning and put in two Spell Pierce, this'll free up two board slots, and make your counter suite more versatile.

In your board, I'd drop the Flusterstorms. Spell Pierce is just better in this deck. You do need some Red Elemental Blast or Pyroblast, and Submerge as a 3-4 of in the board is a must with all the other Tarmogoyf decks running around right now.

It's a good start, just needs to be tweaked a bit :)

so something like:
]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

2 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Stifle

2 Chain Lightning
4 Ponder

3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

Board:
2 Spell Pierce
2 Sulfuric Vortex
4 Surgical Extraction
1 Krosan Grip
2 Rough//Tumble
1 Life from the Loam
1 Slyvan Library
2 Red Elemental Blast

[Pherion]

Board:
2 Spell Pierce
2 Sulfuric Vortex
4 Surgical Extraction
1 Krosan Grip
2 Rough//Tumble
1 Life from the Loam
1 Slyvan Library
2 Red Elemental Blast

MD looks great, I'd still suggest finding room for 3x Submerge in the board. You can probably go to 3x Surgical Extraction and only 1 Spell Pierce, it depends on your metta though. If you're not seeing the fair green decks, and you're only seeing combo, then you probably don't need the Submerges, but they are just sooo good! lol

[stealth]

what matchupd do you sideboard the S.Vortex's in?

[baboontilt]

what matchupd do you sideboard the S.Vortex's in?

From my (admittedly limited) experiences with the deck, Vortex is a necessity against Miracles as a way to finish them off if they are able to answer your initial onslaught, and can often be snuck in around a Top/Counterbalance lock. I also tried bringing it in against Punishing Jund as a way to answer Liliana and turn off Punishing Fire, although Decay certainly makes this plan less effective. I boarded 3, and it was incredibly effective; after all, outside of Detention Sphere, Miracles often has no way to get it off the board.

My List:

8 Fetch
6 Dual
4 Waste

4 Goyf
4 Mongoose
4 Delver
1 Snapcaster (Flex slot)

4 Bolt
2 Chain Lightning
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Thought Scour
4 Stifle
4 Daze
3 FOW
3 Spell Pierce

SB
3 Sulferic Vortex
1 FOW
4 Submerge
1 Spell Pierce
2 Pyroblast
1 LftL
1 Krosan Grip
1 Rough // Tumble

The numbers look a bit weird from my latest tuning, but figured I'd give you a frame of reference.

[Blaze22]

what matchupd do you sideboard the S.Vortex's in?

I think this deck doesn't even need the vortex in side... I used it for some months but it never really helped me... you should side it in those matchup where your opponent's main plan is to stop you from doing damage to him, this means most of the control decks.

Hey did anyone see the new spoiled card turn//burn??? I think it could be good here, it is a combat trick to kill the fatties and it burns face and small dudes also!

here it is: http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoiler/turn-burn/#.UWaDNUr4KSo

[wcm8]

Turn and Burn is similar to Dead // Gone. I think you want all of your removal to be CMC 1, but if you really crave versatility there's always Fire // Ice. Dismember or even Vapor Snag seem better if you want something other than Forked Bolt or Chain Lightning.

Also, Sulfuric Vortex is a necessity for RUG right now. Every form of control deck or midrange attrition-y matchup can be solved with its help. I was also dubious of its inclusion initially, but in practice it has proven itself time and again. I'd definitely run 2-3. It comes in against a ton of matchups.

[Blaze22]

Turn and Burn is similar to Dead // Gone. I think you want all of your removal to be CMC 1, but if you really crave versatility there's always Fire // Ice. Dismember or even Vapor Snag seem better if you want something other than Forked Bolt or Chain Lightning.

Also, Sulfuric Vortex is a necessity for RUG right now. Every form of control deck or midrange attrition-y matchup can be solved with its help. I was also dubious of its inclusion initially, but in practice it has proven itself time and again. I'd definitely run 2-3. It comes in against a ton of matchups.

I also had it in sb for a long time but I found it too narrow... I replaced them with Sulfur Elemental and I never came back, they're good in every matchup vortex is supposed to be good, plus I replace a pair of gooses with them in combo matchup, they're great and help us more even vs Lingering Souls and Mother Of Runes or thalia decks...

and for turn//burn I think we could give it a chance... versatility is good and right now our main problem is a resolved fatty. tarmogoyf on the top, but even tombstalker, knights, wurmcoil, even griselbrand. dismember is a solid answer but its dead against combo, poor against aggressive decks and lacks versatility...
Fire//ice is pretty good but the ice part is just a temporary answer to a goyf or whatever, and in those rare games where we reach 5 mana (we should never go beyond 3 lands but sometimes you have to to drop 1 or 2 more fetchlands to shuffle crap away) we can cast both parts of turn//burn and create huge advantages that could put ourself back into the game (kill a shaman, trick and kill a goyf would be nice :D)

[jin]

what matchupd do you sideboard the S.Vortex's in?

Which match up don't you SB in Sulfuric Vortex is the question. That card is awesome. It's sad that we weren't playing it earlier.

[Blaze22]

Which match up don't you SB in Sulfuric Vortex is the question.

BUG delver, ad nauseam, TES, sneak and show, RUG mirror, merfolk, jund (it would be crazy to do so), dredge, elves, goblins and any other combo or aggro matchup actually...

That card is too narrow, sulfur elemental is just better in this deck, trust me!

[wcm8]

I also had it in sb for a long time but I found it too narrow... I replaced them with Sulfur Elemental and I never came back, they're good in every matchup vortex is supposed to be good, plus I replace a pair of gooses with them in combo matchup, they're great and help us more even vs Lingering Souls and Mother Of Runes or thalia decks...

and for turn//burn I think we could give it a chance... versatility is good and right now our main problem is a resolved fatty. tarmogoyf on the top, but even tombstalker, knights, wurmcoil, even griselbrand. dismember is a solid answer but its dead against combo, poor against aggressive decks and lacks versatility...
Fire//ice is pretty good but the ice part is just a temporary answer to a goyf or whatever, and in those rare games where we reach 5 mana (we should never go beyond 3 lands but sometimes you have to to drop 1 or 2 more fetchlands to shuffle crap away) we can cast both parts of turn//burn and create huge advantages that could put ourself back into the game (kill a shaman, trick and kill a goyf would be nice :D)

1. Sulfur Elemental is good, but it simply does not achieve the same thing as Vortex in the matchups where you'd want it. I actually play both in the sideboard. And yes, you can bring it in against Jund to shut off their Punishing Fire option, win the damage race against an active Deathrite Shaman, kill Liliana, as well as to simply burn them out. They are doing some of the work for you with Thoughtseize, Bob, and all their fetchlands. You should really think of Vortex as an evasive creature that has pseudo-shroud since it doesn't get hit by most removal spells.

2. You should be cutting Tarmogoyf, not Mongoose in most of your combo matchups. You don't want to be tapping out aside from turn 1 to get your threat out. Tarmogoyf is also generally no bigger than a 3/4 in most combo games.

3. Versatility *is* good, but I fail to see how Turn // Burn is better than our current options. It's cool and new :cool:, but not necessarily any better than what we already have available. If you've reached 5 mana with RUG, you're likely either losing the game or simply playing the deck wrong.

[Arsenal]

2. You should be cutting Tarmogoyf, not Mongoose in most of your combo matchups. You don't want to be tapping out aside from turn 1 to get your threat out. Tarmogoyf is also generally no bigger than a 3/4 in most combo games.

I disagree with this completely. Tarmogoyf, even at a 3/4, gets in for 3 damage far, far sooner than a 3/3 Mongoose does. In the amount of time it'll take you to get Mongoose threshed, you could've already swung in with your 3/4 Goyf two to three times. I never cut threats versus combo as we're already incredibly threat light as it is and we NEED to put a clock on them; going down to 8 threats postboard, even with supplemental burn as a "threat", does not help accomplish this.

Against combo, I generally would board out Daze (if on the draw) and Burn (like Forked Bolt, Fire/Ice, etc) and board in any more relevant countermagic (Flusterstorm, Spell Pierce, etc), Clique if you have him in here, and combo specific hate (Surgical Extraction if facing graveyard based combo, etc). I never cut threats.

[wcm8]

I disagree with this completely. Tarmogoyf, even at a 3/4, gets in for 3 damage far, far sooner than a 3/3 Mongoose does. In the amount of time it'll take you to get Mongoose threshed, you could've already swung in with your 3/4 Goyf two to three times. I never cut threats versus combo as we're already incredibly threat light as it is and we NEED to put a clock on them; going down to 8 threats postboard, even with supplemental burn as a "threat", does not help accomplish this.

Against combo, I generally would board out Daze (if on the draw) and Burn (like Forked Bolt, Fire/Ice, etc) and board in any more relevant countermagic (Flusterstorm, Spell Pierce, etc), Clique if you have him in here, and combo specific hate (Surgical Extraction if facing graveyard based combo, etc). I never cut threats.

This is all so dependent on the deck list. I play Thought Scour, so Mongoose generally reaches Thresh in a relevant timeframe. Tapping out on turn 2 against combo is an easy way to lose. Sulfur Elemental is a fine replacement for Goyf since you can play it EOT without fear of them going for a Show and Tell or whatever, and he still swings for 3. I was NOT suggesting to cut your threats entirely, merely saying that you should consider swapping out Tarmos for Elementals if you have them.

Cutting Daze against most combo is bad, even on the draw. Certainly there must be other things in your list that should be cut first. Really depends on the exact form of combo we're talking about, as well as how densely packed your sideboard options are.

[Blaze22]

1. Sulfur Elemental is good, but it simply does not achieve the same thing as Vortex in the matchups where you'd want it. I actually play both in the sideboard. And yes, you can bring it in against Jund to shut off their Punishing Fire option, win the damage race against an active Deathrite Shaman, kill Liliana, as well as to simply burn them out. They are doing some of the work for you with Thoughtseize, Bob, and all their fetchlands. You should really think of Vortex as an evasive creature that has pseudo-shroud since it doesn't get hit by most removal spells.

2. You should be cutting Tarmogoyf, not Mongoose in most of your combo matchups. You don't want to be tapping out aside from turn 1 to get your threat out. Tarmogoyf is also generally no bigger than a 3/4 in most combo games.

3. Versatility *is* good, but I fail to see how Turn // Burn is better than our current options. It's cool and new :cool:, but not necessarily any better than what we already have available. If you've reached 5 mana with RUG, you're likely either losing the game or simply playing the deck wrong.

1. vortex vs jund is not good, I tested it... on the play it is situational and you still have to tap out, meaning that you'll not be able to answer a bomb in their turn, punishing fire has never been an issue for our deck as the only target for them is delver and recurring it is too mana intensive for them. on the draw vortex is even worse...

2. you're not playing goyf on t2 vs combo unless you have at least a daze and a force in hand, you want to always have at least 1 mana open. mongoose is by far the worst creature in the combo matchup... even with a pair of thought scour in the deck it's still slow and forces you to make some plays that were otherwise not necessary, like fetching early or chaining cantrips...

3. I know, if we reach 5 lands it means something went wrong but as I said before, sometimes you have to drop more lands to shuffle your deck. Right now our main concern is about resolved fatties and turn//burn could be a solid answer to them. yeah we already have dismsmber but it's not great in every matchup, whereas the new card seems to be good enough to deserve a testing... I hope it will be good, we really need something to kill goyfs!

[Arsenal]

Tapping out on turn 2 against combo is an easy way to lose.

Casting him on turn 3 with Pierce/Snare/Flusterstorm mana up is usually the play, not tapping out turn 2 and hoping your lone FoW will protect you from death.

[wcm8]

Casting him on turn 3 with Pierce/Snare/Flusterstorm mana up is usually the play, not tapping out turn 2 and hoping your lone FoW will protect you from death.

So, then, what is the problem of exchanging Sulfur Elementals for Goyfs? I'd rather keep in all 4 Mongeese since they are easier to deploy early while still maintaining mana for your counterspells.

[wcm8]

1. vortex vs jund is not good, I tested it... on the play it is situational and you still have to tap out, meaning that you'll not be able to answer a bomb in their turn, punishing fire has never been an issue for our deck as the only target for them is delver and recurring it is too mana intensive for them. on the draw vortex is even worse...

2. you're not playing goyf on t2 vs combo unless you have at least a daze and a force in hand, you want to always have at least 1 mana open. mongoose is by far the worst creature in the combo matchup... even with a pair of thought scour in the deck it's still slow and forces you to make some plays that were otherwise not necessary, like fetching early or chaining cantrips...

3. I know, if we reach 5 lands it means something went wrong but as I said before, sometimes you have to drop more lands to shuffle your deck. Right now our main concern is about resolved fatties and turn//burn could be a solid answer to them. yeah we already have dismsmber but it's not great in every matchup, whereas the new card seems to be good enough to deserve a testing... I hope it will be good, we really need something to kill goyfs!

1. Depends on your build. My goal in the Jund matchup is to burn them out. I run 4 Bolt and 3 Chain lightnings, so in addition to landing a few swings with an early threat, my goal is to then start directing burn at their dome and land a Vortex later on to seal the deal. Jund is designed to destroy every fair deck out there, so it seems like the best method of beating them is to be 'unfair' by playing a bit like a straight-up Burn "combo" deck which is hard for them to interact with. Submerge also goes a long way here by time-walking them.

2. Mongoose is NOT the worst creature in the combo matchup. Mongoose lets you land a threat without tapping out more frequently than Goyf affords that option. The shroud is also useful, because some combo decks run removal in the SB (Submerge, Deathmark, Chain of Vapor, etc.) In any case, what we are talking about is cutting one or two Goyfs for the Sulfur Elemental(s) in the board, not cutting Goyfs entirely. I don't see why this is such an argument.

Also, you shouldn't be forced to play sub-optimally just to race into threshold. Threshold is achieved pretty naturally with this deck.

3. The vast majority of decks that play Tarmogoyf also play Wasteland, and possibly taxing counterspells as well. Turn // Burn is not going to be very helpful if your intention is to have it act as a removal spell for Tarmogoyf. This is a *cute* card, but not a very good one for Legacy. Perhaps it will see play in Modern due to the lack of Fire // Ice.

[jin]

BUG delver, ad nauseam, TES, sneak and show, RUG mirror, merfolk, jund (it would be crazy to do so), dredge, elves, goblins and any other combo or aggro matchup actually...

That card is too narrow, sulfur elemental is just better in this deck, trust me!

Great, you listed a bunch of combo decks. Sulfur elemental isn't great against those either. Sulfuric Vortex is strong against Jund. You have more effecient burn than they do and your creatures are evasive, and fat. By the time Sulfuric Vortex starts doing its work, you are already ahead. If you aren't, then we are playing two very different decks. You are probably counter heavy and reactive. My list is quite aggressive and I don't rely much on counter magic, so Jund isn't a particularly terrible match up when I have Vortex in. To enable Sulfuric Vortex VS Jund, counter their Tarmogoyfs, and start swinging. Midway through, drop Sulfuric Vortex to seal out the game. Liliana cannot stop Sulfuric Vortex.

Vortex also closes out against BUG Delver because Tempo Thresh is MUCH more aggressive than they are. They are more like a midrange deck with tempo elements. If you feel that you aren't winning in the damage race, then you are playing Tempo Thresh wrong...

You can have Goblins and Merfolks, but I don't think those are that relevant in the metagame now a days. Those are 2 tempo Decks which are better at the Tempo game anyway simply because of AEther Vial.


I disagree with this completely. Tarmogoyf, even at a 3/4, gets in for 3 damage far, far sooner than a 3/3 Mongoose does.... I never cut threats.


This is all so dependent on the deck list.

I agree, I wouldn't board out Tarmogoyf too. He gets pretty big. But like wcm8 said, it really does depend on list. I usually just board out some useless stuff like Dismember and 2x Forked Bolt and bring in 2x Spell Pierce and 1x FOW. That's my list though. I don't usually cut any of my threats because I feel that Tempo Thresh plays the most efficient threats out of the box. There is no point changing this and dilluting it with Sulfur Elemental. A 3/2 for 3 mana split second is meh simply because it swings 2 turns later.

[Blaze22]

Great, you listed a bunch of combo decks. Sulfur elemental isn't great against those either. Sulfuric Vortex is strong against Jund. You have more effecient burn than they do and your creatures are evasive, and fat. By the time Sulfuric Vortex starts doing its work, you are already ahead. If you aren't, then we are playing two very different decks. You are probably counter heavy and reactive. My list is quite aggressive and I don't rely much on counter magic, so Jund isn't a particularly terrible match up when I have Vortex in. To enable Sulfuric Vortex VS Jund, counter their Tarmogoyfs, and start swinging. Midway through, drop Sulfuric Vortex to seal out the game. Liliana cannot stop Sulfuric Vortex.

Vortex also closes out against BUG Delver because Tempo Thresh is MUCH more aggressive than they are. They are more like a midrange deck with tempo elements. If you feel that you aren't winning in the damage race, then you are playing Tempo Thresh wrong...

You can have Goblins and Merfolks, but I don't think those are that relevant in the metagame now a days. Those are 2 tempo Decks which are better at the Tempo game anyway simply because of AEther Vial.


I have a lot of junds in my meta and when I play vs them, I never feel like it's a bad matchup. the denial is brutal against them, just remove their shamans asap, always keep mana open for stifle, search aggresively for wastelands and you should be ok, when they're screwed drop a mongoose and win. I think vortex is useless in this matchup... again, I played it in side for months and I sided it in vs jund in multiple occasions but I always felt like it was not what I wanted to do.

and oh yeah, the BUG delver matchup (this is a hard one) if you drop your vortex, they auto-win. Tapping out vs a deck that can drop a goyf or tombstalker and protect it with countermagic doesn't seem like the greatest idea. smart BUG delver players will wait you to tap yourself out and when you do they'll drop their bombs. and when they do, you lose. And even if vortex resolves it can still be answered by decay if they're low in life points.

I am talking with the experience of a fairly high number of games which I played against those decks as they're both really common here... it won't help you. maybe it's a bit list-dependand. maybe if you play more than 6 consistent burn spells it could be a bit better, but still I would not rely on it to win those matchups...


Ok now, talking about turn//burn, last night I placed 3rd in a local tournament and I played vs a lot of goyf decks... I play 2 fire//ice maindeck as burn 5-6 and everytime I saw them I wanted them to be a turn//burn! now I'm seriously starting to believe that's a good card :smile:

[Barbed Blightning]

That card is too narrow, sulfur elemental is just better in this deck, trust me!

Whenever anyone says "just trust me!" I'm immediately skeptical of their point-- as I am now. Why is sulfuric vortex narrow? It's a closer, not a t3 play--you drop it and win in two turns.

EDIT: furthermore, why sulfur elemental? You seeing a lot of D&T recently?

[learntolove6]

so i'm trying to learn how to play this deck and the biggest problem i'm having is sideboarding vs. fair decks. vs. unfair decks i just pull out some burn for less-dead cards, but fair decks, like junk, are escaping me. i dont want to side out all my counterspells because i need to protect my dudes, i think. i dont think i side out removal, threats, or cantrips though, unless i do? i've just been trimming my numbers of counterspells.

any suggestions?

[Barbed Blightning]

so i'm trying to learn how to play this deck and the biggest problem i'm having is sideboarding vs. fair decks. vs. unfair decks i just pull out some burn for less-dead cards, but fair decks, like junk, are escaping me. i dont want to side out all my counterspells because i need to protect my dudes, i think. i dont think i side out removal, threats, or cantrips though, unless i do? i've just been trimming my numbers of counterspells.

any suggestions?

Divert is a big deal versus jund and junk, first off. Redirecting an abrupt decay or hymn can steal games. Next off, submerge and rough // tumble are vrry good too, esp with tribal on the rise.

[learntolove6]

Divert is a big deal versus jund and junk, first off. Redirecting an abrupt decay or hymn can steal games. Next off, submerge and rough // tumble are vrry good too, esp with tribal on the rise.

oh yeah i know, im sorry i should have clarified. i don't know what cards to take out haha

[Barbed Blightning]

oh yeah i know, im sorry i should have clarified. i don't know what cards to take out haha

That's dependant on the match; pierces are easy cuts. Daze is also cuttable on the draw.

Rough's great for swarm decks; gobs, elves, merfolk or jund.

Submerge's good for G/x decks (goyf, etc), obviously.

Vortex also does quite a lot for the right matchups; I like vortex vs jund since you can use it to finish them off and it turns off groves.

Divert is great for the Decay decks, as well as having applications vs burn.

[wcm8]

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpstr13/welcome#1

The GP Strasbourg top 8 RUG lists show that both Stifle and non-Stifle versions are viable contenders. Obviously Stifle can be a huge factor in winning the mirror. I like the inclusion of Flusterstorm; that card has been long overdue in becoming a format staple. The singleton Snapcaster Mage also seems good.

Don't leave your Sulfur Elementals at home! :cool:

[phazonmutant]

I put together the RUGb list featured on coverage for some testing: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpstr13/day2#9 I don't know if this is the right place to talk about it, but the deck is most similar to Canadian Thresh.

It's a lot of fun. Deathrite is incredible. I didn't really miss Goyf and not having to tap out on turn 2 is pretty nice. Smashed alphastryk playing Miracles 1-1 preboard 3-1 postboard for what that's worth.
The mana's not very good though... It feels like it needs 3 lands to operate everything instead of 2.

I wanted to switch an Underground to a Bayou after testing and the Counterspell is clearly awful. I also wanted Scours to fuel Mongoose + Deathrite - it took way too long to get thresh without them. I don't know if it's correct, but I cut 1 Ponder, 1 Force of Will (to the board), 1 Snare, and 1 Counterspell for the 4th Deathrite, the second Pierce, and 2 Scours. What do you guys think about this board:
3 Submerge
1 Reanimate
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Life from the Loam
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Force of Will

Deathrite should help cast Clique on time and it was very very good against Miracles - instant speed and not graveyard dependent. I can also see it being important in the Stoneblade and combo matchups. I'm nervous about not having any wraths. Should I add some Engineered Plagues?

[Water_Wizard]

I'm nervous about not having any wraths. Should I add some Engineered Plagues?

What happened to Fire Covenant?

I hadn't seen that card in ages, but the examples that you gave sounded alright.

Congratulations on the Decktech.

The sideboard looks pretty swell. Have you considered Dimir Charm? I've been running it in a UBGW list and I've been happy with it (hard counter for S&T and kills Bob, SFM, SCM, Lackey, DRS, etc.). Dimir also fuels Goose and DRS like Thought Scour.

Your list seems like it would do well against control and combo, but not well against mid-range, like Jund. What are this deck's tough match-ups?

Did you consider discard anywhere in the 75?

[Ziveeman]

I put together the RUGb list featured on coverage for some testing: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpstr13/day2#9 I don't know if this is the right place to talk about it, but the deck is most similar to Canadian Thresh.

It's a lot of fun. Deathrite is incredible. I didn't really miss Goyf and not having to tap out on turn 2 is pretty nice. Smashed alphastryk playing Miracles 1-1 preboard 3-1 postboard for what that's worth.
The mana's not very good though... It feels like it needs 3 lands to operate everything instead of 2.

I wanted to switch an Underground to a Bayou after testing and the Counterspell is clearly awful. I also wanted Scours to fuel Mongoose + Deathrite - it took way too long to get thresh without them. I don't know if it's correct, but I cut 1 Ponder, 1 Force of Will (to the board), 1 Snare, and 1 Counterspell for the 4th Deathrite, the second Pierce, and 2 Scours. What do you guys think about this board:
3 Submerge
1 Reanimate
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Life from the Loam
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Force of Will

Deathrite should help cast Clique on time and it was very very good against Miracles - instant speed and not graveyard dependent. I can also see it being important in the Stoneblade and combo matchups. I'm nervous about not having any wraths. Should I add some Engineered Plagues?

I was testing this version for GP Denver for awhile:

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nimble Mongoose

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Daze
3 Spell Pierce
3 Abrupt Decay

3 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest

SB: 3 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 1 Divert
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Engineered Plague
SB: 1 Sulfuric Vortex
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Darkblast

The deck performed pretty damn well. Not gonna lie, I'm not much of a brewer, so I chickened out before Denver, but I always intended on working on this afterward. I like Tarmogoyf though, since he's a better topdeck than Delver and Mongoose (most of the time at least). Deathrite was awesome, as usual. I know I played against someone who had replaced Mongoose with Grim Lavamancers too which is interesting too (something to definitely consider), but I like Mongoose a lot. The SB is a mess but that's mainly just experimenting with different cards to see what was good.

[phazonmutant]

What happened to Fire Covenant?

I hadn't seen that card in ages, but the examples that you gave sounded alright.

Congratulations on the Decktech.

The sideboard looks pretty swell. Have you considered Dimir Charm? I've been running it in a UBGW list and I've been happy with it (hard counter for S&T and kills Bob, SFM, SCM, Lackey, DRS, etc.). Dimir also fuels Goose and DRS like Thought Scour.

Your list seems like it would do well against control and combo, but not well against mid-range, like Jund. What are this deck's tough match-ups?

Did you consider discard anywhere in the 75?

Whoah, just want to clear up that I'm not the person/people who came up with this Ugrb concept. I just stole it from coverage because it looked fun.

Fire Covenant looks...ok...but I'm not thrilled about a 3-cost doubly off-color sorcery that doesn't work if you're far behind. It's also pretty blowout if it gets countered.

I'm not quite sure what the tough matchups would be. I would think this is better against jund than RUG Thresh because Deathrite can eat Punishing Fire and Abrupt Decay is a real answer to Goyf, but that's speculation. Stifle and Wasteland going to have to be working overtime. I like that Deathrite gets through board stalls unlike Goyf, so hopefully that should help the Goblins and UG/x midrange matchups.

Dimir Charm seems sweet. Worth consideration.

I did wonder if the designers considered discard, but after playing the deck a bit I'm inclined to agree that it wants to play a more Thresh-like instant speed game than a tapout sort of tempo like BUG Delver. Stifle and discard seem at odds and there's only 2 B sources in the deck, so riding discard to victory seems sketchy.

Edit - just saw Ziveeman's post
That list is interesting...but it doesn't seem to have a plan. You're not playing Wasteland or Stile, so typically that means you want to be more of a zoo deck, but you're not playing any additional burn. Either that or you want to be more midrangey, but then you'd want Jace. I dunno, could be wrong about this stuff, but based on historical lists I think it's accurate.
Tarmogoyf is so underwhelming to me. You could be right that it's just impossible to play an aggressive deck without him though.

[Barbed Blightning]

Deck looks neat, though it's a level of greedy that I'm wary of.

Also, why BURG, when you could just call it BUG in a RUG? I like more creative deck names.

[Asthereal]

One guy in the top-8 played my tech: Gitaxian Probe!
Wonder how he felt about those...

[Ziveeman]

One guy in the top-8 played my tech: Gitaxian Probe!
Wonder how he felt about those...

He said it was awesome. I've played with Gitaxian Probe in the deck since last year and I've always been a fan, but I cut it recently since slots were tight. I was definitely happy to see that room was found for it. The information is a lot more valuable than people think it is.

[Asthereal]

Yeah I first thought about it when a friend of mine said that it was sometimes hard to figure out whether to play a threat and put early pressure, or to keep mana open for Pierce or Stifle. He said he thought that putting early pressure was kind of the idea of the deck, but when the opponent has lots of value stuff to do, you want to be able to respond. So I said: why not figure out what he has via Gitaxian Probe? It doesn't slow you down if you don't want it to, and it tells you exactly how to optimally play your hand. At the expense of two life and a couple of slots in the deck. When I tried to create a list with it I also found it was hard to find the space for it. I went -1 Ponder, -1 Random (still testing, right now it's the fourth Stifle) for +2 Probe. Haven't played it in a tourney yet though, so I was pretty thrilled to see someone actually topping a GP with it. Can't be that bad if someone pilots them to a top score! :)

[Ziveeman]

Yeah I first thought about it when a friend of mine said that it was sometimes hard to figure out whether to play a threat and put early pressure, or to keep mana open for Pierce or Stifle. He said he thought that putting early pressure was kind of the idea of the deck, but when the opponent has lots of value stuff to do, you want to be able to respond. So I said: why not figure out what he has via Gitaxian Probe? It doesn't slow you down if you don't want it to, and it tells you exactly how to optimally play your hand. At the expense of two life and a couple of slots in the deck. When I tried to create a list with it I also found it was hard to find the space for it. I went -1 Ponder, -1 Random (still testing, right now it's the fourth Stifle) for +2 Probe. Haven't played it in a tourney yet though, so I was pretty thrilled to see someone actually topping a GP with it. Can't be that bad if someone pilots them to a top score! :)

The Probe slot was where I would usually play Spell Snare. Initially it was in the place of 2 Ponders, but Ponder is just really good. I did replace Probes with Spell Snares after awhile though (especially after Show and tell waned and Snare was good again).


Edit - just saw Ziveeman's post
That list is interesting...but it doesn't seem to have a plan. You're not playing Wasteland or Stile, so typically that means you want to be more of a zoo deck, but you're not playing any additional burn. Either that or you want to be more midrangey, but then you'd want Jace. I dunno, could be wrong about this stuff, but based on historical lists I think it's accurate.
Tarmogoyf is so underwhelming to me. You could be right that it's just impossible to play an aggressive deck without him though.

The lack of Wasteland/Stifle is why I didn't initially post this list here (I posted it over in the 4C Deathrite thread), but since you posted the other 4 color Delver deck, I figure I'd pitch in my list :). I cut Stifle from the list because there were so many 1-drops already. I spent too much time setting up a T1 Delver, Mongoose, or Deathrite that by the time I was in a position to actually cast Stifle, they had already gained too much traction and I wouldn't get a lot of value out of it. Wasteland was also cut because colored mana was an issue. I did miss some number of Wasteland though, so perhaps 2-3 might be warranted. You may have come to a different conclusion when testing, but those changes were basically what my experience with that version was like. I never considered cutting Tarmogoyfs though, but that's something I'll take into consideration should I choose to pick this deck up again :)

[wcm8]

Probe seems like a good option, especially if you're running Stifle. It can help lead to optimal early-game sequencing, which is often the deciding factor in RUG games.

The way I see it, UGx tempo decks have 9-10 "Filter" slots to play around with. Obviously 8 of those are Ponder/Brainstorm, but for the last two you can consider Thought Scour, Gitaxian Probe, Preordain, Sylvan Library, or even Predict or other various options. Filter slots 9-10 shouldn't be overlooked. I think they are the "engine" of the deck and why this archetype is so successful.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Deck looks neat, though it's a level of greedy that I'm wary of.

Also, why BURG, when you could just call it BUG in a RUG? I like more creative deck names.

Burg is the German word for castle.

[Barbed Blightning]

Burg is the German word for castle.

As an American, this is a new fact to me. However, the deck doesn't really have anything to do with castles. :tongue:

[Sasan]

As an American, this is a new fact to me. However, the deck doesn't really have anything to do with castles. :tongue:

The deck is like a rock-solid castle that cannot be invaded by the enemies - so it is unbeatable. That is the intention of the name.

[Tylert]

The deck is like a rock-solid castle that cannot be invaded by the enemies - so it is unbeatable. That is the intention of the name.
Unbeatable? are you certain? only two things are certain in life: Death and taxes :p

[Barbed Blightning]

Unbeatable? are you certain? only two things are certain in life: Death and taxes :p

...until abrupt decay kills vial on turn two. (I played Death & Taxes near-exclusively for a year, so no real criticism, just observation, here)

@Sasan: That makes sense, I guess.

[Tylert]

...until abrupt decay kills vial on turn two. (I played Death & Taxes near-exclusively for a year, so no real criticism, just observation, here)

@Sasan: That makes sense, I guess.

No worries, it was just a joke, because Death and taxes has won GP over RUG in the finals :p
Felt obliged to make that joke when smeone mentions an unbeatable deck.
Also, BUG is probably a good matc up for D&T and so it must be the case for BURG :p.

Ok enough digression, i let you guys talk about your pet deck :)

PS: I know that you played it a lot, i saw you were posting a lot on MTG salvation.

[Sasan]

I do not think that burg is unbeatable, I was only explaining the intention of the name. For of our best players in Germany put it together so they are very confident and want to stress that in the name :-)

But I think we should have a separate thread concerning burg. Or do yo think we should talk about it here?

[Water_Wizard]

I do not think that burg is unbeatable, I was only explaining the intention of the name. For of our best players in Germany put it together so they are very confident and want to stress that in the name :-)

But I think we should have a separate thread concerning burg. Or do yo think we should talk about it here?

Probably a separate thread. The 4-C Deathrite thread has focused on UBWG, but BURG is welcome as well.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Just so you know, I'm one of the people who designed the deck and that is not the name's intention. Timo just thought it would be funny to name it that way and then we made a few jokes about that. Also, I think it's kind of appropriate to discuss it here rather than in the four colour Delver thread because Carsten and I have played Threshold a lot and we both see it as an update to the threshold list we played for the last year or so. It's only five spells off the maindeck we played in Ghent - I guess you can tell which ones.

[kiwi]

what happened in the gp? No sulfuric vortex in rug sideboars!! What do you think about that ?

[Julian23]

When I got word of the Burg deck some weeks before the GP I couldn't believe those guys were developing a 4c deck with Wastelands - Insanity!

On another note: can someone explain the Zuran Orb in Wilson's sideboard to me?

[force_of_life]

Hi everyone, it's my first post on the forums :)
Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on sylvan library in this deck, as I've seen lists with and without it. Thanks :)

[Barbed Blightning]

what happened in the gp? No sulfuric vortex in rug sideboars!! What do you think about that ?

They also ran stuff like Ancient Grudge and Zuran Orb; doesn't mean we should pick it up as the gold standard. Vortex is super at closing control matches and killing Jund.

Furthermore, we can't say that no RUG Delver lists ran Vortex in the board, as we only have information about the Top 8 or so.

@Force of Life: It's usually a sideboard card, if ran at all. I like library for control matches, so if you're expecting it, run it. Main, however, there is a lack of space for such a card.

[learntolove6]

pre-board, bug feels pretty bad (post-board feels alright, however). does anyone have advice on this topic? goyf is awesome against me, decay stops my goyfs and delvers, and monguises are ruined by deathrite. liliana also doesn't help my cause. is there something i should be doing pre-board that i'm probably not doign?

[phazonmutant]

pre-board, bug feels pretty bad (post-board feels alright, however). does anyone have advice on this topic? goyf is awesome against me, decay stops my goyfs and delvers, and monguises are ruined by deathrite. liliana also doesn't help my cause. is there something i should be doing pre-board that i'm probably not doign?

The best advice I have from playing the BUG side is to never let BUG untap with Deathrite Shaman. Yeah, it's not great advice, but that's all I got. If they're playing greedy value BUG, keeping them off mana should allow you to win. If they're playing BUG Delver, they're going to be able to out-attrition you with Hymn, so your goal is to not let them resolve Hymn and stifle their mana enough to kill them before they drop Tombstalker. Neither seem like especially good matchups preboard for Thresh.

[learntolove6]

The best advice I have from playing the BUG side is to never let BUG untap with Deathrite Shaman. Yeah, it's not great advice, but that's all I got. If they're playing greedy value BUG, keeping them off mana should allow you to win. If they're playing BUG Delver, they're going to be able to out-attrition you with Hymn, so your goal is to not let them resolve Hymn and stifle their mana enough to kill them before they drop Tombstalker. Neither seem like especially good matchups preboard for Thresh.

yeah it just felt terrible. ill keep that in mind, i learned that deathrite was pretty good against rug.

[Sasan]

When I got word of the Burg deck some weeks before the GP I couldn't believe those guys were developing a 4c deck with Wastelands - Insanity!

On another note: can someone explain the Zuran Orb in Wilson's sideboard to me?

Zuran Orb was a card versus mono red-burn.

[jin]

@Gitaxian Probe: I also think it's a good idea as the information is too good. It's a shame I can't find space to run it. Many decks ran 1x Forked Bolt. I found that curious. Why not just run Chain Lightning then?

@Deathrite Shaman: Shaman is crazy good, but can we stop trying to shove him in every deck. He's very splashable, but we don't need to come up with Esper Deathblade, and BURG just because we want to run Shaman. I just feel like it's messing with the whole dynamic of the deck. Run Grim Lavamancer if you want to do 2 damage...


Unbeatable? are you certain? only two things are certain in life: Death and taxes :p

I can't find the 'like' button to like this comment...

[Jonathan Alexander]

@Deathrite Shaman: Shaman is crazy good, but can we stop trying to shove him in every deck. He's very splashable, but we don't need to come up with Esper Deathblade, and BURG just because we want to run Shaman. I just feel like it's messing with the whole dynamic of the deck. Run Grim Lavamancer if you want to do 2 damage...


Pretty sure I've read the same about Tarmogoyf a few years ago...
Further, Grim and Deathrite are two very different cards. Grim shoots down creatures, Deathrite taps for mana and does some splash damage. To be honest, I was thinking about playing Deathrite off just a single Underground Sea, the only reason not to do so is Abrupt Decay, which is rather important. Shaman fits perfectly, it improves every matchup where your opponent is not running Wasteland and it's not bad against decks with Wasteland either - you cast Delver on turn one, draw out their removal, then cast Shaman on two and never lose to Wasteland again. Pretty sweet.

[jin]

Pretty sure I've read the same about Tarmogoyf a few years ago...
Further, Grim and Deathrite are two very different cards. Grim shoots down creatures, Deathrite taps for mana and does some splash damage. To be honest, I was thinking about playing Deathrite off just a single Underground Sea, the only reason not to do so is Abrupt Decay, which is rather important. Shaman fits perfectly, it improves every matchup where your opponent is not running Wasteland and it's not bad against decks with Wasteland either - you cast Delver on turn one, draw out their removal, then cast Shaman on two and never lose to Wasteland again. Pretty sweet.

Tarmogoyf filled in a much needed niche in decks where aggro match ups were a problem. Tarmogoyf became the security guard that protected those decks.

Deathrite Shaman does not fill this same niche in Tempo Thresh. Tempo Thresh already has a ton of 1-drops. Tempo Thresh already has a damage plan and removal, so weakening the mana base further is unnecessary. Shaman and Grim Lavamancer are very much comparable. Just because they don't have exactly the same abilities doesn't make them uncomparable.

They are both 1 drops that you hope to use to close out games in the late game where Tarmogoyf or Nimble Mongoose cannot finish. The advantage of it is that it can produce mana in the early game. It also can access the opponent's graveyard as well without disrupting the Tempo Thresh plan. That's all fine and good. I am an advocate of Deathrite Shaman, but by playing him in Tempo Thresh, which already has mana troubles doesn't make the deck stronger. You are simply trying to do too much.

This deck already runs a sub-20 land base with 6 actual colour producing lands. I don't see where Deathrite Shaman can fit in here. If you were to splash the extra colours, you'll come to find that you will have troubles else where. Adding Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay also makes cutting you off of mana much easier leaving you with more virtual dead cards (which is already a problem for Tempo Thresh sometimes).

I just don't see how adding Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman in a deck that already has tons of removal and 12 efficient creatures can help the deck out. It doesn't fill any need the deck doesn't already have options for.

[Sturtzilla]

Greetings All!

I am back after a bit of a RUG hiatus. I have been toying around with various other tempo strategies in the UW and UWR realm for the past few weeks with some successes and a few failures. However, in this testing, I never really settled on an exact deck or a configuration that I was really pleased with. So this week I went back to square one, which for me is RUG. This week we had 14 people and I ended 2nd getting squeaked out of of 1st on tiebreakers.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
3 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Daze
2 Fire/Ice
4 Force of Will
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Sulfur Elemental
4 Submerge
2 Rough/Tumble

I think the maindeck was pretty solid although an extra Spell Snare might be better than the 3 Spell Pierces. My sideboard was heavily meta-gamed to defeat BUG and Jund, which had been showing up in solid numbers the past few weeks. This turned out to be a poor call. I took out some of my additional artifact hate to hedge out the BG decks. Anyway I ended up going 3-0-1, beating monobalck reanimator, affinity, and Stoneblade. I drew with Stoneblade. Here is a quick synopsis of the rounds.

Round 1: Monoblack Reanimator (2-0)

This match wasn't very close. I won the die roll and began game one with a turn one delver. He played a swamp. I followed my delver, which naturally flipped, with a Tarmogoyf after attacking for three. My opponent played a second swamp and cast Hymn to Tourach, which I Dazed. At this point I replayed my dual that I returned to hand, crashed for six, and passed. He got stuck on two land and died two combats later. I was lucky to catch a glimse of some fatties during his shuffling which informed me of how to sideboard.

Sideboarding: -2 Wasteland, +2 Surgical Extraction

Game two was very similar. I curved out well with FoW and Daze back up, while countering his reanimation effects. He ran an Exhume into a Daze and then an Animate Dead into a Stifle. He succumbed to Aberration and Lhurgoyf beats in a few turns. This wasn't really much of a win as his deck didn't seem to be optimized. Additionally this guy was just getting back into the tournament scene... so he clearly didn't know hardly any of the intricacies of the format.

Round 2: Esper Stoneblade (1-1-1)

Game one my opponent stabilized at 1 life... when he killed me my hand was Fetch, Fetch, Trop, Daze. Worth noting that I had a Trop, Volc, and fetch in play. What I wouldn't have given for a Brainstorm!

Sideboarding: -2 Delver of Secrets, -2 Force of Will; +1 REB, +1 Pyroblast, +1 Ancient Grudge, +1 Sulfur Elemental (I was wishing that I had additional Elementals or Grudges/Grips here...)

Game two was better. I was able to severely hinder his board development by Stifling a fetch and Wasting a Underground Sea in back to back turns. He succumbed to Goose and Goyf beats. There wasn't really much interaction this game... He resolved a SFM, which I Spell Snared, and then he FoWed. I then Bolted it stranding the Batterskull in his hand.

Sideboarding: -2 Daze, +2 FoW

We were under the gun for this one as far as time was concerned, as game one had taken quite awhile. I managed to clear him down to 8 life with a Delver, Goose, and Goyf. He cleaned up my board with a StP and Snapcaster for the StP leaving me with a lone Goose. This was quickly outclassed by 4 Lingering Souls tokens. I was lucky enough to Ponder into the lone Sulfur Elemental. Which I couldn't cast on 3 mana after Pondering. He attacked with 2 tokens and cast SFM. I drew a land to compliment the Fire/Ice and Grudge in my hand and passed back. He attacked with the two Souls again to which I cleaned up the souls with the elemental. He passed back leaving mana up to SFM in Batterskull. I untap, play that forth land as it would give me access to both Grudge and Fire that combat, and attacked with both guys. He SFMed in Batterskull, I grudged before blockers and then Fired his SCM and SFM leaving his board clear. I got in for 6. However he had StP on Sulfur Elemental and Lingering Souls and SFM on his next turn to clog the board up. I drew a land for my draw and attacked. He chumped with two tokens. He flashed back Souls and cast/equipped Jitte. I drew another land. Flashed back Grudge and attacked. He chumped. His turn drew another Lingering Souls... cast and flashbacked. At this point I was pretty sure the tide had turned but that was the end of turns.

Round 3: Affinity (2-1)

Game one I just got out raced by a quick Ravager. I was stuck on lands this game with only Trop/Volc in play. I would have had lethal if I had another red source as I had double Bolt in hand.

Sideboarding: -4 Daze, +2 Rough/Tumble, +1 Ancient Grudge, +1 Surgical Extraction.

Games two and three were very similar. I got off to an early delver start and Wastelanded his colored sources. I also hit Rough/Tumble both games to take out his field of Memnites and Signal Pests. Without his small guys to activate Drum and lands he couldn't get back into either game. (I was again wishing I had a second Grudge here...)

Round 4: Esper Stoneblade (2-0)

I won the die roll with a 4 after my opponent laughed at a four on 2d6 and then proceeded to roll snake eyes. I led with fetchland and passed. He followed suit. I played a Trop and a Goose. He played an USea and tried to fetch, I fetched in response finding Volc, and Stifled. He cast Preordain off of his USea. Pondered, found a Wasteland and a second Goose. I took Wasteland blew up the USea and attacked for 1. He played Island and passed. I drew Goose, cast Goose, attacked for one leaving one Volc up. He drew plain and cast SFM which I Stifled the equipment trigger. I knew my next card was a Bolt. I drew it and attacked with 6 cards in my yard... taunting my opponent to block. He obliged I bolted his face, ate the SFM, and got 3 more off of the unblocked Goose. He bricked on land for the next few turns while the Loosey Gooseies gobbled up his life total.

Sideboarding: -2 FoW, -1 Delver; -2 Daze; +1 REB, +1 Pyroblast, +1 Flusterstorm, +1 Ancient Grudge, +1 Sulfur Elemental

I was on the draw and had a hand with double Wasteland, double Stifle, Fetchland, Delver and Ponder. My opponent led my immediately fetching for an Island and passing. I drew a Bolt, played fetch, and passed. My opponent played USea and Preordained. It resolved. I fetched and found a Volc EoT. I drew fetch for turn. I Wastelanded the USea, leaving Volc up for Stifle. My opponent drew and played a fetch and opted to not play into my telegraphed Stifle. I played my second fetch, cracked it finding a Trop, played my Delver, and passed. On his turn he decided he better fetch, I Stifled it leaving him on just the Island. He frantically Preordained found a second basic Island and played that. I flipped my delver on a Ponder. Began attacking and Pondered finding a Sulfur Elemental which I brought to my hand. He missed a few land drops but finally found a Plains while my Delver kept flying in for damage. He Finally StPed the Delver at 6 life. I had kind of anticipated this and hand played a fourth land with Elemental in and bolt in hand. I EoT flashed in the Elemental and then attacked for three on my turn and Bolted him for the game.

Overall I was pretty happy with the maindeck. I think I would tweak the board a bit. Take out the second Pyroblast in favor of another Elemental and a Submerge for either a second Grudge or a Grip. I ended second as I got paired down in round three, while my round two draw opponent got paired up. We both went on to 3-0-1 records. Anyway thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

[wcm8]

Getting beyond the question of Stifle or Non-Stifle builds, there are several 5-card "packages" that I can see RUG utilizing to best prepare itself for an expected metagame.

Set A)
-3 Chain Lightning
-2 Thought Scour

Set B)
-3 Spell Snare
-2 Dismember

Set C)
-1 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Flusterstorm
-1 Dismember
-1 Spell Snare
-1 Forked Bolt

Set A is for an aggressive metagame that likely has a fair amount of combo and midrange. All of the removal is "live" and can just be directed at the opponent to help race. This is very powerful in my experience and the approach can even work well against Control if you bring in 2-3 Sulfuric Vortex. Set B is great if you're expecting a lot of mirrors or Team America. This set makes it so you have a better chance of dealing with opposing Tarmogoyfs and can even answer a resolved Tombstalker. Set C is for a "wild card" or unexpected type of metagame -- it presents plenty of options to deal with a variety of decks, but doesn't really double up against any particular strategy. This is probably great for a huge tournament like an SCG Open or Grand Prix (after all, I lifted it directly from Alexander Hayne's 3rd place list from GP Strausburg).

Other packages could be constructed to deal with other problems you're running into. For example, if Elves, Maverick, and Goblins were showing up in increasing numbers, I would likely play 3 Forked Bolt and 2 Thought Scour.

I think this is a good way of looking at the deck, because this is the starting point of all modern RUG decks:
18 Lands
11 Creatures (the 4th Tarmogoyf can justifiably be cut in combo-centric metagames)
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
4 Lightning Bolt

That's 50 cards, so we are only looking at about 10 slots that can be adjusted, some of which are going to be multiples of cards already mentioned there.

Finally, would anyone be interested in a "Complete Sideboard Option Guide"? I made one for Team America, but could easily adjust and update it for RUG. Link to the BUG one here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?11605-DTB-Team-America-(Aggro-Tempo-Thread)&p=620813&highlight=#post620813

[kiwi]

In my opinion if you dont run stifles in your build, is more optimal to play 19 lands rather than 18

[phazonmutant]

wcm8 - I like that analysis. Some quibbles on the core:
- Is the third Pierce really a lock? I've seen plenty of people play 2 and Snare serves a similar role
- The only lists I've seen that have fewer than 4 Goyf have some number of Green Sun Zenith. Has the GSZ package ever taken off?
- Honestly not sure on this one, is it ever ok to cut a Ponder for a Scour?

[wcm8]

You can get away with just 18 lands in a non-Stifle build (again, Alexander's GP Strausburg list is an example of this), however I think the 19th land is just a solid choice in general. Less mulligans, ever so slightly more resiliency to opposing Wasteland decks, and some number of lands can always be sideboarded out if they're not pulling their weight (e.g. siding out some number of Wastelands against High Tide). The 19th land can be another dual, another fetch, or even a basic Island if you are particularly worried about Wasteland every round.

Rules of thumb aren't set in stone. I could see a list cutting a Spell Pierce, or possibly even cutting them entirely and putting them in the sideboard. But I think the vast majority of RUG decks that are performing well in tournaments bigger than 30-man locals are playing around 2-3 Pierces in the main.

GSZ was the hot tech for awhile, but kinda fell off after a period of time. I think it'd be decent if you wanted to make a build that incorporates Scavenging Ooze as a one of, and then have 1-2 GSZ to find the creature you need for the given board state and matchup. It's also kinda nice that it flips Delver, whereas a creature wouldn't. It is problematic that it's a Spell Pierce target though, particularly in the mirror. Having to pay 3 to get a Goyf is going to cost you games at some point. That's why I wouldn't want to run it -in place- of creatures, but as a way to further increase your threat density. I've seen some sideboards run it as a 1-of to do just that.

Ponder is just so good, I'm not sure I'd want to drop below the full playset. Some people have substituted Preordain for it, but I think Ponder is just better, especially in this deck. Thought Scour is definitely good, but I wouldn't normally consider cutting a Ponder for it.

[Sturtzilla]

Finally, would anyone be interested in a "Complete Sideboard Option Guide"? I made one for Team America, but could easily adjust and update it for RUG. Link to the BUG one here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?11605-DTB-Team-America-(Aggro-Tempo-Thread)&p=620813&highlight=#post620813

wcm8, as you know I have been playing the deck awhile and we have discussed sideboarding a good deal before. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this in a similar fashion to the BUG sideboarding guide that you posted above. I typically know how I like to sideboard versus most other decks. Sometimes I also board specifically against players, as in local settings you can get an idea of how your opponents are going to try to come at you in post sideboarded games. I think it always does us some good to get another person's opinions on boarding.

[learntolove6]

Getting beyond the question of Stifle or Non-Stifle builds, there are several 5-card "packages" that I can see RUG utilizing to best prepare itself for an expected metagame.

Set A)
-3 Chain Lightning
-2 Thought Scour

Set B)
-3 Spell Snare
-2 Dismember

Set C)
-1 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Flusterstorm
-1 Dismember
-1 Spell Snare
-1 Forked Bolt

Set A is for an aggressive metagame that likely has a fair amount of combo and midrange. All of the removal is "live" and can just be directed at the opponent to help race. This is very powerful in my experience and the approach can even work well against Control if you bring in 2-3 Sulfuric Vortex. Set B is great if you're expecting a lot of mirrors or Team America. This set makes it so you have a better chance of dealing with opposing Tarmogoyfs and can even answer a resolved Tombstalker. Set C is for a "wild card" or unexpected type of metagame -- it presents plenty of options to deal with a variety of decks, but doesn't really double up against any particular strategy. This is probably great for a huge tournament like an SCG Open or Grand Prix (after all, I lifted it directly from Alexander Hayne's 3rd place list from GP Strausburg).

Other packages could be constructed to deal with other problems you're running into. For example, if Elves, Maverick, and Goblins were showing up in increasing numbers, I would likely play 3 Forked Bolt and 2 Thought Scour.

I think this is a good way of looking at the deck, because this is the starting point of all modern RUG decks:
18 Lands
11 Creatures (the 4th Tarmogoyf can justifiably be cut in combo-centric metagames)
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
4 Lightning Bolt

That's 50 cards, so we are only looking at about 10 slots that can be adjusted, some of which are going to be multiples of cards already mentioned there.

Finally, would anyone be interested in a "Complete Sideboard Option Guide"? I made one for Team America, but could easily adjust and update it for RUG. Link to the BUG one here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?11605-DTB-Team-America-(Aggro-Tempo-Thread)&p=620813&highlight=#post620813

I would definitely be interested in a guide, as this is the hardest part for me.

[wcm8]

The Complete RUG Sideboard Guide

Rather than divide the cards by functionality, I decided to just divvy it up by color. There are a number of cards that will be seen frequently in almost every RUG sideboard (e.g. REB, Submerge, and Ancient Grudge), whereas others will only see fringe play to combat a specific strategy. I tried to be all-inclusive; obviously some of these are very low on the likelihood of playability. Please let me know if I’ve missed anything. I’ll also update this as new cards are released or older cards are considered.

There is no ‘perfect’ sideboard. How strong the cards are largely depends on which decks you get paired against. Even then, your one-of Cursed Totem might be stranded somewhere near the bottom of your library when you face off against your Elves opponent. The idea is to further enhance RUG’s existing strategic strengths, and also try to patch up some of its glaring weaknesses. Decide which matchups you want to beat and construct your 75 accordingly.

Red Cards
Red Elemental Blast , Pyroblast – these are awesome. Legacy largely revolves around the color Blue, and there is no more efficient way of dealing with Blue cards on both the stack or in play than these 1-mana instants. 2-3 should likely be the minimum, and going up to 4 or even more is a reasonable choice in the right metagame. I’d say that these cards are a large part of the reason that RUG is the ‘Best Deck in Legacy’.
Forked Bolt, Chain Lightning – more burn is a reasonable choice to supplement the 4 Lightning Bolts in the main deck. Forked Bolt is particularly good against the various creature strategies in Legacy.
Goblin Guide, Kird Ape – dropping the aggro/control angle for a more aggressive Zoo-esque approach is an idea with some merit. I think you’d be much more likely to see these in the maindeck of a hybrid deck, but I suppose a transformative sideboard could be an option against control.
Price of Progress – it might seem suicidal, but this card could be the coup de grace against an opponent caught off guard. However, most players will fetch their basic lands if possible against RUG due to the threat of Wasteland. This might be a cool choice if you have a 43-Lands player in your local meta.
Sulfuric Vortex – This card is an awesome supplement to your burn and creatures as a way to finish off your control and midrange opponents. Think of it as an evasive ‘creature’. The clause that prevents lifegain is especially useful against Batterskull, Jitte, and even shuts off Grove of the Burnwillows/Punishing Fire. You can also use it to kill Planeswalkers by redirecting the damage. I’d consider 2-3 of these if you are opting for maindeck Chain Lightnings and really want to punish UW Miracles and Esper Blade.
Sulfur Elemental – a fantastic answer to Mother of Runes, Thalia, Flickerwisp, Elspeth soldier tokens, Timely Reinforcements and Lingering Souls. It’s also a nice threat to have against UW and other control decks thanks to its flash and uncounterability. It’s an aggressive body that isn’t affected by Rest in Peace or other grave-hate. You can also consider bringing it in against various Combo decks since you often don’t want to tap out against these decks. Definitely consider 2-3 if you expect Wx weenies.
Grim Lavamancer – Lavaman is great at dealing with tribal decks, particularly Merfolk. He’s a bit awkard with Nimble Mongoose, but you can feed both creatures with Thought Scour and other cantrips. A turn 1 Grim Lavamancer can be a huge problem if unanswered for any deck that relies on smaller creatures.
Rough // Tumble (Pyroclasm) – So many creature decks fold to this card. It’s essentially a 2-mana Wrath of God against anything that wins by turning dudes sideways. Rough is also nice in that it won’t kill your threshed mongeese, flipped Delvers, and Tarmogoyf – making the effect essentially one-sided.
Gut Shot – free method of killing problematic one-drops such as Mother of Runes or Goblin Lackey. It’d be under much higher consideration if it dealt 2 damage, as then it could be an answer to the dreaded Deathrite Shaman.
Electrickery – This is a lot like Rough // Tumble, but at instant speed and has the advantage of killing a turn 1 Goblin Lackey or Mother of Runes. It might also be better against a deck like Elves. Unfortunately, dealing only one damage is frequently relevant.
Ancient Grudge, Smelt, Shattering Spree, Meltdown, Ingot Chewer – Red does a great job of destroying artifacts. You’ll want some number of these to deal with Batterskull and other equipment, and Affinity frequently shows up in large tournaments. I think 1 Ancient Grudge is the minimum amount you’d want to play. Grudge is probably the best option here, but an argument could be made for the others in specific circumstances.

Blue Cards
Force of Will – some RUG lists only run 3 FoW in the main and still want the 4th for when they’re paired against combo.
Spell Pierce – the most elegant counterspell in the format. This card serves the important function of preventing game-winning cards from resolving, as well as protecting your threats from removal. I personally think this card should be played in the maindeck, but if not definitely add some in to the sideboard.
Flusterstorm – better than Spell Pierce against instants and sorceries (i.e. the majority of Combo decks), unfortunately it does not answer planeswalkers, enchantments, or artifacts. A fantastic counterspell that is finally being adopted into mainstream Legacy usage.
Envelop – deals with UW Miracles and Show and Tell, tier 1 strategies at the time of this writing. These decks will often be able to play around your taxing counters, so having a 1-mana definitive answer to their bombs is great.
Dispel – like Envelop, but for Instants. Pretty good at dealing with all forms of removal.
Counterspell – an oldie but a goody. This is a bit less narrow than the previous two options, and will give you some late-game staying power.
Negate – Not as good as Counterspell in my opinion. You’ll likely have two duals out when it comes time to play this.
Disrupt – an old fringe card that was useful against Storm decks in the days of yore.
Spell Snare – This answers so much in Legacy that it’s definitely a worthwhile inclusion to RUG. Older Canadian Thresh lists ran 4 in the maindeck. I think now you definitely should consider at least 1-2 in the main, with perhaps more in the side.
Divert, Misdirection – a brutal answer to Hymn to Tourach and other discard, as well as removal, including Abrupt Decay. I’ll never forget the time that I was playing BUG Cascade and my RUG opponent Misdirected my Ancestral Vision to him, and also flung my Abrupt Decay back at my own Liliana. These cards can also be used to win counter wars. Either one is a reasonable choice and have their own advantages/disadvantages.
Stifle – if you’re playing this card, it’s likely in the main. But I could see it being relegated to sideboard duty to bring in against the matchups where it’s actually relevant.
Snapcaster Mage -- a nice option for games that might go longer. Be aware that many decks are going to bring in grave hate against you, making Snapcaster a slightly risky choice.
Mindbreak Trap – Flusterstorm is probably just better, but if you see a ton of Belcher decks I could see this being under consideration.
Blue Elemental Blast , Hydroblast – Like the red blasts, these are the most efficient answer to red cards in Legacy. However, with all the other counterspells available to use, these may be too narrow for a large tournament. Consider adding a few if you see a lot of Burn or Dragon Stompy decks.
Vendilion Clique – excellent against both Control and Combo. Instant speed disruption that doubles as a clock, and frequentlly functions as a Jace assassin.
Submerge – RUG has a tough time dealing with big creatures, but Submerge helps out. Not only is it *free*, it can also function as a ‘Time Walk’ by forcing your opponent to draw the creature again. Submerge also can truly ‘destroy’ a problem creature if you play it in response to a fetchland or other shuffle effect, e.g. Knight of the Reliquary’s ability. Alternatively, you can Thought Scour the creature into the graveyard after Submerging it. Tempo at its finest. Most RUG sideboards start with 3-4 of these.
Gilded Drake – for awhile, this was a popular choice against the Sneak and Show deck. At two mana, it can be easily hard-cast unlike other similar options like Sower of Temptation. It has use elsewhere, e.g. trading a Drake for a Knight of the Reliquary is often favorable.
Mind Harness – here’s a card that can really swing the game. Stealing a Tarmogoyf in the mirror is often a winning play. Consider 1-2 if you expect a lot of mirrors.
Threads of Disloyalty – pretty expensive, but more permanently steals creatures and isn’t limited to only Red and Green.
Plaxmanta – A cool option that both counters removal and serves as a small clock. I’ve not playtested it, but I think it could be nice to have against a UW and Abrupt Decay-heavy metagame.
Hibernation – Here’s an excellent “wrath” against Maverick and Elves. This might be the only out to Progenitus RUG has aside from actually countering the Natural Order.
Energy Flux – If you see a lot of Affinity, MUD, or Stax decks in your local metagame, consider this card.
Chill – Burn loses pretty hard to this. If you can counter the aether vial, Goblins will also have fits. Finally, it’s surprisingly good against Jund. The big problem with it though is that the effect is universal, so making your Bolts cost 3 is going to be a hard sell. I think you’d be better off just playing BEB or Hydroblast in this deck.
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner – Lovely option to deal with decks that run a ton of removal. Hasn’t seen much play in RUG, but could be a cool ‘secret tech’ that would be relatively unexpected.
Echoing Truth, Rushing River, Chain of Vapor, Wipe Away – Blue bounce can temporarily answer just about anything, and time is often all we need to close the game out. Each option presents a slight advantage over the others. Something to consider if you really don’t know what you’ll face.
Counterbalance – combined with SDT, this provides RUG a source of card advantage and can steal games against combo decks or just protect your creatures from all of the 1-mana removal. In the mirror, it pretty much wins the game on the spot. Unfortunately, this approach will eat a ton of deck real estate and requires setup and plenty of mana. It has been successful in the past, so don’t write it off too quickly.
Ancestral Vision, Mulldrifter – RUG has very little in the way of raw card advantage, so providing yourself some card draw to get ahead in the control or midrange matchups can be useful. I think it’d be possible to build a transformative sideboard and make RUG into more of a midrange control deck, in which case a Jace, the Mind Sculptor might be another option.

Green Cards
Sylvan Library – super awesome against control and midrange, and can even be nice against combo decks where you can afford to be aggressive with the card draw. Strong enough to be considered in the main deck, and certainly a valid sideboard slot.
Life from the Loam – this will help protect you from Wasteland, as well as recur your own. It can provide card advantage by fueling Brainstorm, as well as function in feeding Mongoose towards threshold via Dredge. A great card that could also work in the maindeck if you expect a lot of Wasteland and dual-heavy manabases.
Krosan Grip – Answers stuff like Counterbalance, Batterskull, and problematic cards like Humility. A lot of decks that run these cards run counters of their own, so the split second is very relevant.
Seal of Primordium, Naturalize – cheaper versions of Krosan Grip. Seal has a subtle advantage of growing Tarmogoyf as well as being able to be deployed pre-emptively. It can also be dropped to an opposing Show and Tell, which might win you a game if they went with Sneak Attack or Omniscience and don’t have the follow-up card for those enablers.
Scavenging Ooze – Goyf #5. This guy went out of vogue for awhile, but I could see him making a comeback at some point. This is grave hate on legs, and can be great in multiple matchups.
Skylasher - a hoser creature card that is ironically geared towards killing Delver. Sideboard space is going to be tight, but if you expect to run into a fair number of Delver decks, playing 1 or 2 of these guys might be good. Obviously useful against Merfolk as well (well, minus the whole islandwalk thing...)
Hidden Gibbons – more pseudo-Tarmogoyfs against any instant-heavy deck, such as the mirror.
Compost – this would be a pretty tech card against Dredge and mono-black strategies like Pox.
Green Sun’s Zen -- increases your threat density, and allows you to pick the right creature for the board state. Against aggro you may want Goyf, control might warrant Mongoose, and against anything drawing power from the graveyard you can find your Scavenging Ooze.
Terravore – a huge beater that could win the mirror if it resolves. Unfortunately, it’s a Submerge target waiting to happen.
Thrun, the Last Troll – I’ve used Thrun to great success against UWx control matchups where you want a big threat that shrugs off their removal. 4-mana is probably way too much for RUG, but these games tend to go long.
Back to Nature, Reverent Silence – useful against Counterbalance and Enchantress. However, I think Engineered Explosives is probably just better if you want that effect.
Ground Seal – outdated grave hate. At least it cantrips.


Multi-Colored and Off-Color Cards
Fire // Ice – more burn that can be pitched to FoW, kill two X/1 creatures, or simply tap down a problematic permanent. I’ve won games against 43-Lands by tapping down their Maze of Ith, and also used it in the mirror to punch through a Tarmgoyf wall.
Firespout – a bigger version of Rough//Tumble that can selectively hit ground or flying creatures. If you can resolve it against Merfolk it might be better since they often have lords pumping their guys to X/3. Probably just too much mana to be under serious consideration.
Dismember – 1 mana answer to Tarmogoyf and other big creatures. 1 or 2 in the main is a good choice if you’re expecting Goyf wars.
Surgical Extraction – Graveyard hate that can also be useful against combo and control.
Izzet Charm – has a lot of utility, so it might occasionally show up as a singleton in the main deck. Its versatility makes it an okay choice for the sideboard as well.
Trygon Predator – slow, but could be a cool repeatable effect against Affinity, Counterbalance, and Enchantress decks.
Faerie Macabre – likely the best anti-Reanimator card since it’s virtually uncounterable. Too narrow unless you’re seeing a ton of those decks locally.
Hull Breach – a potential 2-for-1 against certain decks. I think Ancient Grudge is generally better.
Vexing Shusher – a beater that also helps you sidestep the problem presented by Counterbalance. Could be pretty good in the mirror by making your threats and removal uncounterable.
Kitchen Finks – could be useful if you run into a lot of Burn.
Wheel of Sun and Moon – here’s an answer to Painter Stone and Dredge. Extremely narrow.


Artifacts and Lands
Tormod's Crypt – the grand-daddy of graveyard hate. This is what you want in multiples if you want to beat Dredge and Reanimator. Useful elsewhere as well. The fact that it costs zero is nice, since you can more easily play around Daze or cantrip into it and cast it on the same turn. Speed is a necessity in these matchups.
Grafdigger's Cage – a fantastic choice if you’re only devoting one slot to graveyard hate. Not only does it shut down your typical Dredge and Reanimator decks, it also harms recursive strategies like Snapcaster Mage and the aggro Zombies deck. It also functions as splash hate for Green Sun’s Zenith and Natural Order, making it useful against Elves and possibly Maverick.
Relic of Progenitus – you don’t want to have to use the cantrip ability if you don’t have to, but this is pretty strong if you can land it early. An unlikely candidate for RUG, but something to consider.
Pithing Needle, Phyrexian Revoker – shuts off annoying utility cards, and is especially useful against various control strategies. Although Revoker doubles up as a threat, Needle is probably the better choice due to its lower cost and the fact that it’s not a typical removal target.
Phyrexian Dreadnought – if you’re playing Stifle, this could be a nice surprise tactic against certain aggressive decks. It’s also an ‘answer’ to Bridge from Below.
Engineered Explosives – very cool removal that could lead to a blow out against an opponent who’s over-extended. It’s also a great answer to tokens and will typically grow Tarmogoyf. You can play it for a higher cost to skirt around Counterbalance. Definitely a good card to consider, it functions similarly to a mini Pernicious Deed and will be useful against Aether Vial aggro decks, Elves, Maverick, Belcher, Counterbalance, etc.
Cursed Totem – Shuts down utility creatures and can be the death knell for Elves, Maverick, and Death and Taxes.
Null Rod – Affinity, MUD, LED/Lotus Petal Storm decks, Charbelcher, Sensei’s Divining Top, Thopter Foundry, etc.. Null Rod isn’t as narrow as you might think. An excellent artifact hoser, and its static nature makes it a good choice to supplement Ancient Grudge if you’re running into an artifact-heavy metagame.
Cursed Scroll – RUG empties its hand fairly quickly, so this could provide a bit of a late game advantage when you go into topdeck mode. Repeatable burn that doesn't get hit by Swords to Plowshares could win you games against control decks. The fact that it’s artifact damage is also relevant against cards like Mother of Runes. Something that might be cool to consider as a singleton.
Umezawa’s Jitte – unfortunately Mongoose has shroud and not Hexproof. That said, this can lead to blowouts if you’re trying to win a creature war. The lifegain is also useful against Burn. Just one connection is often enough to win the game.
Zuran Orb – this is a dedicated hate card for Burn, which often shows up in large numbers in the earlier rounds of big tournaments.
Sensei's Divining Top – See Counterbalance. RUG can’t normally afford to be spinning the top every turn, but against control decks you might have that luxury.
Winter Orb – This could supplement Wasteland and Stifle as a method of hindering your opponent’s mana development, while being relatively harmless to RUG. Team America is beginning to adopt this instead of Sinkhole, partly because Winter Orb eats less sideboard slots and also because the effect can be even more brutal against some decks.
Tsabo's Web – utility land hate that also cantrips. Something to consider if you see 43 Lands or decks that run stuff like Academy Ruins.
Karakas – narrow method of dealing with Show and Tell. If you play Vendilion Clique, this could lead to an interesting recursive interaction.
Ghost Quarter – Wasteland #5-8 if you are seeing a ton of RUG and BUG decks that play no basic lands. A risky option that could be pretty epic against the right opponent.
Cephalid Coliseum – I’ve seen this played as the 19th land in some lists. The thresh ability could be a nice way to get ahead in the midgame.
Underground Sea, Tundra – for frontier sideboarding, kind of beyond the scope of this post. I could imagine running a single Underground Sea in order to gain access to some number of Abrupt Decay to deal with Counterbalance, etc.

Updates
04/18/2013 – first version released
04/22/2013 - added Skylasher

[wcm8]

How to Sideboard with RUG

The key to understanding how to sideboard properly is knowing what can come out, because what needs to go in is usually fairly obvious. Also, don't necessarily think that cutting a card means it has to be an all-or-nothing choice. Sometimes leaving in a couple Force of Wills is the right choice instead of cutting all of them. I'm also a big fan of leaving a single Daze in the deck, simply for the unexpected 'gotcha' factor that frequently happens when an opponent feels confident in tapping out against you.

Force of Will -- This is for countering a single key card, generally in combo and control matchups. Force is particularly weak against decks that play a lot of redundant cards, e.g. aggressive decks with plenty of creatures that are mostly replacements for each other. Against such strategies you want to avoid 2-for-1'ing yourself as much as possible. You also will usually want to cut FoW against midrange and control decks that run targeted discard like Thoughtseize -- here Spell Pierce is generally going to be a better method of protecting your hand. Force is also weak against Aether Vial decks, because a resolved Vial and Cavern of Souls negates counterspells entirely -- you don't want to draw dead if possible. In the mirror, I generally cut all 4 Force of Wills, because aside from Tarmogoyf there's not much that can't be easily answered with other options.

Daze and Stifle -- these cards are much weaker on the draw than they are on the play. You'll generally be leaving both in against combo decks regardless, but against aggressive, control, and midrange decks you might be siding them out if you're on the draw for other options. I would leave both in against the mirror regardless, because RUG gets bottlenecked on mana frequently. Winning the Wasteland fight often leads to victory. Stifle is often going to come out against decks with rock-solid mana bases, e.g. mono colored decks or those with a ton of mana dorks. As mentioned previously, I'm a proponent of leaving at least 1 Daze in regardless of the situation, because it can lead to a blowout surprise tactic.

Lightning Bolt and other Removal -- this is less useful against combo and control decks than most of your sideboard options will be. However, Bolt can still help you win the damage race, as well as be a deterrent against Jace. You'll probably want to leave at least *some* removal in, although stuff like Forked Bolt is certainly underwheling against combo. If you've opted for the build that plays 3 Chain Lightning along with the 4 Lightning Bolts, you might want to leave the Chains in and supplement it with Sulfuric Vortex against your midrange and control opponents.

Tarmogoyf -- if you have Sulfur Elemental or Vendilion Clique in the sideboard, it is completely understandable to cut some number of Tarmogoyf for these guys against your control and combo matchups. The reason being is that you don't want to tap out against a deck where you need to leave counterspell mana up, and also because Goyf is generally no bigger than a 3/4 anyways. If you are faced against UWx Miracles, cutting some Goyfs for Sulfuric Vortex also makes sense, because they will have a much tougher time dealing with the enchantment than the creature (not to mention, a Rest in Peace, Relic of Progenitus, or other creature-neutralizing artifacts and enchantments makes Goyf harmless). Even though Nimble Mongoose might be somewhat slow to reach threshold, the fact that it can be dropped on the first turn against your combo opponent means that it's a much safer play.

Nimble Mongoose -- there aren't too many scenarios where I could see cutting Mongoose as justifiable, because it is the most robust and efficient threat in the deck. However, Mongoose might be under consideration for cutting if you are running some number of Grim Lavamancer -- the two are competing for graveyard resources.

Delver of Secrets -- This is the marquee creature of the deck, and the most aggressive of the bunch. I'm not sure you would really ever want to cut it in RUG, although certainly Team America sometimes does so.

Spell Pierce -- this card usually comes out against aggressive decks that don't rely heavily on spells that can be Pierced. It'd be nice to be able to counter an Aether Vial or a Glimpse of Nature, but generally you're going to have better options to take its place and Pierce becomes useless outside of a small window of opportunity. If you're playing Flusterstorm(s) main, the same idea applies.

Brainstorm -- never cut; best card in Legacy.

Ponder -- Some people make the mistake of cutting Ponder. Don't. This card will help you draw into your sideboard hate, and generally there is something better that can be cut. I suppose you can sometimes get away with cutting 1 or 2 Ponders for more hate, but this must mean your sideboard is heavily stuffed with relevant options.

Thought Scour and other tertiary cantrips -- these however might be safe to cut for stronger options.

Utility singletons like Sylvan Library or Life from the Loam -- playing one of these can be a great decision if the metagame warrants it. However, sometimes you'll get paired against a deck where these cards are less than ideal. In such cases, cut them.

Spell Snare -- Some decks literally have no targets for this spell. Or perhaps they only have a single target for it that can be answered by other means. In such cases, cut it. A great example of this is Sneak and Show.

Wasteland -- Cutting a couple Wastelands is relevant against a deck like High Tide, which has no targets. I'm sure there are other such examples.

The 19th land -- against a deck that runs no Wastelands of their own (e.g. UW Miracles or Esper Blade), cutting the 19th land for more business can be a fine decision. I'd be very careful about this decision, since the goal of running 19 lands in the first place is to minimize mulligans and mana screw.

[wcm8]

Example Sideboards

None of these are necessarily ideal, and are instead just examples to get you started. I would identify which decks you want to specifically beat, and go from there.

Example A (anti-mirror tech):
3 Submerge
2 Mind Harness
1 Life from the Loam
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Rough // Tumble
2 Flusterstorm
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Krosan Grib

Example B (well rounded):
3 Submerge
2 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Sulfur Elemental
2 Rough // Tumble
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Krosan Grip
1 Grafdigger's Cage

Example C (dredge and reanimator meta, UW Miracles slayer):
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Krosan Grip
1 Sylvan Library
2 Vendilion Clique

Example D (aggro-heavy meta):
2 Submerge
2 Rough // Tumble
2 Forked Bolt
1 Life from the Loam
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Sulfur Elemental
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Cursed Totem
2 Ancient Grudge

Factors to consider when building a sideboard:

1. What is your expected metagame? Are you playing in an SCG Open, a Grand Prix, or a local tournament? If you're playing in a larger tournament, you can base it on previous historical deck percentage breakdowns, but if you're playing a local tournament you might have a better gauge on the type of decks you can expect to see. This is the first and most important thing to factor in. For example, if nobody around you plays Dredge, the importance of spending some number of slots on dedicated grave hate goes way down.

2. What choices did you make in the main deck for the flex slots? You might have increased the amount of maindeck removal, meaning you might not need to devote as many slots to aggressive matchups. Or maybe you added in the Sylvan Library, meaning you won't need quite as much to deal with control. Perhaps you opted to play Spell Snare to help combat UWx Control, in which case you might not need as much hate for it in the sideboard. We are only talking about 1-5 cards here, so your sideboard should be adjusted accordingly.

3. Do you want to build a 'well-rounded' sideboard, or do you really want to hate out a particular strategy? As an example, 4 Spell Pierce is a great catch-all answer, but if you were expecting a lot of combo you might do a 2/2 split of Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm. Rough//Tumble has a lot of applications, but you might be better off running Sulfur Elemental if you want to hate out white creatures more efficiently. This also plays into the idea of 'throwing away' some matchups. If you decide to cut grave hate entirely, you're most likely to going to lose to a deck like Dredge, barring a fair amount of luck in your favor. Decide which matchups you're just going to accept as reasonable losses in order to devote slots to the more worrisome matchups.

Some decks are just going to be nearly impossible to consistently beat without dedicating a ton of sideboard real estate. I think Jund is one such example. Chill combined with Winter Orb might be an effective method of slowing them down, but do you really want to be playing Chill? It's a relatively narrow card. For me, I'd probably just pray to the Mulligan gods that I get a stronger hand and topdecks than theirs, rather than warping my sideboard to fight an uphill battle. Jund's 75 is designed to beat our 60, so our 15 isn't necessarily going to make that significantly better. Keep this idea in mind. If we were capable of constructing 'The Best Deck', we'd have found out by now. The reality of Legacy is that there are too many diverse strategies to deal with, and not enough sideboard slots to beat all of them. The 'Best Sideboard' is going to change from week to week, and even then it's not guaranteed to work if you're unlucky in your pairings.

4. Finally, a possible approach is to just say 'fuck it' and build a Nassif-style sideboard (one constructed entirely of singletons). Plenty of cards have overlapping value, and thanks to the power of Ponder/Brainstorm/Sylvan Library, it's reasonable to expect to see at least one piece of powerful hate in a given matchup. This approach sacrifices consistency for a great deal of flexibility. You'll likely have at least *something* to bring in against you opponent.

As an example:
1 Life from the Loam
1 Mind Harness
1 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Rough//Tumble
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Dismember
1 Krosan Grip
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Sulfuric Vortex

[learntolove6]

How to Sideboard with RUG



This was incredible. Thank you so much for doing this, it was an incredible help.

[Barbed Blightning]

We should try to get this in the OP, as it is outdated and sparse with information.

[Sturtzilla]

Thanks for your time and effort there wcm8! That is some great material.

[Sasan]

Thanks for your time and effort there wcm8! That is some great material.

I second that.

[goblinsplayer]

Could anyone give me a good non-stifle list for me to begin with? I am considering building this deck and I don't like stifle and I don't know what will take it's place.

[Ziveeman]

Could anyone give me a good non-stifle list for me to begin with? I am considering building this deck and I don't like stifle and I don't know what will take it's place.

Alexander Hayne's Top 8 list from Strasbourg is probably a good starting point.

[Barbed Blightning]

Alexander Hayne's Top 8 list from Strasbourg is probably a good starting point.

That said, stifle is a versatile and powerful tool and probably a large part of why this deck has remained DTB for as long as it has

[Sturtzilla]

That said, stifle is a versatile and powerful tool and probably a large part of why this deck has remained DTB for as long as it has

I have gone back and forth between Stifle and non-Stifle builds and I have much better results with Stifle. The :u: "Destroy target land. Its controller takes 1 damage." is a very powerful effect. Even if you can't do the previously stated line on a fetch, protecting your duals from Wasteland is a big win. It is very flexible and just blanks a lot of cards. I totally agree with the quoted statement.

[force_of_life]

What would I take out and bring in against Shardless BUG, which seems to be a bad match up. I'm using the "Well Rounded" sideboard from the how to sideboard guide above

[Barbed Blightning]

Hey all,

I'm looking for some good reading material on RUG Delver. Anybody have any links to articles etc I could peruse?

[beebles]

What would I take out and bring in against Shardless BUG, which seems to be a bad match up. I'm using the "Well Rounded" sideboard from the how to sideboard guide above

I think it probably is a horrendous match up. I would board in the Grudge, the Pyroblasts and the submerges. I would cut the forces and like a daze.

[Pherion]

Hey all,

I'm looking for some good reading material on RUG Delver. Anybody have any links to articles etc I could peruse?

Try this: http://manadeprived.com/canadian-threshold-a-primer/
Or this: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23898_The_Ultimate_RUG_Delver_Primer.html

[SirTylerGalt]

I also like Paolo Cesari's articles:

http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/51877/the-captains-log-building-a-rug-sideboard
http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52571/the-captains-log-stifled-opportunities-2
http://jupitergames.info/articles/2013/52617/the-captains-log-adapting-rug-for-the-current-metagame

[Sturtzilla]

Greetings All!

I took down my local tourney this week playing RUG. I went 3-0-1 prize splitting in the last round and playing for the “Go Infinite,” our shop’s free event entry voucher. I managed to sneak past Jund (2-1), Merfolk (2-1), and White Hate-Bear.deck (2-0), and also Dream Halls Show and Tell (2-1). I split with the last guy to ensure we got 1st and 2nd. This run was good for $47.50 in store credit and my next event free. Here is a breakdown of my list and sideboard!

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
3 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Daze
2 Fire/Ice
4 Force of Will
4 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Sulfur Elemental
3 Submerge
2 Rough/Tumble

Overall I was really happy with the maindeck and the sideboard. I have been really impressed with the 2 Fire/Ice in the main. They have been helping me kill bros all day and this week helped me take games from Jund by tapping opposing Goyfs. Not new tech by any means, but they really have pulled their weight they past few weeks. As for the sideboard, I have really been thinking more and more about changing one of the Rough/Tumbles to an Electrickery. I will point this out a bit more when discussing specific scenarios where it would have been useful.

Round 1: Jund (2-1)

My opponent wins the die roll and begins with a fetch into Bayou into Deathrite Shaman. My opener is very solid containing 3 lands (2 fetches), goose, goyf, brainstorm, and a spell pierce. I have a mental lapse and jam the goose. My opponent casts a turn two Liliana, makes me sac goose. I draw for a turn or two looking for a Bolt. While I am cantripping he advances his board with Confidant and a Goyf. I scoop early to my own misplay. I probably should have left up the Spell Pierce on turn 1 since I was missing the Daze.

Sideboarding: -4 FoW, -2 Daze; +2 Rough/Tumble +1 Surgical Extraction, +3 Submerge

Game 2 was much more favorable. I am not entirely sure exactly how it played out, but I do remember Stifling his turn one fetch and then on turn two casting a Delver, playing a Wasteland with Daze in my hand.

Sideboarding: -2 Daze; +2 FoW

Game 3 was about the same as game 2. My opponent led with a fetch and didn’t immediately crack it. This turned out to be a pretty big error. I played a fetch and passed back keeping Stifle up. He tried to fetch during his turn, but I Stifled. Having no colored mana, he proceeded to Wasteland my Trop. I had 2 more lands in hand with a Brainstorm and a Ponder. I took my second turn by playing a Volcanic Island and Pondering. I stacked my deck to draw a Nimble Mongoose, leaving Land, then Bolt on top. I passed. My opponent played and Wastlanded me again. I wasn’t too worried as I had a fetch in hand and another on top of my deck. Additionally this put him back a total of three lands and had nothing in play. On my next turn, I drew the fetch, fetched, and made a Mongoose. I was two cards off of thresh at this point and my opponent still had no board. He played a Grove of the Burnwillows and passed back to me. I drew a Wasteland for the turn, Wasted his Grove, and plinked in for 1 damage leaving both Bolt, Brainstorm, and Spell Pierce up in hand. He bricked on land. I played my fetch Brainstormed, achieved thresh, attacked for 3, stacked so the bottom card was an instant as I had found a Delver. He found a Mountain and passed. I attacked for 3, made a delver, and passed. He bricked. My delver flipped and he scooped.

Round 2: Merfolk (2-1)

These games were pretty uneventful. Game one my opponent hand the nuts and just Islandwalked over my face as my hand was very removal light.

Sideboarding: -2 FoW, -2 Daze; +1 REB, +1 Pyroblast, +2 Rough/Tumble

Games 2-3 were basically the same with 4 Lightning Bolts, 2 Blast effects, 2 Fires, and 2 Roughs, he never got more than 2 lords in play. This kept him from making advantageous attacks as a piece of removal would just blow him out.

Round 3: White Hate-Bears (2-0)

I knew what this guy was playing ahead of time as I had seen it the previous round. I knew I needed either a creature draw or a removal heavy draw. My opening 7 was Delver, Goose, Goyf, 3 land and a FoW. I led with a Trop into Goose leaving Delver/FoW up. He cast Judge’s Familiar off of a Plains. I drew a Spell Pierce, cast the Delver, leaving up Spell Pierce and FoW/Spell Pierce. My opponent fetched for a Plains and cast Thalia. I ended up pulling the trigger and countering the Thalia with FoW. I was going to be on 3 lands the next turn, so there might be an argument for letting it resolve. However the :1: tax on the majority of the deck seemed bad, as did the first striking body. I revealed a Ponder with Delver, Pondered, found a Fire/Ice, Played the fetch, and attacked with the Delver. He declined to block. I passed. He played SFM missing his third land and chose to find Jitte. I untapped with three mana, attacked with both guys. I think at this point the goose was threatening thresh. Additionally, if he blocked with the SFM I could split the Fire for both of his guys. He declined to block again, taking 4 damage. I cast the Goyf and passed. He bricked on land again and passed. I drew and attacked with my team. He blocked the goyf with SFM and cheated in his Jitte. I dealt 4 damage again. I passed. When he went to equip pre-attack I split the Fire between his bird and his face clearing the lane for lethal.

Sideboarding: -4 Daze, -1 Spell Pierce, -1 Stifle; +2 Ancient Grudge, +2 Sulfur Elemental, +2 Rough/Tumble (I think Electrickery may have some higher value here; especially in tandem with the Elemental)

Game 2 I am on the draw, and have a hand of 3 Land, Delver, Goose, Goyf, Rough/Tumble. I was a little concerned about this as there was no point removal a la Bolt or Fire but being a game up I figured I would give it a shot. My opponent led with the Judge’s Familier again. I drew a Ponder, played a Volc, and made the Delver. My opponent drew played a fetch, cracked, and found a Hallowed Fountain playing it untapped (so effectively Bolting himself, seems real bad versus RUG), and cast Meddling Mage naming Lightning Bolt. I had no way to stop it, no real reason to as I wasn’t holding a Bolt, and a playable answer a turn or two later. He attacked me for 1 with his bird. I reveled Bolt to Delver (irony…), played a land, attacked for 3, made a Tarmogoyf to stall his mage on the ground and to threaten more damage. My opponent drew, bricked on land, attacked for 1 in the air (again… loosing this air race…), but then cast a second Familiar. I drew a Ponder for my turn, I played my third land, cast the Ponder putting a sorcery in the graveyard making Goyf a 2/3, drawing a Fire/Ice. I cast the Fire targeting both birds. He sacrificed the tapped on to counter the spell. That was fine as it still grew goyf to a 4/5. I then attacked with the Goyf and the Delver. He took the 7 to the face, dropping to 7 and knowing that I had a Bolt in hand. He made a SFM and found a Jitte, and passed. It was too little, too late. I drew (forget what it was), attacked for 7, he blocked both of my creatures. Leaving the SFM back. I then cast the Goose and bolted the Mystic. He drew and conceded. After thinking about it, I think casting Rough pre-combat would have been another reasonable line. It would have killed the SFM and Meddling Mage, leaving only one blocker. He still was getting a draw step as I would have got in with Delver and had three damage with the Bolt. I guess that line gives him the potential to sacrifice the bird, which I could have paid for. This would have just given me the game. Additionally this line also gives me the option the he blocks Delver, if he forgot about the bolt. Then he is just dead. However, keeping the Rough seemed fine as it is a very high impact card in that match up.

Round 4: Dream Halls/Omni-Show: (2-1)

Going into this round, my opponent and I drew and split the first and second place. We played for the free tourney entry. These game were all basically the same, I develop an early board keeping mana up to Pierce or otherwise counter the Show and Tell. I managed to get games 1 and 3. He got me in game 2 as he was on the play and my hand was kind of durdly with only a Goose as a threat.

I sideboarded like this for games 2 and 3: -2 Fire/Ice, -2 Lightning Bolt; +2 Flusterstorm, +1 Pyroblast, +1 Red Elemental Blast. I think there is an argument for the Surgicals here. Since we are fighting over Show and Tell if, as the RUG player, you can stop the first one and extract it, they have a much harder time amassing the mana to hardcast either Dream Halls or Omniscience. This buys us a lot of time, if it doesn’t just win the game.
Overall I think that the deck has been working very well for me the past few times I have run it. If my meta stays stable I might try to work in a Mind Harness and a Electrickery to the Sideboard. The Electrickery is good against Belcher (if they go tokens route), Esper Stoneblade (Lingering Souls, this is a strict advantage over Rough/Tumble), about the same against the Mono White deck as it gets the dumb birds guys, in addition to MOMs, and Thalias, it is also good in Goyf mirrors, allowing you to attack your Goyf into an opposing Goyf to take theirs out with potential extra value. So I was thinking maybe something like this:

2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Electrickery
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Sulfur Elemental (maybe one of these could be a Mind Harness?)
3 Submerge
1 Rough/Tumble

Anyways, thanks for reading. Any comments or advice is welcome and encouraged!

[Arsenal]

I also like Paolo Cesari's articles:

http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/51877/the-captains-log-building-a-rug-sideboard
http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52571/the-captains-log-stifled-opportunities-2
http://jupitergames.info/articles/2013/52617/the-captains-log-adapting-rug-for-the-current-metagame

Hmm. Interesting reads. The part about no Life from the Loam in the sideboard because RUG Delver doesn't want to go long makes sense I suppose, but I've never viewed Life from the Loam as a "I want to become the control deck and drag this game out" card, I've always viewed it as a "my opponent is also on the Wasteland plan, and I need a way to recoup my Wasted lands in order to play Magic: The Gathering" card. Thoughts on Life from the Loam's role in RUG Delver?

@Strutzilla

I think your Jund opponent in Game 3 made the absolute correct decision in going all in on the early Wasteland plan against you. His chances of manascrewing you were greater than you having a land heavy hand/top of library. Many RUG Delver pilots will keep a 1-lander if it has a cantrip or two, then proceed to get blown out by a single opposing Wasteland. As Jund normally carries 23 lands, his chances of naturally drawing into land were fairly good. Although you pulled that out, he made the correct play (unless he somehow knew you were land heavy via Thoughtseize or something).

[Sturtzilla]

Thoughts on Life from the Loam's role in RUG Delver?

I have never really been a fan. It ties up too much mana and slows the game down on both sides of the table. I will say that it is versatile. I have never really been fond of drawing it back when I was running it.


@Sturtzilla

I think your Jund opponent in Game 3 made the absolute correct decision in going all in on the early Wasteland plan against you. His chances of manascrewing you were greater than you having a land heavy hand/top of library. Many RUG Delver pilots will keep a 1-lander if it has a cantrip or two, then proceed to get blown out by a single opposing Wasteland. As Jund normally carries 23 lands, his chances of naturally drawing into land were fairly good. Although you pulled that out, he made the correct play (unless he somehow knew you were land heavy via Thoughtseize or something).

The mistake that I was more pointing out was the he didn't fetch as soon as he played his land on turn one in game three. If he had done that, I wouldn't have been able to Stifle his fetch and he could have been developing his board turns 1-3 and still possibly Wasting me. I will concede that many RUG players will keep land light hands. I really try not to and especially don't want to if I know the opposing deck has access to Wasteland. I think last night between all of my games I kept one one lander, but I was on the draw... it was also against the Show and Tell deck... so I wasn't too concerned about Wastes. The fetch activation and subsequent line he took allowed me to sculpt my hand and top of my library while he was hoping to just get a blow out. Progressing his board likely would have been much better in this specific game.

[Barbed Blightning]

I have never really been a fan. It ties up too much mana and slows the game down on both sides of the table. I will say that it is versatile. I have never really been fond of drawing it back when I was running it.

The mistake that I was more pointing out was the he didn't fetch as soon as he played his land on turn one in game three. If he had done that, I wouldn't have been able to Stifle his fetch and he could have been developing his board turns 1-3 and still possibly Wasting me. I will concede that many RUG players will keep land light hands. I really try not to and especially don't want to if I know the opposing deck has access to Wasteland. I think last night between all of my games I kept one one lander, but I was on the draw... it was also against the Show and Tell deck... so I wasn't too concerned about Wastes. The fetch activation and subsequent line he took allowed me to sculpt my hand and top of my library while he was hoping to just get a blow out. Progressing his board likely would have been much better in this specific game.

I agree with loam. It's not that it isn't powerful; it's that it is naturally a slower card by design

Good job, BTW! Sounds like you had a decent slew of matches. Has 2 fire//ice been good? I'm trying to figure out what my flex slots should be.

[Water_Wizard]

@ Sturtz - good job. I would bring in Surgical vs. Dream Halls / Omni-Show, if anything for the hand information. Bolt is good, but you can always Surgical just to gather info.

Life from the Loam is especially bad with DRS. I tried running it and took it out because DRS either eats it or eats all of your lands, so Loam is a no-go.

Electricity seems good. However, it won't help you out vs. Merfolk. If you are really concerned with Mom and Thalia, run Forked Bolt.

Good job! I agree that your first round opponent kind of shot himself in the foot.

[Sturtzilla]

I agree with loam. It's not that it isn't powerful; it's that it is naturally a slower card by design


Life from the Loam is especially bad with DRS. I tried running it and took it out because DRS either eats it or eats all of your lands, so Loam is a no-go.

I think this is spot on. Loam is a very powerful card; however, it tends to lead to longer games based upon the mechanics of the card. RUG doesn't really want the game to go long. This deck is built to deal 20-25 damage very quickly and efficiently. While Loam may allow the deck additional options that are powerful (Wastelocking an opponent or recovering lost resources) these are strategies that diverge from our primary game plan of reducing our opponent's life total to 0. I guess my last thought here is that it doesn't matter how many lands we have or our opponent's have as long as we can reduce that life total.



Good job, BTW! Sounds like you had a decent slew of matches. Has 2 fire//ice been good? I'm trying to figure out what my flex slots should be.

Thanks! I have been pretty happy with the two Fire/Ice. It really seems to serve a lot of roles in the deck, which for me has been the major strength. Being able to dome for 2, kill 1 or 2 opposing creatures, finishing of an opposing Tarmogoyf, tapping Goyfs and other meanies so Geese can score more damage, and also cantripping. I haven't had to use it this way yet, but Icing an opposing land during your opponent's upkeep can be anywhere from setting them back a land to keep them from curving out perfectly to a full blown Time Walk that still lets you cantrip. The instant speed has been huge for me. Being able to do any of these options during either turn is something a lot of opponents don't really think about. Forked Bolt may cost a :1: less, but it allows you opponents more complete information. I am going to keep running it for the time being.



@ Sturtz - good job. I would bring in Surgical vs. Dream Halls / Omni-Show, if anything for the hand information. Bolt is good, but you can always Surgical just to gather info. Good job! I agree that your first round opponent kind of shot himself in the foot.

Thank You! I think that paying two life and a card for the information is kind of iffy. It can let us know how to prepare for the counter war the combo turn, which is good. Our life in the match up isn't a concern, seeing as once they combo, we are just dead. So I don't think the life is really the problem so much as the card slot. I guess it comes down to if we think information and potentially taking out Show and Tells is better than closing the door with Bolt. I am conflicted on this one. I think I need to run more games pre and post board to figure out what I prefer.



Electricity seems good. However, it won't help you out vs. Merfolk. If you are really concerned with Mom and Thalia, run Forked Bolt.

I have played Forked Bolt in the past. The sorcery speed really is a hang up for the way I like to play the deck. In my meta there is occasionally 1 Maverick, 1 Mono-White Hate Bears, and 1-2 Esper Stoneblade, 1 Merfolk, 1-2 Affinity, 1-2 Jund, 1 BUG, 1-2 Belcher and a bunch of not real decks. I will concede that Electrickery is less exciting versus Merfolk. It may be able to clear some pre-Lord Cursecatchers or Silvergills, but is largely going to be irrelevant after that first Lord. Electrickery seems good against a fair cross section of these decks: Maverick, Mono-White, Esper, Affinity, and Belcher.

[wcm8]

I'm actually dropping Loam from my SB this week, as it has always tended to be either 'win more' or uncastable from a losing position. If you're using it to stanch the bleeding, it's too late. There are better options if you want something specific to win the mirror or against Wasteland Aggro decks. I think it makes sense to play it in BUG due to a slightly superior late-game and higher CMC bombs, but RUG generally needs to hit hard and fast early to win.

I'm returning Sylvan Library to the main deck. It lets you go Berserker-mode once you've gained the upper hand, and life total is almost completely irrelevant against the majority of combo decks. I've ended games at 1 Life in the past, having drawn up to 4 additional cards from the enchantment. I suppose this is part of my approach to playing RUG.

To go full-on nerd and make an anime comparison, with RUG you're like Asuka in Unit 02. Sure, you have an AT Field (Spell Pierce, Daze, FoW, etc.) to stave off enemy attack, but you're not there to play the waiting game. The sortie is to get out there and kill the Angel as fast as possible. That's why I hate playing Stifle with the deck, and like to increase the threat density, type and amount of Burn, and even occasionally run Thought Scour.

What can I say, just watched the NGE reboot movies over the past few days. :cool:

[Barbed Blightning]

I'm actually dropping Loam from my SB this week, as it has always tended to be either 'win more' or uncastable from a losing position. If you're using it to stanch the bleeding, it's too late. There are better options if you want something specific to win the mirror or against Wasteland Aggro decks. I think it makes sense to play it in BUG due to a slightly superior late-game and higher CMC bombs, but RUG generally needs to hit hard and fast early to win.

I'm returning Sylvan Library to the main deck. It lets you go Berserker-mode once you've gained the upper hand, and life total is almost completely irrelevant against the majority of combo decks. I've ended games at 1 Life in the past, having drawn up to 4 additional cards from the enchantment. I suppose this is part of my approach to playing RUG.

To go full-on nerd and make an anime comparison, with RUG you're like Asuka in Unit 02. Sure, you have an AT Field (Spell Pierce, Daze, FoW, etc.) to stave off enemy attack, but you're not there to play the waiting game. The sortie is to get out there and kill the Angel as fast as possible. That's why I hate playing Stifle with the deck, and like to increase the threat density, type and amount of Burn, and even occasionally run Thought Scour.

What can I say, just watched the NGE reboot movies over the past few days. :cool:

Can't say I get the reference, but I will say this: stifle and bolt area the only two reasons to play this over BUG Tempo.

To use a boxing analogy: BUG is a deck filled with haymakers (hymn, tombstalker) and uppercuts (abrupt decay, deathrite). They're powerful yet costly. RUG, by contrast, has a succession of quick jabs and hooks (stifle, spells curving out at 1 on average) that, while less effective by themselves, add up to a quick K.O.

Stifle is part of what glues this strategy together: it's LD, wasteland protection, creates a taxing environment for pierce, daze and flusterstorm to thrive in and can save your ass from a multitude of triggered abilities (bloobraid, ringleader, annihilator, liliana of the veil, this list goes on). Sure it's a specialized card, but so is spell pierce and snare, but we still run them.

I'm also not convinced of thought scour; it feels too weak to me. I'd sooner run vapor snag.

@sturz: I tested vs TES recently, had no counters in hand so I just iced his city two turn in a row and drew into pierce/force. It was pretty sweet.

[Arsenal]

I'd rather run Probe over Scour too. Scour has never say well with me, ever.

[Sturtzilla]

@sturtz: I tested vs TES recently, had no counters in hand so I just iced his city two turn in a row and drew into pierce/force. It was pretty sweet.

That does sound like pretty good value there. I haven't played the Storm match ups for a few weeks. Getting the 1 damage from a City of Brass just is gravy in addition to a Time Walk... as is that extra card. Winning!



I'd rather run Probe over Scour too. Scour has never say well with me, ever.

I am not sure I would go this far. The information is helpful, but Scour is much more synergistic with the rest of the deck. Pumping Goyf and Goose and potentially gaining some incremental value post board with Submerge.

[Mystical_Jackass]

I had an idea of making a White variant, basically so I could run StP & E. Tutors to get Drop of Honey, Oblivion Ring, or Needle/Revoker. Has anyone tried anything like this, just wondering what you guys think about that idea? Thanks

[thecrav]

I had an idea of making a White variant, basically so I could run StP & E. Tutors to get Drop of Honey, Oblivion Ring, or Needle/Revoker. Has anyone tried anything like this, just wondering what you guys think about that idea? Thanks

Would you be running all four colors or cutting something for white?

[Barbed Blightning]

it's been kind of dead recently, so I figured I'd write up a few notes I've made from my local events this past two weeks. They're smallish, maybe 25 people, but features mostly "real" legacy decks. I've taken 1st both weeks, prize-splitting one, taking first the other.

List was standard



4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
2 Fire // Ice

3 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland


Sideboard was adjusted for metagame (not enough green decks to justify Submerge):


3 Rough // Tumble
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Sulfur Elemental
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Flusterstorm


In a more diverse meta, I'd add 3 Submerge over a one each of REB, Rough/Tumble, Sulfur Elemental

Just some observations I've made (and looking for advice as well):

Goblins: 2-1, 2-2 (for fun round)

Difficult, unless you get a threshed goose and a Rough. Still trying to figure out boarding; any suggestions from veterans of the deck?

UWr Miracles: 2-0, 2-0 (for fun)

Felt like a cakewalk, but I had quad-stifle one game and double Vortex the other. Goose, as always, the MVP.

T.E.S. 2-1

Only lost a game because of a play mistake on my part. Feels like a cakewalk, though; is that incorrect?

EsperBlade 2-1

Super tight, but not necessarily difficult. They guy who was playing it, like me, just made his deck a few weeks ago and was just thrilled to be playing it. Sulfuric Vortex and Sulfur Elemental, along with Goose, were MVP.

Best moment in the past two weeks: Playing against my buddy's BRWg brew. He has a Tidehollow on Tarmogoyf, Lilly at 2 and a summoning sick DRS. I have a goose and 4 life. I'm basically dead.

Topdeck Rough // Tumble. Captain Nope to the rescue! :cool: Wipe his team, kill lilly and play a goof next turn that's a 6/7. Killer.

[phazonmutant]

T.E.S. 2-1

Only lost a game because of a play mistake on my part. Feels like a cakewalk, though; is that incorrect?


I would describe the matchup as close from experience with the other side. I think it comes down to playskill a lot, although the big cards are Silence on the TES side and Flusterstorm on the thresh side. A quick delver is always ideal and stifle and rough can conditionally be good.

[Barbed Blightning]

Silence is good, but I feel like RUG is still a nightmare: stifle for storm triggers, quick creatures to get them beneath a safe Ad Nauseam, free/cheap countermagic that, regardless of what you prefer (snare, pierce, fluster), is live and useful. Even our burn, the weakest part of our deck in that matchup, is occasionally powerful.

I'm not saying Storm doesn't have a means of dealing with RUG, but I don't see it as a close matchup, especially given the burden of skill required on the part of the Storm pilot.

[phazonmutant]

Silence is good, but I feel like RUG is still a nightmare: stifle for storm triggers, quick creatures to get them beneath a safe Ad Nauseam, free/cheap countermagic that, regardless of what you prefer (snare, pierce, fluster), is live and useful. Even our burn, the weakest part of our deck in that matchup, is occasionally powerful.

I'm not saying Storm doesn't have a means of dealing with RUG, but I don't see it as a close matchup, especially given the burden of skill required on the part of the Storm pilot.

All I'm saying is that from tournament and testing experience, RUG is a close matchup for me personally. I've won more than I've lost (something like 60% record over 10ish matches), but that's a small sample size and honestly most of the Thresh pilots were mediocre. It's not an easy matchup, but it's definitely not a bye for you guys.

While you have a lot of tools that are conditionally powerful, Silence blanks almost all the conditional answers and TES can consistently combo very quickly.

I agree with you that the Storm pilot needs to have more experience to win the matchup relative to the Thresh player.

[JamieW89]

With ANT the matchup always feels fine to me, maybe 50-50 versus solid Thresh players. At GP Amsterdam I went 2-2 versus RUG, at GP Strasbourg I went 3-1 over the weekend, in random tournaments I'm like 60-65% I think. Playing a white splash for chants makes it somewhat better too.

[Sturtzilla]

Back again with another quick RUG report! I went 2-1-1 this week. I was awarded a bye, beat Lands (2-0), drew with Stoneblade (1-1-1 [I am pretty sure that I punted game 3]) and lost to Jund (0-2). I ended up 5th overall... I got squeaked out of 4th on breakers. But I got $10 in store credit for my troubles and as I was free rolling from last week's victory, it was all profit. I am not going to do a full report or anything. I will posit a few questions though.

The first is one that there has been a good amount of discussion on; I would like to revisit how to beat Jund. I brought in Rough/Tumbles to clear out their non-Goyfs and Submerges to deal with pretty much anything else. I keep going back and forth on Surgical in this match up. It can get rid of Wasted Groves and Punishing Fires... but I am typically more worried about Goyfs and Liliana. I wasn't able to identify any major errors in these two games, so I guess I am asking if anyone out there has managed to make this match up more favorable? And if so what are you doing exactly as far as the cards you are bringing in an out?

The second item I would like to ask the group is how do we fight against Lands? I was able to win my match against it this week; however, I would like to have a better plan moving forward. This week I brought in Flusterstorms (2), Surgicals (2), and an Ancient Grudge and a Krosan Grip. I took out my Dazes (4) as they become quickly worthless and my two Fire/Ice. Game 1 I did use Ice to Tap down a Maze of Ith at the end of my opponent's turn. It was pretty good as I was able to force through some more damage and also cantrip. I don't think Fire/Ice is where we want to be though. Game 1 I was at 16 life with Trop and Mongoose facing down an opponent with loads of lands, a Tabernacle, and LftL online; oh yea he was at 3 life. He Wastes me off of lands, I am forced to sac my Goose, which would have killed him. I draw a Lightning Bolt... So I play draw go for a few turns until I hit a fetch to find the last Volc and kill him. Game two I get off to a Delver, into Delver, Goose hand. This was pretty great as his one Maze wasn't able to buy him enough time. Are there any cards for this match up that would improve our position? I don't have a ton of experience playing against this archetype.

One thing I can say about both of these decks is that playing Stifles more defensively may be the way to go. In lands it sure seems correct. Using Stifle to keep Time Walking Wasteland destructions was great for me in both games. Against Jund I am more torn as their mana base is greedy, hindering it can be great. However, if they stick a Liliana, having the Stifle for the -2 is pretty powerful. Any help you guys could offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time!

[ajfennewald]

If you expect to play lands often price of progress is a decent sideboard card.

[Sturtzilla]

If you expect to play lands often price of progress is a decent sideboard card.

That is a diverging line of play from the others that we should be taking as far as our typical mana denial strategy. It is an interesting thought though.

[syfilisx]

It's pretty hard to deny lands from mana with all the loaming and crucibling & explorations etc. Maze of Ith's & Glacial Chasms make worthwhile targets for wastelands though. But as UR player I can tell that Price is beast against lands.

[Sturtzilla]

It's pretty hard to deny lands from mana with all the loaming and crucibling & explorations etc. Maze of Ith's & Glacial Chasms make worthwhile targets for wastelands though. But as UR player I can tell that Price is beast against lands.

I am not totally writing this idea off. It could be useful against Esper, Jund, BUG... etc. The meta game has really developed into a lot of these decks with greedy mana bases (RUG included). It also would be the finisher... that is to say as long as you aren't going to die and your opponent will, it seems fine. I am just wondering if there is something else out there.

[wcm8]

Sulfuric Vortex beats Lands, and is useful in other matchups as well. Might be harder if they are playing Abrupt Decay or whatever, but generally if you can get a few swings in with early creatures, Vortex + Burn should be enough to finish them off.

Nimble Mongoose is your best threat here since it dodges Maze of Ith. Don't walk a bunch of threats into an Engineered Explosives if you can help it.

Don't forget to side in your graveyard hate if you have it. A timely Surgical Extraction or Tormod's Crypt can give them fits.

[Sturtzilla]

Sulfuric Vortex beats Lands, and is useful in other matchups as well. Might be harder if they are playing Abrupt Decay or whatever, but generally if you can get a few swings in with early creatures, Vortex + Burn should be enough to finish them off.

Nimble Mongoose is your best threat here since it dodges Maze of Ith. Don't walk a bunch of threats into an Engineered Explosives if you can help it.

Don't forget to side in your graveyard hate if you have it. A timely Surgical Extraction or Tormod's Crypt can give them fits.

I had recently bumped my two boarded Vortexes down to one and later cut the singleton copy. I like the Vortex plan over the Price of Progress plan. wcm8, I had come to basically the same conclusion. You want to get some early beats in and then try to burn them out as they are establishing control of the board. Vortex does some good here as it gives us inevitability and shuts down Zuran Orb. I think Vortex is going to be the game plan for the next event. I will probably board about the same but with the inclusion of 1-2 Vortex. wcm8 what are your thoughts on the Jund match up?

[wcm8]

wcm8 what are your thoughts on the Jund match up?

It's bad. Even against a mediocre Jund player, the raw power of the cards can just stomp all over RUG. Their 75 is designed to beat our 60, and there doesn't really seem to be any single option that would turn the matchup around. Pray to the topdeck gods. Winning this matchup is largely going to depend on luck.

Cards that might help:
Chill (hurts us too... But can really slow them down)
Submerge
Mind Harness
Obstinate Baloth (Jund might actually be easy if you play 3-4 of these. Pretty narrow)
Rough // Tumble
Pithing Needle (on DRS or Lili, or even Punishing Fire)
Life from the Loam
Divert / Misdirection
Sulfuric Vortex (and maybe even Price of Progress)
Scavenging Ooze (if he can survive a few turns its pretty great)

Midrange decks like Jund and The Rock are designed to beat Blue tempo. If you're seeing this round after round, you're probably better off just running a different deck altogether.

[Sturtzilla]

Thanks! I had been considering bringing Vortex back as you suggested. I have also been back and forth on Misdirection/Divert. I may have to give them a try. A lot of the options that you have mentioned I either have tried or have been running. There are two guys at locals that play Jund now. The one occasionally play Affinity and the other is sporadic in attendance. I think the rest of my match ups are pretty decent to good after board. I don't think either of the Jund guys are particularly good players, which is the worst part about losing to them. I may have to take another hard look at my meta and see if it is time to switch over to Miracles or Stoneblade for a few weeks. wcm8 thanks again for your suggestions!

[Barbed Blightning]

I've actually found the Jund matchup to be fairly even. They have many powerful cards against us, but so do we against them; it comes down to skill with the deck and a decent mulligan.

Stifle's the obvious MVP here, because a majority of the players a majority of the time are trying to do one thing against RUG: cast bloodbraid. Mostly it's because they've all been told that it's a powerhouse versus blue (which it is), but I think they miss the fact that BBE is best versus UW.

For our concerns, however, it should be treated as a combo card; prevent them from reaching it with Stifle and Bolt (DRS, Bob) and keep a threat in play (goose being the most robust). Jund's a greedy deck, requiring a lot of its manabase, so punish it. Pierce Hymns, save Snares.

In boarding, I agree with Vortex--Jund is a suicide black deck in it's heart of hearts, and fucking them out of DRS life gain is huge once they dip beneath ten. Divert is also powerful, and Submerge and Rough//Tumble are both savage at the right time. Don't forget you can submerge in response to Cascade, screwing them out of a goyf + BBE swing.

Make sure you drop FoW firstmost: the last thing we want to be doing to two-for-one-ing ourselves against the marquee deck of two-for-ones. Pierce and Daze still have merit, as Jund players love to tap out, but probably Daze would probably be the next thing I'd cut.

This isn't Team America, where Jund is a virtual auto-loss; RUG has plenty of ways to deal with it. I'd also run the following as my flexes for an open, esp. one where Jund may be a menace:


2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
2 Fire // Ice or 2 Forked Bolt

[ajfennewald]

If you want to tayler RUG to beat jund I would suggest increasing the burn count in the deck. I have had alot of susscess with blue zoo agasint jund (5-0) in matches. The main relevant differentiating factor between blue zoo and RUG is I run alot more burn (12 peices). Jund does not respond well to always losing their deathrite shaman and having to deal with alot of reach. Also maindeck grim lavamancers are good here.

[Arsenal]

RUG Delver is incredibly threat light; 12 creatures is the norm. As such, having 1-2 of our creatures killed early game is a pretty big deal. Unfortunately, Jund is well equipped to do just that as they run Bolt (kills Delver), Abrupt Decay (kills Delver and Goyf and can't be countered), Liliana of the Veil (kills Mongoose), Punishing Fire (kills Delver + inevitable win of the Goyf war for them). If they open with a removal heavy hand, it's really, really tough to get a threat to stick. And this is with them still trying to cast other spells (disruption, threats). Having been on both sides of the table, it's a very tough matchup for RUG Delver if the Jund opponent is competent.

[Pherion]

Pithing Needle (on DRS or Lili, or even Punishing Fire)

Just wanted to quickly point out that Pithing Needle does not work on Punishing Fire. It's a triggered ability caused by the opponent gaining 1 life. Needle only shuts down activated abilities.

[cheerios]

I've had some success lately against Jund using a build with 7-8 removal spells on the maindeck, and submerges and rough/tumbles on the sideboard. Post board I take out FOWs and a number of spell pierces. The match up is pretty difficult when you are on the draw. Stifle and nimble mongoose play a key role in the matchup.

[Arsenal]

Yeah, if you're build is running 8+ removal spells, then you'll have a fairly decent chance against Jund as all of their creatures, save for Goyf, are */2 guys that die to virtually any burn spell. However, most builds are only running 4-6 removal spells, so that's when Jund becomes a major problem.

[lambert101]

Current test list. Idea is to be more stack oriented game 1, and then can side into burn for post-board games against creature/midrange decks. Please let me know your thoughts. Forked Bolt is the biggest ? in my board. Please remember this is a test list.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Stifle
4 Spell Pierce
2 Fire // Ice

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

Board:
2 Rough // Tumble
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Sulfur Elemental
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Forked Bolt or Pithing Needle (name on Griselbrand, Jace, Lilly, Deathrite, Top, Wateland even)

[Barbed Blightning]

made 2nd at a 28-man today, though I double-ID'd and we split Top 8. So, not much to talk about as I only played 3 rounds.

List was as stock as it gets, with a side adjusted for metagame:



4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
2 Fire // Ice

3 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

SB:
3 Submerge
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Rough // Tumble
2 Sulfur Elemental
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Flusterstorm
1 Ancient Grudge

Round One: Elves

Game one He casts Craterhoof with a swarm of pointy-earred men. I have nothing but Tarmogoyfs and Mongeese

Boarding:

-3 Daze
-2 Spell Pierce
+3 Submerge
+2 Rough // Tumble

Game two I stifle both of his fetchlands and fishbowl with Delver for six turns.

Game three he fetches a Bayou, plays deathrite. I kill it, with double submerge in hand, which keep him off progressing his game. Eventually, he has a Heritage Druid, a sick Llanowar Elf and just the bayou. in one turn I waste the bayou, kill the Llanowar and run out Delver, who flips. He pokes for one, I maul for three. I win the race.

Round 2: T.E.S.

Piloted by Ning, arguably one of the best players in the American NE, this was an intense match. I played super tight and was rewarded by many lucky draws.

Game one I misjudged what he was doing; when he chose not to imprint Chrome Mox I should have known something was up, and could have forced his dark rit. I chose not to, going against my gut instinct; as a result he had Empty the Warrens at Storm 6.

Boarding:
-4 Lightning Bolt
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 Ancient Grudge
+2 Rough // Tumble

Game Two I have the opener containing a Flusterstorm, Stifle and a Delver. It's an intense round and I took sparse notes as I wanted to focus on recouping after game one. I play it safe, keeping at least one or two mana up for counters/stifle. Eventually Delver flips and I get there.

Game three I mull to six to double brainstorm, double force, spell snare and tarmogoyf. I keep, and the gods of greed reward me with a top-deck Scalding Tarn.
He asks the judge what the Tumble half of Rough // Tumble does; I tell him it's terrible.

It's still a tight-as-hell game, but eventually a 4/5 goof gets him to 3 life. He has 5 cards in hand, I have a Daze and a Force.
Lotus Petal. I think; resolves.
Lotus Petal. Uh oh. I think more, awaiting the dreaded Silence; it resolves.
Lotus Petal. Not much I can do now, anyway; he has four mana, and if he has the empty, I just need to dig for Rough // Tumble. Resolves.
Dark Ritual. Incredibly aware of my game one mistake, I consider countering it. I decide that there's a possibility that he doesn't have a storm spell in hand, and, given that he already has enough mana for anything in the deck, giving him the extra storm is moot.

Infernal Tutor, hell bent. Massive sigh of relief as I pitch the Daze.

Great games, definitely some of the best play I've executed in the past few months.

Round 3: Rock/Dark Mav/"JunkBlade"

These games were easy mode compared to Ning. Favorite sequence from game one: Snare an SFM, Bolt a Dryad Arbor to block an exalted pridemage with my newly 3/4 Goof and waste his tapped wasteland. He's left with a tapped plains and nothing else.

Boarding:

-3 Daze
-2 Pierce
+3 Submerge
+2 Rough // Tumble

Game two he covers lost ground with a timely RIP to nullify goyf and lingering souls to impede Delver. Neither are enough.

The next round the 1st place Esper player and I ID, though in our "for fun" games I run roughshod all over him. The Jund player afterwards draws with me and Top 8 splits the prize.

All in all, made 160 in store cred and had a sweet day of stifling.

[Vandalize]

Round 2: T.E.S.
Boarding:
-4 Lightning Bolt
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 Ancient Grudge
+2 Rough // Tumble


Why would you take all the four bolts before taking out Fire//Ice? It's such a bad card against Storm. Bolt isn't great, but it can add some clock, and make Ad Nauseam a little worse.

[Tammit67]

Why would you take all the four bolts before taking out Fire//Ice? It's such a bad card against Storm. Bolt isn't great, but it can add some clock, and make Ad Nauseam a little worse.

Especially since bolt goes to the face better and kills xantid swarm for less.

[Barbed Blightning]

Fire // Ice is completely kosher to pitch to FoW, whereas any other card has some kind of downside. It can also have narrow, yet useful, applications, such as being able to kill two goblin tokens, or tapping down a land or LED to gain a virtual time walk.

Fire // Ice just gives you more options, imo, whereas bolt is just a burn spell (though, granted, the best one ever made). I'm also uncertain of the inclusion of Rough // Tumble vs storm, but I think the empty kill is their usual route vs us.

[Einherjer]

or tapping down a land or LED .

Why would you want to tap a LED? :D

[Barbed Blightning]

Why would you want to tap a LED? :D

Well, if it's on upkeep, you can deny them a black lotus, esp. If you're waiting for ancient grudge you tucked away with a brainstorm or ponder. It's also good to buy you a turn for delver to flip or a creature to deal lethal, and you gain incremental advantage by tapping city of brass

[dune2k]

Well, if it's on upkeep, you can deny them a black lotus, esp. If you're waiting for ancient grudge you tucked away with a brainstorm or ponder. It's also good to buy you a turn for delver to flip or a creature to deal lethal, and you gain incremental advantage by tapping city of brass

No, you don't:
Sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond, Discard your hand: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool. Activate this ability only any time you could cast an instant.

Always happy playing against Canadian Thresh players w/ ANT, since most don't know my and/or their deck and the important interactions. :)

[Barbed Blightning]

No, you don't:

Always happy playing against Canadian Thresh players w/ ANT, since most don't know my and/or their deck and the important interactions. :)

I've always seen storm pilots (TES, ANT, Belcher or otherwise) tapping their LEDs. Oh well, I still like Fire // Ice; 2/3 ain't bad.

ANT's a joke matchup for any reasonable Thresh player, regardless, since it's much slower than TES and lacks the versatility of Burning Wish or the protection/disruption of Silence/Chant.

[Tammit67]

Mini-report: Took Jacob Wilson's 2nd place GP Strasbourg list to Cyborg One in Doylestown PA for a weekly legacy event after cutting the zuran orb for a second sulfur elemental. 20 people in attendance, 4 rounds with prizes based on record.

List here (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/feature-article-grand-prix-strasbourg-report-2nd/).

Meta was:
3 Storm combo (two TES, other a weird AnT)
2 Show and tell (one omni, one sneak)
2 Elves (one UGB with beck/natural order, other UGW natural order)
2 Esper Stoneblade
1 Death and Taxes (Serra avengers)
1 RUG (me)
1 UR delver
1 Burn
1 UG Cloudpost
1 UW Painter grindstone
1 MUD
1 Dredge
1 RBG punishing fire loam pox
1 Jund
1 Affinity

Round 1: John W. with Weird AnT build
Game 1: John is known locally for playing 2 decks: either his own AnT build or goblins. This means my opener of tropical island, wasteland, delver, 2x brainstorm, ponder, daze has the clock i want and the filter I need to find the right answers. Delver is followed by swamp pass. Blind flip with lightning bolt, ponder for second blue source and action fails but draws a second waste. After a few turns and wasteland activations later he drops double petal, cracks them and taps swamp for BBR to get threshhold, and casts cabal ritual with R floating which promptly meets FoW. Never let them get the mana when you just kill them next turn.
SB: +1 spell pierce, 1 flusterstorm, 1 vendillion clique, 1 grafdigger's cage. - 1 forked bolt, 2 lightning bolt, 1 gitaxian probe, 1 goyf
Game 2: Turn 2 dark confidant off city of traitors + swamp eats a bolt, Turn 3 confidant gets snared. Goyf begins bashing. Duress reveals 2 daze 2 stifle 1 clique and John laments not being able to take clique. EoT clique finishes him from 7 with goyf
Record 1-0, 2-0 in games

Round 2: Ross P. with UGb Elves (7 glimpse effects, 2 natural order)
Game 1: I keep a serviceable 6 with more counters than removal. Super nice guy Ross unapologetically value glimpses me as 2 delvers fails to flip for a couple turns, runs me out of relevant disruption, draws 20 cards before showing me craterhoof. Ugh. Counter hands feel like lose lose situations. I certainly could have stifled a deathrite activation to deny blue mana but didn't for no real reason.
Sideboard: +3 submerge, 2 rough//tumble. -2 spell pierce, 1 snare, 2 force (since on the play)
Game 2: Stifle and waste keep him mana tight, but nimble is unable to find room to swing in. I force two glimpse effects, ponder cannot find the rough//tumble. A third glimpse found via visionary/symbiote allows him to combo.
This matchup feels much harder than typical elves list. The first glimpse doesn't usually force them all in, but we still can't let it resolve. I need to test against this more
Record 1-1, 2-2 in games

Round 3: Kevin T. with Red MUD
Game 1: I lose the die roll against MUD but am not punished for it. Instead Kevin casts faithless looting and pitches land blightsteel colossus. I remind him of the trigger so welder eventually can't sneak it into play, play delver. Darksteel citadel blanks wasteland and daze on his Goblin Welder but delver gets airborne. Turn 3 jitte after an ancient tomb has me stifle the equip and ponder into removal for welder. Nimble joins the fray and closes the game out.
Sideboard: +1 spell pierce, 1 vendillion clique, 1 krosan grip, 1 Life from the loam. -4 stifle (no fetches but a ton of other reasonable targets. What would you take out?)
Game 2: I keep an awesome hand that gets to play magic should there be no turn 1 Chalice @1. :(
Game 3: I get to cast my delver before another chalice hits play at X=1. I gitaxian probe to pump eventual goyfs and crack in for 3. Two turns of indestructible lands later I find myself on the wrong side of metalworker. I brainstorm in response as my only out, he lets it resolve. I find Force and goyf and his missed trigger lets me win. (waiting for the hatemail)
Record 2-1, 4-3 in games

Round 4: Matt D. on OmniShow
Game 1: I lose another die roll but am rewarded with a fetchland pass from my opponent. I respond in kind with a tropical island, pass. Matt cracks the fetch EoT and gets stifled. From here, he has to lotus petal + brainstorm to find mana which puts him down a lot of cards. He cast show and tell with 3 cards in hand, 6 life staring down flipped delver and unthreshed goose. I have force, stifle 2 lightning bolt in hand, volcanic island, wasteland, and tropical island in play untapped.
My decision tree:
A) If he puts in a creature, he dies from bolts. Similarly sneak attack while tapped out does nothing. Any course of action wins here
B) If he puts in omniscience I have problems. ->

If it is omni with Emrakyl and force, my stifle on the extra turn trigger will not resolve and I can't survive annihilator. Forcing here prevents the omni and he dies to double bolt

If omni with burning wish and force, same deal as above exchanging stifle for force on burning wish, better force show and tell

omni without protection either gets the turn stifled or wish forced. Force yields same results as sandbagging

I infact did not force the show and tell and he drops emrakyl and dies to double bolt. I threw the game and my opponent could not capitalize.

Sideboard: -4 lightning bolt, 1 forked bolt, 1 nimble mongoose. +2 pyroblast, 1 clique, 1 spell pierce, 1 flusterstorm, krosan grip.
Game 2: My hand doesn't have much of a clock, but has the hard counters I want. My turn two goyf meets and opposing daze, which I force, which he pierces. I elect not to fight over it further and promptly draw a second goyf. He taps out for a sneak attack a few turns later and i respond with clique to see spell pierce and show and tell as the only cards left in hand for Matt. I take the show and tell with clique, untap and krosan grip the sneak attack. An attack the turn after ends it.
Record: 3-1, 6-3 games

I got $12 credit for my troubles, good for my $5 entry. List was pretty good, though I wasn't as impressed with g.probe as the channel fireball pro. if it continues to be unimpressive, it will be replaced with either 2 thoughtscour or 1 dismember/snare. Sideboard most likely needs a better way to interact with the GY, but otherwise felt good

EDIT:
ANT's a joke matchup for any reasonable Thresh player, regardless, since it's much slower than TES and lacks the versatility of Burning Wish or the protection/disruption of Silence/Chant.
I disagree. They often can make the land drops to play around ou softer disruption while ripping out the hard disruption. Past in flames nullifies getting them low. Hands without delver aren't very good. Post baord most lists get swarm to compound things a little. While it still isn't a bad matchup since we pack so much that they dislike, calling it a joke matchup is a bit much. From playing from both sides I'd say it is about even with a HIGH skill dependancy.

[Pdf]

I've actually found the Jund matchup to be fairly even. They have many powerful cards against us, but so do we against them; it comes down to skill with the deck and a decent mulligan.

Make sure you drop FoW firstmost: the last thing we want to be doing to two-for-one-ing ourselves against the marquee deck of two-for-ones. Pierce and Daze still have merit, as Jund players love to tap out, but probably Daze would probably be the next thing I'd cut.


I agree it's more skill intensive and just like many matchups if they get ahead it's hard to pull back even with a good brainstorm. I don't know that I'd pull out all FoW on the draw as you need some way to stop an early deathrite/bob and often it's better to two for one yourself early than to be two for oned later reducing threshold or reducing the effectiveness of daze/pierce and especially the effectiveness of wastelands. It's infinitely harder to cut off a colour with a deathrite in play. The rough and tumbles can help clean up the mess a bit but the early turns are critical.

Jacob Wilson mentioned his FoW strategy on the draw and I have to agree it's not all bad to be able to stop a critical turn one play.

On a side note, I've been trying out the gitaxian probes and have also been unimpressed. Most of the time you can tell if you need to counter something and knowing what is in the hand hasn't helped much. Being able to cycle for 2 life isn't all bad but thought scour I feel gives more options.

[Barbed Blightning]

I agree it's more skill intensive and just like many matchups if they get ahead it's hard to pull back even with a good brainstorm. I don't know that I'd pull out all FoW on the draw as you need some way to stop an early deathrite/bob and often it's better to two for one yourself early than to be two for oned later reducing threshold or reducing the effectiveness of daze/pierce and especially the effectiveness of wastelands. It's infinitely harder to cut off a colour with a deathrite in play. The rough and tumbles can help clean up the mess a bit but the early turns are critical.

Jacob Wilson mentioned his FoW strategy on the draw and I have to agree it's not all bad to be able to stop a critical turn one play.

On a side note, I've been trying out the gitaxian probes and have also been unimpressed. Most of the time you can tell if you need to counter something and knowing what is in the hand hasn't helped much. Being able to cycle for 2 life isn't all bad but thought scour I feel gives more options.

Yeah, I agree. Could you post the link to Wilson's article?

Also probe seems mediocre. Has anyone found evidence to the contrary?

[Tammit67]

Yeah, I agree. Could you post the link to Wilson's article?

Also probe seems mediocre. Has anyone found evidence to the contrary?

If you look at my post 2 above yours, click the list link and it will take you to the report. It was ok for me, but not necessarily impressive

[undone]

Alright so M14 has started to be spoiled and I noticed this card.
Young Pyromancer 1R
Creature - Human Shaman Uncommon
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, put a 1/1 red Elemental creature token onto the battlefield.
2/1

I sat and thought about it. It doesn't have the raw power of goyf it's true but it seems like a viable sideboard card that gives this deck a way to do something it's never been able to do before, generate card advantage. Or I could just be wrong and it could be dryad 2.0

[wcm8]

Alright so M14 has started to be spoiled and I noticed this card.
Young Pyromancer 1R
Creature - Human Shaman Uncommon
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, put a 1/1 red Elemental creature token onto the battlefield.
2/1

I sat and thought about it. It doesn't have the raw power of goyf it's true but it seems like a viable sideboard card that gives this deck a way to do something it's never been able to do before, generate card advantage. Or I could just be wrong and it could be dryad 2.0

I'm with you on this one. I definitely intend on giving this guy some testing. He's like a mini Talrand, Sky Summoner.

[Barbed Blightning]

Alright so M14 has started to be spoiled and I noticed this card.
Young Pyromancer 1R
Creature - Human Shaman Uncommon
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, put a 1/1 red Elemental creature token onto the battlefield.
2/1

I sat and thought about it. It doesn't have the raw power of goyf it's true but it seems like a viable sideboard card that gives this deck a way to do something it's never been able to do before, generate card advantage. Or I could just be wrong and it could be dryad 2.0

I agree, it sounds interesting. When would you side it in?

[wcm8]

I agree, it sounds interesting. When would you side it in?

Just looking at Tier 1, I think he could be good against the following:
UW Miracles / Esper Blade (allows you to pressure them without committing too many creatures to the board at once, and dodges Rest in Peace)
Jund (to an extent.. it gives you a bit of potential card advantage and might help against Liliana activations)
Maverick / Merfolk / Goblins (Pyromancer is potentially like RUG's own version of Lingering Souls. Although there's unlikely to be access to Jitte, being able to chump block a big Knight or Ooze or whatever indefinitely while beating down with a Delver could win games)
BUG Cascade / Team America (their removal is mostly 1-for-1, so a Pyromancer that goes unanswered for a turn or two could steal games.)

RUG has a very tight 75, so I'm not entirely sure if he will make the cut. However, I think it fits all the criteria for Legacy playability: a unique and powerful effect at an aggressive cost. Like Snapcaster Mage, simply being a 2/1 body also means he's never *entirely* dead.

Compare him to Quirion Dryad or Kiln Fiend. The reason these sort of 'Grow' creatures aren't playable is because a single removal spell undoes the effort invested into them. Unlike those, Pyromancer simply rewards you for playing the game, and even if he's removed the tokens will stay on board. Unchecked, the damage ramps up pretty quickly. On turn 2 when you drop him, you might even be casting Daze and/or Force of Will right off the bat. I think this guy will find a home *somewhere* in Legacy, and RUG seems to make a lot of sense since he seems to fit into the aggro/control gameplan and the deck is already running about ~30 cards that will fulfill the function of generating tokens.

[SansSerif]

Against Punishing Jund, I am wondering which is a better target for our Wastelands - duals or grove?

Grove seems like a nice target as it is a mana source and allows punishing fire to return. On the other hand, taking out Bayou or Badlands will keep them off of Black.

[ironclad8690]

Against Punishing Jund, I am wondering which is a better target for our Wastelands - duals or grove?

Grove seems like a nice target as it is a mana source and allows punishing fire to return. On the other hand, taking out Bayou or Badlands will keep them off of Black.

Duals allow you to submerge (in most cases), whereas grove does not. If you take out grove and keep them off of green, they have to play a bayou and open themselves up for the submerge (if they don't make you discard it first).

[Kylehyde]

What's the general consensus on Fire // Ice? I've done some very cool RUGish things with it, but I have a feeling those are rarer than I'm remembering.

[Water_Wizard]

What's the general consensus on Fire // Ice? I've done some very cool RUGish things with it, but I have a feeling those are rarer than I'm remembering.

If you expect to see a lot of Thalia and Lingering Souls tokens, run Forked Bolt. Same with Tribal.

Fire/Ice is better vs. decks like BUG and Sneak and Show (although you are probably siding it out game 2 vs. both). It is an instant, can pitch to FOW, can tap down a land or a large creature (Tarmogoyf/Griselbrand), and it cantrips.

In an open or unknown meta, Fire/Ice is better because it has more range. Forked Bolt is better vs. creature-based decks. Dismember is good if you are going to be facing down Goyfs and KotRs (and then add Submerge post-board).

Personally, I'm running Fire/Ice now, but if Maverick picks up, those will become Forked Bolts.

[Barbed Blightning]

If you expect to see a lot of Thalia and Lingering Souls tokens, run Forked Bolt. Same with Tribal.

Fire/Ice is better vs. decks like BUG and Sneak and Show (although you are probably siding it out game 2 vs. both). It is an instant, can pitch to FOW, can tap down a land or a large creature (Tarmogoyf/Griselbrand), and it cantrips.

In an open or unknown meta, Fire/Ice is better because it has more range. Forked Bolt is better vs. creature-based decks. Dismember is good if you are going to be facing down Goyfs and KotRs (and then add Submerge post-board).

Personally, I'm running Fire/Ice now, but if Maverick picks up, those will become Forked Bolts.

Basically QFT.

I'm still tweaking my flexes for Baltimore next week. Currently have:

3 spell pierce
1 spell snare
2 fire// ice OR 1 forked bolt, 1 vapor snag

Any ideas for Baltimore?

[Water_Wizard]

Basically QFT.

I'm still tweaking my flexes for Baltimore next week. Currently have:

3 spell pierce
1 spell snare
2 fire// ice OR 1 forked bolt, 1 vapor snag

Any ideas for Baltimore?

I've been running 3 Spell Pierce, 2 Spell Snare and 1 Fire/Ice with 3 Submerge, 2 Rough/Tumble, and 2 Sulfur Elemental in the sideboard.

My list is tuned for a Esper/Jund meta and to stop Bob, SFM, Hymn, Goyf, and Lingering Souls tokens.

[dunk]

In an open or unknown meta, Fire/Ice is better because it has more range. Forked Bolt is better vs. creature-based decks.


Actually I think the opposite is true - if you don't know what to expect, run Forked Bolt because you will be happy to have as many 1 mana answers to Deathrite Shaman as possible... in general, costing 1 mana supports the deck way better in nearly every situation. It's more likely that you will have to destroy something early than needing it badly as a Force target.
Actually I think Fire // Ice is a card of the past...

[Brainstormer]

I'm a long time RUG and Stoneblade player, and recently I've picked up combo for the first time(ANT and TES in particular).

I recently sold my Esper stuff, thinking I needed to consolidate my deck choices, narrow my focus, and really zero in on two decks. The logical choice for me at the time was to keep what seemed like the two proactive decks. So I kept RUG and Storm. Although I am a long time control player, I think in legacy you should be doing proactive powerful things. A flying Nactal backed up by tons of counter magic just seems way better to me than two spirit tokens on turn three.

Since I parted with my stuff, the rule changes for M14 were announced, making JTMS a much better card than he was before. In addition, Deathblade, a deck I poo-poo'd at has emerged, and looks more real everyday. I don't regret keeping RUG because I just like the game plan so much better, but I'm wondering how these two shifts effect us. My meta is combo (Show and Tell, Reanimator, and ANT), creature decks (Junk, Maverick) and some some, but not much, control (a Shardless BUG player, and until recently, me on Esper), so I am not super knowledgable about playing against Jace. What I have done against the BUG player is to prioritize countering Jace and Visions, and kind of just ignore everything else (except for making super sure to kill shaman, of course).

I have never really been on the other side of the RUG/Esper matchup since I was the only one in my meta with the decks, and I played Esper when I loaned out RUG (because no one wanted to play Blade). When no one that needs to borrow a deck shows up at my shop for legacy, I play RUG which leaves a big Esper sized hole in the tournament. So I'm not super sure how to play against a Jace deck that isn't BUG. and I feel like its gonna be some blade variant that most benefits from this rule change. Also BUG is now better (and is already a tough match-up), but I feel like death blade will be favored for not having to lean on visions to beat other blue decks.

Does an almost certain uptick in Jace decks trouble us? Do we go back up to 2-3 Pyro/Red blasts (I've gone down to 1, as it has been pretty bad for me expect against the stray Fish deck, and sometimes miracles)? Am I wrong about JTMS decks being kind of scary for us (especially death blade)? Are there other ways to deal with JTMS that I should consider? Any tips?

[lordofthepit]

I do not consider Jace, the Mind Sculptor a problem for this deck. Trying to resolve that card through our mana denial, Dazes, Pierces, and REBs is very difficult. They would also have to stick it on an almost empty board to have it be effective (and it can't deal with Mongoose at all), plus any bounce activation opens Jace up to our burn.

Nonetheless, there are some Jace decks that represent unfavorable matchups (BUG, RiP Miracles, etc.). Others are favorable.

I also do not think Jace becomes better as a result of M14 rules. Unless you're planning to cast a JtMS into one on the battlefield just to get an extra activation, nothing changes except in the mirror (where it's a zero-sum game).

[Barbed Blightning]

I do not consider Jace, the Mind Sculptor a problem for this deck. Trying to resolve that card through our mana denial, Dazes, Pierces, and REBs is very difficult. They would also have to stick it on an almost empty board to have it be effective (and it can't deal with Mongoose at all), plus any bounce activation opens Jace up to our burn.

Nonetheless, there are some Jace decks that represent unfavorable matchups (BUG, RiP Miracles, etc.). Others are favorable.

I also do not think Jace becomes better as a result of M14 rules. Unless you're planning to cast a JtMS into one on the battlefield just to get an extra activation, nothing changes except in the mirror (where it's a zero-sum game).

As of now, the only walker to benefit from the change realistically is Lilly, since she uses -2 more than jace does his -1. One mana less also helps.

As far as death blade is concerned, stifle is still very good vs them. And with shard less, you can stifle the last suspend trigger leaving it permanently exiled

[SirTylerGalt]

After playing Legacy online on Cockatrice for the last year, I want to buy real cards. A local player offered to sell me, among other decks, his Canadian Threshold deck. I've played RUG Delver on Cockatrice a number of times, and I like the tempo gameplan. But the deck is quite expensive with all the dual lands and Tarmogoyf, and I started wondering if I should just go for U/R Delver Burn or U/R Midrange.

This got me to thinking that, with the printing of Young Pyromancer, I could play a U/R Tempo Thresh version that replaces Tarmogoyf with Young Pyromancer, and Nimble Mongoose with Nivmagus Elemental and/or Grim Lavamancer. Tarmogoyf and Mongoose were weakened since the printing of RiP and Deathrite Shaman anyway.

I could then later splash black instead of green, which gets me Dark Confidant and/or Deathrite Shaman.

I'm also worried to invest in RUG Delver, which seems to have a bad matchup against Jund, BUG, and OmniTell.

Do you think that green is still very much needed for this deck? Is it worth it to spend 400€ more to get 4 Tarmogoyf and 3 Tropical Islands, or should I focus on U/R for now? Do you think it's wise for me to buy RUG Delver as my first deck?

[Arsenal]

After playing Legacy online on Cockatrice for the last year, I want to buy real cards. A local player offered to sell me, among other decks, his Canadian Threshold deck. I've played RUG Delver on Cockatrice a number of times, and I like the tempo gameplan. But the deck is quite expensive with all the dual lands and Tarmogoyf, and I started wondering if I should just go for U/R Delver Burn or U/R Midrange.

This got me to thinking that, with the printing of Young Pyromancer, I could play a U/R Tempo Thresh version that replaces Tarmogoyf with Young Pyromancer, and Nimble Mongoose with Nivmagus Elemental and/or Grim Lavamancer. Tarmogoyf and Mongoose were weakened since the printing of RiP and Deathrite Shaman anyway.

I could then later splash black instead of green, which gets me Dark Confidant and/or Deathrite Shaman.

I'm also worried to invest in RUG Delver, which seems to have a bad matchup against Jund, BUG, and OmniTell.

Do you think that green is still very much needed for this deck? Is it worth it to spend 400€ more to get 4 Tarmogoyf and 3 Tropical Islands, or should I focus on U/R for now? Do you think it's wise for me to buy RUG Delver as my first deck?

I'd buy it if he's selling at a reasonable price. Many of the expensive pieces in RUG Delver can be used elsewhere, so buying Tarmogoyfs and blue dual lands certainly won't set you back in developing other decks.

EDIT: If you want to hold off on Goyfs and see what happens with it's price post-MM, then UR Delver is an option that you can explore, but I think RUG Delver is the better deck against more of the field.

[Barbed Blightning]

Tarmogoyf and Mongoose were weakened since the printing of RiP and Deathrite Shaman anyway.

I'm also worried to invest in RUG Delver, which seems to have a bad matchup against Jund, BUG, and OmniTell.

Do you think that green is still very much needed for this deck? Is it worth it to spend 400€ more to get 4 Tarmogoyf and 3 Tropical Islands, or should I focus on U/R for now? Do you think it's wise for me to buy RUG Delver as my first deck?

Goose and Goyf are still powerful cards regardless. I've thought about UR, but honestly Goyf kills tribal and burn decks where delver kind of sucks. UR has a hard time vs decks like fish/gobs because it lacks Goyf.

Those matchups are tricky but certainly not unbeatable or even necessarily bad. It comes down to playing tight and knowing what your role is.

And I would actually say RUG is a poor choice for a first deck. It has many versatile tools like stifle or force that require an understanding of the different archetypes of legacy. Goblins, Death and Taxes or Maverick are good introductory decks imho

[Arsenal]

And I would actually say RUG is a poor choice for a first deck.

RUG Delver would be his first paper Magic deck. He said he's been playing Legacy online for about a year.

[SirTylerGalt]

RUG Delver would be his first paper Magic deck. He said he's been playing Legacy online for about a year.

Yeah, I think playing on Cockatrice for a year will actually be really useful if I play RUG Delver, because I know most of the Legacy archetypes very well, having played with all types of deck, since it's free to test decks there :) I've also read tons of articles and discussions of RUG Delver over the years, since I really love the format, and this deck always interested me.

I think I'll go with RUG Delver, maybe replacing the 4 goyfs with 2 goyfs 1 GSZ 1 Scavenging Ooze for now, and I'll see if I want to go with 2 Goyf 2 Young Pyromancer after M14, or if I want to buy the other 2 goyfs :)

[Barbed Blightning]

Yeah, I think playing on Cockatrice for a year will actually be really useful if I play RUG Delver, because I know most of the Legacy archetypes very well, having played with all types of deck, since it's free to test decks there :) I've also read tons of articles and discussions of RUG Delver over the years, since I really love the format, and this deck always interested me.

I think I'll go with RUG Delver, maybe replacing the 4 goyfs with 2 goyfs 1 GSZ 1 Scavenging Ooze for now, and I'll see if I want to go with 2 Goyf 2 Young Pyromancer after M14, or if I want to buy the other 2 goyfs :)

Ah, must have missed the online part.

I used to run two goyf two ooze when I played junk--for about ten minutes until I realized how good Goyf is and bought the other two. I know they aren't exactly analogous but the point is that you really want Goyf when you want it

[SirTylerGalt]

Chris Pikula played RUG Delver against a BUG midrange deck on SCGLive today:

http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/411742703?t=3h19m50s

I would have stifled the Jitte trigger in G3, but I guess it didn't matter in the end.

[Serbitar]

Chris Pikula played RUG Delver against a BUG midrange deck on SCGLive today:

http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/411742703?t=3h19m50s

I would have stifled the Jitte trigger in G3, but I guess it didn't matter in the end.

G3 is actually a nice example how you lose a game by playing around Daze.

[Mokaod]

Ah, must have missed the online part.

I used to run two goyf two ooze when I played junk--for about ten minutes until I realized how good Goyf is and bought the other two. I know they aren't exactly analogous but the point is that you really want Goyf when you want it

I've been lurking a very lot here so you probably don't know my name. Hence the accompanying statement I am playing RUG Delver for about 3 years now in "the Forked Bolt setup" both online and IRL to give you some understanding of my experience with the deck.

OT: Still, of the creature base in this deck the Goyf most often feels like it's the weakest slot of them all. If I decide to ramp up the non-creature spells a bit, Goyf is the first to get cut g2/g3 in most match ups I played with CanTresh. Might be I'm making the wrong choices, but still I felt more often like I wanted another Goose or Delver in it's place especially when needing more non-creature spell power from the sb. The Goyf also makes us tap out quite often as we don't want more than two land in play unless the 3rd is a waste, and we don't want to get tapped out if we can help it. Playing the Goyf is maybe the most costly play we make and needs the most consideration which made me feel it's the weakest slot in the deck more often than once.

On the other hand: There just isn't a better alternative as of yet, at least what RUG-D is concerned, since or their effects are underwhelming or they just are too expensive to fit in the mana curve. And it doesn't get much more cost effective than a Goyf for fast clock without playing another deck.

Please do not mistake my opinion for a fact! I know better than to claim I fully understand MTG...

Edit: Lava Spike rofl, Forked Bolt! I should play less Standard and play moar Legacy gah.. MTGO thanks.. ^^

[Barbed Blightning]

I've been lurking a very lot here so you probably don't know my name. Hence the accompanying statement I am playing RUG Delver for about 3 years now in "the Forked Bolt setup" both online and IRL to give you some understanding of my experience with the deck.

OT: Still, of the creature base in this deck the Goyf most often feels like it's the weakest slot of them all. If I decide to ramp up the non-creature spells a bit, Goyf is the first to get cut g2/g3 in most match ups I played with CanTresh. Might be I'm making the wrong choices, but still I felt more often like I wanted another Goose or Delver in it's place especially when needing more non-creature spell power from the sb. The Goyf also makes us tap out quite often as we don't want more than two land in play unless the 3rd is a waste, and we don't want to get tapped out if we can help it. Playing the Goyf is maybe the most costly play we make and needs the most consideration which made me feel it's the weakest slot in the deck more often than once.

On the other hand: There just isn't a better alternative as of yet, at least what RUG-D is concerned, since or their effects are underwhelming or they just are too expensive to fit in the mana curve. And it doesn't get much more cost effective than a Goyf for fast clock without playing another deck.

Please do not mistake my opinion for a fact! I know better than to claim I fully understand MTG...

Edit: Lava Spike rofl, Forked Bolt! I should play less Standard and play moar Legacy gah.. MTGO thanks.. ^^

I would add that Goyf is our best dude vs burn and tribal decks

[SirTylerGalt]

I'm concerned about the OmniTell matchup, especially when they bring in Defense Grid from the SB. I know we usually side out Spell Snare against Sneak&Show, but I wonder if I should keep 1-2 Spell Snare in to counter the Defense Grids? Should I also bring in 2 Ancient Grudge / 1 Krosan Grip in addition to REB / Flusterstorm? Ancient Grudge can remove Defense Grid on your own turn, unless they play Defense Grid on the turn they combo of... Krosan Grip can destroy Omniscience / Dream Halls in response to some other spells.

I guess I could cut 1 Wasteland (since they play mostly basic islands) and some amount of burn for those sideboard cards. I could also replace 2 Tarmo with 2 Sulfur Elemental, because I don't like tapping out against combo.

On an unrelated note, I'm also considering 1-2 Plaxmanta in the SB. It was already mentioned as an answer to Abrupt Decay decks (Jund, BUG) and Miracles, but it's also good against Dredge: you can play it with no green mana in response to bridge triggers, to remove all the bridges in the opponent's graveyard. I guess it could also come in as a flash threat against combo decks, where you don't want to tap out during your turn (like Sulfur Elemental).

[Vandalize]

I've tested Gitaxian Probe maindeck, as someone suggested some pages ago, and I found it really interesting. It makes this deck really easier to play in the first turns. Sometimes you have a Cantrip/Stifle, Delver/Stifle or Delver/Bolt starting hand, and you don't know what to play first (given that each option is better against certain matchups). Gitaxian Probe fixes that, and also makes your permission very valuable, because you'll know exactly what to counter and whatnot.

My current list is:

4 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Forked Bolt
SB: 3 Submerge
SB: 2 Rough/Tumble
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Life from the Loam

My sideboard is rather weak against graveyard decks, but they seem to be out of fashion nowdays (except for myself, who has a really soft spot for Ichorid). Ancient Grudge is perfect, and it's boarded in almost every game in my meta (people here really like Stoneforge Mystic & Co.).

I strongly suggest that people try those Gitaxian Probes. Or just add more burn. Deathrite Shamans are really annoying, and sometimes Daze and Lightning Bolt can't handle them properly.

[Barbed Blightning]

I've tested Gitaxian Probe maindeck, as someone suggested some pages ago, and I found it really interesting. It makes this deck really easier to play in the first turns. Sometimes you have a Cantrip/Stifle, Delver/Stifle or Delver/Bolt starting hand, and you don't know what to play first (given that each option is better against certain matchups). Gitaxian Probe fixes that, and also makes your permission very valuable, because you'll know exactly what to counter and whatnot.

My current list is:

4 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Forked Bolt
SB: 3 Submerge
SB: 2 Rough/Tumble
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Life from the Loam

I strongly suggest that people try those Gitaxian Probes. Or just add more burn. Deathrite Shamans are really annoying, and sometimes Daze and Lightning Bolt can't handle them properly.

I was wondering about probe as I scrubbed out hard at SCG Baltimore (5-4, wins against gobs twice, dark punishing Mav, the mirror and ANT, losses to lands, zombies, death blade and jund) and I found myself wanting vapor snag as well. Moving forward, I may try:

3 ponder
2 probe
2 spell pierce
1 spell snare
1 forked bolt
1 snag

[Cipher]

//Creatures (12)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose

//Spells (30)
2 Spell Pierce
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
2 Burst Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Sylvan Library

//Lands (18)
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

//Sideboard
2 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Life from the Loam
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Submerge
2 Rough // Tumble
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction


I loved Gitaxian Probe. Won me entire games by allowing me to sequence correctly. You also have game 1s where your deck does what it's supposed to and you never see a spell form your opponent besides a Brainstorm. It's nice to have an idea what you're up against so that you can do what sideboarding you can.

[trollking21]

Burst lightning seems notably subpar did you mean chain lightning?

[apistat_commander]

What happened to Gitaxian Probe lists? It seemed to be all the rage and then dropped off completely. Is it due to the high number of grindy decks and less combo in the meta? I haven't played RUG in a while and I was intrigued with that change.

I am currently on 2 Pierce/2 Snare, 1 Forked Bolt and 1 Chain Lightning in my flex slots.

[Barbed Blightning]

What happened to Gitaxian Probe lists? It seemed to be all the rage and then dropped off completely. Is it due to the high number of grindy decks and less combo in the meta? I haven't played RUG in a while and I was intrigued with that change.

I am currently on 2 Pierce/2 Snare, 1 Forked Bolt and 1 Chain Lightning in my flex slots.

The discussion here has tapered off somewhat in the past few weeks. I'm testing probe with the following list:

4 delver
4 goose
4 Goyf

4 force
4 daze
4 brainstorm
4 bolt
4 stifle

3 ponder
2 probe
1 forked
3 pierce
1 snare

18 lands

3 pierce is there only because there is a lot of combo up my way.


Why the 1 forked 1 chain split?

[apistat_commander]

The discussion here has tapered off somewhat in the past few weeks. I'm testing probe with the following list:

4 delver
4 goose
4 Goyf

4 force
4 daze
4 brainstorm
4 bolt
4 stifle

3 ponder
2 probe
1 forked
3 pierce
1 snare

18 lands

3 pierce is there only because there is a lot of combo up my way.


Why the 1 forked 1 chain split?

I am not a huge fan of running less than 4 Ponder in RUG. Having the ability to dig to find what you need is really crucial to keep up pressure.

The Forked Bolt/Chain Lightning split is mostly speculative at the moment. I don't know where my local meta is currently, but it typically mirrors the wider meta pretty closely so I am sure to see a fair bit of DRS and Confidant, both of which make me want to play 6 burn spells. Forked Bolt does some heavy lifting and is frequently an extra damage given how often it burns out x/1's. However I am unsure how many creature decks are running around, hence the Chain Lightning as a 5th bolt.

Here is the board I am going to run at my weekly:

2 Flusterstorm - I am unsure if this should be a combination of Envelop/Spell Pierce instead. I guess I will have to see how much combo is floating around.
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Sylvan Library - I felt like this will be solid against all of the grindy decks running around. At the very least it is almost as good as Sulfuric Vortex against control.
1 Sulfuric Vortex - I always see Stoneblade locally so I never cut this completely. I have also considered Clique in this slot.
1 Sulfur Elemental
2 Rough/Tumble
1 Dismember - I didn't want the 4th Submerge and neither Gilded Drake nor Mind Harness felt right. If it does well it might replace Chain Lightning in the MD.
3 Submerge

[Barbed Blightning]

I am not a huge fan of running less than 4 Ponder in RUG. Having the ability to dig to find what you need is really crucial to keep up pressure.

The Forked Bolt/Chain Lightning split is mostly speculative at the moment. I don't know where my local meta is currently, but it typically mirrors the wider meta pretty closely so I am sure to see a fair bit of DRS and Confidant, both of which make me want to play 6 burn spells. Forked Bolt does some heavy lifting and is frequently an extra damage given how often it burns out x/1's. However I am unsure how many creature decks are running around, hence the Chain Lightning as a 5th bolt.

Here is the board I am going to run at my weekly:

2 Flusterstorm - I am unsure if this should be a combination of Envelop/Spell Pierce instead. I guess I will have to see how much combo is floating around.
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Sylvan Library - I felt like this will be solid against all of the grindy decks running around. At the very least it is almost as good as Sulfuric Vortex against control.
1 Sulfuric Vortex - I always see Stoneblade locally so I never cut this completely. I have also considered Clique in this slot.
1 Sulfur Elemental
2 Rough/Tumble
1 Dismember - I didn't want the 4th Submerge and neither Gilded Drake nor Mind Harness felt right. If it does well it might replace Chain Lightning in the MD.
3 Submerge

The idea was that you will see ponder at least once a game anyway, especially with probe digging as well. I'm starting to find probe a bit redundant in non-blue matches, especially decks like Maverick where you just want more removal/counter. It's good when it's good, but mediocre the rest of the time.

Our sideboards are almost identical; I have 2 surgical over the dismember and a fluster. Sylvan Library is the stone cold nuts.

I'm also considering a Clique in the Sulfur slot. You'd bring it in vs combo and control I assume?

[ajfennewald]

The idea was that you will see ponder at least once a game anyway, especially with probe digging as well. I'm starting to find probe a bit redundant in non-blue matches, especially decks like Maverick where you just want more removal/counter. It's good when it's good, but mediocre the rest of the time.

Our sideboards are almost identical; I have 2 surgical over the dismember and a fluster. Sylvan Library is the stone cold nuts.

I'm also considering a Clique in the Sulfur slot. You'd bring it in vs combo and control I assume?

Ponder is also good at making alot more one land hands keepable.

[apistat_commander]

The idea was that you will see ponder at least once a game anyway, especially with probe digging as well. I'm starting to find probe a bit redundant in non-blue matches, especially decks like Maverick where you just want more removal/counter. It's good when it's good, but mediocre the rest of the time.

With the mighty power of theory crafting (who can be bothered to test?) I came to about the same conclusion. I figured Probe would be strong in a larger tournament where you expect to see a good deal of control and combo. I prefer having a more robust counter and burn suite.


Our sideboards are almost identical; I have 2 surgical over the dismember and a fluster. Sylvan Library is the stone cold nuts.

I have put in and taken out Surgical Extractions more times than I care to count. Two really isn't enough against Dredge and with 2 REB/2 Flusterstorms I have 4 additional counters to bring in against combo. Though I have to admit my meta has very few GY based strategies.


I'm also considering a Clique in the Sulfur slot. You'd bring it in vs combo and control I assume?

Three mana is a lot for RUG. I think it is pretty hilarious that people have suggested boarding Vortex in against Lands. I also don't see it hitting the board and sticking against Jund. It is in my board because it wrecks Blade/Miracle control and there are at least two people on those decks at every one of my locals.

My main concern with Clique is that it is no more resilient than your other threats. It also does not outrace a suited-up Germ token. However my weeklies are pretty low stakes so there isn't much reason not to try it out sometime.

[kiblast]

Hi, I'd like to share my list:


4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
1 Fire//Ice
1 Chain Lightning

SB:
3 Rough//Tumble
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Mind Harness
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Krosan Grip
2 Flusterstorm
2 Sulfuric Vortex



Tonight I played a local tournament vs:

UWg Miracle 2-1
WGB Nic Fit 2-1
Imperial Painter 2-1
Vial Maverick (Bom List) 2-1
SF: Death and taxes 2-0
F: Imperial Painter 2-1

I started playtesting the list Fabian Moyschewitz was playing last year, but quickly dropped Dismember in favor of F/I ( personally I dislike Forked since it's sorcery speed). I think this version of Thresh is much more flexible. I have been able to escape from very difficult board states thanks to Snappy. Sometimes 4 Goyfs just clog your hand, at least that was my impression. I won I think 3 out of 4 local tournaments (all 4 rounds ) with this version. I'm reallly looking forward to test it in a wider field.

Also, call me mad, but Mind Harness is better than Submerge. Clearing the blockers while increasing the clock is amazing.

[Barbed Blightning]

Hi, I'd like to share my list:


4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
1 Fire//Ice
1 Chain Lightning

SB:
3 Rough//Tumble
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Mind Harness
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Krosan Grip
2 Flusterstorm
2 Sulfuric Vortex



Tonight I played a local tournament vs:

UWg Miracle 2-1
WGB Nic Fit 2-1
Imperial Painter 2-1
Vial Maverick (Bom List) 2-1
SF: Death and taxes 2-0
F: Imperial Painter 2-1

I started playtesting the list Fabian Moyschewitz was playing last year, but quickly dropped Dismember in favor of F/I ( personally I dislike Forked since it's sorcery speed). I think this version of Thresh is much more flexible. I have been able to escape from very difficult board states thanks to Snappy. Sometimes 4 Goyfs just clog your hand, at least that was my impression. I won I think 3 out of 4 local tournaments (all 4 rounds ) with this version. I'm reallly looking forward to test it in a wider field.

Also, call me mad, but Mind Harness is better than Submerge. Clearing the blockers while increasing the clock is amazing.

How has Jund/Team America/Decay+Shaman.Dec been for your version? Has mind harness been decayed much?

With fewer Goyfs, has tribal/burn been an issue at all?

[Grizzly_Bear]

How has Jund/Team America/Decay+Shaman.Dec been for your version? Has mind harness been decayed much?

With fewer Goyfs, has tribal/burn been an issue at all?

I've read people describing that "Goyf is good against tribal" in a number of posts in the last pages, and I don't understand this statement at all.
Merfolk will rarely attack without islandwalk secured, or an otherwise advantageous combat where Goyf blocking one out of 4 dudes is a calculated loss on their part.
Against Elves I would like to argue that Goyf is the worst card in the deck, as there is no chance in hell he'll connect for lethal damage among their hordes of blockers. This matchup is won by Delver.
Goyf has some blocking merit against Goblins, I'll concede that, but as this is a tribal deck that actually packs removal (often connected to a body) I'd say mongoose is better at blocking 2/2s. Again, the attacking in this matchup is handled by Delver.

For the record, I agree that Goyf is stellar against Burn.

But really, my impression is quite far from that of people claiming Goyf to be good in Tribal; I consider him best against other Goyfs.

[kiblast]

How has Jund/Team America/Decay+Shaman.Dec been for your version? Has mind harness been decayed much?

With fewer Goyfs, has tribal/burn been an issue at all?

Jund matchup is slightly better for my version I think, as Snap + additional burn spells let me handle Deathrite and Lilianas more efficiently and at instant speed (ex: resp to lili +1 or blanking discard etc.). Mind Harness gets decayed as any other cc 0-3 spell I think. Being susceptible to AD doesn't mean it's not better than Submerge Vs any other Gxx aggro deck for the board advantage it provides.

I never tested vs burn.

Vs Tribal: Grizzly Bear basically explained this already.. Don't fool yourself. Goyf is not good vs Tribal, Goyf is just good at being Goyf and stopping other Goyfs and providing a 5 turn clock vs everything, except vs tribal as they probably have infinite chumpblockers. Vs Tribal Snapcaster chumpblocking AND burning at instant speed 2x1'ing your opponent is where you want to be. Then, the cheap critters or occasionally Goyf will win. Anyway any Thresh list has a bad matchup versus Goblin if the Goblin player knows how to play properly (and that's a big if, and every non combo deck has a bad matchup vs Goblins if the Goblin player doesn't make even the slightest mistake). That's why I pack 3 Rough//Tumble.

[catmint]

I've read people describing that "Goyf is good against tribal" in a number of posts in the last pages, and I don't understand this statement at all.
Merfolk will rarely attack without islandwalk secured, or an otherwise advantageous combat where Goyf blocking one out of 4 dudes is a calculated loss on their part.
Against Elves I would like to argue that Goyf is the worst card in the deck, as there is no chance in hell he'll connect for lethal damage among their hordes of blockers. This matchup is won by Delver.
Goyf has some blocking merit against Goblins, I'll concede that, but as this is a tribal deck that actually packs removal (often connected to a body) I'd say mongoose is better at blocking 2/2s. Again, the attacking in this matchup is handled by Delver.

For the record, I agree that Goyf is stellar against Burn.

But really, my impression is quite far from that of people claiming Goyf to be good in Tribal; I consider him best against other Goyfs.

I don't fully agree. It is out of the question that Delver is the best creature against any tribal deck... by far... but I would not consider Goyf to be the worst. Of course if gobbos have infinite chumpers or elves have some bounce action going it does not matter which ground creature you have, but if this happens things went bad anyway. Up to that point however they can often trade with mongoose completely stall it if you don't have threshold whereas goyf outclasses any tribal creature and provides a faster clock than mongoose.
Hence vs. Tribal:
Delver >>>> Goyf >>> Mongoose

[Barbed Blightning]

I've read people describing that "Goyf is good against tribal" in a number of posts in the last pages, and I don't understand this statement at all.
Merfolk will rarely attack without islandwalk secured, or an otherwise advantageous combat where Goyf blocking one out of 4 dudes is a calculated loss on their part.
Against Elves I would like to argue that Goyf is the worst card in the deck, as there is no chance in hell he'll connect for lethal damage among their hordes of blockers. This matchup is won by Delver.
Goyf has some blocking merit against Goblins, I'll concede that, but as this is a tribal deck that actually packs removal (often connected to a body) I'd say mongoose is better at blocking 2/2s. Again, the attacking in this matchup is handled by Delver.

For the record, I agree that Goyf is stellar against Burn.

But really, my impression is quite far from that of people claiming Goyf to be good in Tribal; I consider him best against other Goyfs.

With respect to the fish match, if they are attacking with islandwalk, you aren't doing your job right to begin with. LoA dies on sight.

Goyf also allows you to keep up in the damage race when and if a lord sticks around, instead of falling behind. Catmint basically said it best.

Interested in testing Snapcaster though. I've been thinking about maybe having one somewhere in the 75. I heard that some used to play it and then dropped it. Anyone know why, or was it simply new card fever at the time?

[kiblast]

I don't fully agree. It is out of the question that Delver is the best creature against any tribal deck... by far... but I would not consider Goyf to be the worst. Of course if gobbos have infinite chumpers or elves have some bounce action going it does not matter which ground creature you have, but if this happens things went bad anyway. Up to that point however they can often trade with mongoose completely stall it if you don't have threshold whereas goyf outclasses any tribal creature and provides a faster clock than mongoose.
Hence vs. Tribal:
Delver >>>> Goyf >>> Mongoose

Except that goblins can bounce/ remove Goyf all the time unless you have Stifle. They play 5 bouncers or spot removal md and 4 tutor effects, as well as 4 ringleaders to make sure they find them. Seriously there is no comparison between Mongoose and Goyf in this matchup (which I believe to be by far the most difficult between the tribals). Only out to mongoose for them is easily mogg war marshal.

Edit@Catmint: ask Alessio if you don't believe me, we tested this matchup to death ;)

[dunk]

Actually I like Goyf a lot these days. While I agree that sometimes it's too clumsy it has become better with more "fair" decks in the meta. A few months back I played 3 but now switched back to 4 after winning several matches where topdecking it was so so strong / losing several ones because I'd really needed to find a Goyf.

I also run a Snapcaster main and another one in the sideboard, they always have been good. I could see cutting a Goyf for a second maindeck copy but it's not necessary. Goyf and Snapcaster are so much different in what they do, it's probably a meta decision ( more decks like BUG, RUG, Esper -> Goyf; more Combo or UW -> Snapcaster ). Despite that, if you are running more copies of Snapcaster in the sideboard still board them in against BUG, RUG, Esper and Co., it will be always better than something else.

I can't say anything about Mind Harness but that I will give it a try. I don't like the idea of running no Submerges, but I agree that Harness sounds super sweet against all those UGx / Deathrite decks. Presenting another Decay target doesn't seem a that big problem, as there usually is the need to destroy anything as soon as hits and they can only have so many Decays. And even if they will have it you usually dealt some extra damage in the previous turn and force them to use a turn to get rid of it. Just be aware of that while declaring attackers to not lose a Goose.

[kiblast]

I've stolen so many things through Mind Harness that won me the games in the past 2-3 tournaments: random chumpblockers, Deathrite Shaman as a form of denial, Bop vs Vial Maverick clearing chumpblocker + denial, Scavenging Ooze when opponent was tapped out, Goyfs, Veteran Explorers etc. Card is bonkers.

[Grizzly_Bear]

With respect to the fish match, if they are attacking with islandwalk, you aren't doing your job right to begin with. LoA dies on sight.


You are insulting This entire thread by thinking this is something that needs to be said.

[Barbed Blightning]

You are insulting This entire thread by thinking this is something that needs to be said.

All right, dude. Just trying to make a point.

[man_bites_dog]

Not sure if this has been discussed (there is a LOT of info in this thread), but has anyone toyed with maindecking 1 or 2 copies of Ral Zarek? I know he's not optimal at 4 mana, but the fact he's a lightning bolt on a stick as well as the untapping, tapping ability, I think he may be worth a look? I think tapping down / bolting an opposing Goyf, Shaman or Mystic could be valuable, or even untapping a land our side whilst tapping down an opponents land would fit nicely with our [out]tempo strategy. Thoughts?

[Einherjer]

4 Mana.
Doesn't win instantly.
Move on.

[catmint]

4 Mana.
Move on.

fixed.
But from all possible 4 drops which would not be played in the 75 anyway because they are 4 drops Ral would probably not even make the top 5.

[Cipher]

Burst lightning seems notably subpar did you mean chain lightning?

Nope. I think being instant speed is more relevant than the extra point of damage. The decks I'm worried about are just a bunch of x/1 or x/2 value creatures. Not to worried about Lingering Souls, I guess it's just never in my area. Honestly can't tell you the last time I saw it played in a Legacy match, even on the SCG Open coverage.

[man_bites_dog]

4 Mana.
Doesn't win instantly.
Move on.

Bad Attitude.
Troll.
Moved on.

[apistat_commander]

Bad Attitude.
Troll.
Moved on.

To actually answer your question, two mana is a lot for this deck. There are many times where Tarmogoyf is uncastable because of opposing Wastelands or needing to hold up mana for Stifle/Snare/Pierce. A four mana permanent is pretty close to impossible for this deck to cast. Additionally, we aren't really seeking to create on-board advantage. We want to land one or two creatures and close the game out as quickly as possible. Planeswalkers just don't fit into that plan.

Also Fire//Ice, Forked Bolt, Dismember, and Chain Lightning are all better choices than Burst Lightning. While being able to cast things on the opponent's turn is powerful, I wouldn't give up the flexibility of Forked Bolt or the 1 additional point of damage from Chain Lightning for instant speed.

[man_bites_dog]

To actually answer your question...

Thanks for the heads up - it makes sense then. Just dying to find a way to abuse RZ in a non-stasis type deck.

Although, thinking about it, and this may not have any bearing on his playability in RUG, but RZ can also cost 3 mana (net) to cast: you can use his +1 ability to untap a land and tap an opponents land or creature. Leaving you with a land open for Stifle, Bolt, etc. I mean the big problem with RUG are those games that go longer than turn 5 or 6 and you're behind in tempo (or facing bigger, better creatures out of bolt range). Just a thought.

[SirTylerGalt]

Thanks for the heads up - it makes sense then. Just dying to find a way to abuse RZ in a non-stasis type deck.

Although, thinking about it, and this may not have any bearing on his playability in RUG, but RZ can also cost 3 mana (net) to cast: you can use his +1 ability to untap a land and tap an opponents land or creature. Leaving you with a land open for Stifle, Bolt, etc. I mean the big problem with RUG are those games that go longer than turn 5 or 6 and you're behind in tempo (or facing bigger, better creatures out of bolt range). Just a thought.

Ral Zarek would be better in Next Level Threshold, which is discussed here:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18865-Deck-Next-Level-Threshold

It might also be interesting in Caleb Durward's Punishing RUG midrange deck (which should IMO also be discussed in the NLT thread):
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-omniscience-punishing-fires-and-vexing-sphinx/
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_punishing_rug_with_c.html

[man_bites_dog]

Ral Zarek would be better in Next Level Threshold, which is discussed here:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18865-Deck-Next-Level-Threshold

Agreed.

[lambert101]

hi all,
took RUG Delver to a local monthly and took it down. I didn't take notes but here is my list and match-ups

Main:
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Ponder
1 Spell Snare
2 Forked Bolt
4 Nimble Mongoose

Side:
1 Life from the Loam
3 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Rough/Tumble
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Flusterstorm
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Sylvan Library
1 Krosan Grip

match-ups went

Swiss:
Jund: 2-0
U/R Delver: 2-1
BUG Tempo (with Stifle over Hymn): 2-1
ID Maverick
ID U/W/R Miracles

Top 8:
Jund: 2-0
BUG Tempo (with Stifle over Hymn): 2-1
U/R Delver: 2-0

I thought the list was very tight with a lot of ways to deal with deathrite.dec in the form of burn. Only change I am thinking about is in the board by dropping the K-grip for another vortex. Surgical and loam plan worked really nice with stifle + wasteland.

[trollking21]

So I'm fairly new to the deck, having play tested only 50 rounds or so, and so with that in mind where does one fit spell snare? I was thinking over 1 forked bolt and 1 spell pierce, as I'm tired of getting goyf's and stoneforges jammed with the daze mana still open

List for reference
Creature (12)
4xDelver of Secrets
4xNimble Mongoose
4xTarmogoyf

Instant (23)
4xBrainstorm
4xDaze
4xForce of Will
4xLightning Bolt
3xSpell Pierce
4xStifle
Sorcery (7)
3xForked Bolt
4xPonder

Land (18)
3xMisty Rainforest
2xScalding Tarn
3xTropical Island
3xVolcanic Island
4xWasteland
3xWooded Foothills

[Sedris]

So I'm fairly new to the deck, having play tested only 50 rounds or so, and so with that in mind where does one fit spell snare? I was thinking over 1 forked bolt and 1 spell pierce, as I'm tired of getting goyf's and stoneforges jammed with the daze mana still open

List for reference
Creature (12)
4xDelver of Secrets
4xNimble Mongoose
4xTarmogoyf

Instant (23)
4xBrainstorm
4xDaze
4xForce of Will
4xLightning Bolt
3xSpell Pierce
4xStifle
Sorcery (7)
3xForked Bolt
4xPonder

Land (18)
3xMisty Rainforest
2xScalding Tarn
3xTropical Island
3xVolcanic Island
4xWasteland
3xWooded Foothills

Hi,

your problem is a very well known one and yep, the usual solution common rug players choose for it is running Spell Snare in your maindeck. Spell Snare helps you in even - sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiightly negative matchups like Shardless BUG / Esperblade, where it can counter their main threats like SFM / Goyfs and other value cards which indirectly win their game (e.g.: Snapcaster Mage, Baleful Strix), if you run this counter preboard. On the one hand Killing goyfs in the mirror is another strength of snare, but on the other hand it is a blank aside from countering 1-2 offs like scm/ooze/lib which is kinda irrelevant (and if they run more of them, they will cut down goyfs so snare is even more useless in the mirror).

I tested, played and succeeded with rug delver several times with pierce/snare configs. like 2/2, 3/2, 2/3, 4/1, 1/4, 4/0, 0/4, 3/0 and so on because I see spell pierce and spell snare in the same maindeck slot(, if you want to play both or one of them) and kinda hate to play random splits (because I actually EVER have the false one, like snare if the opp casts top and pierce if he casts stoneforge, yeah thats a personal preference), so I tested out which one is better as the maindeck counterspell (which is for me: more flexible and the living card in more games than the other one) and thought about in which matchups pierce is > snare and vice versa, and which meta percentages these decks will have in the near future. At this time, I tuned my list for Grand Prix Strasbourg and came to the conclusion, that Spell Pierce is the better one. Not only because it hits more relevant spells in relevant decks imho, but because of its ability to counter each cmc2 noncreature spell in the early, but mid-lategame noncreas like jtms (which is not really a problem for rug, but he is common), liliana of the veil, show and tells (where snare is totally dead preboard if they dont run burning wishes) etc. So this was a big point for pierce.

Spell Snare has the great ability to counter cmc2 creature spells which could be annoying (e.g. scm, sfm, bob, goyf, strix), but the main strength of snare is actually to counter these creatures, and be a hardcounter for cmc 2 noncreas like rip/cb (they could be countered in the early-mid from pierce too). Snares problem is, that it is the more situative counter vs pierce and a topdecked snare is not good if your opponened actually resolved the goyf/mystic, so I thought of playing more removal which kills goyf md (I predicted many goyf wars for strasbourg, whereas jund, rug, bug shardless/tempo and even junk got to be decks there.) like dismember. Usually most rug delver pilots run like 1 random dismember md, if they run any, because they are afraid of the lifeloss or so...Actually, I maybe play rug delver more aggressive than other players do, so that I really didn't mind these 4 life in my games (and just loved the advantages of it vs forked/snare, because it can kill 3/4 and 4/5 goyfs, Batterskull-equipped-germs, stalkers and other horrors) that I came to a liste with 4 goyf 2 dismember for the goyf war and 0 snares (to have the better counter maindeck against show and tell, which I predicted to attend strasbourg in high numbers). After long and many test sessions I came to the point, that I am crazy enough to run 2 Snares SB, that I have not so situative and expensive random cards like krosan grips(which I really dislike, one strength of rug delver is its consistancy and the flexibility of its answers/questions) in the sb only for hitting the very relevant cmc 2 spells which pierce sometimes dont counter (rip/cb, so I not really skipped the miracle mu, but it got a bit worse. That was an acceptable sacrifice for having much more non-random preboard mus against the other common decks) .

In the end, I came to your list -2 forked +2 Dismembers (and other fetches) and even if I sadly lost one of 4 matches against sneak show in the feature match (and 1 horrible match against reanimator + a match against bantblade) I went 11th (crushed goyfmirrors like jund and junk as I prognosticated). This helped me to understand, that pierce is the better maindeck card. This is only to warn you from playing spell snare in the maindeck, but you know: Meta changes and it could get better again...

stefan

[Barbed Blightning]

Performed decently at SCG Philly, going 6-2 in rounds and achieving 21st in the process. List was identical to lambert101's above, including SB.

Matches were:

Maverick, 1-2
Esper, 2-0
Sneak Show, 2-1
Jund, 2-0
Omni-Combo, 2-0
Death and Taxes, 2-1
RUG Mirror, 2-0
Shardless BUG, 1-2

My last round opponent made Top 8, so I was fairly close to cinching it. Deck performed beautifully all day, couldn't ask any more from it. I am considering Dismember over a forked bolt or the spell snare.

[Grizzly_Bear]

I'm having problems beating the recently popularized Esper Deathblade deck. My usual Esper boarding approach is significantly weaker against this deck, as they rely more heavily on powerful black spells than counterspells and overload my ability to remove all threats with removal.

Has anyone come up with a truly brilliant plan against this deck?
How do you sideboard?
Are there specific SB options that are outside of the usual suspects for standard RUG-decks that can be employed to beat this matchup specifically?

Please avoid cliche answers like "stifle his fetch, waste his duals, daze his stuff and beat face". Thanks!

[JJ-JKidd]

I'm having problems beating the recently popularized Esper Deathblade deck. My usual Esper boarding approach is significantly weaker against this deck, as they rely more heavily on powerful black spells than counterspells and overload my ability to remove all threats with removal.

Has anyone come up with a truly brilliant plan against this deck?
How do you sideboard?
Are there specific SB options that are outside of the usual suspects for standard RUG-decks that can be employed to beat this matchup specifically?

Please avoid cliche answers like "stifle his fetch, waste his duals, daze his stuff and beat face". Thanks!

The strength of Deathblade relies on its ability to deploy a lot of threats. Everything is a must-answer. RUG only has what, maximum of 6-8 removals? Clearly that is not enough. It depends on your build. If you have Snare, it improves the match-up. Post-board, Cursed Totem provides help as well as the usual Submerges.

[catmint]

Snare would be very good against them but it is a pretty bad card versus show & tell so not really maindeckable.

The only threat you have to answer right instantly in game1 is Stoneforge mystic. Confidant can become a problem for them if things start well for us and can sometimes be ignored. Sometimes it is better to let deathrite live for a turn and develop your own board state. If you play the game in a way to kill every single creature they deploy they can play outplay you. You have to set priorities depending on the gamestate.

Many builds don't play lingering souls now, which is good for us and their manabase is significantly weaker.

Submerge is too narrow in my opinion.

Ancient grudge is as good as ever.

Rough/Tumble is a new tool to board in!

[kiblast]

I play 2 Snares maindeck so maybe my matchup estimation is slightly deviated by this, but isn't it enough to just resolve a Sulfuric Vortex and watch them die slowly? I mean, Vortex resolves Batterskull and Jitte better than anything else. I also board K Grip of course, I prefer it to Grudge as Grudge is dead in many other matchups whereas Grip's split second is almost always relevant.

[Grizzly_Bear]

The deck I've been playing against and losing to twice now in tournament settings play the lingering souls, so yeah, it's hard.

I agree with catmint that Submerge is not an option, the lone tropical island is to random to bet your money on. I also argue for the "4 spell pierce, 0 spell snare" setup, even though I can see how spell snare might slightly help in this particular matchup.

I've been boarding in my 1-of's of rough // tumble, sulfur elemental, ancient grudge and krosan grip. I've also tried to add the red blasts, but that game in particular I lost to a wave of Inquisition, Dark confidant, Jitte and Souls-tokens, so I am not doing that again. Adding Sulfuric Vortex is possibly a good idea, thanks.

There's also a question of what to board out. For the four cards I've been boarding I replaced my FoWs, to be able to at least have a chance at keeping up with my opponents card advantage, but depending on the number of cards we bring in in the end, I'm considering just cutting both the stifles and the dazes. By doing so, one can pretty much ignore deathrite as their mana will develop anyway, and just focus spotremoval on dark confidant and stoneforge, while racing tokens with vortex. Thoughts?

[kiblast]

Against Esper, I always side out Fows because they play discard, and because I don't like Fows in grindy matchups, I play 3 Pierce 2 Snares maindeck so I'm reasonably comfortable with siding out Fow. I always find Stifle and Daze relevant both on the draw an on the play against Esper. You have so many things to Stifle that it's almost never a dead card, and Daze, well you all know what Daze does and I don't have to explain how thresh can win out of nowhere just because of the combination Stifle-Waste-Daze. Seriously siding out a large chucnk of your tempo plan against a 3color deck with 3 basics is stupid imho.

Speaking about siding out fow, actually I side it out 70% of the games I play in general with few exceptions such as combo decks, obviously, and Goblins.

[cheerios]

Against deathblade, preboard matches can be tough as there are a lot of of stuff to be answered. Postboard, sulfuric vortex can be a house versus the versions that run dark confidant. It negates the life gain by batterskull, jitte and deathrite shaman. I haven't tested sulfuric vortex versus deathblade with souls. Based on my previous testings versus esperblade/soulblade, vortex can be a liability once spirit tokens hit the floor.

[Meshuggah]

RUG Delver vs RUG Delver in the Finals at Starcity. Here is a link to the top 16:http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=3&start_date=2013-07-07&end_date=2013-07-07&start=1&finish=16&city=Worcester
Reuben said about half the field was RUG Delver. Great results.

[kiblast]

I haven't tested sulfuric vortex versus deathblade with souls. Based on my previous testings versus esperblade/soulblade, vortex can be a liability once spirit tokens hit the floor.

Your creatures + bolts still provide a better clock than his 3 Lingering Souls. Normally Souls gets countered by Daze and Pierce, which sometimes basically timewalks your opp and you can gain additional tempo advantage when attacking with your Mongooses.

[cheerios]

Your creatures + bolts still provide a better clock than his 3 Lingering Souls. Normally Souls gets countered by Daze and Pierce, which sometimes basically timewalks your opp and you can gain additional tempo advantage when attacking with your Mongooses.

True, however, esperblade can get crazy hands with all the removal in the world to grind you out. It's just not a good feeling when you only have vortex and you face 4 or more spirit tokens. I think you need to develop a sense when to play vortex against them or not.

[kiblast]

True, however, esperblade can get crazy hands with all the removal in the world to grind you out. It's just not a good feeling when you only have vortex and you face 4 or more spirit tokens. I think you need to develop a sense when to play vortex against them or not.

Oh that's true. If you face lots of Souls decks, like it's a big thing in your meta, Suflur Elemental but also Izzet Staticaster are solid choices.

Any of you having problems against Goblin (good pilot) ? Also, what do you side out exactly? Pierce seems obvious, but if you lost g1 they counter Vials and Relics.

[samurai_socks]

Minus spell pierces + rough/tumble, grim lavamancer, pithing needle (depending on what you run in sb).

Anyone been testing BUG in a RUG? The BUGR delver deck with deathrite, etc. The mana base is a bit wonky but the deck is pretty fun to play.

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/burg-delver/ --> list for anyone who hasn't seen it

-Cheers-

[thecrav]

I've played against BUG in a RUG and it's certainly an interesting matchup. They have the ability to come back from behind a lot more than traditional RUG does.

You're right about the mana being wonky though. I've played 6 games against it in tournaments, and every game that I kept them off mana (wasteland + bolt your DRS), I won.

[Griselpuff]

What has been the solution for all the slightly better DRS midrange decks (Shardless BUG, DeathBlade etc.)? They have emerged to give RUG a hard time, yet there are still players who can win consistently with RUG. It still has the most Top 8's despite being hated on, but I'm struggling to see what it is exactly that RUG brings in to even the matchups.

Also, does anybody know of any good players who play RUG and stream it? That would be helpful to watch.

[Atog]

What has been the solution for all the slightly better DRS midrange decks (Shardless BUG, DeathBlade etc.)? They have emerged to give RUG a hard time, yet there are still players who can win consistently with RUG. It still has the most Top 8's despite being hated on, but I'm struggling to see what it is exactly that RUG brings in to even the matchups.

Also, does anybody know of any good players who play RUG and stream it? That would be helpful to watch.

Shardless BUG doesn't play any basics at all, so your wastelands are golden. Also Stifle is great there since it hits cascade and wrecks their fragile manabase. Just try keep DSR off table and hit their manabase if possible.

Deathblade plays some number of basics so same things work there, attack their manabase and keep DSR off table if possible.

I don't know your SB but REBs seems good against BUG and Submerges, against blade i would consider siding in Rought // Tumble since it hit's Confidant, SFM and DSR and Snappies. What others think about that plan?