[Deck] Next Level Threshold

[chinEsE girl]

Taking it to the next level: A NLT Primer

(Disclaimer: I'm keeping the original post and list intact to give some perspective on where the deck came from and some of it's progression to it's current state. For anyone looking for info on NLT post snapcaster mage, skip down to NLT 2.0)

Let's start at the very beginning;

Mainboard:

1 Flooded Strand
3 Island
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Wasteland
2 Sower of Temptation
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Daze
4 Fire / Ice
4 Force of Will
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Ponder
3 Spell Snare
4 Stifle

Sideboard:

2 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Firespout
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Spell Pierce
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Umezawa's Jitte


This is the list that Rafael del Riego took all the way to ninth place at Grand Prix Madrid earlier this year. On the surface the deck shares a lot of similarities which a deck that has was once very popular but has now fallen to the wayside, Canadian Thresh. The main strategies of the deck can be broken down into these catagories;

Mana Denial

The deck packs the stifle/wasteland plan that can give you free wins as your opponent has no land with which to cast their spells. Add cheap counters such as daze and spell snare, along with the omnipresent force of will, and you can keep your opponent on the back foot while you beat them down.

Efficient Removal

Lightning bolt and fire/ice serve two purposes for the deck. Against any kind of aggressive stategy, they are fantastic at dealing with any quick rush. Merfolk and Golblins are two of the best matchups for the deck simply because they rely on a few key creatures to get their decks running, and you have somewhere around 7 ways to quickly clear them out. The red removal also functions as reach against more controlling strategies, allowing you to throw burn at your opponents face if there is nothing good to target in play.

Efficient Creatures

When this term comes to mind, tarmogoyf is the first thing that comes up, and this deck doesn't disappoint with four copies of the ubiquitous 2 drop. Vendillion clique also shows up as a fantastic creature with almost unmatched utility. Tarmogoyf may be the king of stopping aggressive strategies, but vendillion clique is the queen of both disrupting and pressuring control and combo.

Throw in some fantastic cantrips like brainstorm and ponder and the deck is almost done, but not quite. This is where the difference from canadian thresh start to show themselves.

The mana base

Canadian thresh is a deck that usually has about 18 lands or so. By using ponder and brainstorm, that deck usually doesn't have an issue with finding the lands it needs. However, next level threshold isn't a deck that wants just one of two lands. It wants to get up the 3 and 4 mana just about every games, so in order to do that the land count moves up to 21. With more lands, we can use some lands with utility, such as mishra's factory. In a deck with only 9 creature spells, the factories act as creatures 10-12. As the best manland ever printed (at least in every non-tribal context), it fits into the deck very nicely as a way to stop the bleeding against tribal strategies as well as provide a clock against slower decks. The deck also utilizes a single crucible of worlds to great effect, either allowing the deck to generate more mana by returning fetchlands to reuse, bring back wastelands to crush your opponents mana base, or continuously bring back mishra's factory to block all day long. Even with the 6 lands that don't produce colored mana, the deck still runs 15 colored mana source (fetches, duals, or basics), and in my experience I have never had problems with my mana in the long term.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor

This card is unreal. Let me repeat that. UNREAL. In a deck where you want all of your cards to have utility, Jace is the undisputed king in that regard. He can do just about anything you want him too. If you're ahead, you can begin to fateseal your opponent into oblivion. If you and your opponent are even on the battlefield, then his brainstorm ability can put you ahead very quickly. His unsummon ability, though not what your would want to use immediately, is still a great way to hold off your opponent and allow you time to get back in the game. And of course if you ever get to fire off his ultimate then you just win the game right then and there (pretty much). Jace has a ton of power, but it's the utility that he possesses that makes him such a force to be reckoned with.

Sower of Temptation

This choice may seem a little strange, but over time she has proven her worth in several matchups. Where she really shines is against decks that just run swords as their removal, and against some tribal strategies, especially merfolk. When going against no removal.dec, she can single-handedly swing games your way. Against merfolk, I have taken many a reejerey or coralhelm commander, and those games go from bad to awesome on the spot. The fact that you have cheap counters means that you can still protect her very easily from opposing removal. And worst comes to worst, she is still a blue card, and like all blue cards makes for good force of will fodder when she is not needed.

And for the cards that are not included;

Nimble Mongoose

This is the creature that pretty much made me switch from canadian thresh to this very list. A year ago nimble mongoose would have been a fantastic creature to play, since the shroud was so useful against some of the formats best decks. Currently though legacy has adapted to a format that is not at all kind to the little 3/3 with shroud. As cards such as elspeth and knight of the reliquary become more and more popular in legacy, mongoose finds itself fighting against a greater number of cards that just blank it. Most of the decks to beat in the format can answer this creature without to much trouble. In addition, if we played mongoose that would make it difficult for us to board in firespout. The conclusion that I came to was that nimble mongoose, though popular for a long time, has just gotten outclassed by the current format and doesn't have a place in the deck anymore.

Grim Lavamancer

This card is something I have seen in many UGR tempo lists of all sorts, and currently I'm not sure what to make of him in this deck. Those who argue to include the little lava man that could insist on how sweet he is versus merfolk and golbins, and while this is certainly true, those matchups are so good that I feel like he just isn't necessary. I would be much more concerned about my plan versus a deck like zoo or new horizons, where cards like terravore and knight of the reliquary are just way too huge for lavamancer to deal with effectively. In my opinion, what it comes down to is whether or not your metagame is getting swamped by tribal decks. If you're playing at a tournament where goblins and merfolk are far and away to most widely played decks, then sure lavamancer is pretty fucking sweet. However, in the metagames that I play I might face off against one merfolk player and one goblins player in a seven or eight round event. With the tribal matchup as good as it is already, I would much rather have a more balanced deck which still has good matchups versus control and tempo decks. The 1/1 is still a card that always needs to be considered, and it could certainly find its way into the maindeck at some point under the correct circumstances, but for the time being I am not playing him.

With that, the maindeck is finished and all that's left is the sideboard. As with most sideboards, the choices you can make often come down to personal preference, but i'll list some of the cards I think are auto-includes and others that I would almost never play without;

-3 copies of red elemental blast/pyroblast: One of the main reasons to play red as the 3rd color over white. Maindeck being able to play swords to plowshares and possibly path to exile seems enticing, but the ability to play REB in the sideboard is just too fantastic to pass up. Blue decks are a very large part of the legacy metagame, and the ability to answer all those fantastic cards for just a single red mana is amazing. Every time you counter a force of will with a REB its just the best feeling in the world. Also having a one mana instant that acts as either a counterspell or a swords against merfolk, one of the most prevalent decks in the format, just further increases the uses of this card
-3 copies of firespout: The other auto include, as well as the other reason the deck runs red. There have been times where I've thought about including this card in the main deck, which really shows how powerful it is in the current metagame. This card can pretty much wreck all of the popular aggressive strategies in the format. Merfolk, Golbins, and Zoo all can get crushed by this card when it is played correctly. It's also fantastic with the ability to hit only ground creatures, leaving things like clique and sower high and dry while all the small merfolk, goblins, or cats perish in the fire.

The other card choices to be made come down to what decks you're worried about in the format, with these being some of the most effective answers available

-tormod's crypt/relic of progenitus: Graveyard hate is useful in just about any legacy tournament you play. Not as necessary as a few months ago when reanimator was the best deck in the format, but it still exists, as well as dredge and the new vengevine madness survival deck that has picked up in popularity. I personally play 3 total with a 1/2 split, and it's worked well so far.
-krosan grip/ancient grudge/null rod: The usual enchantment/artifact hate. Krosan grip is always useful in the matchups where you want it, but you never need to many, so I usually run 2. I first ran ancient grudge as a good card against equipment, aether vial and thopter countertop, but recently my friend has suggested null rod instead and it has worked very well. In general, null rod can answer all the most played artifacts in legacy, while not stopping the ones you play.
-spell pierce: A great card versus any kind of control or combo matchup. The ability to run even more cheap counters can really come in handy, either by disrupting a combo player just about to go off, or by forcing through a way to win versus a control player hoping to stop your deck.

After those cards there are a few other options for the sideboard, although these are cards I have only seen others play, and have not played myself.

-pyroclasm: Another board sweeper, useful against tribal decks, but not so against zoo
-control magic/threads of disloyalty/mind harness: Something to take your opponents creatures. Threads was something I initially ran, but I switched to control magic when I realized that you can't take a terravore or a knight of the reliquary with threads. If zoo and merfolk is more of a concern, the speed of threads is great, but if there is a ton of new horizons in your metagame something like control magic or mind harness would work better. Currently one of the more debatable spots of my sideboard
-forked bolt: Serves as a cheaper fire//ice, without the blue ability, instant speed, or possibility of being force of will fodder. Can be good is there is a ton of noble heirarchs in the field, otherwise loses a lot of the utility that makes fire//ice good
pithing needle: A catch all answer against many things in the format. With the rise of survival decks, especially those with vengevines, pithing needle might be the card this deck needs to help deal with survival.
-dispel: Something that I've seen some New Horizons players start to use, mostly as a way to get their FOW for cheap. Obviously has a ton more uses than that, also countering any other counterspell for cheap, any removal they try to cast like swords or path to exile, as well as countering combo cards like orims chant, silence, ad nausuem, rituals, you get the idea. Something I have yet to try, but certainly something to consider.
Umezawa's jitte: Good against creature decks for obvious reason. Not something I would want to play given the small number of creatures that the deck runs, but it can certainly be strong in the right situations.

And now it's time for some matchup details;

Merfolk: Favorable

The little fishies think that they are favored just because you're playing a blue deck, but this isn't your normal UWx control. Main you have 7 removal spells that deal with any of their lords, plus you have tarmogoyf which is bigger than any guy that they play. Sower is also fantastic against them by taking lords and then beating down. And after sideboard you get even more awesome cards like REB and firespout, so it really shouldn't be close. About the only way you lose is if they get a lord of atlantis that you can't kill, or they draw many standstills that manage to resolve. Otherwise you just kill off their relevant lords and their left with a bunch of 1 and 2 power guys that can't stand up to a single tarmogoyf. Boarding in this matchup is pretty simple, you want firespout and REB for obvious reasons, and the first card to take out is stifle, since the number of good targets it has is limited wasteland and thats about it. Dazes are also weak here, since you bring in a one mana hard counter against them that doesn't set you back a land.

Goblins: Favorable

Again this deck has a good matchup with the other popular tribal deck. Your removal will always have a good target, and better yet stifle can act as a counterspell in this matchup, stopping either matron or ringleader in their track. Even if they manage to resolve an aether vial, just having a stifle or two can make their "uncounterable" guys a whole lot worse. Plus you get to sideboard in firespout to crush them once they try and get past your tarmogoyf or mishras factory. Boarding is pretty simple, bring in firespouts and taking out sower and another card of your choice. At first I thought the card to take out was a jace, but then I played more matches against the little red men and found that a jace with just one of two guys on board to protect him was just amazing. You can just fateseal away bad cards and make their topdecks garbage while you hold down the fort with superior creatures.

Zoo: Even

This matchup is all about the grind. Good players can eek out the incremental advantages that give you the win, whereas worse players will have trouble against zoo as they are left trying to deal with a 6/6 knight of the reliquary. The key to this matchup is resource and spell management. Their deck has plenty of good targets for lightning bolt and fire//ice, plus counterspells to deal with their relevant threats. What the NLT player needs to do is find ways to generate card advantage over time until their able to take the game. For example, when you have a goyf in play, block a nactal, and they have to use a bolt or something to get rid of him, sometimes its best just to let it go and not counter the removal with something like a force of will. Since you are playing 6 one mana cantrips and jace, your ability to find action after the board is cleared is much stronger than the zoo player. This means your topdecking ability is vastly superior to the zoo player, and given a few turns it's pretty easy to get yourself back in the lead. Firespout once again comes in as a great way to clear out all their one drops, and allows you to use your counters for their large creatures while still being able to easily answer their one drops. If the zoo player boards in a ton of cards, there's also a good chance they're bringing in cards like choke or maybe jitte, so retaliating with things like grip can work well too. Even though each match against zoo with this deck is difficult, tight play and disciplined use of your spells can bring you the win. Sower comes out just because they play so many ways to take it out of the sky, but the other cards to take out come down to personal preference (things like dazes on the draw, for example).

Storm Combo: Even to slightly favorable

Combo is never something you can take lightly. Just because you're playing blue spells doesn't mean you automatically get a win versus these kinds of decks. The key to this matchup is knowing when you can stick dudes to apply pressure while also keeping your opponent at bay. Cards like bolt and fire//ice are obviously bad in these matchups, but its cards like stifle that are amazing here. Just about all of these decks rely on activated or triggered abilities in some shape or form, allowing stifle to act as a one mana counter, exactly the kind of thing you want when fighting a combo deck. The best thing to do here is to be extra careful with how their are sculpting their game plan, and use your countermagic correctly. Vendillion clique here is also fantastic, acting as a pseudo duress while also getting her beat on to the tune of 3 damage a turn. After boarding we get extra counter magic with spell pierce, and maybe REB if they are running enough blue cards. Firespout can also come in, acting as a good answer to empty the warrens. If you're playing it, null rod is also pretty savage in this matchup, blanking their lotus petals, moxes, and LEDs, meaning their mana generation takes a huge hit. All you take out is sower first and then burn like fire//ice and bolt second, with fire//ice coming out first since it deals less damage for more mana, and bolt can be about 3-4 less cards that a ANT player gets to draw if they try to combo off.

Belcher: Favorable

This is the kind of deck that gives belcher the willies. We have a bunch of permission to stop them from comboing out game one, especially spell snare which stops any burning wishes in their tracks. Stifle is also sweet against empty the warrens, since they have to run it out without any discard protection game one. After board things just get better, since we get more counters, firespouts to make the empty plan even worse, and possibly null rod to once again own any artifact plan. The cards you want to board out here are a little different then storm combo, since bolt is actually useful in this matchup, getting rid of tinder walls they run out early, as well as killing xantid swarm they usually board in. Sower is obviously the first card taken out, followed by fire//ice.

Control (UWx landstill, UGB standstill, etc.) Even to slightly favorable

This matchup is where vendillion clique shows its true muscle. The ability to run out a 3 power 3 mana flier at instant speed is great for pressuring a control deck, but the real power is the disruption it offers. When you cast clique, it basically acts as a blue duress, taking their best card and giving them something thats almost always worse. In addition, clique gives you fantastic information on what your opponent has in grip. And it doesn't even have to take anything, allowing you to see your opponents hand of blanks, let them draw nothing new and know exactly what you have to play around. Clique is also fantastic in response to standstill, giving you a chance to disrupt them, put them on a clock, and best of all make them break their own standstill when clique gets them down to low life. It's especially good against the UGB standstill lists, since it actually gets rid of Lftl for a very long time (they have to shuffle, then draw it again). The deck also minds standstill a lot less than others, since we run factories of our own and wastelands to deal with opposing man lands. The board gives you plently of tools to fight control, such a REBs, spell pierces, and krosan grip is the opponent is running things such as humility. The sowers obviously come out, but another cards that usually gets taken out is force of will. It might seem strange to take it out, but in this case you're bringing in one mana counters and taking out zero mana counters that 2-1 yourself. The control player isn't going to be playing out anything at lightning speed anytime soon, so card advantage is a great thing to have in this matchup. Some of the burn is the final stuff that ends up coming out.

Dredge: Unfavorable

This is not a match you really want to play against. The deck can counter their broken spells, and easily remove enablers such as putrid imp, but if their engine starts to rev up it can cause this deck a lot of problems. Graveyard hate out of the board helps, but it's still not a matchup you would really want to play against. Thankfully the deck isn't terribly popular at the moment, which is a great boon to the NLT player. Obviously the graveyard hate comes in, as well as firespout to be able to deal with a bunch of zombie tokens (once the bridges are cleared of course). The main key is to keep them off a discard outlet and try and beat them down quickly with tarmogoyf and friends. Obviously not a great matchup but thems the breaks.

New Horizons: Slightly Unfavorable

They have a very similar game plan, but their creatures are much larger. Sower in this matchup can be fantastic, stealing a knight when the NH player thinks it can go the distance just because we don't play white removal. Jace is also fantastic against them, bouncing their dude back to their hand while we can beat down with something like vendillion clique. Factory/crucible is also amazing against them, since their 8 main creatures that win them the game (goyf and knight) don't have trample, although terravore is a different story. After sideboard things like REB and spell pierce help, as well as having some kind of control magic effect, since they are not likely to board in krosan grip against you. The key to this match is who can get more value out of stifle/wasteland. NH only runs one basic land, so if they are kept off their fetches and their duals, they can easily get stuck with 2 lands waiting for that third one to cast a knight or a terravore. We run 3 basic islands in this deck, which means we can get those 3 lands and then just play the 4th from our hand and then cast things like sower and jace, both of which are awesome in the matchup. Coincidentally, those cards are some of the most important cards in this matchup, along with their 3 mana creatures. If you can get down your four drops while countering or at least slowing down their 3 drops you'll have a good chance at beating the new horizons player. REB comes in to deal with countermagic, as well as extra control magic effects. Relic is also great here, allowing you to first bolt or fire//ice one of their creatures, then remove both graveyards to kill their guy due to state based effects. And of course relic just straight kills terravore on the spot.

Vengevine Madness: Even to slightly unfavorable

The new kid on the block sure has some power, but NLT can fight it pretty well. Spell snare is an all star in this match, getting either their discard outlet or their survival. Also, killing off noble heirarchs is easy with fire//ice, and sometimes we can get two at once. Add in the mana denial package and the survival deck can stumble with its engine. If they manage to find a way to force through survival though, things can get rough very very quickly. The sideboard can help quite a bit, with firespout being awesome against the deck, and REB being great against their countermagic. Krosan grip also get sideboarded for obvious reasons, being able to stop survival in the middle of the activations, and punishing bad players who think they can just wait and respond to your spells with survival activations. Watch out for submerge though, which can be a beating when your tarmogoyf goes back into your library following a fetch land activation. Krosan grip certainly comes in, as does firespout since without a survival on the table they just lose their entire board and gameplan to that one card. Graveyard removal also comes in to slow down their vengevine plan and make them slow down and give yourself so time to find answers to their other threats. The cards you take out are pretty much up to personal opinion

Countertop: Even to favorable

Although it might just be my personal experience, I've found the counterbalance matchup to not be that bad. Most lists have gone to the 4c lists, and we have stifles and wastelands to mess up their mana. Spell snare is awesome once again, being able to counter counterbalance as well as their usual win cons, whether its a goyf or a thopter foundry. Out of the board spell pierce is excellent, as is krosan grip as usual. Control magic/threads can be great against versions with goyf, since they are generally higher casting cost cards that easily turn the match around, or at worst deal with their threat and a swords or path to exile. Never an easy matchup, but barring a really quick top/balance lock that you can't stop, they is always room to play around their cards and find ways to get the incremental advantages you need to win the game. Krosan grip out of the board is pretty sweet here, as is both spell pierce and REB. Null rod is also good to fantastic here is you have it. Sower stays in against green versions of countertop, and go out against the thopter lists. FOW comes out since it gets replaced by the cheap counters, and burn comes out as well.

With the matchups listed, the final thing I would like to show to you is the current list that I play when I go to legacy tournaments:

3 tropical island
3 volcanic island
3 wasteland
3 island
3 mishras factory
2 misty rainforest
2 scalding tarn
1 polluted delta
1 flooded strand

4 brainstorm
4 force of will
4 stifle
2 ponder
3 daze
3 spell snare
4 lightning bolt
3 fire//ice
2 jace the mind sculptor

4 tarmogoyf
3 vendillion clique
2 sower of temptation

sb

2 krosan grip
1 null rod
3 firespout
2 pyroblast
1 red elemental blast
2 spell pierce
2 relic of progenitus
1 tormods crypt
1 control magic

The deck hasn't changed much since I first started running it about 6 months ago, and I have rarely been disappointed with how the deck has performed. If there was any key strategy that has allowed me to win with this deck, it is the idea of proper delegation of your resources to the current play state. This isn't a combo deck that is just trying to kill as fast as possible, or an aether vial deck that is trying to amass some creatures and overwhelm, or a control deck that wants to answer everything it sees and then drop one card and win with that. This deck is fluid; it can switch its role depending on what's going on and adapt accordingly. The deck can play an aggro plan against control and combo, and a control plan versus the aggressive decks in the format without much hassle or sideboarding. Just about every card in the deck can serve a purpose against any opponenet, like how cards like fire//ice are awful against control, but still have a purpose either tapping down a nasty permanent and drawing a card, or just dealing 2 damage to your opponent and killing them. The deck's flexibility can be fantastic, but it really helps to have a pilot who can plot out the course of the game and use the spells they have to their greatest effect.

The final word I have to say is for those who wonder "Why would you play this deck over New Horizons? Isn't this just NH with smaller creatures and worse removal?" To those who ponder this question, you have to understand that playing red has some serious benefits that NH doesn't get to have. First, the sideboard. REB and Firespout are two of the best sideboard cards in legacy. The uses they have are so fantastic that they can something swing a match your direction with little effort. REB is what helps your blue matchup post sideboard, and firespout is just so fantastic against a large portion of the field. The ability to run these two cards can not be praised enough. The other benefit of playing red is that while lightning bolt and fire//ice might not be great against green creatures, they are still awesome against tribal strategies while also not being dead cards against control or combo. If you haven't figured it out from all the times I've mentioned it, I am a huge fan of utility in my decks. That's what this entire deck is to a certain extant. Cards in this deck have so many different options that a good player can get so many small advantages that before you realize it there's a vendillion clique coming in for three a turn and your opponent doesn't have a way to win. With that in mind, the red burn spells aren't as powerful in some matchups where creatures aren't found, but they still have use as burn spells that can finish off an opponent quickly before they have time to get back in the game.

For those curious to see how the deck performs in a very large tournament, take a look at freakish777's tournament report from GP colombus, who placed 62 there;

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18414-62nd-at-GP-Columbus

He's one of my friends and testing partners, and even though I wasn't able to make the GP with my three byes (work is a bitch sometimes), he was still able to go and prove that the deck is strong.

As I play the deck more and new cards continue to come out, I'll include more cards to play and matchup info when I can.


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NLT 2.0 aka why Snapcaster mage is the the nuts

So the deck has come through a few key innovations over the past year and a half since the initial primer, thus I am including some updates on the list and cards the deck has dropped in addition to a few cards that have made the deck far stronger than before. First, some cards that have been put on the backburner for now:

Sower of Temptation: The card used to be great a year ago, but the current state of legacy is not kind to this 4 drop faerie. Decks either have adopted the correct amount of removal, don't care about sower, or just have snapcaster to get their creature back for easy value (more on that little guy in a minute). There's a reason why sower has appeared in almost no maindecks or sideboards for quite some time. It's just the simple fact that this cards time has come and gone.

Daze: There are some decks in which daze is an absolute beating. This is far from the right deck for it, however. Unless you have the stifle into goyf draw, you really aren't putting much pressure on your opponent. Without pressure, daze is just garbage. Your opponent can slow roll all of their spells, and just have an extra mana open at all times. It also doesn't help that many decks are starting to adopt mana bases with more lands, which also hurts daze. Bottom line, this is another card that has suffered from the effects of time and updates to the metagame.

And some explanations for cards which have become modern cornerstones to the deck:

Grim Lavamancer: The card has become slowly better and better over the years as new creatures that enter legacy have usually been value creatures without a ton of toughness. Guys like snapcaster and stoneforge mystic can be a pain in the ass, and are certainly fantastic creatures, but with an active lavamancer in play, they can go back to being just 1 card for the mana the opponent invests, and thus become much easier to answer. In addition, the advent of multiple decks based on green sun's zenith have also greatly increased lavamancer's value. When you can easily answer their mana sources with your single creature, then waste them off green sources (since the decks are usually light on land mana sources), you can just get free wins off of lavamancer. He also helps by being a house versus just about any tribal strategy whatsoever, and just gives you a nice source of damage over the course of the game. The bad synergy with snapcaster mage is annoying, but is not enough of a problem to be worth cutting the lavaman from the deck.

Snapcaster Mage: This single card has brought this deck up into a whole 'nother level of playability (level 2.0, to be precise). He is the real deal and the current reason this list has a ton of staying power. The previous iteration of the deck used to have some issues with finding sources of card advantage, which was only provided by Jace more or less. With snapcaster mage, you get a creature with a good power for it's cost, as well as getting to reuse one of your mana instants and sorceries. Snapcaster is good in many other decks, but is absolutely amazing here due to the variety of spells this deck plays. There are removal spells with bolt and fire//ice, counterspells with spell snare and counterspell and stifle, card draw with both brainstorm and preordain, and plenty of spicy options from the sideboard. Many other snapcaster deck have just brainstorm and swords, and usually spell snare. In those decks snapcaster is like a low quality swiss army knife, with just a knife and a bottle opener as your options. In this deck, you get a nice high quality product, coming with not only a knife, but also a bottle opener, scissors, a file, tweezers, a screw driver, and whatever other options your sideboard says. Bottom line, this is the card that has helped keep the deck on the power curve of the rest of the legacy metagame.

There have been some other small innovations with the deck, which include the loss of mishras factory, the inclusion of ancient grudge in the sideboard due to the presence of stoneforge mystic + batterskull, and a few other changes. Let's just say that you haven't lived until you opponent has reanimated an Iona against you, named blue because it's the obvious choice, only for you to untap, tap three mana, and chaos warp that Iona into their deck :)

The matchup section will remain in the original post, since the way those matches play out has remained mostly unchanged. Some of the sideboard options have changed, but the strategy is similar to before. I'll leave the 2.0 section with the list that I am currently running. The results for the deck speaks for itself, since the first tournament I played it in, I won the whole thing not dropping a single match. The deck has only continued to perform well, even getting a quick deck tech at GP Amsterdam, where the pilot started out 12-1 before three losses knocked him out of top 8 and top 16.

Eric English, 1st Place
RUG

Creatures:
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Grim Lavamancer

Legendary Creatures:
3 Vendilion Clique

Instants/Sorceries:
4 Stifle
3 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
2 Preordain
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Fire//Ice
1 Chaos Warp

Planeswalkers:
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Basic Land:
2 Island
1 Mountain

Non-Basic Land:
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spell Pierce
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Firespout
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Gilded Drake
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Mind Harness

chinEsE girl

edit 1: updated matchup analysis and card choices for the sideboard
edit 2: updated decklist, included new cards

[freakish777]

Here's a list of tournament placement's the deck has achieved:

9th at GP Madrid (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/19314.html)

1st at a 98 person tournament in Europe in March, 2010 (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=34938)

7th at a Jupiter Games qualifier (https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1d_6-UuO49-wCgnRKKbU2z99N3qB-l6P9z0QAmFjDB_8)

4th at Jupiter Games qualifier (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18351-North-American-Legacy-Championship-Qualifier-RIT-2-Moxes-2-Moats-Guaranteed&p=488938&viewfull=1#post488938)

62nd, GP Columbus (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18414-62nd-at-GP-Columbus)

3 Byes, T4 or T2, Jupiter Games qualifier (http://jupitergames.net/2010/05/grand-prix-columbus-trial-jupiter-games/)

2nd at an 81 person Play The Game/Jupiter Qualifier (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?16327-06-12-2010-Lotus-Moxen-40-Duals-40-Fetchs-Goyfs-Forces-LED!-Play-the-Game&p=462642&viewfull=1#post462642)

1st at a 58 person tournament in June 2010 (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=36866)

[Gocho]

OFFTOPIC

Without Threshold creatures, why do you name the deck XX Threshold?

[Tangle.Wire]

because it has nearly the same gameplan, disrupting the opponent with waste/stifle/counter while burning out small creatures to win with creatures like goofy, clique. I also wanted to start playing this deck but i don't like the 4cc cards in it, even jace/sower are to expensive for most situations i tested it.

I am not sure which cards i should pick up for a random meta (for german players its Iserlohn/Dülmen/Dortmund) i think i gonna start with cards i actually own:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Vendilion clique
3 grim lavamancer

3 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Spell Snare
4 lightning Bolt
4 brainstorm
3 standstill
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 engineered explosives

4 Mishras factory
3 wasteland
4 volcanic island
3 tropical island
3 scalding tarn
3 misty rainforest
1 Island

Sideboard:

1 Hibernation
3 Submerge
2 Krosan Grip
3 Pyroblast
3 Firespout
2 tormods crypt
1 Crucible of worlds

By now its 61 cards, i didnt't want to go less than 4 daze cause i had to cut 1 stifle+1wasteland (compared to canadian t.) so i want to keep the daze to disrupt the early game.
For the Sideboard i am not sure what to pick for artifact/enchantment removal, i love submerge+firespout+öyroblast but the other slots are pretty random, maybe someone can help me out with this list.

[ummon]

OFFTOPIC

Without Threshold creatures, why do you name the deck XX Threshold?

I was wondering the same thing. I mean, aside from being UGr and aggro-control, it has nothing to do with Threshold. Heck, it seems as close to to Madness as it does to Threshold.

[Tortured Existence]

I hate Sower in this deck; its aweful.

Nor do i like crucible/factory. More colored lands/trygon predators/garruck/+1 jace would be better imo

I do like the inclusion of Grim Lavamancer. Almost auto win vs merfolk, and as long as you are careful with stifles fuck up goblins pretty well as well. And its a great multipurpose card, not losing to turn standstill is pretty awesome.

Also don't think dredge is a bad matup at all, we can easily beat it game one if we have a single force for there enabler and then just beat the crap out of them with goyf+burn

[freakish777]

I was wondering the same thing. I mean, aside from being UGr and aggro-control, it has nothing to do with Threshold. Heck, it seems as close to to Madness as it does to Threshold.

You can call it Next Level Tempo if you like.

[Tangle.Wire]

So when we come from the faerie thread to the NL thread i would like to talk about the list i am currently building up for future tournaments, i tested the NL Tempo list aswell for some weeks but i came up with cutting out all 4cc spells as i depend to much on cheap drops even with standstills.

first the list:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Grim Lavamancer

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Daze
3 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will
3 Standstill
3 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
1 engineered explosives
1 rushing river

4 Mishras factory
3 wasteland
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding tarn
3 tropical island
4 volcanic island
1 island

sideboard:

1 crucible of worlds
2 trygon predator
3 pyrobast
4 submerge
3 firespout
2 tormod's crypt

i run 61 cards as it ended up with more or less explosives or the island as card #61. Cutting down to 20 lands was fine since i don't play sower/jace anymore as both where rarely played while i always drop creature+protect or drop standstill+creature/factory so i dont had many situations where i would like to drop a cc4 spell as the deck wants to use the counterspells for disruption more than protect the own stuff imo.

Talking about "my" list i would like to add a 3rd Vendilion as its so much played that i sometimes would like to have 1 more than the most decks, also for the lategame if we really have standstill+clique we can do bad stuff.

I really had trouble facing aggro loam decks since we have the same problems like the classic canadian tempo list, knight of the reliquiary is really rough pre board.

[freakish777]

I really had trouble facing aggro loam decks since we have the same problems like the classic canadian tempo list, knight of the reliquiary is really rough pre board.

You probably will need more grave hate against aggro loam (2 Crypt seems like too little). I assume Submerge is ok in that match up, but Knight of the Reliquary was one of the reasons for playing Sower of Temptation. Basically letting your opponent dump a fatty in, and then playing Sower with FoW back up gives you an out you don't have otherwise (no Swords/PtE in red).

[kues]

Hi, i've been playing Canadian Threshold Ft. Grim lavamancer (-4 mongoose +4 Lavamancer) for 7 months and i think its time to change.
Im gonna test this deck, starting with this version: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37678 .
The spots that im not sure are:
Sower + Jace: Problems with that sorcery speed 4 mana cost.
Dead / Gone: Is a good card, but i feel like i need a card that kills nacatls.

Cards i really like:
2x Firespout: If you have a very aggro meta, this cards is gonna win a lot of games by its own.
1x Crucible: A card that wins Control vs Control pairings.
Dispell + BEB(SB): Spell pierce + Some 'dealt 3 to target creature' will be better.

Cards to test:

Flame Slash: 2/3 Mainboard (instead Dead/Gone) + 2 Firespout = Bye Bye Zoo/Gobs/Merfolks/Bant
Grim Lavamancer: Ive been playing this guy for 7 months, i think i need him xD

[Tangle.Wire]

So when you played canadian before no matter if mongoos/lavamancer don't you miss some bullets against random stuff like rushing rushing river or engineered explosives? I can't say in how many games i had 1:0 cause i could handle a card that normally would be played out better post board. Imo rushing river is awesome for ugr tempo decks.

I also would prefer shackles in the mainboard and crucible in the sideboard as shackles is a bit better against most decks.

How do you guys feel about the sideboard? i think there is not much space for any secret tech or random stuff so we can only pack the usefull stuff.
I have problems what will give the deck more advantage, krosan grip or trygon predator?
For Predator i had really good results for my own when i played canadian t. it can handle more than 1 target and keeps the opponent under presure where krosan grip won't be stopped and is more or less an garanted removal.

For Creatures i think firespout is the correct sweeper for this deck as goofy and faeries will survive it most of the time.
For the other slots i personally play submerge as most decks running creatures we want to target run green so i never had problems playing it and by its pitch ability we don't need our low mana to play it.

For The other slots there should be stuff like spell pierce, pyroblast and maybe the meta choices or graveyard hate.
I would like to hear some issues about sideboarding with this list.

[kues]

I made day2 in GP Madrid with 4xTarmo, 4xLavamancer, 2xVendilions and i had the feeling that those Vendillions won 3-5 games by herselves.
But last couple of months i started playing 1/2 Rushings Rivers and i think they were amazing.
The problem with Rushings is that they were good when we are 'running', for exemple: We have 1 Mongoose + 1 Goyf and our opponent have a goyf + qasali/rhox/random, we bounce them and took their last lives.
EE is a card that i have played a lot (Old extended faeries <3) but i think is a bit slow + doesnt fit on the philosophy of the deck (We want our mana up to play stifle+snare+bolts+brainstorm+vendilions)

About shackles... with qasalis, KotR+Goyfs (usually too big) on one side, and too slow on the other side (against tribal) i wouldnt play them.

About SB, last tournament i played Mind Harness over Submerge, and i really liked them. They won a zoo game that was already lost, and we were good even against goblins (U, kill 1/2 gobs). They will be even better on this deck, which plays 1/3 more lands than canadian.
3 Tormods + Pithing + Krosan + Reb+ Pierces were the other SB cards

[freakish777]

Flame Slash: 2/3 Mainboard (instead Dead/Gone)

If you're going to play Flame Slash, I strongly recommend testing Chain Lightning instead. The only creature that there's a difference between the two cards is Rhox War Monk (Knight and Goyf will be too big). Chain Lightning, while not a card you want to see against combo/control decks, isn't 100% dead either. Chain Lightning does kill Wild Nacatl, and in the event your opponent is dumping some fatty into play of Show and Tell, it at least helps you try to race by doming your opponent.

I think a lot of people aren't understanding just how good Jace the Mindsculptor is. He literally wins you games single-handedly against control decks that you otherwise have no business winning. He wins the top deck war when both players have emptied their hands. He's hands down better than Rushing River, primarily because he's a threat on his own, not just an answer.

[Tangle.Wire]

Re Rushing River: I agree that it is a bit better in canadian t. but as you said i had same problems with explosives as it was quiete to slow. Rushing River often helps to push out the game when it comes down to tempo in case thats our role.. i also often play it without kicker just for a single blocker/moat/propaganda/planeswalker or nearly everything placing the table.

If you want to have more burn in the deck id take lightning bolts+fire/ice beside firespouts, they have proven very well in the past and for me they still do their job.

[Mister Agent]

Instead of Flame slash you could also run forked bolt just like freakish. I've won games against zoo by wasting their plateau and then killing their nacatls, lynxes, and lavamancer with a single forked bolt. I feel that forked bolt is one of the best cards in the deck especially with mana disruption to stop zoo players from achieving early critical mass with their creatures.

[kues]

I would play Fire/Ice instead Forked Bolt.
On the Chain vs Flame Slash discussion, i have to test both (i was going to play 3xCL on my canadian), but i like FS on the paper...

About Jace, i think you are right frekish. In my first test it was good(specially if i curve Tarmo+Firespout+Jace), but maybe only as a 1off...

[chinEsE girl]

So a few things I want to say;

First, about the choices for burn in the deck. I think its safe to say that bolt is a four of, no question. The real issue is what other burn spell should be used along side it to deal with decks like zoo, merfolk, and goblins. Personally I hate sorcery speed removal like chain lightning and flame slash, but I see their use in a metagame filled with zoo so they're decent in theory. In real games though I found fire//ice to be just as good as what you want chain lightning and flame slash to be. Against zoo fire//ice deals with lynx and lavamancer easily (something both at the same time!), as well as killing 2/2 nacatls and pridemages. Against tribal decks it kills any lord on its own, and often can get 2 X/1's at the same time. At the very least I feel that fire//ice is vastly superior to forked bolt, since it does all that forked bolt does at instant speed, while also have the utility of the blue side, for only 1 extra colorless mana. I know freakish plays forked bolt to deal with noble heirarch on the draw, but for me personally the utility and overall flexibility makes fire//ice the clear choice IMO.

And about sower of temptation, it's not surprising that it's the first card people don't find to be great. There are certainly a lot of matchups where the card comes out in favor of something else. However, I find that it is worth running just because it helps you so much against green decks, which can be some of your most difficult matchups. Knight of the reliquary is not something this deck can easily deal with, but a single sower can swing things around so quickly that its worth running. However, if I were to change anything in the deck, sower is probably the first card I would cut. So far I haven't seen anything that deserves to take it's place, but if new cards come out that deserve a chance they will probably take the sowers place. For those of you who just hate sowers guts and want to cut it now, i'd suggest trying things like grim lavamancer, another jace, or possibly another land. It really depends on what your metagame is like, since each of those cards has their own purpose and can be the right call in one place and be really bad somewhere else.

[sa17dk]

As much as I like Jace in any deck with a blue shell, I'm not quite sure if this is the deck to run him in. In a deck with ~20 lands, four of which blow up (Wasteland), I dont know how you're finding the mana to cast him. I've been playing a lot of Team America and even Vendilion Clique can be hard to cast at times.

[chinEsE girl]

Yeah, the mana issue is always something to be concerned about, but somehow when me and freakish have played this deck we have almost never had a serious problem casting jace. Usually it ends up with us getting to 4 mana in a reasonable amount of time and slamming down jace, or jace becomes force of will fodder and we move along. Clique on the other hand I've never been even close to have trouble casting, since we get to run basic islands in this list unlike team america which runs a basic swamp. All you really need are two basics to protect from wasteland, then fetch and play clique, then win. Also, the deck only runs three wastelands, not four, since we have the singleton crucible here to act as additional land destruction/mana/creatures for whatever the situation is.

[Tangle.Wire]

to chinese: I don't want to make sower bad at all but it was the first card i kicked out of the mainboard as you said its only strong in some matchups so i still think about placing 2-3 "steal" effects to the sideboard but i am not sure what to run there at all. I peronally preffer Control magic as the opponents wont side in enchantment removal and sower eats a lot of removal.

For the burn cards there is also psionic blast ;D but fire/ice really holds the deck flexible as it can cantrip/disrupt/burn or pitch to force so we always find a way to use it.

Anyone ever tried chain of vapor in this deck? Along tarmogoyf its not bad if they sacrifice a land to give us a clique/spellstutter back + the opportunity to copy the chain again. I loved the chain since i played it in canadian but there i also had the mongoose with shroud that couldn't get bounced back to my hand.
.. i also had situations where i had to return my own goyf to hand vs swords/path :rolleyes:

[kues]

to chinese: There is many times where Fire/Ice dont kill any single lord (2 lords at the same time? It happens all the time...), and if freakish want to deal with t1 Hierarch on the draw, Dead//Gone is his card. And probably mine too (ill start my testing playing 2 of them + 2 firespout).
The problem is none of those deals with a that T1 Nacatl which took us 9-12 damages.

[rancOr_]

I play(ed) the deck since its performance at GP Madrid,and before that I also played UBr/Ugr faeries.
Some things about the deck: Jace is the nuts,dont ever cut it! Like said before it wins games on its own..
About the removal, when I first started playing this deck I had 4F/I,3 LB then 4LB 3FI and eventually I did cut the Fire//Ice as I wasnt satisfied with them anymore. Sure they are good against tribal somtimes but they just felt underpowered compared to LB and I started testing Firespout main. U should really test 2 firespout main or even Grim lavamancer,as I feel they are superior.
Sower is also a great card, and very underrated. I've won so many games by just stealing a goyf/rwm,.. and backing it up with a counter/REB postside. This card can switch bord position instantly,not to mention its awesome against decks without removal(Merfolk-getting a Coralhelm/lord,NH like decks(only Stp),Emrakul,..)
My latest version which I went undefeated with in tournament I made a crucial change,no more F/I,cut the ponders and I think a stifle for standstill,firespout and grim lavamancer. It worked really well as Standstill is a great card for this deck,I strongly suggest testing it. It matches the loss of ponder,and plays great in this deck. U already have the manabase to support it,and this deck isnt straight tempo anymore,like TT. I mostly play the control route as long as possible,but u can go aggro aswell it just depends on the MU/hand. This way Jace and sower become even more powerfull as u have more time/mana to develop and more cards when they finally break it(and u get to V. Clique when they break it end of turn).As a 3 off though as u dont always need it.
This deck doesnt have much bad MU's. Dredge,but that is not played atm and the Vengevine decks can be hard(Spell snare+Krosan grip/relic side are key here).

[Tangle.Wire]

@Rancor How you feel about running 4 pyro/red blast in the sideboard as blue will overall be the favored color almost with jace. Also i like to have 4 blasts against merfolk. Do you actually run 3 or 4 Standstill? i loved them on the countertop/survival matchups.

[Henrik]

While I absolutely love the UGr combination in aggro-control decks, with cards like lavamancer, goyfs, faeries and counters, I don't understand the combination of stifle + standstill that a lot of people do in NLT / faerie hybrids

(I am aware of that the deck in OP does not feature standstills, but suggested decks in the thread do, and I'm sure that more such decks will be posted here sooner or later, that's why I take it up)

Isn't it an awful waste of tempo to start attacking your opponents lands the first turns, just to drop a standstill moments later, giving away all the tempo you gained? This let's your opponent drop lands in peace and break the standstill with a number of lands in play and your edge from early turns is just gone.

Those of you that have good experience with stifle + standstill, please enlighten me!

[Tangle.Wire]

I am not sure how about the other people but i definatly drop standstill only when i can set the opponent under pressure with creatures or factories under the standstill, i don't play it on a complete empty board, also i kept the 3 stifles in for random stuff i normally always find a target for stifle, but i also gonna shift to spell pierces for this slot.

[freakish777]

The problem is none of those deals with a that T1 Nacatl which took us 9-12 damages.

Anything that deals 2 damage on turn 1 (Forked Bolt, Dead/Gone) kills a turn 1 Nacatl. Your opponent can't make it a 3/3 before their second turn.

This is yet another reason why I play 2 Forked Bolt, and only 1 Fire/Ice. It's not entirely unreasonable to let them have Nacatl for 3 turns, and then Wasteland their Plateau to make Nacatl a 2/2 again and Forked Bolt it then.

Reasons for running Forked Bolt over Dead/Gone:

Taking out Lavamancer + Steppe Lynx against Zoo.
Taking out Cursecatcher + Silvergil Adept against Merfolk (and still having 1 open to pay for Cursecatcher's activated ability, which you rarely have when you play Fire/Ice instead).
Attacking Goyf into their Goyf, killing their Goyf and pushing through 1 more damage (with an extra mana open for Spell Snare/Stifle/to pay for an opponent's Spell Pierce, etc).
Pumping your Goyf to 4/5 (so often he's a 3/4 in this deck, that runs only 2 Sorceries).
Being able to target your opponent with it.
Doing 1 additional damage to your opponent when you kill a Noble Hierarch.

Reasons for running it over Fire/Ice:

Turn 2 (on the play) being able to keep a blue mana open for Spell Snare/Stifle after you kill Noble Hierarch (you're on the play).
Turn 1 (on the draw) having an answer for Goblin Lackey/Noble Heirarch.
Usually pumps Goyf to 4/5 since it's a Sorcery (and you run only 2 otherwise)
When I cast Fire/Ice, about 80% of the time I'm casting Fire.

[Tangle.Wire]

All in all i didn't notice forked bolt till yet, i like it but since i don't run fire/ice at all at the moment i won't pack it in the my list i also think its a card that has to be played in an aggressive meta.

For the guys who don't like Standstill by the was, yesterday i found a old vintage deck i played some years ago in vintage (my first deck with duals and fow haha) it was called "fish" but was more or less the budget version of the future ***** lists.

While i saw the list there was no doubt that it played pretty close to the ugr faeries list we talk about and even on vintage where stax,madness,psychatog,keeper,oath and other typical decks where played it performed very good. Also i think its a bit nerdy to say that the older vintage and the actual legacy meta share a lot, but i think you can't disagree at all that comparing tempo+deck diversity show a common ground.

U/R Fish (can't remember date)

Creatures:

4 sloud of faeries
4 spiketail hatchling
4 grim lavamancer


Spells:

4 Standstill
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Rushing River
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Fire//Ice

Lands:

4 Mishras factory
1 strip mine
4 wasteland
3 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
4 volcanic island
1 island

Ps: The deck was played before the classic ******** lists where played, also it was a time before tarmogoyf/Explosives/Spell Snare etc where printed but the plan was the same, dropping creatures/factory under standstill and disrupt due to wasteland/stifle/countermagic.

So beside canadian ******** i think this is more the deck/strategy where ugr tempo/ugr faeries could be compared to as it generates another tempo than the coatl/mongoose/goofy ******** which just runs down the opponent.

[rancOr_]

@Tangle.Wire
I run 3 REB sideboard. I play 3 standstill main and also 2grim lavamancer.U dont always need standstill so if ur behind u just pitch it to FoW if u have one,but most of the times it will be awesome,even in the lategame.
Grim lavamancer is another card combined with mishra's factory that makes standstill even better.It helps alot vs merfolk and kills hierarchs,quasali,madness creatures,...
I've cut the stifle package down to3. Stifle is a very versatile card. I've almost always played decks with stifle and the most important thing is your opponent fearing for a stifle and thus playing around it so you gain tempo. If they dont and run into ur stifle thats also fine.
There are matchups where u can simply board out the stifles and have the same effect by just playing fetch go.

[Tangle.Wire]

@rancor agree, i also run a 3/3 Split Standstill/Stifle the list above is just a memory not a list i actually would try. I tested Spell pierce the last 2 days and it was as good as usual but i still feel like stifle is still more usefull, and as you said even without getting the fetches stifled they think about stifle every time they drop stuff that could be target by it.

For the Sideboard i took allover a 2/2 Split for Pyro/Red blasts, i think i will go down to 3 the next month but i expect the next 2-3 tournaments will reflect the decks played at GenCon as 80% of the magic player just copy+paste their decks from the internet (same happend when nassiff lead his counterbalance deck) so i expect 2-3 Jace in nearly every deck + merfolk +random blue stuff

[kues]

freakish777: I see your point, specially over F/I, but i think Dead/Gone > Forked Bolt.
'Dead' part is pretty much the same as Forked (i havent seen Steppe Lynx on Zoo's list since GP Madrid; Cursecatcher + Silvergil Adept is ok, but very circunstancial) BUT is an instant, so it helps us on that goyfs wars when we are the deffensive player (almost always against zoo/aggro), killing a lord in response to another lord,...
'Gone' part is being very underrated. Been able to bounce a KotR,RWM,Goyf,Iona can give you more matches than split 1 damage between Hierarch/player.

[Tangle.Wire]

I think the card you really need is rushing river@kues :)

[chinEsE girl]

Hmm, hadn't seen anyone suggest dead//gone before, but I can see why it would look nice. Both sides work very similar to fire//ice, one being damage based removal and the other dealing with the threat for a single turn, either by bouncing or by tapping it down for a turn. However, if I was going to cut fire//ice for anything, I think I would get rid of them and include some number of firespouts and possibly a third jace. The way I see it is that fire//ice can sometimes be underwhelming against creature decks in various situations, and if I was looking to solve that dilemma I would just maindeck firespout like rancor suggested. That way you can really crush the creature based decks, and in particular with the rise of vengevine survival (which firespout can crush pretty solidly), firespout might be the ticket. I mean, 11 out of the top 16 decks at baltimore get wrecked by firespout, so it might be time to start maindecking it. It would also free up some sideboard space, maybe for some number of cards to beat big green creatures and more counters against combo.

[matelml]

What is the reason Sower is in the main and Control Magic not? Isn't creature removal more relevant g1 than enchantment removal? Of course creature removal also works against Control Magic, but at least your opponent doesn't get his Goyf/Knight/Crusher back. I understand it also works against Emrakul sometimes, but this still doesn't seem relevant enough to warrant the difference. Is the body relevant against non-creature decks? Also can't really imagine. What am I missing?

[claudio.r]

U/R Fish (can't remember date)

Creatures:

4 sloud of faeries
4 spiketail hatchling
4 grim lavamancer


Spells:

4 Standstill
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Rushing River
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Fire//Ice

Lands:

4 Mishras factory
1 strip mine
4 wasteland
3 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
4 volcanic island
1 island

Ps: The deck was played before the classic ******** lists where played, also it was a time before tarmogoyf/Explosives/Spell Snare etc where printed but the plan was the same, dropping creatures/factory under standstill and disrupt due to wasteland/stifle/countermagic.


Now this brings back great memories! This deck was a beast back in the day. Don't forget Null Rod, Null Rod was the card that made this deck so good in classic.
It was a great deck, bur it used to take forever to win with it... still great times! Nowdays we have so many creatures, that outclass and outperform those... Still, someday i will try take make an up to date version of this.

Thanks for remembering me of the existance of that !

[Tangle.Wire]

:D iam glad you liked it! I think null rod was just vintage specific.

to control magic: I say the same, control magic has won me so many games in my countertop deck while i grinned into swords,ghastly demise or path also in faeries the won't board enchantment removal for those at all.

[keys]

Is the Grove of the Burnwillows/Punishing Fire combo any good in this deck?

[Philipp2293]

A guy at my local tournaments used to play that combo, and it's damn good.

[sa17dk]

What cards would you possibly cut to make room for such a terribly slow and inefficient combo like Grove/Punishing Fire?

[Tortured Existence]

Is the Grove of the Burnwillows/Punishing Fire combo any good in this deck?

basically if you replace the factorys with grove and fire/ice with punishing it semi works

however the deck does crush merfolk/goblin/random elf bs pretty well already so I don't like the combo very much in this deck

[Equinozio]

Now I'm trying this list.

1 Flooded Strand
3 Island
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Wasteland

2 Sower of Temptation
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Daze
3 Fire / Ice
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Ponder
3 Spell Snare
3 Stifle

Sideboard:

2 pithing needle
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Firespout
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Spell Pierce
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Red elemental blast

Now I'm trying this list I made a few changes from the orginal list from the gp. I'm happy with all the cards but I'll swicth fire/ice for dead/gone. Yesterday at night I tested vs merfolks and vs Reanimator. I love ice part but being able to take out an Iona and dealing 2 damege for {R} vs merfolks is a house. Forked bolt seems pretty to make 2x1 but draw dead/gone in late game is a house to rip out big creatures like reliquary or something like that.

I cutted glen because I think they are very slow and I've never played one because when I had one I was wining and didn't want to tap out or it was a Fow removable card. So pithing needle would cut vial.decks and sotneforge.decks. The lonley red elemental blast is to fill the 15 card with a card that can be good in lots of match ups but I'd like to hear ideas for this slot.

[The Big Ragu]

I'd love to see the white splash variety make a comeback, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

[keys]

I'd love to see the white splash variety make a comeback, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

You mean New Horizons?

[The Big Ragu]

Not an expert on the deck, but off the top of my head I can't recall ever seeing an actual threshold creature that's used in New Horizons.

[Tangle.Wire]

why add white? after we sword to plowshare any creaturewith power 2 < we need 1 turn more to finish the opponent in 80% of the games. Also Path to exile won't fit into the stifle/wasteland strategy, maybe there is a way to play it like the ppl above said in a way of new horizons or maybe a thresh build with armageddon but i think black/red are the colors to splash in a g/u/x tempo based deck.

[The Big Ragu]

Black and Red are unquestionably the more viable splash choices, but I've always vastly preferred going with a white splash.

[Dark Ritual]

Do you mean the really old school thresh lists with mystic enforcer and fledgling dragon? Those are a tad bit outdated since this guy called tarmogoyf was printed. And really, there is only one deck that uses a creature with threshold and that is canadian thresh with 18 lands, no jace, no sower, only 4 mongeese and 4 tarmogoyf for win con's.

Thresh build's with armageddon are fail. No to using path to exile and like you said swords makes us slower to kill them which matters a lot.

Dead//Gone bouncing iona seems hilariously funny; I can imagine the iona's controller going "Wtf is that card OH SHIT!!!" when they read it.

Punishing fire could be a SB option against decks with lifegain in the form of rhox war monks, jitte's, or whatever they have. Although I agree that the combo seem's unneeded against most decks and if you have just grove but no punishing fire in hand it is a setback because they will gain 1 life every time you tap it which seems bad.

[Tammit67]

You mean New Horizons?

He really does, though the lack of a thresh creature will make him say no...

I love this deck. Played it at a local event (near identical list to primer with F/I) to a 4-0 finish beating arguably the four best people in the room. Beat 43lands, Bant stuff, Excalibur, and Zoo. Mchainmail, Talon7331, HungrylikeALion,Benjammin respectively. Also had a 102 fever...

The inablility to nicely deal with KotR is a pain. I want to change a slot in my board to control magic as suggested. There are a lot of creatures that just flat out are bad for these builds, since it is rare we have the biggest creatures available. Also kinda worried that I keep going 2-1 in every match up with the deck. I mean, sure it is a win, but being able to make it solidly 2-0 is ideal.

Ancient grudge in board is the cutest thing.

[sa17dk]

I dont understand why this deck works. I've been playing it and I've loved it (except against lands.dec). You'd think that the awkward identity crisis it seems to have between tempo and control would make it terrible but somehow the deck wins.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I dont understand why this deck works. I've been playing it and I've loved it (except against lands.dec). You'd think that the awkward identity crisis it seems to have between tempo and control would make it terrible but somehow the deck wins.

Totally. It looks like it's incredibly draw-dependant, but it really seems to work and its matchups seem to be quite good aswell. Maybe this kind of "randomness" might be the reason why it works, I'm not sure. If the matchups should really be like chinEsE girl stated in the opening post, I might give it a try next month or something. The only thing that bothers me is the lack of serious removal, which has always been the reason why I didn't like Canadian. Is Dead // Gone really that good? To me it seems kinda cute, but some of guys seem to like it. Is it better than Vedalken Shackles and Fire // Ice or is that a metagame-choice?

[sa17dk]

Yeah sometimes I get worried about the lack of real removal for big Goyfs and fat green creatures like Knight of the Reliquary but it's just something you have to deal with. Like most decks in legacy, there are gonna be aspects of the deck which are metagame dependent (because of how many viable decks there are in this format).

I've personally been testing a set up of 4 Lightning Bolt + 1 Fire/Ice + 2 Forked Bolt (and sometimes Dead/Gone). I love this set up right now. I have a lot of Merfolk/Noble Hierarch/Shitty utility creatures/Goblin Lackey/Zoo in my area (as well as other decks) so being able to answer random creatures on my first turn when I'm on the draw is insanely helpful. The utility of Ice has been meh for me. You're not gonna be able to tap down an Emrakul or Progenitus, and if an Iona comes down theyre gonna name blue anyways so it wont help you there either. Even if you could, this deck doesnt exactly alpha-strike for the win so it would only buy you a turn anyways. I'd much rather try to answer the threat by trying to prevent it from resolving through counterspells.

Also, I'd stay away from Vedalken Shackles. If you're unsatisfied with the Sower of Temptation, try Control Magic or Threads of Disloyalty instead.

[Equinozio]

I found this deck that make top8 at a tournament here in spain played from a friend of the one that top9 in Gp Madrid. The list is this:

3 Trinket Mage
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Tarmogoyf

2 Misty rainforest
2 Polluted delta
3 Wasteland
3 Mishra's factory
3 Island
2 Scalding tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island

1 Pithing needle
1 Basilisk collar
1 Crucible of worlds
1 EE
3 F/I
4 Fow
4 Brainstorm
2 Jace 2.0
2 Ponder
3 Lightinng bolt
3 Stifle
3 Spell snare
1 Sensei divining top

Side board
1 Krosan grip
1 Ancient grudge
1 Pithing needle
2 Firespout
1 Tormods crypt
2 EE
3 Spell pierce
1 Jace Beleren
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Red blast
1 Relic of progenitus

I try it yesterday and I made 3-3 losing to Hivemind, goblins and WG Maverick. I lost to hive mind because i made almost no pressure so he played with time. With goblins I think I have to test it more because I think I play wrong all the times. With WG in the second round I mull to 7 one wasteland, mull to 6 no lands, mull to 5, 2 lands, kgrip, EE and firespout, but lose to a wasteland.

I'll give it a try becaouse trinket to basilisk and sensei's is awsome and in some matchups pithing needle and ee preside is awsaome.

The only change I made is -1 island +1 forest couse we don't play daze and a playset of misty rainforest to be able to search that forest.

I now it isn't a threshold but it uses almost the same tools.

[sa17dk]

Hmm interesting Trinket Mage use. I definitely agree that Sower of Temptation is the weakest card in the deck so cutting them for Trinket Mage is not too shabby but I dont know if I agree with all those targets. I would probably only run singletons of EE, Pithing Needle, and Top.

Also I dont know how much I've liked the Crucible in the main. It hasnt been terrible but it hasnt exactly been awesome either.

[Equinozio]

Basiliks collar breaks tarmo wars, wins you life, and can win races like tarmo vs rhox could do with lifelink.

Crucible has been awsome to me in many occasions.

[sa17dk]

I guess. But we already win Goyf wars with burn, which also doubles as reach for races.

Has anyone else tested against Vengevine Madness? I'm pretty sure we need to make room for Pithing Needles in the board.

[Blitzbold]

I've been a fan of NLT since it's performance an 'unlucky' 9th place at GP: Madrid earlier this year. It took some time, but I finally got my second Jace TMS this week, so I was able to take the deck to our local store's regular tournament today.


This is the list I played.

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Sower of Temptation

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Spell Snare
3 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Rushing River - "Mr. Catch-All." Love it. Combines nicely with Crucible, if you happen to have them both.
1 Fire // Ice - loved it in Canandian, but only used it once today; incredible flexibility in theory, but third Ponder might be better
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Forked Bolt - acts as Bolt #5; kills early Lackey, Hierarch, Bob, Nacatl or lonely Merfolk Lords

1 Crucible of Worlds - Awesome.
1 Engineered Explosives - "Mrs. Catch-All." Sometimes somewhat slow, but great utility to have.
1 Veldalken Shackles - Great every time it resolved.

3 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand

SB
3 Firespout
2 Pyroblast
2 Krosan Grip
1 Seedtime
1 Trygon Predator
3 Spell Pierce
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus


Since I mentally divide this deck into a must-have core and quite some flexible slots, I stuffed some 1-ofs into the list just to see how they performed. I know that there are a lot of variables for evaluating a card's impact in certain situations, but nevertheless I think that this can be a viable way for testing cards for theese slots. Same goes for the Sideboard. I tried to reproduce my reasoning for them as well.

I also considered playing 2 Grim Lavamancer in the deck, but I think this needs a rework of the manabase. Having 3 basic Islands was great throughout the day, as was the certainty to have Mr.Catch-all as an nearly always castable answer to random nastiness in the deck.


I went 3-2 after a 2-0 start:

BRg Disruptive.dec - 2:0
The kind of deck where the tempo elements of the deck really shine. Sower on Dark Confidant for 2 easy wins.

UG Vengevival 2:0
Having experimented with this deck I know a bit about it's strengths and weaknesses, therefore FoW'ed an unprotected turn 2 Survival, took some beats from an exalted Roowalla and finally took over with Jace. Game 2 was very unspectacular as he seemed to have kept a questionable hand.

Cats-zoo - 1:2
G1 I kept a good hand with Fow, Ponder, 2 lands, Bolt and something more. I didn't FoW the 1st turn Steppe Lynx, but fail to find red mana before it teamed up wih a Nacatl. Those two dealt enough damage to let him finish me with burn. I took control over G2 quickly after destroying nearly all of his manabase and killing his team with Spout. Shackles joined in... G3 went back and forth, but I took too much damage before stabilizing and was burned out again.

URg Painter / Nought Hybrid 1:2
Won G1 quickly after he mulligans once. G2 was a long one which was decided by a Dreadnought of him I couldn't answer after Gripping away his Back to Basics (!!). G3 I mull a hand away which was quite keepable by hindsight. I hold both Grip and Predator, but watch helpless getting beaten down by a lone Trinke Mage with B2B in play, 2 fetchlands being stifled an one or two lands wasted. Sigh.

Ubg Tempo/Fearies with Noughts and Standstills 2:0
The deck description sounds weired, but there is a lot of good stuff lurking in there. I know most parts of his deck after watching him playing it at previous tournaments. We play two uneventful games in which I partially support his srew by using Stifles and Wastes. Jace's fateseal keeps him of a Forest in G2 and Clique + Factory seal the deal.

Though this is just a mediocre finish when looking at the pure numbers, I know that I had good chances in the matches I lost. Therefore the result could have been a lot better. In fact, both matches felt to be quite winable. Cat Zoo is an incredibly fast deck, but seems to be very beatable given an average draw at least. I haven't seen B2B for more than a year now, an G3 my opponent's draw was very good to my mulligan on the play. Overall I am very satisfied with the deck and will continue to work on it.

[sa17dk]

I like the EE. I want to fit two of them into my list.

Has anyone tested cards like Dreadnought to give us some more creatures to beat face with?

A problem that has occasionally come up for me is the deck would have all the cute tempo cards but no pressure to capitalize on it.

[gamegeek2]

How would Standstill do in this deck? You have manlands and wastelands. Seems like it might be better than Daze.

[sa17dk]

I dont like Standstill in this deck. The only thing Standstill does is let them recover after you've gained tempo.

On the other hand, Daze has been very subpar for me. I want to try out Spell Pierce in their place.

[Esper3k]

I really like the idea of this deck!

Just wondering - has anyone been testing Arc Trail as an alternative to Forked Bolt or Fire/Ice? 1 more than Forked Bolt, but you can get those Qasali's and 2 for 1 a Lord + X/1 guy?

[GGoober]

Esper3k I was playing this deck 1-2 months ago and you guys called it jank... Althought the older lists ran 4 Sprites instead of extra Cliques and burn but essentially the same idea of not playing too tight a CT list

Yaay go non DTB decks! It's a good deck, on paper it looks like Landstill + Canandian Thresh hybrid, but in actuality, it's still a tempo deck but with a better mid-game and not getting blown out entirely when an opponent slips past e.g. resolves a Top GG.

[Esper3k]

I've been bored and looking for new decks to play :)

The list that placed 9th at GP Madrid didn't have any Sprites!

I'm not sure I ever saw you playing this deck at all.

[Blitzbold]

I really like the idea of this deck!

Just wondering - has anyone been testing Arc Trail as an alternative to Forked Bolt or Fire/Ice? 1 more than Forked Bolt, but you can get those Qasali's and 2 for 1 a Lord + X/1 guy?

I considered it for exactly that reason, but as Fire, it doesn't kill quick dudes we want to see dead like Forked Bolt does. The single most convincing reason to test a second Forked Bolt is it's cmc of 1.

[Tangle.Wire]

Is pongify really that bad for NL tempo? i am always looking for a card replacing removal like path/swords for UGR and trading a problem to a 3/3 doesn't seem that bad.

[Dark Ritual]

Pongify is situational removal. If you have a goyf sure pongify away because goyf will have a toughness of 4 or more if you pongify the creature. If you have just a clique out then it is a 2 for 1 trade if you choose to block. Pongify was a beast of a card when reanimator was tier 1 which it isn't anymore since m. tutor got banned. Overall pongify doesn't make the cut though over other removal spells.

Arc trail is interesting and has more two for 1 capabilities than fire//ice but the problem is the sorcery speed and it can't kill X/3's. Sure it's nice if your opponent goes turn 1 hierarch turn 2 pridemage and you kill them both with arc trail but it's so meh compared to fire//ice and forked bolt to me because it is sorcery speed and 2 mana whereas forked bolt is one mana but sorcery speed and fire//ice can be pitched to FoW and is instant speed.

Feel free to test arc trail though and see how it goes.

[kues]

This list made top8 on a 293players tournament:

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Stifle
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Fire / Ice
4 Punishing Fire
4 Brainstorm
3 Jace, the Mindsculptor
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Vendillion Clique
3 Spell Snare
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Firespout
2 Sower of Temptations
2 Krosan Grip
2 Enginereed Explosives
3 Red Elemental blast
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Ravenous Trap


I dont like SSS on Legacy but i think Punishing + Groove is too powerfull to not trying it.

[Rune]

Got 2nd today with NLT, going 4-1.

Zoo 2-0
Merfolk 2-0
Deadguy with Lotus Cobra (Max McCall's concoction) 2-1
Ugr Thresh 2-0
Zoo 1-2

In game 3 against my 2nd Zoo opponent I had to make a tough decision on my 3rd turn. He has Nacatl + 2/3 Goyf (sorcery and land). I have Firespout in hand, but he has Taiga untapped and I fear he will bolt in response and blow me out. My gut instinct told me to pull the trigger since my hand wasn't very strong, but in the end I did something else and tried to play around it, and it probably cost me the game (turns out he didn't have it).

I played this list

// Lands
3 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (1)
3 [TE] Wasteland
4 [R] Volcanic Island
3 [R] Tropical Island
2 [P2] Island (1)
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ON] Polluted Delta

// Creatures
1 [LRW] Sower of Temptation
3 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [AP] Fire/Ice
3 [SC] Stifle
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 [NE] Daze
3 [B] Lightning Bolt
3 [LRW] Ponder

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [OV] Pyroblast
SB: 1 [FD] Trinket Mage
SB: 1 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [U] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [CH] Tormod's Crypt


I've also been testing the version with Punishing Fire (and found it to be very strong), but this time I wanted to play Factories and Fire/Ice again. F/I is pretty amazing because it's so flexible, and it acted as a time walk several times. Factory also pulled its weight, putting the opponent on a faster clock and blocking for Jace like a champ. I still can't decide what version I like best, though.

The last Sower is still TERRIBLE in the deck, and it should be cut for something else. I'm thinking Control Magic/Threads of Disloyalty/4th Bolt/Flame Slash.

[Rune]

I played NLT in a small tournament today. It took me forever to decide between Supreme Blue or NLT, but I landed on NLT because I have played much more games with it and I feel this deck can be much more disruptive and controlling than a CB deck anyway.

I played this

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [ON] Misty Rainforest
2 [P2] Island
3 [R] Tropical Island
3 [AQ] Mishra's Factory
3 [TE] Wasteland
4 [R] Volcanic Island

// Creatures
3 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 [NE] Daze
4 [B] Lightning Bolt
3 [LRW] Ponder
4 [MM] Brainstorm
1 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
1 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
2 [AP] Fire/Ice
1 [B] Control Magic

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Trinket Mage
SB: 1 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 1 [OV] Pyroblast
SB: 1 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [U] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [4E] Counterspell
SB: 1 [LRW] Sower of Temptation


I realized that Spell Pierce is pretty sucktastic in the sb of this deck since it mostly only helps in matchups that are already good, so I wanted to try out Counterspell instead because it's more flexible and it also helps against the main weakness of the deck: big dumb creatures (KotR). I also upped the amount of "steal your dude"-effects because they are blowouts in so many matchups. I cut the 3rd Jace for a 3rd Ponder because 3 Jaces feels a bit excessive in NLT, and Ponder helps find the random cards when you need them. Fire/Ice is the least exciting card, but it can be randomly good and it has nice synergy with Daze, so I only chopped 2 of them.


Round 1: TES


Game 1: I open with Stifle on 2 fetchlands + Waste on USea. He has no lands in play but still thinks for a while during his turn, so I start to suspect he's playing storm instead of Ubg Thresh (my first assumption). I bash with Factory and soon Clique + Bolts to the dome finish the job.

game 2: My hand is full of cards that dominate the stack. He Pyroblasts a Stifle on a fetch, but I Stifle again. Clique takes a protection spell out of his hand and starts clocking him. He casts Silence with only 1 land in play and to me it smells like a bluff/counter bait, but my hand is too strong so I counter it instead of taking the risk of letting it resolve. He is eventually forced to go off without protection but I have FoW.

1-0

Round 2: UWr Thopters

Game 1: I Spell Snare 3 Counterbalances over the course of this game. He runs out of cards faster because of Enlightened Tutor, and I kill him with Clique and factories while holding FoW for anything scary he might have.

Game 2: I answer his first Counterbalance and take a Counterspell out of his hand with Clique. I draw fetchlands and duals for 4 turns in a row so I can't prevent the 2nd CB from resolving. Obviously, I draw the Brainstorm immediately after he has CB+Top assembled. Clique and a factory do, however, put him on a fast clock and he has to sac his Thopter Foundry to itself to kill Clique. I get an opening to cast the Brainstorm and I draw into more factories that he can't handle.

2-0

Round 3: Zoo


Game 1: I'm on the draw and he leads with Steppe Lynx. My hand is God-awful against Zoo and the best play I can make involves setting myself back on tempo by wasting one of his duals and hoping he never sees a land in the next 3 turns. This plan naturally fails and I die to cats and an infinite/infinite KotR.

Game 2: Stifle and Wasteland wreck him completely. When he is finally able to cast his cats, I am already beating down with double Goyf. Chumpblock phase followed by scoop phase.

Game 3: On turn 3 I Firespout a Goyf and a Nacatl. I Bolt some smaller critters and he PtE's my Goyf. He catches me by surprise with an Elspeth and I'm not in a position where I can handle it.

2-1


Round 4: PT Junk/Dark Horizons/The Rock

Game 1: I get Thoughtseized a few times but I end up landing Shackles with FoW backup for any potential Vindicate shenanigans he might have. I steal the Goyf he has in play and resolve Jace the next turn. He has to StP the Goyf and the creatures he draws afterwards get stranded in his hand.

Game 2: After some Wasteland action, we both stall on lands. I draw out of it first and start unloading Goyfs while his hand is clogged with 3-drops.



3-1 is enough to make top4



Semifinal: Zoo (same player)

Game 1: I lose the roll again, which annoys me a lot since this matchup is a bitch on the draw. However, I answer all of his stuff and end up using Control Magic on something big. My factories and his own creature kill him.

Game 2: I answer the smaller dorks and do a number on his manabase with Stifle/Waste. I land Jace and start fatesealing his lands away. It takes forever to finish the game because he keeps pathing my Goyfs, but killing him is just a formality since I have about 12 non-Goyf permanents in play vs his board of forest and plains.



Final: Merfolk

Game 1: I kill LoA and another lord, but he sticks a Jitte, equips it to Cursecatcher and makes it unblockable with Sovereign so I die quickly. It's been forever since I last dropped a game to Merfolk with this deck :'(

Game 2: He opens with double Vial. This doesn't bother me much since it just means he will run out of gas faster. I take some beats because now I have to keep Spell Snare up for the Standstill at all times. I clear the way for Shackles by taking a Spell Pierce out of his hand with Clique. On his next turn he makes a series of very unpleasant plays. He had 2 lords in his hand when I checked with Clique and his board is 2x Vial, Mutavault and Cursecatcher. He drew a third one of the top and is able to put all 3 of them in play due to Reejery and Vial tricks. I have bolt in hand and one land untapped, but Cursecatcher is preventing me from casting it in response on a lord. Now all his dudes are out of burn and Shackle range. On my turn I have to double Bolt a lord so I can take another one with Shackles. Trinket Mage into Pithing Needle helps me lock down the board at 3 life. He dies to beats by 2/2's and a 3/1.

Game 3: I draw into so many anti-Merfolk cards that it would be stupid to fetch after Brainstorming. I land double Goyf while he is futilely trying to get some kind of tribal synergy going. I play around Submerge and Spell Pierce the whole game since I feel they are the only cards that can blow me out. He gets tired of waiting for me to crack a fetchland, so he has to use the 2 Submerges he has been holding on my Goyfs. I replay the Goyfs and they kill him shortly thereafter. This game he had Jitte, which was slightly annoying since it meant I had to kill the small merfolks too, but I still had Firespout and Bolt in hand when the game was over.

Very intense final. Game 1 he blew me out. Game 2 went back and forth and was very close. Game 3 I was able to blow him out.



Final score 5-1: 1st place

I won a FTV:Relics box, some singles from another FTV:Relics box and a judge foil Natural Order. Second place got a revised Tundra and 2 judge foil Dreadnoughts. 3rd and 4th also got something, but dunno what.


In conclusion:


Oh, it may do well for awhile. I hear mouthpieces extolling the virtues of the 3-color tempo deck du jour every so often. But with players coming in and out of this game so rapidly, how many people really have perspective to make such claims, really? These decks come in and out of fashion. In this case, with no fliers, no basics, and a 2 packs-a-day grave yard habit, you can pick your favorite weakness and exploit it. With such gaping holes in its gameplan, this deck's popularity is owed as much to the fact that it came out of the NE United States as anything else.

Want to make a perennial winner? Come up with a solid plan in one color and splash only as an option. Decks with fewer colors and solid landbases are not as flashy, but tend to last a lot longer despite a weaker cardpool. A big reason why many-color decks come and go is because they are farting around with their thin-assed mana base as soon as the opponent throws anything at it. Best way to beat anything that smells like Threshold: make their Tops, Brainstorms, and Ponders look for land instead of answers or threats.



<3 !

[planarvoid]

the vedalken shakles/control magic was revelant though your matches?

what di you board in/out against zoo?

[Rune]

Shackles and Control Magic won me some games. They are like Sowers in the original list, except they don't suck ass against most aggro (unlike Sower). I had 1 Sower in sb for Merfolks and as an extra out against Emrakul. Being able to steal Goyfs and whatnot is necessary for NLT because it doesn't have Counterbalance to protect its own creatures.

boarded something like this vs Zoo

-3 Clique
-4 FoW
+1 Trinket Mage
+1 Relic
+1 EE
+2 Firespout
+2 Counterspell

On the draw I take out 3 Daze and put 3 FoW back in. Clique and FoW are both terrible here, but I'm not sure which one is worse. Whenever I saw FoW, I had to instantly shuffle it away again.

[chinEsE girl]

Man, it's been a while since I've posted in this thread.

Anyways, after playing survival for the 3 months everyone realized the deck was beyond insane, I've come back to playing NLT, getting to the top 8 of the most recent tournament held at Jupiter Games. It was pretty big too, had a little over 100 players, even with the GP being the same weekend. My list is pretty similar to the one I posted in the first post, but I made some tweaks.

Maindeck

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendillion Clique

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Firespout
3 Jace the Mind Sculptor

3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Island
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard

3 Spell Pierce
2 Mind Harness
1 Null Rod
2 Krosan Grip
1 Firespout
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast

The main changes were taking out sowers, replacing them with another Jace and a ponder, as well as replacing the fire//ice's with firespout. The sowers were taken out since they had been the most disappointing card before in the maindeck, and Jace is always so fucking sweet that I just wanted to play another one. The firespout's were a metagame call, seeing as how popular merfolk and goblins have been the past few weekends. Add in the fact that a ton of people play zoo at jupiter games every tournament meant I wanted to try them out main and see how they did. The extra sideboard space meant another spell pierce, as well as an extra control magic effect. I had been looking at mind harness for a while, and decided I wanted to try it out.

Round 1 vs Ur Merfolk

His list had red for bolt and grim lavamancer main, supposedly so he could beat the mirror. Seems like decent logic. But it didn't help him when his 4 creatures got swept away by main deck firespout game one. Ohhhh yeeaahh. Game two was more of the same, burn deals with the actual problem creatures (the lords), and goyf comes along and finishes things quickly.

1-0

Round 2 vs New Horizons

And the pilot was none other than David Price, the innovator of the deck. Game one was pretty harsh, as no sower main means his creatures are bigger than mine, aka I lose. Game two mind harness does the job, but game three a mind harness on terravore gets blow up a turn before I would have drawn the force that saves my ass. Close game ends up going his way.

1-1

Round 3 vs Zoo

These games were pretty weird. Both times he gets one early dude to stick, gets in about 10 damage with it, then tries to kill me with burn while I have counter protection to stay safe for the time being. After the initial flurry of spells, both games come down to me having cantrips that find gas, and me eventually winning.

2-1

Round 4 vs Countertop

These games weren't that close. Games one get the swords out with goyfs, and then use my two factories to beat him down, while his top and counterbalance look on helplessly. Game two I get to board all my sweet one mana counterspells, and he isn't able to get much action going while my efficient creatures take him down.

3-1

Round 5 vs Belcher

Man I wish I could have played this matchup more. It's just so unbelievably good. Just about the only way you lose is if your on the draw without force, or have a bad hand that should be mulliganed. Anyways I get game one when I daze a seething song and he doesn't have any more mana to start up again. Game two he tries to go off once, I counter a land grant seeing that chrome mox is his only permanent mana source, then untap and play null rod. SICK. BEATS. The rest of the game he has no more mana as I take him down with goyf while still having double force backup anyways. It was just one of those 'still had all these' games.

4-1

Round 6 vs Fast Zoo

I actually knew the list I was playing against, since I had done some test game with it two days prior to the tournament. The deck runs goblin guide, more burn, and no Kotr to try and win the game faster then most conventional zoo lists. Game 1 is really close, he gets me down to one when I stabilize. He tries to PoP to get the draw, but I have spell snare to get me the win. Game two is also pretty close, he gets me down to 3 before running out of gas, and doesn't draw the right burn before goyf goes the distance.

5-1

Round 7 vs Zoo

Again with the zoo, jeez. Game one is the first zoo game I drop, where he just gets goyf down and I can't answer it. Though, to be fair, there was a misplay with a brainstorm that probably cost me the game, but I don't know what the final outcome would have been if I had done the right thing. Game two isn't that close, I firespout a bunch of dudes, then firespout more dudes again, then goyf beats for the win. Game three I maintain control with a goyf and counter his relevant cards. He does land a choke though, only problem is all my land are still untapped. One turn before he dies, he goes for path, only for me to hardcast force of will and take the match,.

6-1

Quarterfinals vs Countertop

This match I really should have won, it's pretty much the only time I got pissed at how the deck performed. Game one I did the good old play goyf, get it swords, still have all these factories that get around firespout really nicely plan. Game two I keep a one lander with brainstorm, force, two REBs, and some other gas on the draw. Pretty much my hand is insane so long as I hit land drops. So of course I miss my land drop on turn 2, and have to discard a jace. At the end of the game this is the difference maker, as after the whole game we trade spells back and forth, and in the end he has the final jace in play that seals my doom. Definitely a game I win if I just hit my second land drop, but it was a risk and I got punished for taking the gamble. Game three mind harness almost gets there, as I just need him to not draw a land to play the two sowers that I know he has in hand via vendillion clique. Unfortunately, he has the land, and proceeds to wreck me with sower jace since I boarded out my removal.

6-2, 6th place

I really felt that I could have won the quarters matchup, since I usually play against countertop really well and I rarely lose to the deck with NLT. The game 2 keep was loose, but other than that I just didn't have the right cards at the right times. The deck is still sick though, it just needs some tweaks to deal with problem cards. Without maindeck control magic effects (sower, shackles, etc), the maindeck is hard pressed to deal with guys like KotR. And I'm not really sure how I want to address the problem. One of my friends suggested gilded drake as a possibility, and it doesn't seem too bad. You can even use it with jace for great effect, pretty much taking their dudes one by one. My friend also suggested using guilded drake with repeal, but that seems to be more of a counterbalance card then something that NLT wants to use. Mind harness was decent throughout the day, but it was never spectacular. In fact, the cumulative upkeep was annoying to pay, plus sometimes it got a little close to losing me the game with all my mana gone each turn. Plus the fact that EE still deals with it in new horizons doesn't really help. At least control magic has a one time mana investment and doesn't get taken out by EE either. The maindeck firespouts were also pretty awesome, since they took plenty of people by surprise and did what fire//ice usually does. Plus, any time I didn't need it brainstorm and jace were there to send it back to sender. Overall, the decklist is really good, although there is still potential left for improvement. Hopefully I'll figure it out before SCG Washington DC and Edison roll around, I would love to finally attend one of these events so I can top 8 and get this deck some more exposure. I definitely think its still one of the best decks in legacy that nobody really knows about, and I'd love to crush people at an SCG open who don't see the deck coming.

Also, if anyone's interested in how I boarded in any of my matchups, I'd be happy to indulge anyone in how I boarded in specific matchups throughout the day.

[jazzykat]

Nice job! Have you considered the punishing fire/grove of the burn willows plan?

[chinEsE girl]

Yes I have, I'm just not sure how to tweak the mana base. My guess would be to take out the factories and firespouts to put the punishing fire combo in. It's an interesting idea, although it still doesn't do a good job dealing with KotR, which is public enemy #1 for this deck.

[planarvoid]

yep i agreed with u chinese, we really need to have a solution maindeck against KoTR.

Anyway, how good is the deck against death&taxes ? I never tested the MU.

[kiwi]

What do you think about playing grim lavamancer rather than punishing fire or firespout ?

Againts KotR I recommed you to play Submerge in the SB.

[Rune]

yep i agreed with u chinese, we really need to have a solution maindeck against KoTR.

Anyway, how good is the deck against death&taxes ? I never tested the MU.

In my experience, it's a slightly unfavorable MU. You can't wreck their manabase and they have a lot of problematic cards (Mom, equipment (SoFaI, specifically), Jotun Grunt and Flickerwisp + Vial shenanigans). Death and Taxes with the green splash is probably one of the worst matchups.



I already posted the best maindeck answer to KotR - it's Control Magic. Jace is also an answer, but he's a very conditional one. Relic + burn is also very effective after sideboard.

Submerge is bad because it requires you to have some kind of significant board presence that can abuse the tempo swing. If you don't, it will just give you an extra draw step to find an actual answer.

Lavamancer is fine, but worse than Firespout because he's not very relevant vs Zoo. I would rather have Firespout against both Zoo and Goblins. He's better than Firespout against Merfolk, but since Zoo is the only one of those 3 decks that can actually get you, it doesn't seem like a good choice. Also, he will rarely come down on turn 1 because you need to hold up Spell Snare or Stifle.

I have tested Punishing Fire+Grove extensively and finally decided that it's too slow and clunky. It doesn't really solve any problem the deck has, and most of the time you would rather just be playing with Factories.

[sa17dk]

Hey ChineseGirl,

Your decklist is missing a card.

How did you like the number of Vendilion Clique? Did you find three to be too many?

[chinEsE girl]

Whoops, forgot the 1 crucible of worlds, that's card #60. As for the clique count, 3 is definitely right. The card is just so savage in just about every matchup. It amazingly flexible, plus extra copies just get used with either force or brainstormed/jaced away. Actually, in all honesty I think it is the best blue creature in legacy. Yeah, I just said that. And no tarmogoyf is not blue IMO, even though half the blue decks run it.

[Tammit67]

Also, if anyone's interested in how I boarded in any of my matchups, I'd be happy to indulge anyone in how I boarded in specific matchups throughout the day.

I am always interested on how someone with more experience boards. Could you?

[chinEsE girl]

I am always interested on how someone with more experience boards. Could you?

Sure thing. I'll just go over boarding as I would have done in the last tournament I played in (the list I posted a little while ago). The only difference is that my current list is playing +1 control magic -1 jace. I found 3 jaces to be too much, and I want a maindeck spell to deal with KotR.

Green Countertop
+3 spell pierce +2 grip +1 null rod +3 REB +2 mind harness
-3 daze -3 firespout -4 force of will -1 bolt

Non-green Countertop (usually thopter countertop)
+3 spell pierce +2 grip +1 null rod +3 REB
-3 daze - 3 firespout -3 bolt

Zoo
+2 mind harness +1 firespout +2 grip
-3 daze -2 clique

Goblins
+1 firespout +1 null rod
-2 daze

Merfolk
+1 firespout +3 REB +1 null rod
-4 stifle -1 daze

Tendrils combo
+3 spell pierce +1 null rod
-2 jace -1 crucible -1 bolt
possibly +3 REB -3 bolt

Belcher
+3 spell pierce +1 null rod
-2 jace -1 crucible -1 bolt

Landstill
+3 spell pierce +3 REB +2 grip
-3 firespout -4 bolt -1 daze
possibly -1 daze +1 null rod if they have top, EE, etc

New Horizons
+2 mind harness +3 spell pierce +2 relic
-3 firespout -3 daze -1 ponder

Green and Taxes
+2 mind harness +2 grip +1 null rod
-3 daze -1 ponder -1 firespout

Junk
+2 mind harness +1 null rod
-3 firespout

Dredge
+1 crypt +2 relic +1 firespout
-2 jace -1 control magic -1 ponder

Hopefully that covers most of the major players in the metagame. Some of the matchups that I haven't played yet, like green and taxes, and others I haven't played in forever, like dredge. Most changes are self explanatory, but the one thing to really watch out for is when to and when not to board out force of will. The way I see it, when you can bring in your one mana counters, force of will isn't really needed. Otherwise force is good at stopping the threats that can give the deck trouble (usually KotR).

[planarvoid]

I'm trying to build the deck, just need 1 jace and some duals.

I think that the deck is so powerfull, he has a treat against all the main deck present in legacy.

Chinese, did you have other recent results??

[chinEsE girl]

Not really, before the last tourney, I had only played NLT in a small local tourney, going 3-1 losing to the local burn player. For about 3 months (sep to dec I think) I played survival since it was literally the best deck. Before survival dominance though, the times either me or my friend freakish777 played the deck, we'd either top 8 or top 16 a large event. For me, I got 10th at a 130 person tourney in June, split top 4 in a 67 person GPT before colombus, while my friend got top 64 with the deck in colombus, then got top 4 in a September tourney. Point being when eiher of is had played the deck, it's been pretty fucking spectacular. Sure it might be a somewhat small sample size, but I have never run bad with the deck. The worst I've ever done is losing in the last round playing for top 16 in an 80 person event. The only thing I recommend is to play this deck in a well developed metagame, playing the deck at some 4 round local tourney probably won't give you the results you want. As for future tourneys I'll be playing the deck at, there a lotus tourney at Jupiter games in Binghamton that I'll be running the NLT. So don't be surprised if I came back after this weekend one lotus richer.

[Rune]

^ I agree. Stifle becomes really savage when your opponent just walks into it because he doesn't know your deck, which is why I also think NLT is a really good deck for larger tournaments. It's probably not the best choice for small locals, though, because there isn't the same "surprise, buttsecks"-factor . If your meta has a lot of Goblins, Merfolk, combo and control, then I still think it's a very good choice, because you can beat those decks pretty easily, and you're 50/50 against most other stuff. I'm surprised NLT hasn't seen play in the SCG series. It seems like it would crush that metagame, especially if the new MUD deck becomes popular.

It's probably not the best choice for my local meta anymore, but I was too lazy to sleeve something up, so I played NLT again

BW Deadguy 2-0
Burn (optimized) 2-0
GerryT's CB 2-1
PT Junk 0-2

Some whine ---> g1: Mull to 5 before I see a single land. g2: his hand is nigh unbeatable for any blue deck. T1 Thoughtseize, T2 Hymn, T3 KotR (gets bolted). My turn 4: Play 2x Goyf and go hellbent. His T4: play Choke + StP Goyf. His T5: play new KotR.



Between weekly events and the 1 small tournament that I won, I'm now 17-6 overall in matches with the deck after picking it up again. I guess that's ok, but not insane

[Grymer]

i just played chinEsE girl's decklist yesterday.. exept sidebord was alittle diffrens

for a 6 rounds standings..
i vent 4-1-1

Maindeck

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendillion Clique

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Firespout
3 Jace the Mind Sculptor

3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Island
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard

1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 EE
3 Spell Pierce
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast

match 1.
2-1 vs Mono G Elvs

mach 2.
2-0 vs UB Show and Tell

mach 3.
0-2 vs Junk and Taxes

mach 4.
2-1 vs GW cookie with Green Sun's Zenith.deck

mach 5.
2-0 vs WB Quest.deck

mach 6.
1-1 tie vs UB Faeries

sorry for the shoort post :)

[Henrik]

I would really like to fit 2 grim lavamancers and a control magic effect to that maindeck.
Suggestions on what to cut?
-1 Jace?
-1 Clique?
-1 ?

I'd also have to use the old Fire // Ice in place of firespouts. But hey, reach is fun.
Suggestions?

[planarvoid]

I think two Jace is the right number.

Replacing 1 jace by a control magic seems fine.
For fire/ice in place of firespout.... depends of your meta :wink: with tribal deck and zoo firespout is da best.

And for the grim... don't if it fit in the deck, probably yes... just read the primer :cool:

[chinEsE girl]

So here's my opinion on lavamancer. He's a pretty sweet creature, and certainly is a bating against apt of different things. Only problem is, the deck is already sick against the things lavamancer helps beat. All the tribal decks we already have good matchups against, and I guess he helps give us reach against control decks when he can resolve and not get swords, but overall I haven't really had games where I missed having him. He can certainly be awesome, but personally I'd be much more concerned about dealing with knight of the reliquary. I swear if I could figure out a way to deal with a knight in play that didn't cost a ton of mana, this deck would be favored/even against every deck in the format.

Bottom line, grim lavamancer is a good card that can be put into some of the flex spots in the decklists, though I personally think he's just a win more instead of helping the deck shore up it's weaknesses.

[chinEsE girl]

Well, another tournament, another top 8. Only problem is I lost in the quarters to not drawing a cantrip or red source against merfolk when my hand crushes if I draw a red source. It was actually the first time I've ever lost against merfolk. Ever. Guess I had ran out of luck after going x-0 in the Swiss. Tomorrow when I'm not so tired I'll give a quick tourney report on what decks I played against.

[Rune]

Rough beats. I've been playing with 4 Volcs and 2 Islands for some time now, basically just to minimize the risk of losing that way

[chinEsE girl]

Alright, so more tourney report time.

Once again played NLT at Jupiter Games in Binghamton, since it's the stones in the metagame, so long as you don't run into infinite Knight of the Reliquary. Considering that NLT can beat Zoo handily, plus have good game versus junk and new horizons with proper deck construction, I sleeved up the same cards as last months, with only a few changes. Here's the list I ran this time.

NLT aka Next Level Thresh aka Next Level Tempo aka Next Level Tech aka "The Mother Fucking Stones"

3 Volc
3 Trop
3 Wasteland
3 Factories
2 Island
7 Blue Fetches

4 Goyf
3 Clique

4 Stifle
4 Force
3 Daze
3 Spell Snare
4 Bolt
3 Firespout
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Jace
1 Crucilbe
1 Control Magic

Sideboard

1 Firespout
3 REB
3 Spell Pierce
2 Grip
2 Relic
2 Mind Harness
1 Gilded Drake
1 Null Rod

For those taking notes, the only changes from last time is replacing a basic with a fetch in the maindeck, along with taking the crypt out of the board for a gilded drake. These changes came after my friend james (jimirynk on the source) noticed we only needed the two basics to cast out stuff, plus the extra fetch makes our brainstorms and jaces better. Basically, it's a pretty obvious change. The other switch was the gilded drake tech for deal with giant green dudes, basically KotR and Goyf. They're the biggest threat against this deck, so they need to be dealt with accordingly. The crypt on the other hand rarely got used, since decks like lands and dredge are rarely played. So after casually telling everyone I met that top 8ing would be a cinch since I was running the stones, I hunkered down to back up my claim.

Round 1 vs Merfolk

Ah, a matchup I just love to see. It's too bad I know my opponent, since if it was some unknown they would assume an easy match since I'm playing blue, then they just stare in disbelief after they get crushed by NLT. Anyways game one I get there with a resolved Goyf while dealing with all of his lords. Game 2 is all about my three firespouts. The first two get countered, and the third wrecks his shit.

1-0

Round 2 vs Gw Fauna Shaman

Basically he was playing the Gw survival deck that was insane two months ago, but now lacks the namesake card. Game 1 he sticks fauna shaman after I run out of removal, and then turns his extra dudes into vengevines, which own me. Game two he surprises me with sword of fire/ice, which would have destroyed me if he ever got to equip it. Somehow I keep him off of creatures with firespout, bolts, and stifles. He makes a small mistake where he could have killed a goyf of mine, but forgets to use a quiron ranger to make the mana, so he can't swords my guy with only the basic forests he has left over after firespout. Eventually I kill all of his creatures, get him to 2 with clique, and then manage to topdeck the bolt to kill him. Game 3 he keeps a sketch hand with only a single land, and after he lays down three dudes I firespout plus wasteland to blow out his mana. I just play a goyf and clique to take him out before he can play anything in his hand.

2-0

Round 3 vs Ugbr Countertop

He was playing black instead of white, but otherwise is pretty much stock 4c countertop. Game 1 I get him with daze when he taps out for jace, and then drop my own jace, which takes the game from there. It certainly helped that he wasn't expecting the daze at all. Game two I get to use all my sweet one mana counters while he is stuck on very few lands. Eventually I resolve a win con (I think it was a goyf) and it goes the distance.

3-0

Round 4 vs Dragon Stompy

I saw the pairing for this round and I was doing mental fistpumps. For those who don't know, this is one of the very best matchups for this deck. They run a bunch of moon effects, but we really don't care so long as you're not stupid and fetch for some basics first. Add in countermagic for their few threats, and the fact that all our removal kills all of their dudes, and everything adds up to the best matchup this side of belcher. So game one my hand isn't great, but I have the few removal spells I need to keep him down, and he can't deal with vendillion clique at all. Game 2 my hand is great, and once again clique just dominates his shit. Actually, you know what, just keep hands with removal/countermagic, and one clique, and you'll probably win very easily.

4-0

Round 5 vs Rb Goblins

Time to lock up my spot in the top 8. Game 1 is all about me getting a goyf down to block his lackey, and then using firespout to crush his dudes. Game two I mull to five, but stay in it when I rip bolt like a champ to deal with his turn 1 lackey. Then I fuck up royally, using force on a pointless relic of progenitus, and it costs me when he uses warren weirding to get rid of my goyf that was holding his dudes back. Game three though I get him good. My early goyf keeps his piledriver back, then goes on the aggro while I have countermagic to deal with his threats. I even have the stifle to deal with ringleader, then find firespout with brainstorm to clear his team and attack for lethal.

5-0

Round 6 & 7 vs the ID

I got to draw these rounds, and then promptly get stomped by good EDH decks while I play my awesome sauce allies deck that isn't actually good in 1v1 EDH.

Top 8 vs Merfolk

Against the same guy who I played in the swiss, who ended up going 5-0-1 after I beat him in the swiss. Game one I get him with goyf like usual. Unfortunately I get my bad luck in games 2 and 3, which really sucks when it happens in the top 8 of all places. Game 2 he draws all 4 wastelands, which keeps me from casting the 2 goyfs in my hand that would otherwise dominate his shit. Game 3 I open with fetch -> basic island so that wasteland doesn't crush me, and then proceed to not draw a cantrip or a fetch or a volc or goyf for the next 15 turns. Basically I drew a lot of my red cards and counters, but couldn't really use them/cast them. Eventually I tap low for a control magic, then he casts back to basics while I still can't draw a red source. The game ends when I can't cast spells for the last 5 turns.

So yeah once again I top 8 without too much hassle, but I lose in the quarters for the 4th fucking legacy tournament in a row. And I'm not playing bad either, just need to get past the bad beats and have the deck not shit on me in the top 8. I'd much rather lose in the swiss then sweep the top 8, but I guess my one loss has to come at the wrong fucking time. But yeah the frustration shows, show the results don't lie. I still feel like this deck is the nuts right now, and it helps that a bunch of people don't even know what kind of cards the deck plays. So many times people have asked me "oh, you're playing countertop right?" and then get wrecked by stifle. The one thing I will say though, I will put down a guarantee, right here right now, that I will top 8 either the washington SCG legacy 5k or the edison SCG legacy 5k. I'm calling my shot right now so that this deck can get some serious consideration. I'll post again after I top 8 an SCG 5k.

[mchainmail]

The one thing I will say though, I will put down a guarantee, right here right now, that I will top 8 either the washington SCG legacy 5k or the edison SCG legacy 5k. I'm calling my shot right now so that this deck can get some serious consideration. I'll post again after I top 8 an SCG 5k.

Quoted. And see you there, promise.

[rancOr_]

@chinEsE girl
I played the deck also when it first made its debut at GP Madrid,and only played it twice but t8'ed both.
I'm not so sure if I like the Control Magic though,seems like the Jace would be just better anyway.Yes knight,rhox's are annoying but I think ur better of putting pressure and bouncing/countering them with Jace,and deal with them post side(Mind harness does this really good since they wont bring in K-grip or something,and a big KotR/goyf,.. finish things fast).
I dont like the fact that CM can be kinda dead where a Jace is always usefull.
Love this deck,and the maindeck crucible was also mvp for me. The suprise effect is indeed very good,but its a solid deck that can wreck opponents who dont pay attention to their fetches,duals,..

[mossivo1986]

I predict a huge showing of the MUD deck at your scg's chinese girl. i would play more null rod. It seems like Juicy sweet tech! Wurmcoil Engine? Control magic! EAT IT!

[Bignasty197]

In a heavy BGW Rock/Junk metagame, I was considering Divert as a 2-of in the sideboard. May be pretty sweet to Divert a Hymn back at them. Thoughts?

[Plague Sliver]

The other switch was the gilded drake tech for deal with giant green dudes, basically KotR and Goyf. They're the biggest threat against this deck, so they need to be dealt with accordingly.

How would Submerge fare in the board as a 2 or 3-of?

[routlaw]

I played chinEsE girl 's list with the following changes today :

-1 Crucible of Worlds
-1 Control Magic
+2 Engineered Explosives

I expected to see more vial aggro and combo than 4c Counterbalance/blue based aggro-control, and wanted a compact catch-all answer to both an early Vial and an resolved Knight/Tarmogoyf. The little extra "oopmf' in the Merfolk, Affinity, Zoo, and Green and Taxes matchups was also welcome as a metagame call. They were terrific in every match where I drew them. My sideboard was similar, I ran another Relic because people here like dredge, and took out a control magic effect since blue-based aggro-control wasn't there.

Went 4-0-1 , drawing in turns with Landstill (would have killed him, had goyf w/ force backup w/ him having no answers), and beating mono-U merfolk, mono-R Goblins, Rb Goblins, and T.E.S. . What this deck does to tribal aggro is just plain dirty. I wouldn't hesitate to run it at the SCG DC event if I could make it (sadly I don't travel for Legacy). Awesome deck.

[kues]

Hi, i have a huge tournament (around 200 people) this weekend and this is my option nº1 to play it.
I think the metagame will be full of aggro, specially goblins and Zoo (Big-Zoo specially).What are your opinion against Big Zoo?
The other option is CounterTop-Progenitus, but im like a bye to goblins, so ive rejected that option (i made 4-2 losing both vs goblins).
I played yesterday with ChinEse girl's list and it was like i spected: Tribal = too easy, traditional Zoo = 60-40, Big Zoo = 40-60, CounterTop = 40-60, all of them pre-side.
I have a feeling about Daze playing only 3: They come always later, but i dont know what to remove to add the 4th, maybe one land...
About the SB: 2 Slots anti-graveyard are few, we need 3 at least, so i think ill swap 1x firespout 2x Relic - 3 Tormod's. Seriously, in this deck, relic is the worst anti-graveyard card. We need to use it and race, and with Relic our goyfs became 0/1...

[wcm8]

How would Submerge fare in the board as a 2 or 3-of?

How about Hibernation? Not as fast, but also provides an answer to Progenitus. Has additional utiity versus elves and enchantress.

Also, I love Gilded Drake. It combos very nicely with Jace since bouncing it returns it to your hand and you still keep the trade.

I'd like to fit another null rod in the sideboard too. It's useful in multiple matchups, not just affinity and mud.

[sa17dk]

I've been playing this deck for a while using a stock list and it feels like it has an identity crisis, choosing between control and threshold.

While I'm having lots of fun with the deck, it only seems to be viable by being carried on the backs of Firespout and Force of Will.

[kues]

Hibernation has the same problem as Relic, is a card that helps you race your opponent.
And both work bad with your Goyf.
On the other side, i see Null Rod as a very good card on the counterterbalance matchup, since it stop Sensei and Relics (post SB).

[kiwi]

Im thinking about the next cards Sylvan Library, Engineered Explosives and Greens sun's Zenith.

Taking the chinEsE girl main deck

1º
-2 ponder +2 Sylvan library, sylvan library is an autowin againts control.

2º -1 Crucible -1 Control Magic +2 Engineered Explosives or +2 Greens sun's Zenith? I like the idea of playing with 6 tarmogoyf.

What do you think about this changes ?

[Tammit67]

Im thinking about the next cards Sylvan Library, Engineered Explosives and Greens sun's Zenith.

Taking the chinEsE girl main deck

1º
-2 ponder +2 Sylvan library, sylvan library is an autowin againts control.

2º -1 Crucible -1 Control Magic +2 Engineered Explosives or +2 Greens sun's Zenith? I like the idea of playing with 6 tarmogoyf.

What do you think about this changes ?

Unecessary, as you should be able to find a win con with your cantrips.

[Mark Sun]

I finished 6-3 at DC and in 43rd place.

I might still write up something even if I didn't win anything. The day started off in a pretty rough way (mulled to 4, mulled to 6 + 1 land against Merfolk to start 0-1), and ended on a sour note against Goblins.

0-2 Merfolk
2-0 Bant Aggro
2-0 Affinity (t1 Brainstorm in response to Ravager to find FoW yielded: FoW, Null Rod, FoW)
0-2 Merfolk
2-0 UB Doomsday/Rev614 (Had an opportunity to steal an Emrakul with Gilded Drake)
2-1 UW Tempo
2-1 Elf Combo + Vengevines out of the SB
2-1 Merfolk
1-2 Goblins

1-3 against Tribal makes me worry a little bit, but was probably influenced by me mulling seven times in those four matches. Still good to meet Eric and talk about the deck a little bit more, I'll probably continue to play it.

[wcm8]

Did you play the stock list, or did you make some alterations? Any changes you would make now based upon your experience?

[Mark Sun]

Did you play the stock list, or did you make some alterations? Any changes you would make now based upon your experience?

I met Eric the night before at the Legacy challenge, so I modified my deck to become the new 75. Basically, just -1 Mind Harness, +1 Gilded Drake (card is pretty nutty) in the sideboard. I wanted to make my own additions, but I barely tested the deck (3-1'ed at locals on Wednesday blind, that was about it) so I didn't want to screw up the chee or the flow of the deck.

I'll wind up asking Eric about the deck sooner or later after sitting down and testing matchups some more, but (and I'll stress how new I am to the deck) my initial thoughts after playing today is running a basic Mountain for the tribal matchups. Firespout/Lightning bolt seem so crucial anyways, there's no reason to leave yourself completely vulnerable to losing those three sources of mana, and Crucible is probably too slow to survive the early pressure. I liked the 3 basic land configuration, I went to 7 fetches/2 Island for the event, but there were a lot of times I really wished I could find a basic Mountain (I was playing 4 Tarns).

I also need some more dedicated hate for Merfolk. I'm 90% sure it's my own playstyle and lack of experience with the deck, but I lost to multiple Cursecatchers, holding a Firespout and not being able to do much with only 3-4 mana. The lack of a basic Mountain also might influence my opinion on the matter. I might be crazy, but Llawan is probably worth some amount of testing. Basically it's the same mana cost as a Firespout anyways, just can't be hit by Spell Pierce or Cursecatcher. Seems good.

I'd also like some more Null Rods/Hurkyll's Recall/Rebuild. I hate losing to the ugly cousin of Legacy (Affinity). I got pretty lucky against it today by ripping the singleton Null Rod, but it's not always going to be like that. Etched Champion has protection from pretty much the entire deck. While it may never be Tier 1, it's still a pain in the ass to play against.

[wcm8]

Agreed on Gilded Drake -- it is particulary awesome if you can land a Jace with it too.

I think 2 null rod may be right for this deck. That card is more versatile than people give it credit for: shuts down affinity, MUD, top, vial, belcher, TPS, and preemptively stops equipment.

Llawan also gives you an out vs. Progenitus, something this deck otherwise lacks. 1 or 2 sounds about right.

[chinEsE girl]

Well, guess I should give a short update on how SCG DC went.

Long story short, I got several draws that ground me down mentally until I was just out of it. And by several draws I mean I drew 3 matches in the first 6 rounds. Yeah, fucking 3 draws, two match of which I would have won given five more minutes of time to play. The draws ended up being against enchantress (piloted by Ponzgay who ended up making top 8), to countertop and to UW landstill. The countertop and landstill matches were in the bag until time got called and I couldn't finish off my opponents in time. It was frustrating to say the least, since I won all my other matches and if I had won the draws that I was going to take down, I could have started 5-0-1 and been in sick shape to make a run for top 8. Sadly, I couldn't run better and didn't get there.

As for all the suggestions people have been making, a bunch of them are pretty reasonable. The basic mountain idea from morbid is interesting, and not something that I've put thought into before. I always have an easy time versus the tribal decks, and I never thought much about it, but I've been thinking about putting in another land into the deck, and a basic mountain might be the ticket. It would certainly have good value versus merfolk, which is the more difficult tribal matchup. The goblin matchup isn't a cakewalk, but every time I've played it I've been able to win comfortably. The null rod count is probably right at the moment, but it could go up to 2 in the near future, especially if stoneforge mystic decks become more popular, which it seems could be the case. As for Llawan, it's something I've considered, but never really bothered with because of my previous success with merfolk. However, seeing as how natural order has been getting more and more popular (especially with green sun's zenith), it could be a good call to give the deck an out or two, plus being insane against merfolk as well.

In addition, after the tournament I was talking to my friend James about the deck, and he was concerned about the threat density and how the deck can have issues getting through a few swords or paths. Since tarmogoyf is the real quick threat in the deck, having it swords is pretty fuckin annoying without any kind of other giant threat in UGR. So one of the things I really want to do with the deck is try to add in a way to both apply pressure against control while also protecting my creatures. After some though, I actually realized that the deck might be able to implement some number of Kira, Great Glass Spinner to help alleviate the swords problem. It's easily castable at 3 mana, has evasion to help you clock, and doesn't really hurt anything you're trying to your own creatures. The only nonbo I can think of in the maindeck would be when you want to pump your own factories, but against control you wouldn't be using that ability often, rather you would probably be attacking with them. Kira will certainly be something I'll be trying out before I head to Edison. As well, I've become less and less of a fan of daze, which is getting boarded out in almost all of my matches except for against combo. It just hasn't been doing much for me since most opponents play around it, and it almost always becomes force fodder game 1, then boarded out for something else game 2. What I'm thinking of doing is removing the dazes, bringing in some number of spell pierce or the 4th spell snare, and then having space in the board for cards like kira and llawan. Again, a lot of these ideas are just theory at the moment, so I'm going to have to test them out this week before I head to Edison so I can actually back up my claims that this deck is super sweet.

[wcm8]

I play Enchantress some myself, and while it definitely is a time intensive deck in comparison to many others, the deck isn't usually as slow as some Countertop or Landstill builds if you know what you are doing. The times I've played it, if a game goes to time, it's often because my opponent didn't know they should have scooped a long time ago, not because I was taking unfairly copious amounts of time to make decisions.

I think if you are playing a deck that is going to inherently be slower than others (43 Lands, Stax, etc.) you should try to learn the decision trees so that you can play quickly and efficiently, and so you earn an actual match victory, not a g1 victory with the second going to time because you don't know what half your cards do.

Bad beats man, looking at the top 16 I'm sure NLT would have done fine, it has a very similar playstyle to Team America which ultimately won the tournament.

[Rune]

There was some Japanese tournament won by NLT playing Kira. The card is really good in NLT, but I don't know what card to cut for it. The obvious choice is Clique, but cutting down on the numbers of Cliques will also make the deck a lot worse vs combo, and a little bit weaker against control (I think Clique is still way superior here).

[rogue.nine]

Pozgay got another warning and subsequent game loss for slow play in the semi finals at least :)

[Tammit67]

Well, guess I should give a short update on how SCG DC went.

Long story short, I got several draws that ground me down mentally until I was just out of it. And by several draws I mean I drew 3 matches in the first 6 rounds. Yeah, fucking 3 draws, two match of which I would have won given five more minutes of time to play. The draws ended up being against enchantress (piloted by Ponzgay who ended up making top 8), to countertop and to UW landstill. The countertop and landstill matches were in the bag until time got called and I couldn't finish off my opponents in time.



I was there when you were venting during the last couple turns of one of the draws. I understand why people don't scoop when they have something to play for, but when you are dead on the board, I don't understand why people don't concede that they are beaten.

Hope to see you in Edison. Watching you play this deck is one of the best things to watch ever.

[chinEsE girl]

Yeah, so long as I can figure out my ride and lodging situation, I'll be sure to roll on down to Edison for the legacy open. Also, make sure you find me while I'm down there Tammit, I always love a good discussion about the deck. Talking with Morbid about the deck and watching how other people play it is fantastic cause I can just gather so much more data then just running it against the goldfish and the monthly vestal tournament.

As for the whole Ponzgay issue, I didn't think he was too douchey or anything like that when I played him. He seemed like a chill dude, just deliberately slow when he played. In truth, we both played at the same speed, going at the right pace to not fuck up, but certainly not blazing. I really wish we could have played a third game in our match, I would of been really curious to see who would of come out on top. Oh well them's the breaks.

As for changes I'm thinking of making to NLT, I'm actually considering some semi-serious revamping to the list. What I'm looking at right now is trying to alter the manabase to include a basic mountain for tribal matchups, as well as a way to include more threats in the list. What I'm considering is removing the whole factory/crucible portion, adding a basic mountain, the fourth wasteland, and another fetch or a basic forest (probably the fetch tho), adding 2 kira and possibly a grim lavamancer, taking out daze for spell pierce, and removing a ponder and something else to add in the extra threats. What I want to do is up the threat count slightly from 12 to 14 (I count jace as a threat, since he can win on his own) to get the threat density just slightly higher. In some matchups you can even have control magic work as another threat (very important in the zoo/new horizons/junk matchups). These changes would also free up some sideboard space, allowing for inclusion of another null rod, another mind control effect (probably mind harness), and even a llawan to help against merfolk as well as an out to progenitus.Just to clearly state, these changes are purely theoretical at the moment, and I have only come up with them within the last hour or so. I have no idea if they'll work or crash and burn, but I really want to improve the deck before I head to Edison. The potential is there, I just need to tweak it correctly. Also, if anyone wants to help test this week, I'd be willing to do so on MWS at night, so long as it's after Wednesday morning (got an exam then). If you got further suggestions, make sure you say em, I wanna make the deck as awesome as possible for Edison.

[Tammit67]

Also, make sure you find me while I'm down there Tammit, I always love a good discussion about the deck.

I'm looking into helping to run the sales booth on Saturday to feed my addiction on Sunday. Hopefully without the pillow I was dragging around at DC.

What are you looking to cut specifically for Kira? Clique is a beating against anything not trying to dump creatures on the board, as is crucible.

Everyone seems to play around daze, but the fact that it can hit KotR is amazingly relavant with the mana denial package. The pierces are very good against decks that don't try to drop KotR, but surely a decent number of decks will try. There was a ton of rock at DC and a couple bant midrange decks, not to mention the Green Sun Zenith Zoo. If you are going to be at the top tables, you have to compete with Dave Price (who is running vials now with 11 creatures). If you are trying to fit Kira in the main, running counters that cost mana seems a litte loose, no? I'm not sold on maindeck pierce

I've been thinking about EE, as someone said above, and it seems a good, although slow, solution to KotR's or what have you while also improving the aggro matchups. Probably too slow for what this deck wants to do.

How has testing gone?

[Tammit67]

Also, make sure you find me while I'm down there Tammit, I always love a good discussion about the deck.

I'm looking into helping to run the sales booth on Saturday to feed my addiction on Sunday. Hopefully without the pillow I was dragging around at DC.

What are you looking to cut specifically for Kira? Clique is a beating against anything not trying to dump creatures on the board, as is crucible.

Everyone seems to play around daze, but the fact that it can hit KotR is amazingly relavant with the mana denial package. The pierces are very good against decks that don't try to drop KotR, but surely a decent number of decks will try. There was a ton of rock at DC and a couple bant midrange decks, not to mention the Green Sun Zenith Zoo. If you are going to be at the top tables, you have to compete with Dave Price (who is running vials now with 11 creatures). If you are trying to fit Kira in the main, running counters that cost mana seems a litte loose, no? I'm not sold on maindeck pierce

I've been thinking about EE, as someone said above, and it seems a good, although slow, solution to KotR's or what have you while also improving the aggro matchups. Probably too slow for what this deck wants to do.

How has testing gone?

[Chikenbok]

So hey everyone, long time browser - decided to start adding whatever knowledge I might have of the format and deck to the discussion. I've been playing legacy for some while now and finally settled on NLT as the deck that enjoy playing the most.

On to the real issue here. As previously stated, I have noticed in testing that the deck, behind perhaps a good zoo pilot, will run out of gas after our goyfs eat some removal. This of course, is quite a problem as clique against zoo probably won't get there unless your hand was gifted to you from god, and god was in a good mood (I'm referring to the new big zoo lists running 4 of every possible hate worthy creature in the format + GSZ). I have been testing exclusively for the past month or so and have come up with the following list:

Deck: 60

Creatures - 13

2 x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
3 x Grim Lavamancer
2 x Sower of Temptation
4 x Tarmogoyf
2 x Vendillion Clique

Instants - 22

4 x Brainstorm
3 x Fire // Ice
4 x Force of Will
4 x Lightning Bolt
3 x Spell Snare
4 x Stifle

Sorcery - 2

2 x Ponder

Money and Game Stealers - 2

2 x Jace, You Win The Game Sculptor

Lands - 21

7 x Blue Duals
2 x Island
1 x Mountain
3 x Tropical Island
4 x Volcanic Island
4 x Wasteland

Sideboard - 15

1 x Tormod's Crypt
1 x Relic of Progenitus
2 x Mind Harness
2 x Krosan Grip
2 x Pyroblast
2 x Spell Pierce
2 x Submerge
3 x Firespout

A few thoughts.

The board needs to be reworked regarding the firespouts maindeck as the only real creature problem we face, is Knight. Lavamancer has been discussed before but not as something that hits a player for 2, consistantly, every single term. Who cares of it helps our tribal matchup, it also helps get the clock down for players relying on Ad Nauseum/Doomsday and can help a lightning bolt kill a flying lord of atlantis with another lord out.

Kira. Simply. Runs. The. House. I want to fit 3 but the whole legend rule.. really buggin me these days.

Factories are fun, but.. 2/2, 3/3, even the 4/4 factory doesn't trump the power of a card that does more than want to be a colored source when you have to tap it out to play a tarmogoyf. Threshold cannot rely on 3 factories to produce the color it needs as we ALWAYS have to have blue mana up for spells.

Daze, its just not good enough.

Any questions, comments, etc. would be greatly appreciated. If anyone wants to get some serious grind on online, lemme know, cause I plan to help take this deck to ruin lives in Edison.

[Chikenbok]

On second thought, the Kiras might even be replaceable if someone can think of another bomb that draws swords out like goofs do, just please don't say terravore.

[chinEsE girl]

Actually, I'm really glad you posted your list. It looks really close to what I was envisioning with some of the changes I wanted to flesh out. I can even see fire//ice returning to the deck if it gets paired with grim lavamancer so that it actually can take down creatures instead of just tapping things down to get an extra turn against some giant dork. The thing I most curious about is how is the creature split running? I think clique is far too amazing to be running less than three, forget about it being legendary the dude just gets the job done is a myriad of different ways. I'm never even sad when I see two in my hand, since the first will draw removal, wreck their hand, and then you get to wreck their hand again! Maybe I love the creature too much, but I'm no going bellow three. I'm also glad someone other than me doesn't like daze, I'm looking forward to see how testing goes without them. I also would suggest running another fetch instead of the 4th volc, you never need 4 of them in a deck like this, so you just have to make sure you have 8 fetches, with 4 of them being tarns and you're good to go. I'll get back on here after I get some more testing in with some of these changes.

[jimirynk]

On second thought, the Kiras might even be replaceable if someone can think of another bomb that draws swords out like goofs do, just please don't say terravore.

The only creatures not vanilla off the top of my head are Vexing Sphinx and Magus of the moon but prob aren't the answer.
Equipment like jittie even on lavamancer will often pull swords to action, but equipment plus kira is bad.
The problem with equipment is the amount of creatures in the deck.

Maybe thrun in the side, just my 2¢.

[Henrik]

Coralhelm Commander has actually showed to be working fine outside of merfolk decks. It might be to weak for this deck though, it doesn't exactly have "send me farming" printed in the forehead, even though a 4/4 flyer is a good thing, should it get there.

Then you have plated geopede. 5/5 most of the early turns. Might be good enough. Most probably not.

[colo]

The problem with landfall critters is that they make you use up fetchlands when you would not really need to, and when it'S downright suboptimal - if I have a Brainstorm in hand and access to blue mana, it's pretty dumb to crack a fetch just to boost a critter for a single turn just to make my opponent to lose two life (and yes, you will be tempted to do this, I can tell from playing Lynx Burn ;)), when I could very well be shuffling away turd cards for hopefully better ones right after brainstorming. Whilst I do see merit in Steppe Lynx et al. in lists that lack any serious form of library manipulation, I don't think that kind of threat is a particulalry good idea in a more sophisticated deck like this one.

[Rune]

Another approach I have been thinking of is playing a creature base of:

Clique, Goyf, Lavamancer and Trinket Mage

Since you play Trinket Mage, you can run Basilisk Collar as a bullet in your maindeck. The Collar is quite sick with Lavamancer. Shoot Emrakul/KotR and gain 2 life? Yes, please! When you equip to your other creatures it's also strong since it makes even your smallest creatures able to trade with KotR, and the lifegain helps when racing.

Another advantage of running Trinket Mage is you can play Needle maindeck and you also improve certain matchups, like Dredge, because you have effectively more copies of your sb hate.

I'm thinking of something like

// Lands
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

// Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Grim Lavamancer

// Spells
1 Basilisk Collar
3 Spell Pierce (or Daze)
2 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Spell Snare
1 Pithing Needle (or Engineered Explosives)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

[Chikenbok]

Ok, So after approximately 7-8 hours of testing last night against every possible archetype I've come to two conclusions. Grim Lavamancer, is a dirty, dirt, dirty girl - if I brought her home to my parents, they'd be upset. For some reason she never eats removal as players are looking for solutions to goyf, and keeps moms tapped down so bolts - fire // ice can take care of the real threats. I really do think that with lavamancer back in, its incredibly important to keep Fire // Ice back on board to take care of pesky 4/4's etc.

Also, cantrips - I like those. A whole lot. Fire // Ice cantrips. I'll keep it.

In regards to the cliques, i would, by all means LOVE to fit another in to this deck, I'm just really not sure I can fit it. I always want to see lavamancer in either my opening hand or on turn two so i can get it down with snare/brainstorm mana up. Sadly, I don't miss the factories at all (part of me was hoping I did so I could keep playing em).

In regards to the mana base, you're right ChinEsEgirl, the most recent thing I found important was adding another fetch and yes, now that I've got a basic mountain I see no problem in cutting a volcanic island.

Most importantly, I'd like to get some testing in against players who are very capable of piloting Zoo and Big Zoo (if anyone's interested) as despite my work with the deck, threat after threat after threat left us both in topdeck mode, and I really think this new build will hold strongly in the mid/late game.

The fourth wasteland is a house. 4 Waste + 4 Stifle is the way this deck needs to be run and people need to realize that job number one is keeping, land, down. Also always remember, just because they don't run fetches doesn't mean to cut the stifles. It hits every single goblin, respond to aether vial triggers, etc.

The deck is really coming along incredibly strongly and is finding places to add the gas that it was missing before. I think by the time Edison rolls around we should have some serious hate to bring to the tables.

ChinEsEgirl - shoot me a pm if you want, i've been running odds and compiling numbers on wins/losses with the new build.


- Chik

[Chikenbok]

The only creatures not vanilla off the top of my head are Vexing Sphinx and Magus of the moon but prob aren't the answer.
Equipment like jittie even on lavamancer will often pull swords to action, but equipment plus kira is bad.
The problem with equipment is the amount of creatures in the deck.

Maybe thrun in the side, just my 2¢.

I don't think we can afford to be discarding cards with sphinx like UW tempo can. Magus of the moon could work as he usually comes in with a target on his head. However, I could really dig on the idea of running 2 Jitte maindeck, a quick Jitte on a lavamancer against a doomsday player (Yes, I keep bringing up doomsday because I HATE THAT MATCHUP) or even against a resolved empty the warrens can turn a game quite favorable real quick. I'm gonna do some testing today with the Jittes and I'll post some reports real soon.

[Chikenbok]

Another approach I have been thinking of is playing a creature base of:

Clique, Goyf, Lavamancer and Trinket Mage

Since you play Trinket Mage, you can run Basilisk Collar as a bullet in your maindeck. The Collar is quite sick with Lavamancer. Shoot Emrakul/KotR and gain 2 life? Yes, please! When you equip to your other creatures it's also strong since it makes even your smallest creatures able to trade with KotR, and the lifegain helps when racing.

Another advantage of running Trinket Mage is you can play Needle maindeck and you also improve certain matchups, like Dredge, because you have effectively more copies of your sb hate.

I'm thinking of something like

// Lands
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

// Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Grim Lavamancer

// Spells
1 Basilisk Collar
3 Spell Pierce (or Daze)
2 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Spell Snare
1 Pithing Needle (or Engineered Explosives)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

The Trinket mage package looks real interesting and I'd like to see how it stands up against the Sower build. I personally cannot find a reason to toss sower, in fact, its been my MVP in almost every game i thought i was going to lose. Rip one off the top and go to town.

I think that if trinket mage is run maindeck is there a way to run the count up to three so we can run mage tech? Bring in a needle main, an EE or two main, and maybe even a relic main against any knights? Knights a 12/12? Trinket mage, play relic, crack, fire // ice? HEY!

[Rune]

There are many times where I board in Relic vs Zoo just so I can burn their dorks, and it works quite well. Using Lavamancer on Knight and then popping Relic is really good value. It also makes you able to litteraly wrath their board with Firespout.

Basilisk Collar + Lavamancer seems ridiculous against something like The Rock or just any Bant deck. I think it would be hard to make it work in the Zoo matchup, though, but you can keep holding their Knights back with Collar on a random creature until you find another Lavamancer (assuming the 1st one died), and then try to snipe their Knight again. Collar on Goyf also makes for some big life swings.

I've alwasy been dissatisfied with Sower, but I never tried it with Kira. Most of the time, I think it will be a 2-card combo because Sower just eats removal instantly, f Kira isn't in play, and paying 4 mana for something that your opponent can deal with for 1 mana is so back-breaking.

Overall I think Trinket Mage adds a lot of utility to the deck, and I'd say he should atleast be tested some more. (although I have to admit I mostly want to play it because it fetches up the Collar ;>)

[jimirynk]

I have been testing a white splash in this deck I will post a list later, but for the classic urg builds collar seems awsome not even only on mancer but putting it on your goyf vs your opps knight or goyf makes blocking impossible and you will often race knight!
On top of that you can reequip to an untapped creature!

[Chikenbok]

I think what I'm going to do is attempt running my list on the previous page with a 2 of Basilisk Collar with no trinket mage. With the pile of cantrips in the deck it cannot be that hard to find and holding off a knight for a turn or to until I do shouldn't provide to be much of a problem. I'll tell you guys how the testing goes.

[jimirynk]

Maybe a trinket mage package of 1 collar 1 needle 1 ee you could even go 1 top.

[Chikenbok]

Maybe a trinket mage package of 1 collar 1 needle 1 ee you could even go 1 top.

Heres my main problem with the trinket mage package. Needle is great to pull in.. but we already win most battles in which we'd need it. Collar, After a few hours of testing.. I fucking love it. I'm running 2 main deck. EE is sometimes counter-intuitive but does help ETW floods/dredge game 1. I guess my main problem is this. All of our bodies need utility, and therefore need to be protected at all times. We don't run enough strong counter (after cutting dazes.. which just suck) to rely on being able to reliably force all the hate off of our threats.

I guess I can try and test to mage, but I feel like running 2 collars main should deal with most threats, very well, and keep us viable for mid game. I've actually cut the sowers from my original list to put in the collars.

However, the real question is now regarding the sideboard. I no longer lost to any deck that plays creatures... Doomsday is another problem. I would like to dedicate between 5-8 spells directly to add more counter/wreck on combo. Any input would be great.

[Chikenbok]

Ok, this is the list I've come up with. I'd really like to make room for another cantrip or so, but if the fire // ice have to suffice as cantrips thats fine.

3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
4 Wasteland
1 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Fire // Ice
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Stifle
3 Spell Snare
1 Mountain
3 Grim Lavamancer
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Trinket Mage
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 3 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Firespout
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Mind Harness
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap

[Rune]

I wouldn't SB Mindbreak since storm is already a favorable matchup, and it's not a heavily played archetype ito begin with. I wouldn't go down to 2 Cliques either because I think it's one of the defining cards of the deck, and Wizards might as well have named it "Crushes the skull of control/combo players all day long", but "Vendilion Clique" was much shorter and easier to remember.

I've settled on a final list I would run:


// Lands
2 Flooded Strand
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
2 Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Mountain

// Creatures
3 Grim Lavamancer
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Trinket Mage

// Spells
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
1 Sensei's Divining Top

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Mind Harness
SB: 1 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Firespout
SB: 1 Gilded Drake

The 1st list I posted with Collar only had 20 lands - probably too greedy, so I went up to the usual 21 again. Like jimirynk said, Top should be included because it's such a strong card on its own and it's a good Trinket M. target. These changes, unfortunately, mean there is no more room for Ponder. Instead of playing just a lone Ponder, I would much rather play the 3rd Jace again. The Top you can tutor for with Trinket Mage and the 3rd Jace make up for the loss of extra consistency that Ponder normally added. Your Tarmogoyf is likely to still be 4/5 even without Ponder because of Engineered Explosives/random artifacts and the fact that you will often be Spell Piercing your opponent's Green Sun's Zenith now. Daze has also been sucking shit for me for a long time now, so I think it's time to let it go in favor of S. Pierce. The question that remains is if manlands are still viable. As it is, I think I would rather have the 4th Waste and more colored mana. There is also no room for Crucible in the maindeck anymore, and the manlands are just a lot less impressive without that card. In addition to that, the threat count has been upped and there is plenty of stuff to use your mana on each turn. Wooded Foothills is tech stolen from Canadian Thresh. In case it isn't obvious, it fetches up both duals as well as the basic Mountain and it disguises your deck on the 1st turn. 8 fetches should keep Lavamancer going. Maindeck Needle over EE is a toss-up. This slot could also be a singleton Dreadnought that would enable you to do crazy things with lategame Stifles. I could see a 3rd Pierce over the 3rd Jace, but I think I like the 3rd Jace better now that Ponder is gone.

[Vaxe]

I'm usually on MTG Salv but this thread has prompted me to switch sides for the foreseeable future.

I have been running this list for the past few weeks and am surprised to see the similarity w/ Kikoo's. Jace TMS has been omitted for a more aggro/tempo route and a lower curve (19 lands). With the inclusion of Stifle and Trinket Mage toolbox, I figured Noughts would go well. Cliques are something I am considering, albeit tough deciding what to cut - perhaps a Fire // Ice. Depending on my meta analysis for Starcity LA, I might include md Trygons, EE, or Firespouts.

Will post current meta matchups at a later date (so far it's pretty bad against CT Jace at ~30% win); gobs, zoo, and merfolk are ~80% win preboard.

Here it is, for reference:

-------------------------------
Critters
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Trinket Mage
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

Permission
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle

Removals
4 Fire // Ice
4 Lightning Bolt

Tools
4 Brainstorm
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sensei's Divining Top

Lands (19)
1 Island
1 Mountain
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn

SB
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Firespout
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
3 Krosan Grip
-------------------------------

[chinEsE girl]

Well vaxe, the list does look really similar to NLT, and for all intents and purposes it is, but there's one card that I don't approve of, and that's the dreadnaughts. If you meta is filled with goblins and merfolk, then sure it can be a reasonable call. But go to anything larger, for example and SCG legacy 5k, I'd be willing to bet a ton that half of your matches will be against decks with quick answers to a dreadnaught. Considering that swords or path out of ANY white deck, pridemage out of every deck running green sun's zenith, and jace bouncing it just results in card disadvantage. The only card you can protect it is with force of will, which is just more card disadvantage. Bottom line, I have never been impressed with the 1 mana 12/12 since it just gets removed by so many things. I'd suggest is to get rid of it and just use trinket mage for the the silver bullets.

[Chikenbok]

ChinEsE girl, I'd like to get some testing in with you if you have a chance before New Jersey. I think the list I finally arrived on is.. well.. perfect.

[Chikenbok]

Also, for everyone out there in internet land, this is the build I plan on taking to the 5k, unless someone has some random insight in to how I can fit another ponder into the deck, and yes I believe we only need 20 lands... I can't find a reason to play 21 aside from adding another fetchland

//Lands
2 x Flooded Strand
2 x Misty Rainforest
3 x Scalding Tarn
2 x Island
1 x Mountain
3 x Tropical Island
3 x Volcanic Island
4 x Wasteland

//Things That Attack
3 x Grim Lavamancer
4 x Tarmogoyf
2 x Trinket Mage
2 x Vendillion Clique

//Things I Can Do, Whenever I want
4 x Brainstorm
3 x Fire // Ice
4 x Force of Will
4 x Lightning Bolt
3 x Spell Snare
4 x Stifle

//Things I Can Do, On My Turn, Looking For Answers
2 x Ponder

//Things That Unconditionally Win The Game
2 x Jace, The 'Wizards you went too far' Mind Sculptor

//Trinket Mage Fun
1 x Basilisk Collar
1 x Engineered Explosives
1 x Sensei's Divining Top

SIDEBOARD:
1 x Pithing Needle
1 x Relic of Progenitus
1 x Tormod's Crypt
2 x Mind Harness
1 x Hydroblast
2 x Krosan Grip
2 x Pyroblast
1 x Red Elemental Blast
2 x Spell Pierce
2 x Firespout


Questions, Comments, Concerns, Holler.

- Chiken

[jimirynk]

Also, for everyone out there in internet land, this is the build I plan on taking to the 5k, unless someone has some random insight in to how I can fit another ponder into the deck, and yes I believe we only need 20 lands... I can't find a reason to play 21 aside from adding another fetchland

//Lands
2 x Flooded Strand
2 x Misty Rainforest
3 x Scalding Tarn
2 x Island
1 x Mountain
3 x Tropical Island
3 x Volcanic Island
4 x Wasteland

//Things That Attack
3 x Grim Lavamancer
4 x Tarmogoyf
2 x Trinket Mage
2 x Vendillion Clique

//Things I Can Do, Whenever I want
4 x Brainstorm
3 x Fire // Ice
4 x Force of Will
4 x Lightning Bolt
3 x Spell Snare
4 x Stifle

//Things I Can Do, On My Turn, Looking For Answers
2 x Ponder

//Things That Unconditionally Win The Game
2 x Jace, The 'Wizards you went too far' Mind Sculptor

//Trinket Mage Fun
1 x Basilisk Collar
1 x Engineered Explosives
1 x Sensei's Divining Top

SIDEBOARD:
1 x Pithing Needle
1 x Relic of Progenitus
1 x Tormod's Crypt
2 x Mind Harness
1 x Hydroblast
2 x Krosan Grip
2 x Pyroblast
1 x Red Elemental Blast
2 x Spell Pierce
2 x Firespout


Questions, Comments, Concerns, Holler.

- Chiken

you might want a brittle effigy in the sb its not bad as a answer to knight but its a 1 of answer to emakrul but Idk if thats even good, I was testing an academy ruins for the e.e. and its been alright seals up the cb matchup. Both kinda loose suggestions but just wanted them to be noted on, I really like the MD of this, I might even just try something like this for edison but i'm probably going to be playing white.


On another close not it has anyone else noticed how close this is becoming to,

Artifacts
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
4 Sensei's Divining Top

Creatures
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage

Enchantments
4 Counterbalance

Instants
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares

Planeswalkers
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorceries
2 Firespout

Basic Lands
2 Island
1 Mountain

Lands
2 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Krosan Grip
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Spell Pierce
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2 Firespout

[Chikenbok]

you might want a brittle effigy in the sb its not bad as a answer to knight but its a 1 of answer to emakrul but Idk if thats even good, I was testing an academy ruins for the e.e. and its been alright seals up the cb matchup. Both kinda loose suggestions but just wanted them to be noted on, I really like the MD of this, I might even just try something like this for edison but i'm probably going to be playing white.


On another close not it has anyone else noticed how close this is becoming to,

Artifacts
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
4 Sensei's Divining Top

Creatures
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage

Enchantments
4 Counterbalance

Instants
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares

Planeswalkers
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorceries
2 Firespout

Basic Lands
2 Island
1 Mountain

Lands
2 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Krosan Grip
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Spell Pierce
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2 Firespout

I don't play white for a reason. I counter threats, and if I can't - I'll figure out ways to deal with em, like a friggen champ.

Sorry, ex CBtop player (which was why I stopped playing legacy competitively; it lost its allure when everything cbtop). I actually don't find the game plan all that similar. Threshold and variants manage to be able to take on the roll of any deck they need, while cbtop is really a control deck that operates under sticking threats.. and waiting.

I prefer to be able to adapt to any given situation and still remain in better board position and tempo than my opponent. Also, I beat goblins, CBtop. no so much.

[chinEsE girl]

Yeah, it is kind of funny how close NLT is getting to countertop, although I don't think it's too shocking. The key difference between the two decks is one revolves around either being more control (the countertop lock) or tempo based (hello stifle wasteland). It's not that the difference is hard to figure out, actually it's kind of obvious, I think it just comes down to personal preference in terms of what kind of game you want to be playing throughout a tournament. Personally, I side with stifle wasteland due to two factors. A) People don't respect the two cards enough. Even after they've been a known factor in the format for soooo long. You can still get people with their pants down when their three land hand goes down to just one and they can't cast any spells. B) Stifle gives you a lot of game versus the aether vial deck that can give countertop trouble. Goblins is a great example of this. In a long game, goblins can just cast ringleader, matron getting ringleader, ringleader again, etc etc. Countertop needs a 3 or 4 on top or a force to stop the chain, not exactly the easiest thing to always have access to. Stifle instead gives you great protection from these devastating effects, while in addition saving you cards from pridemages, stoping mystics from getting scary swords, and all sorts of other awesomeness. Bottom line, play the deck with the style that suits you best. As jimiR knows, since I'm such a lucksack, I enjoy playing the deck that lets me dictate the pace of the game, so I'll be suiting up my stifles and keeping my set of counterbalances and tops on the sidelines.

[Chikenbok]

Just a quickie, playing with 1 top as a mage target... ROCKS..

that is all for the night. Just spent 4 hours testing against the rock and its variants (junk and taxes, green and taxes, etc.)

Out of about 20 games I lost 2.

We're getting there.

[wcm8]

How about taking some tech from Dan Signorigni's Team America list and running:
1 Sylvan Library
2 Predict

Bear with me -- it does sound clunky, and I think in general NLT is less worried about cycling through cantrips as TA is. However, Sylvan Library is yet *another* late game bomb that gives you an advantage against aggro and control that can make you win topdeck wars. It may be worth testing.

Trinket Mage seems kind of narrow in this deck to me. At that point you might as well play Phyrexian Dreadnought, and if you're playing Phyrexian Dreadnought you might as well play Standstill, and if you're playing Standstill you might as well play Counterbalance etc, etc.

A lot of these decks have remarkable similarity to each other, I'd be curious if the games that are won are mostly coming from the cards that overlap or the deck specific cards. I think the big advantage NLT has is that it has a better chance versus most aggro strategies.. however, I think it ends up sacrificing some power versus opposing control decks. Firespout / Lightning Bolt aren't very good if you're facing down opposing Goyfs, Dreadnoughts, Rhox War Monks, etc. I think the best Blue deck to play is very metagame dependent, it's just that NLT might be the best option currently with all the Aether Vial decks running around.

[TheDeadMan]

I've been noticing the above mentioned trend of both decks: NLT and CB sharing the same core cards, and have been working on a bastardized hybrid of the 2. So far the deck has been performing well in a diverse meta given it has the ability to adapt easy, and has burn/mancers as added reach.

Creatures: 10
3 grim lavamancer
3 vendilion clique
4 goyf

Burn: 7
4 lightning bolt
3 fire/ice

Draw: 4
4 brainstorm

Lock: 6
3 sensei's top
3 counter balance

Counters: 10
4 FoW
3 daze
3 spell snare

Other: 3
3 stifle

Mana: 20
3 misty
4 tarns
3 volc
3 trop
4 wasteland
1 mountain
2 island

[Chikenbok]

I officially give up.

We don't need counterbalance. It's not fun. It just sucks. We don't want 3 tops. We want 1. Trinket mage. Is the best. That is all.

[Vaxe]

I officially give up.

We don't need counterbalance. It's not fun. It just sucks. We don't want 3 tops. We want 1. Trinket mage. Is the best. That is all.

Couldn't agree more. The CB package is just mediocre in the current aggro // combo meta (StarCity DC had a good showcase). Trinket Mage EE takes care of the former, while Stifle is great against the latter - all without losing tempo.

I know it's not NLT, but have you all looked at TA? The general plan is similar, just without the counter package... and well, lost of lavamancer + firespout. What's the consensus between the two decks?

[jimirynk]

I'm not trying to bring down the thread with the counterbalance comment, but for those of you who default to COUNTERBALANCE BAD sound retarded, have you ever resolved a counterbalance top vs junk and had a fow for vindicate or a 3 on top?

I'm not saying everyone should be playing counterbalance top but if the deck decided to run it comments like

I officially give up.

We don't need counterbalance. It's not fun. It just sucks. We don't want 3 tops. We want 1. Trinket mage. Is the best. That is all.

Don't help ANYONE.

[wcm8]

I know it's not NLT, but have you all looked at TA? The general plan is similar, just without the counter package... and well, lost of lavamancer + firespout. What's the consensus between the two decks?

Team America just won first place at a SCG event and is my favorite deck. Obviously it's good. However, not having Firespout does hurt its aggro matchup some, and its threat density is even lower.

[ivanpei]

Whoever suggested the idea or trinket mage + collar + grim in this deck is brilliant! I can't wait to test this deck to see my opponent's Jaw drop when I grim a KOTR to death with a collared lavamancer! Top props to you guys! Personally, I think Counterbalance is no longer a good choice for this meta. Especially with the printing of GSZ. GSZ is basically + 4 outs to balance in any decks with Green. I can't wait to give this deck a go. This is going to be awesome!

[TheDeadMan]

I think Counterbalance is no longer a good choice for this meta. Especially with the printing of GSZ. GSZ is basically + 4 outs to balance in any decks with Green. ! Isent a reliance on GSZ making daze/spell pierce much stronger? On the counter balance note though I personally was not a fan of it till I tried it in the deck I posted. The merits of Ctop have been discussed to hell and back so im going to leave it at that, and allow people to make their own decisions on the subject. On a different note though the trinket mage package def looks interesting the collar tech is pretty sweet I have to admit.

[Chikenbok]

The trinket mage packet allows us, PREBOARD to deal with fatties that we cant out goyf/remove, Get an early top to smooth out any game with less reliance on brainstorms and ponders. Oh and EE.. its just that good. I figure with more thresh coming in now its going to be important to land that ee on 1 to deal with a flock of nimble mongoose. Moreover, because the package has turned our aggro matchup preboard so INSANELY strong, we can dedicate more of our package to situational counterspells and other hate bears against random.dec

All in all, I highly suggest that everyone at least try the build I posted on the previous page, 20 land is perfect and after you've got mage + lavamancer + collar out, landing a jace kinda.. wins the game.

I'm actually getting one of mine altered so that the space between his hands says, "Good Game" on one and, "I'm Really Sorry" on the other.

Try the deck, see what I'm talking about, All Praise Next Level Thresh.

[ivanpei]

Nimble Mongoose hasn't been played for a long time. I think what you meant was Zoo kitties amirite? Anyway I'll give this deck a go along with Team America. Will post a comparison.

IMO collar isn't just good with lavamancer, it turns Trinket Mage into an answer to opposing goyfs/ kotrs. Collar also can help you win races when you are getting in there in the air with a clique. Makes Cliques not so shitty against aggro as you can trade her with a goyf/kotr. Also swinging with a goyf equipped with Collar is nasty. They can't double block with goyf + another creature and if they let goyf through, you are way ahead in the damage race. All around, its a great card for a deck that can't play STP. Good thinking over here.

Trinket -> EE also gives you outs to resolved stuff you can't other wise deal with and is just very versatile. Top is self explanatory, nice to see the option to go for extra gas vs control.

[planarvoid]

In my meta there's a lot of CB.deck, landstill and some TES.

How does the chikenbok version do against the deck i've mentionned? Have tested the MU?:smile:

[Deady]

@ Chikenbok

Agreed on the fact that NLT doesn't want CB, ever. NLT plays the tempo role instead of control role and Countertop needs a good amount of 3-drops to abuse the combo (at least 5), which on its own makes it a different deck to play.

It's one or the other, neither will ever play or feel the same. NLT is just more straightforward and tempo based (like UGW Tempo, another great deck), while countertop decks want to control the game with long term CA through CB/Top. The main problem I find with adding red in Countertop (4c Countertop) is the mana base.

Im going to sleeve up NLT, mostly because it's more agressive and because it plays Wastelands with a strong mana base...which is one reason why I prefer this over Team America as well. It's also easier to play compared to Countertop, just like any agressive build like Zoo, Goblins and Merfolk.

I personally would call this deck 'UGR Tempo' instead of NLT. Can't wait to sleeve it up and play with it for a long time to come :D

[Chikenbok]

@ Chikenbok

Agreed on the fact that NLT doesn't want CB, ever. NLT plays the tempo role instead of control role and Countertop needs a good amount of 3-drops to abuse the combo (at least 5), which on its own makes it a different deck to play.

It's one or the other, neither will ever play or feel the same. NLT is just more straightforward and tempo based (like UGW Tempo, another great deck), while countertop decks want to control the game with long term CA through CB/Top. The main problem I find with adding red in Countertop (4c Countertop) is the mana base.

Im going to sleeve up NLT, mostly because it's more agressive and because it plays Wastelands with a strong mana base...which is one reason why I prefer this over Team America as well. It's also easier to play compared to Countertop, just like any agressive build like Zoo, Goblins and Merfolk.

I personally would call this deck 'UGR Tempo' instead of NLT. Can't wait to sleeve it up and play with it for a long time to come :D

Thanks for understanding. Thresh simply cannot support the flips of a counterbalance deck and we can't rework the whole curve to handle cards that people are now playing just to play around a cblock.

Deady, I hope you like the build, its been playing incredibly well in my testing for the last few days and, after cutting the 21st land the consistancy with an early game trinket mage in to top followed by a jace bouncing trinket mage to fetch up collar is simply devestating in the mid game. Against aggro just hold your bolts for an easy out and make sure to save them brainstorms for when you need them.

The best matchups are the thresh vs thresh matches as it usually comes down to who taps out first and lets the opponent start winning the stifle race - its always funny seeing, "Crack a catacombs", "crack a tarn in response", "crack a misty in response", "crack a delta in response".... stifle race.

It's possibly the most skill intensive deck I've played to this date and will punish any bad move but with a good pilot it is simply unreal.

[ivanpei]

I'm playing the chickenbok list with -1 fire/ice + 1 fetch. I like having the 16th blue land for fewer mulligans. Just a personal preference. Anyway I didn't get enough testing today to get a good enough sample. However, trinket Mage is just boss in this deck. I was spiffed at not being able to play daze, but this deck can't play it because you want to hit 4 lands asap. I had the most hilarious game today against show and tell/no. Grim lavamancer apparently eats mana dudes very well. I shut off eldrazi with my lavamancer-collar combo. Should have seen my Friends face when he realized a 15/15 monster dies to my combo. Hilarious!

Btw disliked the fire/ice in testing. A 2 mana shock that pitches to force is not good enough for my tastes. Will cut the last 2 fire/ice for the 4th lavamancer and another clique. The deck's threat density is too low. Plus the first lavamancer will always get forced/ killed and I always want to see both lavamancer and clique. I hate sitting there with lots of answers but without a threat to pressure the opponent.

[Chikenbok]

I'm playing the chickenbok list with -1 fire/ice + 1 fetch. I like having the 16th blue land for fewer mulligans. Just a personal preference. Anyway I didn't get enough testing today to get a good enough sample. However, trinket Mage is just boss in this deck. I was spiffed at not being able to play daze, but this deck can't play it because you want to hit 4 lands asap. I had the most hilarious game today against show and tell/no. Grim lavamancer apparently eats mana dudes very well. I shut off eldrazi with my lavamancer-collar combo. Should have seen my Friends face when he realized a 15/15 monster dies to my combo. Hilarious!

Btw disliked the fire/ice in testing. A 2 mana shock that pitches to force is not good enough for my tastes. Will cut the last 2 fire/ice for the 4th lavamancer and another clique. The deck's threat density is too low. Plus the first lavamancer will always get forced/ killed and I always want to see both lavamancer and clique. I hate sitting there with lots of answers but without a threat to pressure the opponent.

The reason I keep fire // ice in the deck is to deal with early game bullshit that I don't want my opponent having on the board (Heirarch, Cursecatcher, nacatl, lackey, etc.) However, against any non aggro turn 1 playing deck they come right out for the 4th lavamancer. I might cut down to 2 Fire // Ice to throw in another clique but the combo of being able to ping for 2, then shoot for 2 is still working too well for me to make the decision.

[gamegeek2]

@Chinese - Great work making T8

BTW I'm the guy who was playing Counterbalance that you drew with at DC. I'm giving this deck a shot since I've been playing Counterbalance for months.

[Rune]

omg, awesome. Gogo, chinEsEgirl!

edit: ouch :(. I think your chances of winning would have been better without playing Jace. Anyway, 3rd place is still impresive, congrats

[hyc8028]

Collar + Lavamancer is real deal. GO!

[Chikenbok]

Chinese - I knew ya had it in you.

I couldn't make the event sadly but I'm glad you're rocking it out like NLT ought to.

[Mark Sun]

Congratulations on the Top 8, Eric.

Loving the changes to the deck.

[Chikenbok]

Eric, Looking at your list I see we convinced you to get rid of the third ven clique eh?

Just another congrats man, represent.

[ivanpei]

Huge grats! Btw how was fire/ice during the tournament? I'm thinking about cutting them because they are not as useful without daze where you use it as a rishadan port. Would you have preferred a 3rd clique, the 4th lavamancer and the 21st land? I love this deck, it's tempo and has enough gas to slug it out lategame, lovely!

Btw flooded grove? Typo?

[Dia_Bot]

Congratz with the result!
Will you write a report? I would love to read it.


I'm thinking about cutting them because they are not as useful without daze where you use it as a rishadan port.
I am having the same doubts but still I'm finding the card to provide huge flexibility both as a burn spell and a card to (for instance) evade blockers.

[planarvoid]

Come on chinese, congratz for the results !! very nice, you bring NLT.... to a higher level ;)

[ivanpei]

I love the card, don't get me wrong. I suggested it and used it in the 4c countertop as well as played the old can threshold lists with 4 fire/ice. It feels underpowered in this deck though. Against aggro, the 4th lavamancer is better, and against midrange/control, the 3rd clique is better. Having the 21st land also helps the deck mull less and be not so dependant on cantrips.

I've been testing this and Team America, the main differences I've noticed is that Team America is more "all in". The deck disrupts early with powerful spells like Hymm etc and tries to get there with stalkers/goyf. But if you get out of the woods and deal with the deck's threats, Team America is not as good in the long game.

NLT on the other hand has the same early game disruption plan but slightly worse bombs (no hymm) and worse threats (stalker ends the game in 4 turns, clique is a weaker finisher). BUT, NLT has a very strong late game. Lavamancer himself can overpower tribal decks, Jace TMS, Trinket Mage and Clique all make the long game a good thing too. IMO NLT is more "balanced" and can play well into the late game.

Team America is much better against "greedy" decks with less land (or lots of colours). It punishes decks like these and totally destroys them. Against safer decks with stable manabases and a better mid range game, Team America cannot compete mid and late game. Also, Team America suffers from the Cantrip into Cantrip problem. The deck has too little threats. I find this very annoying. Wizards needs to print another 2cc finisher that swings for 5 for Team America. That said, Team America is an excellent deck and very good at what it does: punishing weak draws, unstable manabases and "greedy" decks.

NLT abuses the same things, but doesn't put all its eggs in the early game basket. The new tech of Lavamancer + Collar and the Trinket Mage package of EE + Top makes the mid and late game very strong. I won't say one is better than the either, as they are both very different. Also, I am salivating for a report! Looking forward to it and top props to you for taking it to T8!!!

[Rune]

About Fire/Ice: its power level isn't ridiculous most of the time, but it's an extremely flexible card that always does 'something', and when you get to kill two x/1's or port an opponent's land after you stifled his 1st fetch, then the card is really good. One of the main reasons it was included in the original list from GP Madrid was because of its ability to turn on Daze more often, but even in a list without Daze it's still a fine card, although I think it's a somewhat flexible slot.

About Team America: also a good deck. NLT and TA have a few matchup differences where one deck is better and the other is worse. The most important difference for me is the Merfolk pairing (passionate Merfolk hater), because I have always felt NLT could stop even the most broken Merfolk draws. I would hesitate to say the same is true for TA..

[wcm8]

Even with recent changes, merefolk is a terrible, terrible matchup for TA. NLT has no trouble however.

I've really been liking the new NLT lists. The factory/crucible was nice, but a bit too 'cute'. The new configuration is definitely very solid. Fire//ice is a great card even though it seems a bit clunky.

[wweenieking]

Hi all,

I also played the NLT this weekend in edison after some recent success with it in local tournaments (haven't lost). I played the same main deck as chinese but I had cut a fireice for a top (both cards are really good, not sure if I would change to 3 and 0 as chinese had). I'm at work so I don't have time to give a detailed report, but I started out 3-0 beating big zoo (stifle waste won here), elves (turn 1 grim both games plus 2 for 1 with fire/ice seems good-game 2 he boarded in buried alive for vengevines but grim is too good here), 3rd round was vs white stacks (turn 1 supression field followed by turn 3 geddon, turn 4 2nd supression field, luckily I had all the time in the world because I kept ripping fetches I couldn't use but eventually I had e.e. for 2 and the fun began, game 2 he did what staxs does (mull to 5 and have nothing great to stop me from casting jace turn 4).

Then the awfulness started. Lost round 4 to goblins, game 1 mulled to 5 (my 7 had 0 lands, my 6 had 6 lands) my 5 had island, fetch, e.e., goyf, and bolt (pretty good) I blow up his vial with e.e. but I draw nothing great and he hits 4 off of ringleader (next turn I draw stifle). Game 2 he got a nutty hand after I mulled to 6 and he crushed me. Round 5 I play vs pox (yes pox) we play 3 very close games, but game 3 he graws the right cards at the right time and I can't get there. Round 6 vs tendrils (I know what he's playing, saw him earlier) I mull to 6 on the draw and keep with 2 stifle, 1 snare, goyf, and double land. He kills me turn 1. Game 2 he doesn't know what I'm playing with and he has duress turns 1-3 and when he goes off I brainstormed (only card in hand) and needed to hit stifle, blue blast (1 of in board), pierce, or snare, firespout (had 2), or e.e. but I whiffed and he wished for 18 goblins and I died in 2 turns.

All in all I feel this deck is very good and I got very very unlucky to not do better. I mean mulling vs gobs sucks, pox-who plays that lol, and turn 1 losing to combo and game 2 having so many outs. Btw I overheard chinese say he killed an emrakul with the collar/grim combo haha, that's awesome. I did play collar, but didn't get lucky enough to do that.

[wcm8]

Thanks for the mini report, it does seem this deck is great for the modern metagame. Any deck can lose to that sort of luck (bad on your part, good on your opponent's). Can't really blame the deck for those sort of hands.

[wweenieking]

Ya I wasn't upset I lost to combo because that's what his deck does. I was upset tho mulling to 5 and 6 vs gobs which is a very winnable matchup and then playing vs pox..I haven't played vs pox in 3yrs lol..and I would've won but he ripped therapy to name spell snare (I had 2 cards in hand, which hit and he cast small pox followed next turn by pox lol. But if I counter small pox I would've won..it sucked.

[chinEsE girl]

GREAT. JUSTICE.


So now that that's out of the way, I'll answer a few of the question here real quick. First off, yes, I'll be writing a tourney report real soon. As in the next hour soon. I am soooooo happy that I was able to prove this deck in the largest legacy SCG 5k so far. Getting that top 8, and better yet getting to top 4 was awesome. The deck was actually the stone cold nuts all day except for a few losses to variance, both times against combo where I either got nut drawn or got greedy and was punished for it. I was never 2-0'd in either of my losses, and a lot of my win's were 2-0. Fire//ice was also a savage beating all day long. The rise of green sun's zenith has made the card incredible, usually killing two mana sources for very little cost. Also, the basilisk collar tech was the real deal. I got a ton of value out of the card, and won several games that would not have been winnable if it wasn't in my 75. Also, the flooded grove in the decklist was a fuck up by star city, I was running two flooded strand cause I needed blue fetches, and since I have two foil copies I ran them for a little extra powerfulness. Look to the tourney report for answering any other questions.

Edit: Tourney Report link http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20209-Taking-it-to-the-Next-Level-Top-4-in-Edison-SCG-5K-with-Next-Level-Thresh&p=527500#post527500

[Plague Sliver]

Even with recent changes, merefolk is a terrible, terrible matchup for TA. NLT has no trouble however.

This is true. TA struggles mightily against the 'Folk. Pithing Needle helps a little, but bolts/lavamancer are better.

Really dislike Starcity's naming of decks. First Dark Horizons, now NLT as Team America?

[chinEsE girl]

This is true. TA struggles mightily against the 'Folk. Pithing Needle helps a little, but bolts/lavamancer are better.

Really dislike Starcity's naming of decks. First Dark Horizons, now NLT as Team America?

They've fixed it by now, on the site it's been listed as Next Level Thresh. As for the flooded grove typo, they have yet to change that.

Edit: They also fixed the flooded grove/strand typo, it's now flooded strand like it's supposed to be. Now people won't misbuild the deck and think I'm fucking dumb.

[ivanpei]

Cheers Chinese! Love your list. I respect that you find fire/ice very useful. I'll continue testing it and the 4 Grim/3 Clique/21 land configuration. Looking forward to the report. Once again, amazing job!

[Bignasty197]

The one thing I will say though, I will put down a guarantee, right here right now, that I will top 8 either the washington SCG legacy 5k or the edison SCG legacy 5k. I'm calling my shot right now so that this deck can get some serious consideration. I'll post again after I top 8 an SCG 5k.

Its really bad ass when the guy calls it 3 weeks in advance and actually does it. Mad props, Eric.

[Tammit67]

The Bask Collar seems really gimmicky to me. Regardless, congrats on your finish.

[Chikenbok]

The Bask Collar seems really gimmicky to me. Regardless, congrats on your finish.

The collar is one of our few ways to deal with things like Knight of the Reliquary, a resolved emrakul, or really anything we cannot race around/mind harness reliably every game or ice down to swing through. In testing and in tournaments it has proven to be an unstoppable machine against most decks that run creatures - mind you, it is of course the first thing to come out when there is nothing big and scary to kill.

[Equinozio]

They've fixed it by now, on the site it's been listed as Next Level Thresh. As for the flooded grove typo, they have yet to change that.

Edit: They also fixed the flooded grove/strand typo, it's now flooded strand like it's supposed to be. Now people won't misbuild the deck and think I'm fucking dumb.

Hey, Gratz for the finish. I really like your deck. I just bought grims to test id cause i don't feel really confortable with any deck and yous 75 seem really nice.

Except for thoose dumb flooded ... ;)

[Chikenbok]

Eric,

After reading your tourny report I've worked on a new SB plan that I think might have a much more favorable matchup against straight combo decks while still remaining solid and strong against aggro mid-range/late-game. I think that the board as a whole had to be reworked as it still seem tuned towards our original list (w/out Grims/Trinket Mage package). When it's completely done I'll put up a copy with a complete reasoning behind my choices.

[wcm8]

Looking forward to it!

[Tammit67]

The collar is one of our few ways to deal with things like Knight of the Reliquary, a resolved emrakul, or really anything we cannot race around/mind harness reliably every game or ice down to swing through. In testing and in tournaments it has proven to be an unstoppable machine against most decks that run creatures - mind you, it is of course the first thing to come out when there is nothing big and scary to kill.

I'm not saying that it isn't a solution to KotR, I just feel like the opposition can focus it down too easily to get value out of it should they know it is coming. Save a bolt for the lavamancer, save a pridemage for the collar, save a vindicate, save a stifle (for trinketmage), hold EE. You lose (albiet a small amount of) tempo setting up the play, which can be thwarted by a more experienced opponent. While I think it is great in a deck that is more of the radar, once the deck gains more popularity b/c Eric English is a the King of Tempo, I think you'll find the equipment package to be more easily played around.

TL;DR: The success of B Collar is more do to the inexperience of the player across from you than how good it is. Am I the only one who worries about this?

[ivanpei]

I think the issue for this deck is threat count. Basilisk collar is sub-optimal if you just play 3 Grims, 2 Clique, 4 Goyf and 2 Trinkets. I've been loving the 4th Grim and the 3rd Clique. With 2 more threats, even a topdecked Collar on a Clique/Goyf is very powerful. Reading Eric's report made me re-evaluate Fire/Ice and it should not be cut completely. So I've gone -1 Fire/Ice, -1 Spell Snare and + 1 Grim, + 1 Clique.

Spell Snare has been underperforming for me. The spell CC for today's bombs are more varied. Previously most bombs were 2cc, now we see Show and Tell, Jace, KOTR, GSZ etc etc which Snare can't catch. Having said that, Snare is still very useful in conjunction with Stifle.

[chinEsE girl]

The concern about collar being good only because no one knew to play around it is certainly a viable opinion. The night before the tournament, I was talking with my friend John Barber about the collar, and he was worried it was cute, but not necessarily good. Now that the tech is known I'm sure it's going to be harder to get a lot of value out of collar like I did in Edison. What I do really like about the collar, however, is that it makes aggressive matchups so much easier to put away. I've had several games against decks like merfolk, zoo, and goblins where I would be in the lead on the board, but so low on life that the other player had plenty of cards that could make me lose in short order. With the collar however, they can't really race you. You can start by trading mage for one of their creatures, gain some life, then start really going to work with either goyf or clique. All it takes is two or more hits to really put your life total out of reach, which is something I really like being able to do. I'm going to give the collar another tournament or two to prove its worth, and then reassess whether or not it deserves a spot in the deck.

[Dark Ritual]

Basilisk collar isn't just good on lavamancer. It's good on any creature, even trinket mage can wield it to kill a kotr. Goyf trading with kotr is fine as well. Same with clique; it doesn't need to be on lavamancer but it's certainly the best there since it slowly wipes their entire board.

Congratz on the finish Eric good to see UGR tempo doing good again finally. Mad props on calling it too.

[Chikenbok]

I feel like the whole issue of, "people now understand that lavamancer + collar = threat" is a bit silly. It is not as if the deck has fundamentally changed at all since its birth, its simply made more use of the resources that have been presented to us in the aging days of the Legacy Format. Sure, an opponent can hold a bolt or path for a lavamancer and a vindicate for a collar but thats one less piece of removal for a tarmogoyf, and one less vindicate for the mind harness that's going to be eating his Knight the next turn.

I think that, because we found a trick that can be exploited does not make it 'kitchy' or clever, but rather just adds another threat to a deck that already has tons of them. As stated above, leave a collar on board with ANY creature makes your opponent think twice about swining into your field. I think more testing will prove that, yes, people now expect the lavamancer + collar as a trick at shooting off a big phatty but who cares.. get their removal away from the threats that really beat.... Well, What Dark Rit above me said, thats good.

- Chiken

[ivanpei]

I like Collar, even when drawn naturally. It fixes the fatty problem that this deck faces. I've been using 2 sowers in the board instead of harness and drake. If they kill my dudes because of collar, all the better as I get to whoop ass with Sower. That being said, am I the only one who thinks that Lavamancer is so good, you need 4? The 3rd Clique also has been very good. Question is what to trim/cut? So far its -1 Fire/Ice, - 1 Snare for me.

Cheers- Ivan

[Chikenbok]

I like Collar, even when drawn naturally. It fixes the fatty problem that this deck faces. I've been using 2 sowers in the board instead of harness and drake. If they kill my dudes because of collar, all the better as I get to whoop ass with Sower. That being said, am I the only one who thinks that Lavamancer is so good, you need 4? The 3rd Clique also has been very good. Question is what to trim/cut? So far its -1 Fire/Ice, - 1 Snare for me.

Cheers- Ivan

I would sooner run the 3rd clique over the 4th lavamancer. When it comes to cutting things... I think that spell snare would have to be the first to come out (for the third clique in my position) as the card. Fire // Ice is just too powerful after stifle/waste does it job on keeping their important mana locked down.

I've also added a single predict into the deck (after cutting the SDT) and ya know, I'm not usually a fan of running singles that I can't tutor for but.. when I find it.. it does it's job. I'm still working on my board which is coming along oh so beautifully. I should have up the whole thing by later tonight or tomorrow, depending on when I decide to go to sleep.


-Chiken

[Chikenbok]

This is what I've come up with recently. I kind of realized that uhm.. Firespout... we don't need it anymore.. I'll go with one. Spell pierce is the nuts against almost any deck trying to run something that's not a creature and teamed up with the 3 REBs it shuts down a LOT of combo steam. Null rod is there vs any kind of cute artifact tricks and the rest is straight forward. Oh, I've also added a single mindbreak trap since it appears that players are heading towards Time Spiral builds over TES/ANT builds which allows the NLT player ample time to find the counters he/she needs to protect against an attempt at going on. I've found the best way to play against Time Spiral builds is slow roll em yourself, always keep at least 2 mana untapped EOT because that is when they will try and go off.

SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Firespout
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Mind Harness
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Gilded Drake
SB: 1 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Null Rod

[Tammit67]

Basilisk collar isn't just good on lavamancer. It's good on any creature, even trinket mage can wield it to kill a kotr. Goyf trading with kotr is fine as well. Same with clique; it doesn't need to be on lavamancer but it's certainly the best there since it slowly wipes their entire board.




I think that, because we found a trick that can be exploited does not make it 'kitchy' or clever, but rather just adds another threat to a deck that already has tons of them. As stated above, leave a collar on board with ANY creature makes your opponent think twice about swining into your field.

- Chiken

If NLT ran more than, what, 11 or so creatures, I'd agree with you, collar all the way. But 11 creatures is really small. It is certainly viable for an opponent to just focus down creatures as they come. Sure, goyfs are not burnable, and post board you have mind harness half the time, but does that really speak to the value of collar?

Trading with KotR is fine since that damn knight is so big. But in general, why would you want to enter an attrition war with a deck with so few threats? You aren't goblins, who can just ringleader away all your loses, or zoo, who can 1 for 1 trade until their nactal is the only thing still on the board. Even Junk can play towards the long game (seize a threat, path another, vindicate a third, KotR overpowers a forth...). I maintain NLT is not built that way at all.

The game plan here is to play 1-2 threats and prevent the opponent from developing a board long enough to kill. This deck already has problems protecting itself against opponents who bring in 4 more path effects (a bit unrealistic) or just any type of removal. You can't force them all, and you have a hard time finding replacements. Collar does not help here

Even if the opponent does not swing, what does that do that is beneficial? Stifle, fire//ice, and wasteland are by no means dead cards late game, but they do lose effectiveness. You get the chance to draw into goyf or Jace, sure, but most decks are better suited for a longer game if the need be. The only real reason I see to include it is to pull your ass back from dire situations, and as that, it is pretty good. I just don't know if it is best. Even a second EE could have similar results without requiring so much set up. An academy ruins would not be hard to include should the need arise.

[Chikenbok]

If NLT ran more than, what, 11 or so creatures, I'd agree with you, collar all the way. But 11 creatures is really small. It is certainly viable for an opponent to just focus down creatures as they come. Sure, goyfs are not burnable, and post board you have mind harness half the time, but does that really speak to the value of collar?

Trading with KotR is fine since that damn knight is so big. But in general, why would you want to enter an attrition war with a deck with so few threats? You aren't goblins, who can just ringleader away all your loses, or zoo, who can 1 for 1 trade until their nactal is the only thing still on the board. Even Junk can play towards the long game (seize a threat, path another, vindicate a third, KotR overpowers a forth...). I maintain NLT is not built that way at all.

The game plan here is to play 1-2 threats and prevent the opponent from developing a board long enough to kill. This deck already has problems protecting itself against opponents who bring in 4 more path effects (a bit unrealistic) or just any type of removal. You can't force them all, and you have a hard time finding replacements. Collar does not help here

Even if the opponent does not swing, what does that do that is beneficial? Stifle, fire//ice, and wasteland are by no means dead cards late game, but they do lose effectiveness. You get the chance to draw into goyf or Jace, sure, but most decks are better suited for a longer game if the need be. The only real reason I see to include it is to pull your ass back from dire situations, and as that, it is pretty good. I just don't know if it is best. Even a second EE could have similar results without requiring so much set up. An academy ruins would not be hard to include should the need arise.

I very much understand where it is you are coming from but my general playstyle has been to let them get rid of "threats" so long as I still remain ahead enough card advantage with viable outs. I have 12 creatures in the deck, with 2 jaces that I all consider to be serious threats. Playing against a deck that might pack in between 4-6 pieces of spot removal (some of which is hittable with spell snare) I've never had an incredibly hard time allowing something to stay on the table.

Once again, I'm not saying that collar is, "THE TECH THAT MAKES THIS DECK UNBEATABLE" - I'm simply saying that its another problem for opponents to deal with and if I can have my opponent make a decision about any action they make, its another chance for them to f**k up.

In my current list I was toying with an acedemy ruins because it not only brings back the fun, but it puts your opponents on some painters list. I have however, also resorted to running 2 EE's main deck along with the singleton collar.

Pz

- Chiken

[Chikenbok]

Any comments on running Sirocco SB in the deck against all the show and tell / time spiral decks that are now running rampant?

Its a must force, or they lose their hand...

[Waikiki]

It's pretty bad cause it gives the opponent the choice.

[Chikenbok]

It also works like a red duress. Eh, maybe I was a bit too tired and/or drunk last night to make sense.

[Mark Sun]

As much as I like the card I'm not sure if it's necessarily sideboard material. It doesn't do a whole lot against Show and Tell (it's a Sorcery anyways), but against Spiral Tide its relevancy only applies in the opening turns.

[Chikenbok]

This is quite true. I guess I'll stick with my current boarding ideas, unless anyone has any input towards making it stronger.

[chinEsE girl]

Thoughts on Sirroco:

Cute
Extremely narrow applications

Verdict; would be wasted space in the sideboard when things like spell pierce and REB do just fine on their own

[Dark Ritual]

Sirocco is only good against one deck and that deck is solidarity. That is all sirocco is good for; and if they're a good player it won't even affect them unless you're burn. I see no reason to run the card at all unless your meta is full of solidarity at which point you should run zoo with the card or even goblins and wreck them with it.

[Bignasty197]

Played in a 20ish man tourney today and went 4-1 with this list. We ended up splitting top 4 because everyone wanted to go eat.

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Trinket Mage

4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Snare
3 Fire/Ice
2 Ponder
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Basilisk Collar

4 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Mountain

SB-
2 Null Rod
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Spell Pierce
2 Firespout
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Gilded Drake
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus

Report-
Round 1- Andrew with Enchantress
Game 1 I keep a decent hand with counter magic and a Goyf that gets there.
Game 2 I counter the important stuff and win with a Clique.
2-0

Round 2- Ryan with BGW Junk
Game 1 Involved 3 Thoughtseizes and a Hymn with a Vindicate on my only land.
Game 2 Involved 2 Thoughtseizes, 2 Hymns, 2 Wastelands and a Vindicate on my last land.
0-2

Round 3- Chris with TES
Game 1 He fizzles with Ad Nauseum after 3 Bolts to the face. He cast Ad Nauseum at 9 Life.
Game 2 He Chants me with kicker 3 times in 5 turns while I have a Clique and a Goyf in play, but he conedes when he knows he can't go off in time. I had a Force and a Stifle just in case he could.
2-0

Round 4- Don't remember his name but he played Elves.
Game 1 I keep him off creatures with Bolts and Fire/Ices while a Collared Goyf gets there.
Game 2 I wipe his board with Explosives and Firespout then land a Jace followed by a Lavamancer to seal the deal.
2-0

Top 8
The guy I was supposed to play conceded because he was hungry so I automatically made Top 4.

The deck plays very well and seems like it has the potential to be great against a diverse field. I'm not sure what to do against Junk with all the discard effects they have though. Maybe I just didn't keep the right hand or something.

[Chikenbok]

Played in a 20ish man tourney today and went 4-1 with this list. We ended up splitting top 4 because everyone wanted to go eat.

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Trinket Mage

4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Snare
3 Fire/Ice
2 Ponder
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Basilisk Collar

4 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Mountain

SB-
2 Null Rod
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Spell Pierce
2 Firespout
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Gilded Drake
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus

Report-
Round 1- Andrew with Enchantress
Game 1 I keep a decent hand with counter magic and a Goyf that gets there.
Game 2 I counter the important stuff and win with a Clique.
2-0

Round 2- Ryan with BGW Junk
Game 1 Involved 3 Thoughtseizes and a Hymn with a Vindicate on my only land.
Game 2 Involved 2 Thoughtseizes, 2 Hymns, 2 Wastelands and a Vindicate on my last land.
0-2

Round 3- Chris with TES
Game 1 He fizzles with Ad Nauseum after 3 Bolts to the face. He cast Ad Nauseum at 9 Life.
Game 2 He Chants me with kicker 3 times in 5 turns while I have a Clique and a Goyf in play, but he conedes when he knows he can't go off in time. I had a Force and a Stifle just in case he could.
2-0

Round 4- Don't remember his name but he played Elves.
Game 1 I keep him off creatures with Bolts and Fire/Ices while a Collared Goyf gets there.
Game 2 I wipe his board with Explosives and Firespout then land a Jace followed by a Lavamancer to seal the deal.
2-0

Top 8
The guy I was supposed to play conceded because he was hungry so I automatically made Top 4.

The deck plays very well and seems like it has the potential to be great against a diverse field. I'm not sure what to do against Junk with all the discard effects they have though. Maybe I just didn't keep the right hand or something.

Congrats on the finish,

Junk is a real problem and is on a SERIOUS rise these days but I've found that I care less about their discard as I do their Knights/Vindicates. Usually Hymn eats a spell snare and I'll let thoughtsieze resolve unphased (usually throws people on tilt).

I've usually found the best way to keep Junk off its feet is keeping a hand thats something along the lines of infinity wastelands + infinity stifles + a blue source. If you can keep them off of their first 2-4 turns of play, you've got the game.

Oh, also - Force the t1 mox.

[Bignasty197]

I hadn't thought about Forcing the Mox. Slowing their tempo seems good. The guy who plays Junk always fetches for a basic swamp when he gets a turn 1 Mox so I can't waste it. I had 2 Gilded Drakes in the board just for the Junk matchup(and Show and Tell to a lesser extent), but I just got wrecked by discard. I only resolved 2 creatures in 2 games because of all the discard. Spell Snare was excellent against Junk in testing because it hits Hymn, Goyf and Bob. I am seriously considering Divert in the board to shoot a Hymn or Vindicate back at them. I think it warrants testing. Or perhaps siding in Misdirection for the Forces. It seems sketchy but I'll definitely be trying some things out.

[chinEsE girl]

So yeeaaah, junk is absolutely the worst thing you can face with this deck. It's certainly winnable (I won my junk match 2-1 in extra turns in Edison on my way to top 4), but it's fucking hard to beat em. Especially when they get the tons of discard, follow up with a threat draw. Spell snare is pretty clutch against em, and control magic effects (especially gilded drake) after sideboard help a lot, but it's still an uphill battle. My advice would be include 3 or so control magic effects in the sideboard (plus relic to keep goyf & KotR small), and try and win that way. Once again, it's the most difficult matchup to win with this deck, but until it becomes more than 10% of the metagame, it's not a big deal. If you can win all but one of your matches, you still top 8/top 4 with ease. I mean, if your even or favorable for the entire metagame except for one moderately played deck, that seems pretty good to me.

[Bignasty197]

I never thought of it that way. Favorable or Even vs 90% of the field and only bad against Junk is fine with me. I'm only hoping that SCG Dallas next Sunday won't have many Junk decks.

[Equinozio]

I played chinese girl list ( witha few changes because I didn't have 4 scalding tarn) and I made top 8 loosing to Solidarity.

It felt very well the list but sometimes I miss some more creatures, one or two more. Grim lavamancer is not a real clock. It controls the board but nothing else I think.

My matchups where:

0-2 to Naya Zoo with shocklands and wholly thoctcar. I made two mistakes at game 2 and 3 that made my opponent go ahead on me.
2-0 to Merfolks. Grim lavamancer with a mountain is the real winner here.
2-0 to bant aggro with NO.
2-0 to Mighty Queen. The first game had nearly nothing, he played enlightened tutor for a runed halo the turn I was going to clique him. I saw 5 lands the halo and a top ( he had one already at play ) I take the halo and then in my turn played another tarmo. The second game was more fighted but krosan and pierce are really awsome versus this macth up.
1-1 to Bant Agrro with Natural order and zenit. My opponent who is a friend plays really wel but slow aswell so I the third game we ended up drawing. I think I could win because I had mind harness and a fow with a blue card in hand and a tarmo and a grim at play.
2-0 to bant counter top. I mulligan to 5 and him to 6. He played me a third turn countertop backe up with a fow to my snare. No more late I playe a jace because his only card in hand was a fow. He scoops.

0-2 to solidarity. I think first game we have lots of dead cards or small pressure like grims... In the second game I mulligan to 5 because of realluy bad hands.

I dindn't know what to take out in this match up. How would anyone sideboard vs solidarity??

[Rood]

I would probally board out the burn spells. Jace is also pretty skeptical in this matchup.

[Dia_Bot]

I finished 1st today going 5-0 playing in a small local tournament with chinese girls list (with some minor changes: +1 Grim lavamancer -1 fire/ice and sideboard: +1 MB trap -1 Firespout).
My matchups were:
Green and taxes: 2-0
NO bant: 2-0
AnT (Ari Lax): 2-1
Turbo Eldrazi: 2-0
NO show:2-0
The deck ran very smoothly throughout the day.

[jazzykat]

3-0-1 and 2nd on tie breakers in a small local tournament.

I was a bit lucky so I can't really say how awesome I am but I can say that while the deck looked like a real pile on paper it was incredibly consistent and just got it done. I salute you ChineseGirl, this deck may look janky on paper but it definitely has what it takes.

[Plague Sliver]

I did a weekend of testing with the deck. This is exactly the type of deck I love playing, so kudos to all the contributors on this thread. I've enjoyed reading all the discussion.

I started with Eric's list of 75, and made a few modifications:

Pithing Needle maindeck and Collar in the board. What I found was that in a lot of Game 1's against random decks, I wanted to have tutor for the Needle rather than the Collar. The Collar murdered the opponent in tribal/Rock matchups if it came online, but was not always great in other matchups where the deck was already favored. Needle is almost always relevant, I would argue more relevant than Collar because I could often not find a good time to pay 2 in order to equip the Collar.

Playing a 3rd Vendilion Clique. I keep going back and forth between the 3rd Clique and 2 Clique / 1 Kira, but I really want to have 3 flyers in the deck. I went -1 Fire/Ice to fit this in.

Questions I have now:

What is the value of Firespout at the moment? It feels like I want to either maindeck it, or not at all. And if I go with the Trinket Mage configuration, there wasn't really a matchup I wanted to board these in. If anything, I would prefer to play +1 Explosives in the board so that I can tutor for 2x EE anytime I wanted to.

What's the best way to deal with bigger threats? We have the following at our disposal: Mind Harness, Sower, Gilded Drake, Submerge. Submerge is a fantastic tempo card and doesn't seem to get mentioned in this thread. I know I asked about it earlier, I'm just wondering if anyone's tried it yet. Seems like a blowout in response to a fetchland activation.

Jace in the sideboard instead of main? This is taking a page from nitewolf's Team America list. Oftentimes Jace can feel clunky and I find it difficult to tap out for him. Now this might be due to my own inexperience with the card, but he seems better coming in vs. control opponents. I usually want to Clique on my opponent's turn and leave mana open for Bolt/Snare/Pierce, rather than tap out for Jace.

[chinEsE girl]

So for the points you mentioned:

Pithing needle seems like a fine card, I just like all the value I got from collar when I played it before. I could certainly see it move to the board though, especially now that it's a bit more known.

I've also put in the 3rd clique for a fire/ice in my current 75. Since clique is my most favorite blue creature evar, I moved the count up, so one fire/ice got the ax.

I still think firespout should be played in the sideboard. The games you lose against tribal and other types of aggro are the ones where you get overrun a little too fast for point removal to handle. Things like trinket mage getting EE is just way to slow to deal with some aggro draws.

Submerge has been suggested a lot before, but I still think it's inferior to the other options. Basically, against stuff like junk with their own goyfs and KotR, getting their creature is sooo much more backbreaking then just a simple removal spell. If you submerge it in response to a fetch, sure you get rid of it for the time being, but the next one is just going to be beating to down. With gilded drake or mind harness, they have to either have an answer, or waste a valuable removal spell to make sure they don't die to their own creature. Also, if they know your running submerge, good players will just apply pressure and never fetch for anything. I've had matches were a stupid goyf was beating me down, and the submerge in my hand just sat there as my opponent never fetched for the rest of the game. Bottom line, submerge is good, a resolved gilded drake (especially with jace) is a blowout.

If you really feel too awkward about jace, then sure stick him in the sideboard. The difference between this deck and team america IMO is that our deck can deploy a few more ways to control the board against aggro (mostly lavamancer), and that lets us play better defense and set up a jace to take over the game. Also, jace has always been so insane for me whenever I cast it, so I don't think I'd ever move him to the sideboard.

My 2 cents

[wcm8]

Went 0-3 drop this past weekend in a local tournament of about 25 people.

The first match I lost to UB Faeries. Game 1 he was able to resolve a turn 2 bitterblossom with force backup which quickly took over the game. Game 2 he cast two suspended ancestral recalls (the one with suspend 4). I was able to pyroblast one. I eventually had a trinket Mage with a collar out that was exerting pressure and gaining more life than his tokens were.. Eventually though he got a riptide laboratory and was able to infinitely block my dude with a spellstutter sprite.

Second match was vs. Gbw rock. Game 1 I just demolished him, no problems there. Game 2 I keep what I thought was a very good hand: 2 lands, daze, spell snare, lightning bolt, goyf, ponder. He goes swamp mix diamond hymn. What does the hymn hit? My two lands of course! I miss like two land drops, and by the point I'm actually in the game, he had so much board pressure I can't recover. Game 3 is pretty close, but he eventually resolves a mother of runes and a knight of the reliquary, which my gilded drake can't steal.

Third round I was paired vs Dreadstill. I am able to maintain board control and wittle his life total down to 4. Eventually though he is able to resolve a dreadnought and my grim lavamancer can't do anything because my basilisk collar was destroyed by an earlier engineered explosive. G2 is pretty back and forth but I eventually can't counter his top/counterbalance. Dreadnought follows after I am forced to break a standstill.

My results were very discouraging, but a few things: losing to Faeries is kind of expected, as I think they are the better tempo deck in this matchup. G2 getting blown out by a t1 hymn is just dumb luck. And Dreadstill is a deck made to take advantage of other blue decks, making it a potentially very rough matchup.

There were a bunch of aggro decks, including like 4 Merfolk players that day. I think if I got better matchups, I would have broken top 8, but a combination of bad luck and mediocre-at-best matchups made me lose.

Ironically, team America, the other deck i was considering for this tournament, ended up doing very well in the tournament. I left before seeing the finals, but it made it into the to 4.

[Plague Sliver]

So for the points you mentioned:

Pithing needle seems like a fine card, I just like all the value I got from collar when I played it before. I could certainly see it move to the board though, especially now that it's a bit more known.

I've also put in the 3rd clique for a fire/ice in my current 75. Since clique is my most favorite blue creature evar, I moved the count up, so one fire/ice got the ax.

I still think firespout should be played in the sideboard. The games you lose against tribal and other types of aggro are the ones where you get overrun a little too fast for point removal to handle. Things like trinket mage getting EE is just way to slow to deal with some aggro draws.

Submerge has been suggested a lot before, but I still think it's inferior to the other options. Basically, against stuff like junk with their own goyfs and KotR, getting their creature is sooo much more backbreaking then just a simple removal spell. If you submerge it in response to a fetch, sure you get rid of it for the time being, but the next one is just going to be beating to down. With gilded drake or mind harness, they have to either have an answer, or waste a valuable removal spell to make sure they don't die to their own creature. Also, if they know your running submerge, good players will just apply pressure and never fetch for anything. I've had matches were a stupid goyf was beating me down, and the submerge in my hand just sat there as my opponent never fetched for the rest of the game. Bottom line, submerge is good, a resolved gilded drake (especially with jace) is a blowout.

If you really feel too awkward about jace, then sure stick him in the sideboard. The difference between this deck and team america IMO is that our deck can deploy a few more ways to control the board against aggro (mostly lavamancer), and that lets us play better defense and set up a jace to take over the game. Also, jace has always been so insane for me whenever I cast it, so I don't think I'd ever move him to the sideboard.

My 2 cents

I also think Clique is a fine creature and I'm never disappointed to draw him. It's always good to have the 3 power evasion. I've tried convincing nitewolf (Dan) to run Cliques, but he just plain does not believe in the card. Even in his build of Countertop he runs Knight over Clique. I think it's because Team America runs more disruption in the form of Hymn-Hymn-I-Win, or because it used to run Thoughtseize, I don't know. I think TA is just spoiled by having a 5/5 flyer for BB :)

Digression aside, I think I understand what you mean about still keeping the Firespouts in as an option. I am finding in my testing against Zoo that I do have those games where Zoo gets a good start and I find it hard to recover. Especially when they have their own Lavamancers to push damage through those Goyf vs. Goyf standoffs. I suppose this means that I can sideboard out the Trinket Mage/Explosives package against them and just sub in 3 Firespouts or something to swing it in my favor.

Do you tend to side out the same cards out vs. Zoo? Do you side out Cliques and/or Jace?

I'm just curious how you would sideboard vs. the aggro decks of the format.

[chinEsE girl]

The current way the deck is set up, I end up siding out my cliques and putting in the firespouts and the one mind harness. Obviously gilded drake isn't very good when you trade a KotR then get beat for 3 in the air and die to rando burn spells. The jaces I found are too awesome against zoo to take out, they really do a great job closing out the game. Without something like counterbalance lock or a way to gain life (outside of collar), jace is great because, with the way I play, I always find a point to resolve him while my opponent has nothing on board, plus 2 him on them, keep em off burn, and just win the game from there. And if they do have the burn spell(s) to kill him, that's 5 or 6 life you gain that turn. And at that point in the game, you have things like ponder and brainstorm to get to your business, while they have the top of their deck only. Idk, the only times I find myself losing to zoo is when I get run over really fast and don't get to turn 5 or 6. The games that I do get to the mid-late game I win about 90-95% of them.

[jazzykat]

Without something like counterbalance lock or a way to gain life (outside of collar), jace is great because, with the way I play, I always find a point to resolve him while my opponent has nothing on board, plus 2 him on them, keep em off burn, and just win the game from there. .

Interesting thoughts, in my very limited experience I find myself winning with an expended hand and have never cast Jace TM. This deck felt much more like a tempo deck wtih less "tempo(ey)" cards that I ever would have thought.

[Bignasty197]

Small 8 man tourney today. I went 3-0 with the same list I posted a few days ago.

Round 1 vs Mark with Mono Red Sligh 2-1
I lost game 1 badly to 2 PoP and no counterspells left. Games 2 and 3 were nail biters with me being at 2 and 7 life respectively.

Round 2 vs Dredge 2-1. (Forgot the Guy's name)
He smashes me on his second turn for 18 and I scoop. Game 2 I get Relic going as he tries to slow dredge and beat him down with Clique and Goyf. Game 3 he Therapys my relic away after he dredges away half of his deck with no Narcomoebas showing up. All 4 Bridges and 3 Dread Returns were in his yard when I topdeck Trinket Mage to fetch Tormod's Crypt and win.

Round 3 vs ANT 2-0
Game 1 we both mull to 6 and he can't get anything going after I Clique away his Burning Wish and proceed to bash with an equipped Collar. Game 2 he plays a turn 1 Xantid Swarm and I stifle his turn 2 fetchland. I drop an EE at 0 so he can't lay down his artifact mana with out risk. I waste his last land and we play draw go for a few turns until he plays 2 Petals. I blow EE and he cracks the Petals in response but enters combat and loses the mana. When he realizes what he did, he concedes.

This was a decent warm up for the 5K tomorrow so hopefully the deck won't crap out on me when it counts. I will be switching the SB around to better suit the occasion.
SB-
2 Firespout
2 Spell Pierce
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Mind Harness
2 Krosan Grip
1 Pyroblast
1 Gilded Drake
1 Null Rod
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus

[chinEsE girl]

In case anybody had any concerns about this deck being real, I think the Jupiter games tournament was proof that the deck is some sick shit. Both myself and wweenieking top 8'd on Saturday in the 100 person 40 & 40 tournament, and today wwking, his friend, and my friend who I lent my whole 75 to blind all top 8'd. They were also the only 3 people in the room playing the deck (only 34 people in the tourney today though). The only NLT player to lose in the quarters was my friend, who was in fact playing the 72ish card mirror. I didn't get to see what happened to both NLT players in the semis though.

[wweenieking]

Ok, so I'm driving home and just wrote a whole report and it got deleted when I hit a bump and somehow hit next thread instead of post. So in frustration I'm going to make this quick. My board change was -1 grip for +1 loam which is really good in the bad matchups. Sat I went 6-1 in the swiss only losing 3 games but lost in the top 8 vs food chain elves. Sunday I WON the scg invitational with my friend scooping to me in the finals. My record in the swiss was 4-1-1 but faced the 2 rock decks in the room. This deck is very solid right now, good job designing it guys.

Also, that sucks you didn't watch top 4 vs higginbottom today eric because it was the closest and sickest games. I don't believe he made one mistake and I had to play insane here to pull it out, which I did.

And 1 more thing, thank you to my round 6 opponent today (not sure if your on the source) but we would have drawn, but he scooped to me as his car wanted to leave after a long weekend and my car was in the top 8 so I had to stay anyways. And the 3 of us in my car (one playing this deck) all made top 4 so it was awesome. But once again thank you.

[Tammit67]

It was a pleasure meeting you Eric.

I'm not entirely sold on collar, but with all the BS running amok I do think it is necessary. Congrats on top 8'ing, both of you!

[chinEsE girl]

Alright make that two top 8's saturday, and three top 8's on sunday WITH the win as well!

So yeah I'm pretty excited to see this deck get some more play, seems that everyone who runs it really likes the list.

[Koby]

I have had minor success with EE/Loam/Intuition as a recurring late-game control setup. It also allowed me to board into Shackles vs Zoo and the like. I run this in my tempo builds:

(main)
1 Life from the Loam
1 Intuition
1 Academy Ruins
2 EE

(side)
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Tormod's Crypt

[Equinozio]

Alright make that two top 8's saturday, and three top 8's on sunday WITH the win as well!

So yeah I'm pretty excited to see this deck get some more play, seems that everyone who runs it really likes the list.

The list is so sick and the meta is just the right. And no-auto loosing with a blue deck to merfolks is just sick.

[greater_maro]

I think that it was love at first sight when I first glanced at this deck when Eric English piloted it to 3rd place @ SCG Legacy Open Edison. After that I started acquiring remaining cards to list, but keycomponents were missing (2 Tropical and 4 Tarmogoyfs). Until saturday morning before tournament I was picking my mate from bus station and we went to a coffeeshop to fine tune our lists for days Legacy tournament. I was planning playing with Dreadstill, but then my friend asked that can he borrow my tezzerets for tournament and I was pretty sure then that I could have his Tarmogoyfs and Tropicals for the tournament and here is the list, basically same as English list but few sideboard changes:

2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Engineered Explosives
4x Stifle
3x Spell Snare
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Fire /// Ice
4x Force of Will
3x Grim Lavamancer
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Trinket Mage
2x Ponder
4x Brainstorm

4x Wasteland
3x Volcanic Island
3x Tropical Island
1x Mountain
2x Island
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest

Sideboard:
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Krosan Grip
2x Pyroblast
2x Firespout
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Tormod's Crypt
3x Spell Pierce
1x Pithing Needle
1x Mind Harness
1x Echoing Truth

I went 4-1 with this list. Winning Belcher 2-0, Dredge 2-0, Mirror 2-0 and GW aggro 2-0, losing only to Dragonstompy which I would have won if I wouldn't been so sleepy. Chalice@1, in my turn I play Engineered Explosives@1. Goshh.
Although I'm pretty happy with the list, Fire/Ice is good as 3-of, and IMO Clique is fine as 2-of. Sideboard was quickly made and I didn't have Null Rod's or Gilded Drake so I added EE and ETruth, Mind harness is waste of slot imo. What comes to Lavamancer and Basilisk Collar, once I had Lavamancer equiped with collar and it was insane. Twice I had Tarmogoyf with Collar and it was even more sicker than Lavamancer with collar. In Legacy Lavamancer kills almost everything so I think basilisk collar isn't needed but it is good to be there. Never regreted to draw it.

[mchainmail]

Twice I had Tarmogoyf with Collar and it was even more sicker than Lavamancer with collar. In Legacy Lavamancer kills almost everything so I think basilisk collar isn't needed but it is good to be there. Never regreted to draw it.

You're still going to have issues with Knight of the Reliquary though...

[Equinozio]

I always played in the sideboard an ancient grudge. And now I think is more needed. Lots of stoneforge mystics, kuldotha MUD and the news affinity.

I think I'll make space for one ancient grudge and one more mind harness.

[chinEsE girl]

After sleeping on the results of the weekend, a few things I noticed, in no particular order;

Ancient Grudge might be good enough to side board again: With all the affinity as well as the increased popularity of stoneforge mystic (as well as things like jitte in some rock lists) ancient grudge might find its way back into the sideboard. My original list almost a year ago ran one in the sideboard, and it was pretty cool, but after a while I was just like "I would rather have null rod" and so I made that change. Only problem is with collar and explosives, you don't want null rod out at the same time as those. So ancient grudge will work it's way into my sideboard somehow. Probably in place of a grip, which recently has been very underwhelming with the lack of counterbalance. Also, ancient grudge is good at getting rid of pithing needles and chalice of the voids, while null rod doesn't quite do the trick.

Life from the Loam most likely deserves a spot in the sideboard: As wweenieking attested, the card is sweet against deck where wasteland can take them out of the game. As well, it gets around discard and permanent destruction, which was the problem with crucible. I really wish that I could of had one in my top 8 match saturday when I played against 12 post, although I sadly wouldn't of even gotten a chance to use it since I had a deck reg error and got a game loss, followed by losing game "2" and not getting a chance to sideboard ever. LftL is also good against midrange decks like junk where a loam and wasteland can keep them off mana so long as you save stifles to deal with their fetches.

Pithing Needle is very solid out of the sideboard: When I gave my 75 to friendly Phil Stolze on sunday, I made the change of 1 null rod for 1 pithing needle to see how it would work out (all the affinity and countertop thopters from the previous day weren't there). I just wanted to see how effective needle would be, and Phil said it worked well in many situations. There was one game in particular where he was pretty much dead on board to a dark confidant equiped with jitte, as well as TWO active moms on the board, but worked his way out of the situation by using EE to get rid of bob and the jitte, then seaching for needle and keeping the moms from losing him the game. I'm not sure if needle should find it's way into the maindeck, since there are plenty of times where I don't really need it, but I would really like to have it in the sideboard from now on. It would be especially nice to be able to have it against vial decks to give yourself a quick and easy answer to goblins and merfolk, and to a shorter extant death/green and taxes.

So with these findings in mind, this is what I'm going to have in my sideboard for the time being

3 Spell Pierce
2 REB/pyroblast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Mind Harness
2 Gilded Drake
1 Life from the Loam
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt

The flexible slots would be some of the REBs, the drakes, and the crypt. It pretty much depends on if you're confident there aren't many graveyard based strategies (better for smaller tournaments), if there is alot or only a little KotR in the room, and how much blue is being played. In all honesty, I really wish I could sideboard 16, since that would make things so much easier with the REB count moving back up to 3. For the time being though I'm going to try this configuation out and see how it works.

Also, one last side note; sorry greater_maro to hear about dragon stompy being the only deck you lost to in your tournament. For those of you who don't know, dragon stompy is actually one of your best possibly matchups, about as good as the belcher matchup. You removal kills all their dudes, their blood moons are really shitty against you (you can't play goyf but you can play every other spell in your deck, seems fine to me), and they have no answer to vendillion clique. All in all every card in your deck is fantastic against them, and after sideboard things just get more awesome. I've played the match IRL about 6 times or so, and every time it's been a 2-0 blowout, with none of the games being close. It's too bad magic is a game of variance, and even you can still lose to your 80-20 matchups once in a while

[Tammit67]

Got a tournament Saturday, so I was testing a stock list with 6ish cards different. The trinketmages became terravores, and without mages, I subbed the EE and collar for dazes. I dropped the lavamancer count to 2 and upped clique to a three of. The testing went pretty well, the goblins matchup was not affected much by these changes, except vore can't be chumped so well.

Terravore is a great beater that is supplemented by the land denial strategy. I'm just worried he is a little too mana (color or total cost) intensive for this deck. I was testing 1 of each basic to try to mitigate the need for double trop to cast him, and haven't had that much of a problem.

[chinEsE girl]

Be sure to let us know how the deck runs in your saturday tournament. Terravore was something I considered a long time ago as another green beater to hang out alongside goyf, but the double green really turned me off to it, since otherwise the manabase is solid as a rock. He does seem like a good way go big, and will almost certainly be bigger than any KotR on the table (so long as you don't attack into an active knight and then they get bojuka bog for the blowout; seriously make sure you don't for that).

[Equinozio]

This sunday I'll play the sideevent at the Gp at barna.

I like your sideboard except for the life from the loam. I don't know if I'll play the crucible, loam or the second grip that seems fine to me.

[Tammit67]

Be sure to let us know how the deck runs in your saturday tournament. Terravore was something I considered a long time ago as another green beater to hang out alongside goyf, but the double green really turned me off to it, since otherwise the manabase is solid as a rock. He does seem like a good way go big, and will almost certainly be bigger than any KotR on the table (so long as you don't attack into an active knight and then they get bojuka bog for the blowout; seriously make sure you don't for that).

I've watched my friend Allen blow out others with B. Bog, I'll be sure to at least have a stifle.

If a lot of people end up with rock, though, I'm liable to just switch back to combo.

[mchainmail]

This sunday I'll play the sideevent at the Gp at barna.

I like your sideboard except for the life from the loam. I don't know if I'll play the crucible, loam or the second grip that seems fine to me.

Loam is amazing. Seriously. It's a recurrable draw 3 for 2. And insane with Jace.

[Tammit67]

Loam is amazing. Seriously. It's a recurrable draw 3 for 2. And insane with Jace.

I really like crucible though. Without a way to get non lands out of the yard, loam just seems awkward as a constant mana investment. I wouldn't be happy to see one of my 12 threats get dredged, unless you are still running manlands.

And everything is good with Jace.

[mchainmail]

I really like crucible though. Without a way to get non lands out of the yard, loam just seems awkward as a constant mana investment. I wouldn't be happy to see one of my 12 threats get dredged, unless you are still running manlands.

And everything is good with Jace.


You only need to resolve Loam like twice for it to matter, really. Crucible getting countered is a pretty big tempo swing for the deck too, while Loam is one less mana and allows other spells to be cast alongside it.

Also, milling relevant cards is a logical fallacy; your deck is so big (relatively) that you aren't going to mill every win condition; you'll just draw more at some point in the game.

[Tammit67]

You only need to resolve Loam like twice for it to matter, really. Crucible getting countered is a pretty big tempo swing for the deck too, while Loam is one less mana and allows other spells to be cast alongside it.
One fewer mana, you mean ;)
I really want recurring lands against other tempo decks, landstill, and CB. Tapping mana each turn/playing a spell each turn is bad against UGx tempo and CB respectively, ie the only situation I really want loam is against landstill. Crucible's CMC 3 is nice against CB, it only having to be cast once means I can set up a turn to play it safely against the other two.

And I really don't want another card that gets hosed by tormod's crypt. At least with crucible, I don't have to play around it getting crypted.



Also, milling relevant cards is a logical fallacy; your deck is so big (relatively) that you aren't going to mill every win condition; you'll just draw more at some point in the game.

Oh, so you picked up on that? The problem is that that is one fewer in your deck, which is a problem since we a creature light. But it really an issue since that is one fewer answer my opponent has to have for my threats. It is not that much of a concern, just irks me.

[Koby]

RE: recursion
Play Academy Ruins, and throw in a few utility artifacts (replacing Collar and/or Top for instance). Recurring EE also allows you gives you inevitability, especially with Jace. The only problem is that playing a 3 color deck you're limited to only destroying 3CC or below permanents. This means you can't snipe opposing Jaces, Elspeth, Moat, etc

I made a note of this strategy in the previous page, and that gave me a lot of utility vs Painter/Welder, and in the mirror vs other Tempo decks. Being able to make land drops every turn, or getting 3 Wastelands is very useful in the last tournament I attended.

I threw in 1 Intuition to the deck as well, to provide added setup, or the ability to tutor for FoW in clutch situations.

[talon7331]

mchainmail's algorithm for what to post on any particular deck:

Does it run green? -no?-> Post something really stupid. yes? -> Proceed to next step.
Does it run loam md? yes? -> Suggest more copies of loam. repeat step 2 until 4 copies in MD -no? -> proceed to next step.
Does it run loam in the board? Yes? ->Suggest moving loam to MD then go to step 2. No? -> Suggest adding loam to the sb then repeat step three.

Regardless of steps 1-3, post something about a recurrable draw 3 for 2 mana with no regard for what other things the deck might want to spend its mana on, and suggest insane synergy with other cards (jace, brainstorm, exploration, manabond, blah)

[mchainmail]

mchainmail's algorithm for what to post on any particular deck:

Does it run green? -no?-> Post something really stupid. yes? -> Proceed to next step.
Does it run loam md? yes? -> Suggest more copies of loam. repeat step 2 until 4 copies in MD -no? -> proceed to next step.
Does it run loam in the board? Yes? ->Suggest moving loam to MD then go to step 2. No? -> Suggest adding loam to the sb then repeat step three.

Regardless of steps 1-3, post something about a recurrable draw 3 for 2 mana with no regard for what other things the deck might want to spend its mana on, and suggest insane synergy with other cards (jace, brainstorm, exploration, manabond, blah)

I'm not saying Loam is generically good. Also, the second copy seems abysmal; I haven't suggested anything in that vein. However, in some matchups (Junk, Thresh, etc) it can be extremely powerful. It also doesn't get hit by discard or permanent-based removal that Junk plays a lot of. Let's be honest, even though the deck is called "Threshold" people aren't bringing in graveyard hate against it.

Bottom Line: If you're looking for a way to shore up the Knight of the Reliquary matchups, this seems like a perfectly fine way of doing so.

[Tammit67]

I'm not saying Loam is generically good. Also, the second copy seems abysmal; I haven't suggested anything in that vein. However, in some matchups (Junk, Thresh, etc) it can be extremely powerful. It also doesn't get hit by discard or permanent-based removal that Junk plays a lot of. Let's be honest, even though the deck is called "Threshold" people aren't bringing in graveyard hate against it.

Bottom Line: If you're looking for a way to shore up the Knight of the Reliquary matchups, this seems like a perfectly fine way of doing so.

If mana disruption were a good way of shutting down someone focusing on KotR, than Lands would have a good New Horizons matchup without having to rely on them fucking up or cursed totem.

[wweenieking]

Loam is much better than crucible in the matchups we want it. What happens if the hymm us? Or thoughtsieze us? Or counter it? Or vindicate it? Loam isn't affected by any of those cards. Plus loam with brainstorm or jace is amazing.

[Zamussels]

Bottom Line: If you're looking for a way to shore up the Knight of the Reliquary matchups, this seems like a perfectly fine way of doing so.

A lot of KotR decks are playing Bojuka Bog main... won't this just make it a bigger blowout for them?

[wweenieking]

You can always stifle the bog trigger and if they have knight in play there's bigger issues to deal with than are they going to bog you. Every deck has an answer one way or another for crucible, where as its not the same for loam.

[Chikenbok]

Well, I finally came to what I consider to be (speaking so far) my perfect 75. It's been unbelievably consistent so, yeah.. here she is:

Maindeck: 60

// Creatures - 13
3 x Grim Lavamancer
4 x Tarmogoyf
2 x Terravore
2 x Trinket Mage
2 x Vendillion Clique

// Artifact - 2
1 x Basilisk Collar
1 x Engineered Explosives

// Instant - 23
4 x Brainstorm
3 x Fire // Ice
4 x Lightning Bolt
4 x Force of Will
4 x Spell Snare
4 x Stifle

// Land - 19
2 x Flooded Strand
1 x Island
2 x Misty Rainforest
1 x Mountain
3 x Scalding Tarn
3 x Tropical Island
3 x Volcanic Island
4 x Wasteland

// Sorcery - 3
3 x Ponder

// Sideboard - 15
2 x Pithing Needle
1 x Relic of Progenitus
1 x Tormod's Crypt
2 x Mind Harness
1 x Ancient Grudge
1 x Krosan grip
2 x Pryoblast
2 x Red Elemental Blast
3 x Spell Pierce

Thats right folks.. I don't run Jace.

[mchainmail]

If mana disruption were a good way of shutting down someone focusing on KotR, than Lands would have a good New Horizons matchup without having to rely on them fucking up or cursed totem.

It's not man's disruption, although stifle, waste, countering diamonds can win it. Instead you have resiliency against their wasteland effects.

[wweenieking]

It's not man's disruption, although stifle, waste, countering diamonds can win it. Instead you have resiliency against their wasteland effects.

Exactly!

[Tammit67]

Thats right folks.. I don't run Jace.
I think you are crazy, but I like the list.


It's not man's(what are you saying here?) disruption, although stifle, waste, countering diamonds can win it. Instead you have resiliency against their wasteland effects.

Crucible does the same thing. And I don't have to pay for it all the damn time.

If I cannot land a 3 mana artifact against wastelands, I don't deserve to play this deck.

[Chikenbok]

I think you are crazy, but I like the list.



I might be crazy but I also don't enjoy tapping 4 mana for.. well.. anything.. I'd rather just deal with problems by smashing things into my opponents face or countering their big problems.

[mchainmail]

I think you are crazy, but I like the list.



Crucible does the same thing. And I don't have to pay for it all the damn time.

If I cannot land a 3 mana artifact against wastelands, I don't deserve to play this deck.

mana. New phone + autocorrect. Regardless, after Hymns, Thoughtseize and god knows what else, it's nice to be able to recover.

[Jim Higginbottom]

You can always stifle the bog trigger and if they have knight in play there's bigger issues to deal with than are they going to bog you. Every deck has an answer one way or another for crucible, where as its not the same for loam.

why wouldn't you stifle the kngiht activation?

[betterthenandrew]

why wouldn't you stifle the kngiht activation?

Then they just do it again next turn? They will land a bog eventually.

[Tammit67]

Be sure to let us know how the deck runs in your saturday tournament.

Deck ran fine, though terravore is very clunky.

I went 0-2 drop after hitting Enchantress and Dragon Stompy. Against Enchantress, I forced a rune halo, which let him set up an enchantress effect on turn 7, and he eventually stablized at 1. I was never in game two after a mulligan, city of solitude, elephant grass, etc. Missing land drops like a boss.

Dragon Stompy opponent gets a deck reg. error and loses game one. No board, but I know what he is playing. Mull to six finds me some countermagic at least. I stifle a chrome mox, but he goes seething song, precursor golem. I'm stuck on 2 lands, and ice it down twice to draw 3, but the 7 cards I saw didn't yield a third land or a bolt. Pit Dragon swings over head. Next game, mull again to 6, and stare down a chalice on 1. I top deck spell snare, he goes goyf, dragon, RAkroma, morph, and I can only kill 2 of the three golems with bolt.

I don't consider either of these to be good matchups, but I could have been more aggressive with mulliganing. The rest of the field was merfolk and goblins with some affinity and combo and Team America. (Why do you consider D stompy to be good for us?)

[chinEsE girl]

Reasons why every time I've played against dragon stompy, I've smashed it's face in:

All our removal is live against them, even though bloodmoon (bolt is obviously awesome, fire deals with some things but firespout after sideboard helps even more)
Bloodmoon isn't that big of a deal, so long as you just fetch two basic islands. They have next to no outs for either clique or jace in play.
They're a stompy deck, so hands with force of will just mean you can wait for them to spend a ton of mana, then just counter their one threat and burn the other.

I mean, I don't know how both you and others on this thread have lost to dragon stompy, their plan versus blue is usually blood moon, but we actually don't give a shit about blood moon if you just fetch correctly. One of these days I'll have one of my friends test this matchup with me, and I'll see what the real percentages are.

[Chikenbok]

Reasons why every time I've played against dragon stompy, I've smashed it's face in:

All our removal is live against them, even though bloodmoon (bolt is obviously awesome, fire deals with some things but firespout after sideboard helps even more)
Bloodmoon isn't that big of a deal, so long as you just fetch two basic islands. They have next to no outs for either clique or jace in play.
They're a stompy deck, so hands with force of will just mean you can wait for them to spend a ton of mana, then just counter their one threat and burn the other.

I mean, I don't know how both you and others on this thread have lost to dragon stompy, their plan versus blue is usually blood moon, but we actually don't give a shit about blood moon if you just fetch correctly. One of these days I'll have one of my friends test this matchup with me, and I'll see what the real percentages are.

Oh Eric.. I couldn't have put it better myself.

Let the bloody blood moon resolve, send some burn at their face, force their hard hitters, beat with clique, win the game.

[Tammit67]

Reasons why every time I've played against dragon stompy, I've smashed it's face in:

All our removal is live against them, even though bloodmoon (bolt is obviously awesome, fire deals with some things but firespout after sideboard helps even more)
Bloodmoon isn't that big of a deal, so long as you just fetch two basic islands. They have next to no outs for either clique or jace in play.
They're a stompy deck, so hands with force of will just mean you can wait for them to spend a ton of mana, then just counter their one threat and burn the other.

I mean, I don't know how both you and others on this thread have lost to dragon stompy, their plan versus blue is usually blood moon, but we actually don't give a shit about blood moon if you just fetch correctly. One of these days I'll have one of my friends test this matchup with me, and I'll see what the real percentages are.

Well, yeah Force is amazing. But they rarely keep a hand without a lock piece and a threat (or they are doing it wrong). Chalice is insane against us, moon can get set up before we have a chance to fetch, trini just rapes. And don't think they have to spend everything in one go; Often you see permanent mana sources really going the distance like chrome mox or stompy lands.

We can't always mulligan to countermagic and burn and a clock. And god forbid we are on the play. I'm not saying it is a horrendeous matchup for us, not at all, but I don't think it is what I would hope to see round after round.

[chinEsE girl]

Alright, well everything considered dragon stompy has some good plays, but I've never had to deal with two games worth of them.

In fact, I got to play against a dragon stompy player in my local legacy tourney, and I actually got my first ever game lose versus the deck. In that game the only reason I lost was I thought his morph was a gathan raiders, and he had a one turn window where he used seething song to flip his akroma (he had trinisphere out, so my force of will didn't work at that moment). I even still had plenty of outs, just needing to draw a second burn spell to kill his akroma, but sadly I couldn't rip it or a cantrip to try and find one. The other games involved me playing either jace and crushing him with it, or playing a few goyfs, forcing one creature, and then burning the other to stomp him. Except for the one game where he managed to get a seething song to resolve and flip his akroma, I was in control the whole time. I still stand by my assesment that dragon stompy is one of our best matchups in the metagame, and I personally would love to play the deck every round for the rest of time. I'm pretty sure I'd go 90-10 or something silly like that.

[monzo]

Hi guys,
last saturday I played here in Vancouver in a GP trial (providence).
I was debating what to play, then I decided to play the list that chinese girl took to Edison (other
than the filter lands, obviously).
Anyway, I made top 8, the deck performed amazingly well. It was clearly awesome.
round 1 vs merfolks:
I heard people saying that merfolks is one of the best deck in legacy....
..well...not against this deck...
game 1...he was playing his dudes..I was just burning them, fire them, waste them, lavamancer them..you name it..easy win
game 2...I sb in 2 firespout...it was a massacre..2-0
round 2 vs elves:
game 1: I dug like hell...almost nothing..he managed to resolve NO for progenitus..i scooped;
game 2: as it supposed to go..no chance for him 1-1;
game 3: same as game 1..1-2;
Round 3 vs ANT
game 1..I wasted 3 of his lands in a row in the first 3 turns..he didnt draw lands for other 4 turns..when he went off he tried to resolve infernal tutor (with LED onthe stack..and 5 mana left) he got spell snare he scooped;
game 2: turn 2 he tried to go off, I FOW his mana accel, turn 4 clique I made him put on the bottom 'silence' he drew burning wish, he had only one land (I wasted another one) he scooped..2-0
Round 4 vs Affinity:
here in my sb I had 2 null rod and 2 hurkyl's recall (recall is no longer in sb although it worked just fine)
game 1: he went off turn 2..no chance for me 0-1
game 2: turn 3 null rod for me after FOW his dudes..he scooped...he mull to 5 though..1-1
game 3: turn 2 null rod..he smiled at me..and he scooped..2-1
Round 5 vs zoo..friend of mine..we draw.no matter what both in top8;3-1-1
top8:me vs zoo (my friend again)
game 1: I got mana screw..2 lands for like 7-8 turns (1 wasteland, 1 trop) my hand was basically red
game 2: I got mana screw again 2 lands for 5 turns, the 3rd land I hit was a wasteland (1 already in play), no double U, no fetch..shit happens
0-2 out of tournament..my friend ended up winning the tournament in the final against Junk.
my sb for the tournament was:
2 krosan grip
2 null rod
2 hurkyl's recall
1 tormod's crypt
1 relic of progenitus
1 pyroblast
1 REB
2 firespout
3 spell pierce
I think I made the mistake about recall...not needed..1 mind harness and 1 drake were more useful against KOTR in my opinion.
I am thinking to put 1 grudge in sb and cut 1 fire/ice for 1 more clique. what do you guys think?
Thanks