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Shriekmaw
01-01-2008, 01:05 PM
Bad Player - Mongoose, go
Good Player - Fetchland, Ponder, go
Bad Player - Goyf, Daze, One you, go
Good Player - Top, go
Bad Player - Burning Tree, one you, go
Good Player - Goyf, go




I have a big problem with the above statement.

First, just because you lead off with a land and a mongoose doesn't mean that it the most terrible play. I believe this deck is an aggro-control archetype.

Second, your hand dictates your play most of the time. It is very rarely that your hand is really good that you have both situations available to you.


What happens if you play counterbalance and it gets countered. I think you lose, since your play is based on 1 card resolving. That is not very smart magic in my book.

In the mirror, going first turn mongoose is almost the correct play, unless you have top or thoughtseize in your opening hand.

Michael Keller
01-01-2008, 01:14 PM
If you play a Nimble Mongoose turn one in the mirror, you are immediately putting your opponent on the defensive because they are well aware you can get seven cards in the yard relatively quickly and the more pressure you drop, the harder it is to combat.

Adan
01-01-2008, 01:31 PM
Are we talking about the Red Threshold mirror right now? If so, then you assume both players have the exact same chance at drawing/player Goyfs on turn two (which incidentally, shut off all other creatures except Dragon and each other.) Here would be an example;

Bad Player - Mongoose, go
Good Player - Fetchland, Ponder, go
Bad Player - Goyf, Daze, One you, go
Good Player - Top, go
Bad Player - Burning Tree, one you, go
Good Player - Goyf, go

Now at this point in the game, if the good player drops a Counterbalance, there is no way for them to lose. Really. You would have a one turn window where you could kill off their Goyf, and then you would die, simply because they can ramp up creatures, and you will never resolve a spell the rest of the game (unless it's more Useless-Tree Shaman!). This is not an E-Peen I have to be right, this is me utterly confused why you would destroy your mirror MU for the sake of running Trash. (Also, against Survival, Landstill, ever deck that has Tendrils of Agony, Fish, and basicly decks that run good cards, Counterbalance will defend about half of what you're worried about).

Unless it's more Useless-tree Shaman? So they indeed do something. Another own goal, since CounterTop is a manaintensive softlock and it will ping you everytime you use it. More Burning Tree Shamans won't get countered by Balance and then we reach the point where it sucks to use the engine.

Against Landstill and Survival, I doubt that the Engine protects you well since they both run deed, Wrath of God, Harmonic Sliver, Loxodon Hierarchs, Eternal Witness and... things you will worry about. :laugh:
The engine now really needs a very good timing against Survival.

And I really see no reason to play a worse maindeck (NQGr /w Balance) when there's already a build that's better at it's role (NQGw /w Balance). You just have Pyroclasms for the Goblin Matchup, but you are weaker in the mirror match against white Threshold.

I have an idea, why don't we play some rounds on MWS?

edit: A Legend got it right. Pressure-Argument! Pressure wins, not the engine since it doesn't make pressure onto the opponent. In this case it just clarifies that you are in a defensive position. What if the bad player in that scenario FoWs your Goyf? Right, then you lose.

chokin
01-01-2008, 01:51 PM
Dragon is obviously better than any of the previous creatures I listed. My bad for not remembering. But the idea behind BTS was that he didn't rely on having Threshold. Being Crypted and having 1/1 untargetables and a significantly shrunk Goyf is no fun. a 3/4 no matter what is not bad. It helps against SDT, Survival, Wasteland, etc. In my meta, it's great. It is a beater regardless of them having a Tormod's Crypt or Jotun Grunt.

@GS - Playing a first turn goose is NOT a bad play if there's not much else to do. You're putting things into such a narrow situation. Early pressure and that BTS you mentioned basically shuts out the Top out from the CB/Top combo. BTS helps in other matchups...not as much the mirror, but it sure as hell becomes a must counter/kill card when the mirror uses Top. And BTS is a 3cc creature...I'm pretty sure that revealing a 3cc card is not going to be too easy in Thresh, making him something that can slide through CB. But then again, so can the Dragon. But then that brings up the issue of GY hate again. I wanted my deck to be able to win regardless of having 7+ cards in my graveyard because believe it or not, I play against Tormod's Crypt a lot.

Everyone has a different meta. Adjust accordingly.

Goblin Snowman
01-01-2008, 03:12 PM
Adan - Will gladly do so run MWS against you. Set a time sometime and we'll see how it works out. 10 Preboard, 10 Postboard, both agree to mention which won the games?

No, playing a turn one Mongoose is a good play. I was showing that even with an agressive start, your gameplan is nullified by the other player playing a Goyf. or Dragon. And if they back that up with a Counterbalance, you will lose in spectacular fashion.

If you don't believe me, listen to Volt, Hatfields, Lego-Army Man, and the other regulars. They will all tell you you're idiots for not running these cards.

Obfuscate Freely
01-01-2008, 03:33 PM
Ah, so you indeed need 3 turns where you can't do anyhing else but being affixed to get the engine together, right? It won't stop Burning Tree Shaman or Vedalken Shackles to resolve. The actual gamewinnign cards will still resolve through it. And Force of Wll is actually one of them.
I agree to the extent that the combo is potentially game-winning in the mirror, but you need both those cards, untapped lands, and some sort of threat on board to get it going early and sometimes un-targetable creatures work well against Swords (or Bolt, depending on which version you play).
What happens if you play counterbalance and it gets countered. I think you lose, since your play is based on 1 card resolving. That is not very smart magic in my book.

What you guys seem to be having trouble understanding is that we are still talking about a mirror match. Both players are playing similar decks, with similar threats and similar ways of finding and protecting those threats.

Sure, if one player resolves win conditions, and then counters all of his opponent's attempts to stabilize, he will win the game. That is true whether Counterbalance is involved or not. It's true in almost any game of Magic. So, yes, if you "make pressure" that your opponent is incapable of answering, you will win. This is a given, and hardly relevant to the evaluation of Counterbalance.

What we have, then, is a clash of extremely similar decks, wherein both players will attempt to establish a superior board position through the use of a similar set of tools. However, one of the players has access to Counterbalance, a two-mana card that shuts off ~50 cards in the opponent's deck.

Does anybody here want to venture a guess as to what UGr Thresh's win percentage against my CaNGD entry might be? I haven't tested it yet:

4x Force of Will
3x Burning Tree Shaman
3x Vedalkan Shackles

33x Blinkmoth Infusion

17x land

I'm pretty sure it'll be favorable, but I might make room for some Repeals if I need to.


So there's still no advantage of playing counterbalanced Red Thresh over counterbalanced White ***** since the white variant can do the control part better than Red Thresh. Playing Counterbalance means that you are control-oriented.

This is painfully irrelevant to the discussion. We're discussing Counterbalance in UGr Thresh, not UGw Thresh.

UGr Thresh really is better with Counterbalance in it. UGw Thresh might be a better deck, still, but that doesn't mean you should avoid running Counterbalance in UGr in the first place. It means you should just put the Volcanic Islands back in your binder.


Extremely stupid arguments, since the same is true for the Dragon and there's no advantage the Dragon has to offer over Burning tree Shaman which at least DOES something that is uncomfortable for those matchups. Ah, I just noticed that Dragon is also the worst cardchoice against Shriekmaw since Mystic Enforcer has still got Protection from Black, so he can't be targeted by Shriekmaw and Ghastly Demise in the mirror, but Dragon can. I suggest you think about the validity of your arguments before downplaying other things and get own goals afterwards.

I'm confused. Which cardchoice are you advocating? The one that is invulnerable to Shriekmaw and Ghastly Demise? What does that have to do with Mystic Enforcer?

I understand that Fledgling Dragon shares Burning-Tree's vulnerability to Terror-effects, but at least it gets the job done a hell of a lot quicker. I mean, BTS won't even get to attack against Survival decks, because it's a fucking 3/4.

raharu
01-02-2008, 06:24 AM
Consider this list, drafted off the top of my head for the sake of arguement:

Creatures: 11
Nimble Mongoose x4
Tarmogoyf x4
Burning-Tree Shaman x3

Control: 12
Red Elemental Blast/ Hydroblast (what's difference?) x2
Daze x3
Counterspell x3
Force of Will x4

Removal: 8
Lightning Bolt x4 (this card still oozes with power)
Magma Jet x2
Valkden shackles x2

Cantrips: 12
Brainstorm x4
Ponder x4
whatever x4 (this really should be Serum Visions, but whatever)

Lands: 17
6 Fetch
8 duals
3 basics

Sideboard: 15
Pithing Needle x2
Engineered Explosives x3
Fledgling Dragon x2 (for REB's in the mirror???)
Crypts x2
Krosan Grip x3
BEB/ Hyrdoblast x3
(just BSing the sideboard here)

Note: I had no idea what should have gone in the REB/ Magma Jet slots off the top of my head, so you can pretty much ignore them.

Minimized Fetchlands, a good number of burn (prolly should have more) and some bombs that evade Counterbalance. This is a fairly solid deck, all without Counterbalance. White is thresh's control color, red is the agro color, and this reflected because the inclusion of Counterbalance really would weaken this deck. This build doesn't care about Counterbalance and will jack your Dragons/ Encorfers/ Tarmogoyfs if need be without breaking a sweat. In all verity, Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top is a bad idea here that takes up too many slots, eats a hell of a lot of mana, is disynergistic with BTS (which is a quite solid beater, although not like 'Goyf), and simply slows down the deck.

NQGr is a deck that likes to win relatively fast, using quick tempo, reach and fast creatures for a quicker clock than white thresh or other agro-control decks.

Burning-Tree Shaman goes a long way towards this role (as does Valkeden Shaclkes, which is why it's still here with BTS, even though they have negative synergy) by sneaking in damage out of nowhere. Dragons should be somewhere in the board for sure, but Burning-Tree Shaman stacks damage from places it shouldn't and isn't mana intensive (double red) so it therefore recieves my support (whatever weight that may bear).

kicks_422
01-02-2008, 07:29 AM
Play Trygon Predator. That thing has gotten me out of impossible situations by itself, since the deck has a hard time taking out enchantments/artifacts that slip through your counterwall.

Also, just a question... With 4 BS, 4 Ponder, and 3 Tops MD, is a 3rd cantrip spell really needed? If so, what should it be: Portent, Serum Visions, or Predict?

Goblin Snowman
01-02-2008, 08:05 AM
Play Trygon Predator. That thing has gotten me out of impossible situations by itself, since the deck has a hard time taking out enchantments/artifacts that slip through your counterwall.

Also, just a question... With 4 BS, 4 Ponder, and 3 Tops MD, is a 3rd cantrip spell really needed? If so, what should it be: Portent, Serum Visions, or Predict?

Predict. You have no other forms of card advantage in the deck outside of beating things down with Goyf.

raharu - you will get wrecked in both the WGU and RGU mirrors. If you're ok with that, keep running your list. Also, Magma Jet and REB are both terrible. What U spells do you need to counter? If you must run additional countermagic (while running 3x Daze!!), run Spell Snare. But you'd be ok with Force, Daze, and CS (or Counterbalance if you took the time to test it).

Oh, and MD Top. Sticking that card is so good, even with Useless-Tree in your deck. I understand you want to play aggro and drop all good cards from it, but really, the inclusion of CB/Top are not terribly mana intensive, and flatout win in the mirror. (Also - Who the hell decided that if you play Red, you have to be aggressive? I'm calling bullshit on that one. Blood Moon is such a control card in this deck)

Kyachi
01-02-2008, 10:52 AM
I understand you want to play aggro and drop all good cards from it, but really, the inclusion of CB/Top are not terribly mana intensive, and flatout win in the mirror.

True. Even with Useless-Tree Shaman (Thank you Adan for that one), you're still countering a spell at the cost of one life, which no one complains about when we're talking about Force of Will. If I could play seven Forces, I probably would, but this works too.

Adan
01-02-2008, 12:29 PM
Ok, then I will simply leave this thread since everyone is affixed to play with Counterbalance and Fledgling Dragon, just to have a worse maindeck than the 1:1 UGW Build with Enforcers and Swords (superior removal and equivalent 6/6 flying beatstick).

You are including the Engine because you think you can't keep up without it. But that's wrong. Ok, the engine can make it a lot more comfortable, but you all were going from the scenario to have it both in the opening hand together with some defense for the opposing Mongeese and Goyf (also a point where Lightning Bolt won't save you from Goyf, but StoPs can). I'd really like to play against Goblin Snowman, the suggestion to play 10:10 pre- and postboard seems very good to me, so we can also do a statistic how often this (a littlebit utopic) scenario happens.

@Goblin Snowman: Do you have MSN or AIM or ICQ? If so, I'll pm you my contact so we can playtest.

Goblin Snowman
01-02-2008, 03:50 PM
@Goblin Snowman: Do you have MSN or AIM or ICQ? If so, I'll pm you my contact so we can playtest.

I'll see what I can do about stealing someone's for a bit. There's a long story about my computer and MWS hating it, but I'll be able to get access to it off someone else's sometime. I'll post more info later, ok?

Also, Obfuscate Freely summed it up best when he said you are still playing the same deck against each other, only one of you has access to a card that will win the game. UGW being better than UGR is immaterial to the discussion as long as UGR still does well and exists as a competitive deck. Also, as I've said again and again, Red has better boarding options in my mind against Control and Goblins. Pyroclasm is amazingly good at winning a few MUs that would otherwise be close, and a resolved Blood Moon will destroy and control deck.

Adan
01-02-2008, 04:17 PM
I'll see what I can do about stealing someone's for a bit. There's a long story about my computer and MWS hating it, but I'll be able to get access to it off someone else's sometime. I'll post more info later, ok?

Also, Obfuscate Freely summed it up best when he said you are still playing the same deck against each other, only one of you has access to a card that will win the game. UGW being better than UGR is immaterial to the discussion as long as UGR still does well and exists as a competitive deck. Also, as I've said again and again, Red has better boarding options in my mind against Control and Goblins. Pyroclasm is amazingly good at winning a few MUs that would otherwise be close, and a resolved Blood Moon will destroy and control deck.

Blood Moon. Err... look! At the DtB section: Mono Blue Control. I don't see that Blood Moon can do something against it. I also don't see Blood Moon doing anything against Rifter since Rifter played Blood Moon itself in the SB. Against any kind of Lands.dec, Blood Moon may have a devastating effect, but Armageddon is - in my opinion - still the best controlhoser you can have since Armageddon is not a permanent that gets handled by bounce, Blueblasts, Disenchants and so on. Armageddon is a card a controldeck can only handle with counters and they have to recover. And to recover requires a few turns. Turns where your Goyfs and Enforcery will kick him while he's laying on the ground - whining. It's also a quite useful tech against Survival (depends on the boardposition). White offers a lot of superior cardchoices compared to Red. The only thing
Meddling Mage and Gaddock Teeg are also a very nice tool to defend yourself against Landstill's Explosives, Wraths, Pernicious Deeds (Mage)... And Geddon pretty much wrecks it more than Blood Moon. It also depends on the rogue effect. If Blood Moon is your supersecret ninja-tech, it will work against Landstill, but if he's aware, he will fetch basic Islands. Then, even under Blood Moon, he's able to cycle Eternal Dragon to fetch his Plains and then Cunning Wish for Disenchant/Dismantling Blow and then he's back.

What Red has really got is - and I fully agree with you - Pyroclasm. BUT Pyroclasm also doesn't do more than Tivadar's Crusade, since - as you said yourself - Ringleader and Goblin Matron are the real dangerous Goblins you have to handle as they generate cardadvantage and have done their job as they resolve. That's why Tao, kimberley and me were more fans of Blueblasts. And I'm testing Stifle due to Oddball's suggestion. I think a mix of pyroclasm and Blasts/Stifle can indeed annihilate Goblins. But so could Crusade and Stifle (Special Thanks to Anti American for the constellation, it works great).

Also be aware of the setup you need when playing Blood Moon. It means to fetch together your own basiclands and so on. I also don't like about Blood Moon that he shuts off all your shuffle effects (Ponder...Hm, semi) and then makes Brainstorm...suck? At least a littlebit?
Even though Blood Moon may also be a very interesting card in the mirrormatch, I don't really like it because it's really clunky.
Price of Progress is way too specific. A single card just to beat 43Land... That's paranoid. In the mirrormatch also interesting, but it doesn't evade Counterbalance (CC2, Blood Moon would be better. But he's useless if your opponent fetches Island, Forest), is situational (depends on who leads the damage race) and is just like... like... Yoshimitzu's Harakiri-Attack from Tekken, where he turns aroung and sticks his sword through him and hit the opponent too. No kidding, I always have that scene in my head when thinking about PoP in NQGr.

Against Goblins, Red has indeed the better Sideboard-Techs. Agreed. But something else? I don't really think so. And that's a point where you still can't convince me.

raharu
01-02-2008, 04:53 PM
Yeah, REB would have been better in the side, but whatever, it was simply a list to illustrate the role red should take and the reason that Burning-Tree Badass deserves a slot in the deck. In all honesty I would have liked the list to look like this:

-2 REB
-2 Magma Jet
-1 Serum Visions

+1 Fledgling Dragon (just in case)
+4 super tech burn that no-one has thought of (that might not exist...)

About that savage tech burn... Thunderclap? Fireblast? Chain Lightning? Incinerate? Shock?

The reason that red is the agro-thresh color is because of the reach and the fact that is pretty well sucks (relative to the other colors) at playing control. The argument that it can play control is fairly irrelavant. The reason that one would play Daze/ Force of Will/ Counterspell in this deck instead of going RG stompy would be that it gives you quite solid control of the gamestate. In red thresh I would rather be playing threats that out-threat the opponent's threats than CounterTop'ing to retain board control, because anything relevant should catch a counter to the face and any creatures that slip through the wall O' counters and burn is going to be eaten by Tarmogoyf or Dragon (I give, the best idea is to run 1-2 Dragons and roughly 3 Burning-Tree Badasses, no question. I would rather run Dragon in the board though).

Goblin Snowman
01-02-2008, 06:03 PM
Blood Moon. Err... look! At the DtB section: Mono Blue Control. I don't see that Blood Moon can do something against it.

I, truthfully, see maybe 1 Monoblue control deck at a decently sized tourny.


I also don't see Blood Moon doing anything against Rifter since Rifter played Blood Moon itself in the SB.

This is not, nor ever has been, a real MU. I love Elgin dearly, but no.


Against any kind of Lands.dec, Blood Moon may have a devastating effect, but Armageddon is - in my opinion - still the best controlhoser you can have since Armageddon is not a permanent that gets handled by bounce, Blueblasts, Disenchants and so on.

Crazy as it might sound, Geddoning against a deck that has at least 26 lands and Lftl isn't techy. They will draw out of it. Blood Moon will usually stop them from doing anything if backed up by a single counter.


Armageddon is a card a controldeck can only handle with counters and they have to recover. And to recover requires a few turns. Turns where your Goyfs and Enforcery will kick him while he's laying on the ground - whining. It's also a quite useful tech against Survival (depends on the boardposition). White offers a lot of superior cardchoices compared to Red. The only thing
Meddling Mage and Gaddock Teeg are also a very nice tool to defend yourself against Landstill's Explosives, Wraths, Pernicious Deeds (Mage)... And Geddon pretty much wrecks it more than Blood Moon. It also depends on the rogue effect. If Blood Moon is your supersecret ninja-tech, it will work against Landstill, but if he's aware, he will fetch basic Islands. Then, even under Blood Moon, he's able to cycle Eternal Dragon to fetch his Plains and then Cunning Wish for Disenchant/Dismantling Blow and then he's back.

So stop playing Red? I have no issue with you not running UGR Threshold, I assure you, and you seem to be presenting excellent reasons not to play it.
Which again, are painfully irrelevent - White might or might not be better; It doesn't matter, as people will still run UGR, and I might as well try and give them the best list possible.



What Red has really got is - and I fully agree with you - Pyroclasm. BUT Pyroclasm also doesn't do more than Tivadar's Crusade, since - as you said yourself - Ringleader and Goblin Matron are the real dangerous Goblins you have to handle as they generate cardadvantage and have done their job as they resolve. That's why Tao, kimberley and me were more fans of Blueblasts. And I'm testing Stifle due to Oddball's suggestion. I think a mix of pyroclasm and Blasts/Stifle can indeed annihilate Goblins. But so could Crusade and Stifle (Special Thanks to Anti American for the constellation, it works great).

WW1 sucks as a casting cost. Run Dueling Grounds or ignore the MU if you're white in my opinion.



Also be aware of the setup you need when playing Blood Moon. It means to fetch together your own basiclands and so on. I also don't like about Blood Moon that he shuts off all your shuffle effects (Ponder...Hm, semi) and then makes Brainstorm...suck? At least a littlebit?

4 Blue Fetches, 3 Wooded Foothills, 1 Basic Forest and 2 Basic Island is not killing anyone, I assure you. Hold fetches until you need them if you've boared BM in. Price of Progress is another card to look at if you favor burning someone out of the game, which you might.



Even though Blood Moon may also be a very interesting card in the mirrormatch, I don't really like it because it's really clunky.
Price of Progress is way too specific. A single card just to beat 43Land... That's paranoid. In the mirrormatch also interesting, but it doesn't evade Counterbalance (CC2, Blood Moon would be better. But he's useless if your opponent fetches Island, Forest), is situational (depends on who leads the damage race) and is just like... like... Yoshimitzu's Harakiri-Attack from Tekken, where he turns aroung and sticks his sword through him and hit the opponent too. No kidding, I always have that scene in my head when thinking about PoP in NQGr.

If you see it G2, you board it out G3 for the mind fuck it gives. It forces them into fetching basics alot of the time, and very few people will play around it G2.



Against Goblins, Red has indeed the better Sideboard-Techs. Agreed. But something else? I don't really think so. And that's a point where you still can't convince me.

Then run White. I don't have a gun to your head.

EDIT;

raharu - Then you're still terrible in the mirror. All your "techy" burn can't kill off their creatures, and you can't just say, "Any creatures that slip through the wall O'counters and burn is going to be eaten by Tarmogoyf or Dragon" (especially since you're not running said Dragon, instead, playing a card that really doesn't help any matchup significantly.) Go find someone running Fledgling Dragon and Counterbalance MD over.....Thunderclap and BTS.

Also, reasons why the listed burn is poor;

Thunderclap - It cannot hit players, kill Goyf, Mongoose, or Dragon, it eats one of your 4 red sources, underwhelming in all aspects.

Fireblast - Great, I can cut myself off of Red for this whole game in exchange for (maybe) killing a Tarmogoyf in the early game....and I mean before turn 3. If you can recover from raping your manabase that way, you are a god.

Chain Lightning - A Sorcery that still can't kill anything in the mirror, and will likely get thrown back at you once the other player learns you run it and leave Red mana open.

Incinerate - Better, but still not amazing. Double the CC of Bolt, remove the ability to hit cards one turn one, but better than the other listed options.

Shock - Truthfully, sadly, what I would reccomend if you have OCD and are forced to run 8 burn spells MD. My condolences if this is the case....if not, you might want to do some honest testing.

raharu
01-04-2008, 01:28 AM
@Goblin Snowman: I know you think that NQGr is good at controling so you'll hate to hear this, but the reason I would like to run 8 burn is the reach. Simply put, NQGr is the "Pressure" color (not really the agro color). The advantage NQGr provides over white threshold is the ability to rip the floor out from under someone when you've rocked your opponent back over their heels, but it looks as if they're going to stabilize. White can't do it, black can't do it, Ubw can't do it, and UG LD thresh shure as hell can't. I've thought it out and this is what I meant when I said that NQGr is the "agro" thresh, only a little more articulated. Burning-Tree Badass, Fledgling Dragon, and the burn are better at busting out damage from weird places than anything that the proceeding decks can compare them to, and this is why red is the "Pressure" color. When your opponent is very uncomfortable stabilizing at 10, you know you have a deck very good at applying pressure, but NQGr can only do this by running about 8 burn.

Right now I'm thinking either Fire/Ice or Magma Jet as the secondary burn, but really it's a play choice. Magma Jet Scrys where the Ice side of Fire/Ice is techy against other Tarmogoyfs (tap them before the Alpha Strike), Manlands (yes, he can pump a factory with ease, but he can't untap it), and one could use it to stop Mother of Runes or other tap effects (not really prevalent though). I would love to hear some other sugestions.

@Blood Moon: bad idea. It requires too much set-up to be worthwhile and gets handled fairly easily. NQGr does need some SB tech for the landstill MU though (Boil? The card that destroys all of your opponent's islands... I think it's 3R, but I don't remember...)

kicks_422
01-04-2008, 06:59 AM
If you're dropping CB-Top for more burn, then I suggest adding a couple of Isochron Scepters. I ran them before as a 2-of, and were great as an unexpected threat, especially in the mirror after you both have emptied your hands.

kabal
01-04-2008, 07:30 AM
Finale Emilia Legacygeddon on 23.12.2007 (http://www.deckcheck.net/event.php?event=Finale+Emilia+Legacygeddon)
Participants: 114

4th Place - UGr Threshold by Luca Lovino

3 Burning-Tree Shaman
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

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

4 Ponder
2 Pyroclasm
3 Serum Visions

2 Pithing Needle

1 Forest
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
3 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Krosan Grip
3 Price of Progress
3 Compost
3 Control Magic
3 Tormod's Crypt

Goblin Snowman
01-04-2008, 08:17 AM
raharu - List for me which matchups are solidly improved by running one shot cards that are unable to kill anything in the mirror. I can list for you every matchup that goes down when you're lacking an engine that shuts off an entire deck. State for me which MU you have tested extensively with both Burning-Tree and with Dragon, and with additional burn switched out for good cards. I'll list all the MUs that are improved by CB/Top - Every decks that casts spells. Your turn! (truthfully, every MU in the DBT Forum but Goblins and Rock. Survival can find ways around it, but you can really mess with them with a 2cc card on top. Oh, and FoW counters Shrikemaw).

kabal - And? Inferior lists can T8. It's a question of if you're willing to admit you cannot beat the mirror when they run CB/Top, and then being "good" enough to dodge the mirror, play bad players, or have insane draws against them.

kabal
01-04-2008, 09:22 AM
kabal - And?

Just brought list into this discussion that top 4 in a 100+ person tournament from a week ago that was deemed horrible.

Goblin Snowman
01-04-2008, 10:11 AM
Just brought list into this discussion that top 4 in a 100+ person tournament from a week ago that was deemed horrible.

Go out and test the mirror with that build. Either that person was incredibly lucky, and dodged playing the mirror every single time, or they played against poor quaility players. You can do well with that build; I've done well with Elves, Junk Pile, and a host of other bad decks.

kabal
01-04-2008, 10:30 AM
Go out and test the mirror with that build. Either that person was incredibly lucky, and dodged playing the mirror every single time, or they played against poor quaility players. You can do well with that build; I've done well with Elves, Junk Pile, and a host of other bad decks.

I'm not argue the validity of Counterbalance in Threshold, but I will say that CB is warranted in some locations more than others.

Nihil Credo
01-04-2008, 10:59 AM
While Lovino is a fantastic player (top eighting 17 of the last 20 tournaments he participated in, all with that list) his deck is highly metagamed: the Emilian metagame is *ruled* by Landstill, particularly Deed-based Landstill. RW Goblins is big, and among Threshold variants four-colour has grown in popularity.

chokin
01-04-2008, 11:32 AM
While Lovino is a fantastic player (top eighting 17 of the last 20 tournaments he participated in, all with that list) his deck is highly metagamed: the Emilian metagame is *ruled* by Landstill, particularly Deed-based Landstill. RW Goblins is big, and among Threshold variants four-colour has grown in popularity.

JESUS! This is what I've been trying to say the whole time! My list is based on my meta. And I place Top 4 almost everytime (usually 1st or 2nd). There are maybe two other Thresh decks in my meta, and I dominate one because of the huge numbers of misplays he makes and he runs 0 CB.

Anyways, grats to Lovina.

@ Goblin - if your meta is packed with Thresh, yeah, you're right that BTS is jank. Just understand that CB is useless against 75% of the cards in mine and BTS really tears a lot of other decks to shreds.

Adan
01-04-2008, 12:07 PM
JESUS! This is what I've been trying to say the whole time! My list is based on my meta. And I place Top 4 almost everytime (usually 1st or 2nd). There are maybe two other Thresh decks in my meta, and I dominate one because of the huge numbers of misplays he makes and he runs 0 CB.

Anyways, grats to Lovina.

@ Goblin - if your meta is packed with Thresh, yeah, you're right that BTS is jank. Just understand that CB is useless against 75% of the cards in mine and BTS really tears a lot of other decks to shreds.

That's the point. And this will be my last post in this thread since people are not capable of argueing efficiently. BTS is a very nice card against several deck I already mentioned. In the past, Landstill and Rifter for example was big. Threshold was also present and there it always won the mirrormatch since BTS delivered extra damage, was independant from graveyardhate and smashed enemy Mongeese.

I still think that it's whack to say that the build will 100% lose against the mirrormatch when playing against Counterbalanced builds.

But ok, even if it does, some matchups like Landstill are more favourable for the BTS build. A fact that was always undermined because people are always affixed on single matchups (which explains the idea of running Price of Progress and Blood Moon in the Sideboard which are dead against other matchups than 43Land).

Also, that 43Land will draw out of Armageddon is also... Hm, I would just say that you should play Armageddon when you are in a advantageous boardposition which is already fullfilled when you got a big Goyf or Mystic Enforcer. After Armageddon he's vulnerable to Daze/Forces again which can act as Time Walks if the opponent tries to recover with it.

The BTS build's matchup against Goblins is slightly more favourable than the Counterbalanced one (simply because we have less dead cards in the maindeck preboard and got more efficient cards postboard).

I understand the thought that the UGR Build like the Hatfield's one (or just the same as UGW but with Bolts and Dragons) is meant to be "just" a solid allrounder like UGW is, but with better SB-techniques as UGW against Goblins.
But I think it's all a matter of your skill/playstyle and how you get your role against several matchups.

But, I somehow don't understand the sense of this thread in the first place if builds that don't look like the Hatfield's one are immediately considered as trash even though they got several T8 appearances (even more than than the Hatfield-Thresh-Builds). Like it was the ne plus ultra of UGR builds, which it is definitley not since the maindeck is not different from the UGW one's.

It's just ignorant to consider a build which is metagamed on a foreign/different meta trash just because it loses the mirror. And also the fact that you don't care about the european meta is somehow... very disappointing.

Anyways, I'm now convinced that you are REALLY not capable of discussing a deck that doesn't look familiar to you, even though it had some success and saying that the pilot was a luck0r or the opponents were n00bs.

I really have the impression your keyboard must look like this:

http://utopia.duth.gr/~nm4434/Chatter's%20Keyboard.jpg

Anyways, my last post concerning UGR in this thread.

Goblin Snowman
01-04-2008, 04:12 PM
That's the point. And this will be my last post in this thread since people are not capable of argueing efficiently. BTS is a very nice card against several deck I already mentioned. In the past, Landstill and Rifter for example was big. Threshold was also present and there it always won the mirrormatch since BTS delivered extra damage, was independant from graveyardhate and smashed enemy Mongeese.

Agreed about the whole inability of some people on this argue effectively. I don't give a damn (maybe half a damn though) about how present Rifter was pre-Goyf. The meta has been completely reshaped.



I still think that it's whack to say that the build will 100% lose against the mirrormatch when playing against Counterbalanced builds.

As do I. By sticking a Counterbalance, one will almost always win though. You can figure out the percentage of games if you really want, but I'd estimate it to be about 70/30.



But ok, even if it does, some matchups like Landstill are more favourable for the BTS build. A fact that was always undermined because people are always affixed on single matchups (which explains the idea of running Price of Progress and Blood Moon in the Sideboard which are dead against other matchups than 43Land).

Landstill, especially the Deed-based Landstill running Nantuko Monastery, if fairly unaffected by Burning-Tree. Yes, he's better than Dragon in a vacuum. The problem being, that if Dragon is on the board, he will fly over the 4/4 First Strikers and avoid the mass blockings of Decree/Factories. Burning-Tree, over time, facilitates a large burn out, whereas Dragon simply wins the game.

Blood Moon is good in the mirror, against Landstill, Fish, Affinity, Zoo, Stax (to an extent, as Stax is an incredibly large catagory, and there are builds that ignore the effects and builds that openly weep at them), and a good deal of decks that are 3 colored (and every deck that is four colored).



Also, that 43Land will draw out of Armageddon is also... Hm, I would just say that you should play Armageddon when you are in a advantageous boardposition which is already fullfilled when you got a big Goyf or Mystic Enforcer. After Armageddon he's vulnerable to Daze/Forces again which can act as Time Walks if the opponent tries to recover with it.

They have recurring Wasteland and Port. If you hit four mana against them, you will likely try to Geddon, as it's unlikely you will stay there for any amount of time. Not only that, but having your whole plan reliant on them not drawing Maze of Ith or Tabernacle is poor.



The BTS build's matchup against Goblins is slightly more favourable than the Counterbalanced one (simply because we have less dead cards in the maindeck preboard and got more efficient cards postboard).

Agreed. This is the one matchup where you can present a solid argument as to why BTS is better than Dragon, the argument in Dragon's favor being that he can fly over the massive hordes.



I understand the thought that the UGR Build like the Hatfield's one (or just the same as UGW but with Bolts and Dragons) is meant to be "just" a solid allrounder like UGW is, but with better SB-techniques as UGW against Goblins.
But I think it's all a matter of your skill/playstyle and how you get your role against several matchups.

I don't care about which way you want to build the deck, I'm personally going for the deck that will do the best.



But, I somehow don't understand the sense of this thread in the first place if builds that don't look like the Hatfield's one are immediately considered as trash even though they got several T8 appearances (even more than than the Hatfield-Thresh-Builds). Like it was the ne plus ultra of UGR builds, which it is definitley not since the maindeck is not different from the UGW one's.

Everything I have said has been based off the mirror. Look at every statement I have made, and most of them have been based around winning the mirror match. Hatfield's list destroys other Threshold decks, and any deck based around abusing Goyf. Also, Counterbalance wins so many games you shouldn't against alot of decks.



It's just ignorant to consider a build which is metagamed on a foreign/different meta trash just because it loses the mirror. And also the fact that you don't care about the european meta is somehow... very disappointing.

Yet you don't give a flying fuck about the American meta? :cry: . I made the statement that the person running that build either dodged the mirror all day, or outdrew his opponents. If no one else that day ran Threshold, props to him for making a good metagame call. I assumed other people would run what to alot of minds is the best deck in the format.



Anyways, I'm now convinced that you are REALLY not capable of discussing a deck that doesn't look familiar to you, even though it had some success and saying that the pilot was a luck0r or the opponents were n00bs.

I have never made the statement, "noob", or used 1337speak. I'm mildly disappointed you resorted to such blatantly false and childish attempts at mockery. All of my cursing has either been to emphasize a point, or pepper a statement. There is a difference between, I don't give a hoot, and I don't give a flying fuck.



I really have the impression your keyboard must look like this:

http://utopia.duth.gr/~nm4434/Chatter's%20Keyboard.jpg

Anyways, my last post concerning UGR in this thread.

Again, a shamefully childish end to you. It's a shame, we were improving each other's understanding of the different builds of Threshold and our different metagames. Now, with Adan gone.....

Everyone else presenting decent arguments;

Thank you for telling me you truthfully never play a competitive mirror match. Much could have been avoided. I still believe Dragon is superior to BTS, but that's for later after someone has responded. Can we all agree on a few things at least about Threshold?
1) Serum Visions should never be used before Ponder
2) Counterbalance is good in the mirror
3) Fire//Ice is a bad 1 for 1 against Goblins, is dead against Landstill, and is bad in the mirror. (Ditto Magma Jet).
4) Daze should be a four of.
5) Running two to three Creatures/Scepters past Goyf and Mongoose is standard. These creatures are commonly BTS or Dragon

Does anyone have any problem at all with that list as it stands now?

chokin
01-04-2008, 05:09 PM
As do I. By sticking a Counterbalance, one will almost always win though. You can figure out the percentage of games if you really want, but I'd estimate it to be about 70/30.

CB helps a lot against opposing Thresh. Getting one to stick with Krosan Grips and no 3cc is fail though. Having just 3-4 CB is good. SDT is vulnerable to Needle and Grip(both are pretty common in the mirror, since that's what you're looking at).


Landstill, especially the Deed-based Landstill running Nantuko Monastery, if fairly unaffected by Burning-Tree. Yes, he's better than Dragon in a vacuum. The problem being, that if Dragon is on the board, he will fly over the 4/4 First Strikers and avoid the mass blockings of Decree/Factories. Burning-Tree, over time, facilitates a large burn out, whereas Dragon simply wins the game.

Maindecked Activated Abilities in Landstill: Fetchlands, Mishra's Factory, Nantuko Monastery, Pernicious Deed, Wasteland and Faerie Conclave. Assuming 4-5 fetch, and 3 per other(it's obviously give and take) that adds up to around 16-21 activated abilities. So having a creature that is decently sized that punishes (with a ping) the use of ~25-33% of their deck and swinging, that damage racks up pretty quickly, I'd say. Flying overhead is nice though :)


Blood Moon is good in the mirror, against Landstill, Fish, Affinity, Zoo, Stax (to an extent, as Stax is an incredibly large catagory, and there are builds that ignore the effects and builds that openly weep at them), and a good deal of decks that are 3 colored (and every deck that is four colored).
Stax is a pain. Chalice@1/2 is basically deadly. Trinisphere hurts. This matchup is a bitch. I personally wouldn't consider running Moon simply because I wouldn't want to draw into Mountains forever, but I could see justifying it to lock out some decks.



They have recurring Wasteland and Port. If you hit four mana against them, you will likely try to Geddon, as it's unlikely you will stay there for any amount of time. Not only that, but having your whole plan reliant on them not drawing Maze of Ith or Tabernacle is poor.
Wasteland and Ports and Maze are punished by good ol' BTS




Agreed. This is the one matchup where you can present a solid argument as to why BTS is better than Dragon, the argument in Dragon's favor being that he can fly over the massive hordes.
Goblins is already hurt so bad by Goyf. And though BTS has a big butt and hits Wastes, fetch, and possible Ports, I think that finishing an opponent with the Dragon in a ground lock is what Thresh will want to do here. In the mirror, the Dragon can single handedly win games, true. But he's kinda wimpy after a Crypt(and dies to an opponents Goose if they retain threshold)



I don't care about which way you want to build the deck, I'm personally going for the deck that will do the best.
I think that's what we all want. You are more focused on beating the mirror than some of us though.


Everyone else presenting decent arguments;

Thank you for telling me you truthfully never play a competitive mirror match. Much could have been avoided. I still believe Dragon is superior to BTS, but that's for later after someone has responded. Can we all agree on a few things at least about Threshold?
1) Serum Visions should never be used before Ponder
2) Counterbalance is good in the mirror
3) Fire//Ice is a bad 1 for 1 against Goblins, is dead against Landstill, and is bad in the mirror. (Ditto Magma Jet).
4) Daze should be a four of.
5) Running two to three Creatures/Scepters past Goyf and Mongoose is standard. These creatures are commonly BTS or Dragon

Does anyone have any problem at all with that list as it stands now?

1) Yeah. I agree after testing it a week ago.
2) Good, but if they get it down, it shouldn't be an autoloss. Spell Snare, Grip, 3cc or 4cc creatures can slide through.
3) Goblins - it sucks. Landstill - use it for the tap/draw. Mirror - Tap opposing Goyf and swing, or swing into their Goyf, and Fire 1 to it and 1 to the face.
4) Still debatable IMO. Topdecking Daze lategame makes me sad without a Force to pitch it to and is really bad in some matchups.
5) Almost every list runs a total of 10 creatures. Few run 11.

raharu
01-04-2008, 08:05 PM
Here:

Creatures: 13
3 Burning-Tree Shaman
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Fledgling Dragon

Control: 10
3 Daze
3 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will

Burn: 8
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magma Jet

Cantrip: 11
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Lands: 18
1 Forest
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
3 Wooded Foothills

Fix it.

chokin
01-05-2008, 12:48 PM
Here:

Creatures: 13
3 Burning-Tree Shaman
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Fledgling Dragon

Control: 10
3 Daze
3 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will

Burn: 8
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magma Jet

Cantrip: 11
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Lands: 18
1 Forest
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
3 Wooded Foothills

Fix it.

Depends on the goal I suppose...just beating Thresh game 1, or beating anything else game 1. But first:
-4 Magma Jet
+4 Fire//Ice

If you have a high Threshold meta, going CB+Top in the main is an ok choice. I personally removed Top from my list because it made those random Pithing Needles in game 1 from Faerie Stompy and some Thresh lists pretty good. And since I pack no removal for artifacts in the main, I just decided to remove it.

Other options? Spell Snare. Nails CB, Goyf, Fire/Ice. If they run Dryad or Bear, those too. It stops Confidant, Life from the Loam (for a turn), Sinkhole, Chalice@1, and so forth. But, against a lot of decks, it's not that great. So I think that Snare should be boarded(unless of course there are a lot of situations in which it'd be good).

Also in beating the mirror, I think that Fledgling Dragon is the better option.

So focus on mirror:
-3 BTS
-3 Top (because I dont like it)
+3 Predict
+3 Spell Snare

Otherwise, if your focus is beating anything else:
-2 Dragon
-3 Top
-3 CB
+2 Counterspell
+3 Predict
+3 Stifle

That's what I'd do at least.

Goblin Snowman
01-05-2008, 01:30 PM
Depends on the goal I suppose...just beating Thresh game 1, or beating anything else game 1. But first:
-4 Magma Jet
+4 Fire//Ice


I'd reccomend running 3x Needles and the 4th Daze if you were looking at a Meta of Goblins and Landstill, as they're both good there. Fire//Ice is still bad in almost every MU, whereas Needle turns off Factory/Deed (which is so dangerous)/Monastery/Decree/Dragon against Landstill and Vial/Wasteland/Incinerator (and a few others, depending on build + board position like SGC or Fanatic). Just throwing that out there



If you have a high Threshold meta, going CB+Top in the main is an ok choice. I personally removed Top from my list because it made those random Pithing Needles in game 1 from Faerie Stompy and some Thresh lists pretty good. And since I pack no removal for artifacts in the main, I just decided to remove it.

It comes down to you ever playing against decks similar to you or not. You should still be boarding at least three CB, and starting Top unless you see Needle in every MU (and if those MU are the mirror, start CB). Top is an amazing long casting cantrip that gives you an artifact to Predict away. With the low reliance on your graveyard size, I'd rather have Top in most situations than any other cantrip.



Other options? Spell Snare. Nails CB, Goyf, Fire/Ice. If they run Dryad or Bear, those too. It stops Confidant, Life from the Loam (for a turn), Sinkhole, Chalice@1, and so forth. But, against a lot of decks, it's not that great. So I think that Snare should be boarded(unless of course there are a lot of situations in which it'd be good).

Spell Snare....you've stated you don't plan on running the mirror, but want to run Spell Snare? It's not that amazing Pre-Board, and if you were going to run it, CB would be better in most MUs (Breakfast being debatable, but since resolving a CB and keeping Vial off the table will win against them, I'd rather have that than the one mana counterspell)



Also in beating the mirror, I think that Fledgling Dragon is the better option.


I think he's the better option, period. I can think of maybe two decks were BTS is even comparable. Most of the time, Burning Tree will eat Incinerators, get stuck because the other player has larger creatures (or lots of them) and will deal about 5-6 to your opponent and 3-4 to you. I don't like that. Burning Tree wrecks 43 Land, and stops Breakfast, and really nothing else amazing.



So focus on mirror:
-3 BTS
-3 Top (because I dont like it)
+3 Predict
+3 Spell Snare


Don't drop Top. Ever. It is insane when you realize you can effectively get a Ponder every turn and out of ever Fetchland. There isn't a massive drawback to it, aside from when opponents are running. Do a reasonable amount of testing against a wide variety of decks, and the games you win because you were able to Top every turn will be far more than the games it was "bad" and forced your opponent into one for one-ing.



Otherwise, if your focus is beating anything else:
-2 Dragon
-3 Top
-3 CB
+2 Counterspell
+3 Predict
+3 Stifle

That's what I'd do at least.

I'd disagree here. I'd recommend keeping Top in every MU regardless of whether the mirror was a concern or not. Ditto Dragon; Really, why is there a question? To my knowledge, people have stopped running jank like Crypt or Leyline due to Goyf growing off both Graveyards, so the GY hate argument holds no water anymore (In America, if it's different, speak up!). Dragon is a 5/5 Firebreathing, Flying for RR2 - BTS is a 3/4 with a semi-relevant ability that hurts you for 2-5 in each game for 1/R/G. So for one more mana, I get +2/+1, Firebreathing, Flying, and the self-inflicted damage taken away?

chokin
01-05-2008, 02:01 PM
First of all, you're assuming that Goblins and Landstill run rampant in area. It's more like every deck in the DtB Forum(minus Aluren and SuiBlack) and some other tough matchups (Stax, Faerie Stopy). Activated abilities are ALL OVER where I am. BTS is a 3/4 regardless of cards in the graveyard. He munches Geese with or with or without Threshold. Even though he hits you for 2-5 every game, he usually hits the opponent as much if not more. With a Thresh opponent running Top, that's an extra 3-5 on top of fetch, Force, my burn spells, and possibly a hit or two from a creature.

And everyone here in my state runs at least 3 needles SB. Maybe 1 main depending on the deck. The other Thresh decks don't run Top. One runs 2-3 Needle main, and the others run 3 in the board.

Also, if BTS punishes Top when I'm trying to beat the mirror, why is it so bad? I try to play 1-2 spells a turn, which means 0-2 activations. Plus the opponent wants to utilize Top anyways, thus activating it at least once a turn. BTS goes through CB most of the time. What's not to love? Dragon does the same, but I'm not bent on beating Thresh in game one since there is really only one other good Thresh player here(who plays many other decks usually).

So if I don't fear Thresh, and my meta allows BTS to kick ass, why not run it over Dragon? I'd like to. But right now, with the way everything is, it's not the time. I really DON'T like using BTS over Dragon. But with the way everything is here, it's the better option.

Citrus-God
01-05-2008, 06:42 PM
First of all, you're assuming that Goblins and Landstill run rampant in area. It's more like every deck in the DtB Forum(minus Aluren and SuiBlack) and some other tough matchups (Stax, Faerie Stopy). Activated abilities are ALL OVER where I am. BTS is a 3/4 regardless of cards in the graveyard. He munches Geese with or with or without Threshold. Even though he hits you for 2-5 every game, he usually hits the opponent as much if not more. With a Thresh opponent running Top, that's an extra 3-5 on top of fetch, Force, my burn spells, and possibly a hit or two from a creature.

Then is running BTS any better than running Werebears?


And everyone here in my state runs at least 3 needles SB. Maybe 1 main depending on the deck. The other Thresh decks don't run Top. One runs 2-3 Needle main, and the others run 3 in the board.

Needles have been kinda a semi-dead card now... Everybody knows there are better cards for the MUs where Needles are good in.


Also, if BTS punishes Top when I'm trying to beat the mirror, why is it so bad?

What else punishes Top and Counterbalance? That Dragon thingy.



I try to play 1-2 spells a turn, which means 0-2 activations. Plus the opponent wants to utilize Top anyways, thus activating it at least once a turn. BTS goes through CB most of the time. What's not to love? Dragon does the same.

I think most players who see BTS in play with Top are more likely to spin the Top less until it is removed. If you claim they're wasting their card quality, then it's usually their mistakes for running less cantrips.


but I'm not bent on beating Thresh in game one since there is really only one other good Thresh player here(who plays many other decks usually).

I would agree with this completely. No argument here.


So if I don't fear Thresh, and my meta allows BTS to kick ass, why not run it over Dragon? I'd like to. But right now, with the way everything is, it's not the time. I really DON'T like using BTS over Dragon. But with the way everything is here, it's the better option.

Dragon evades... that is huge... Listen, if they printed a Red Shriekmaw, I'd definitely run it over Dragon, but FtK sucks against Goyf. The whole point of running Dragon is to break stalemates... Shriekmaw does that, but it's not Red.

raharu
01-05-2008, 07:15 PM
@ both::confused: Why can't I use both? This a hypothetical list so it doesn't really matter, but to advance the argument/ deck, tell me why anyways. I realize that the Dragon's firebreathing is an activated ability, but when they take 7 and I take 2, should I really care? If I'm going to play red, I'm going to do it because it allows me to pull damage out of nowhere, letting me win faster and apply more pressure. Dragon, Burning-Tree Badass and burn, all of which are exclusive options to red, should let me do this with little to no trouble.

@ Adan, who PM'd me about this: If the CB engine turns into 1cc cardless Force of Wills, that's fine with me. I've adapted the list by running less fetches and little to no activated abilities.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again now: the reason that RG stompy is worse than NQGr (although 'Zilla Stompy is epic) is the fact that I can control the game-state rather well while still only doing a little less damage. This fact, lo and behold, is why red is threshold's (misnomer) "Pressure color", trading white's superior control for the ability to break off 20-odd damage in a shorter time frame.

Sidnote: Scry >/= spliting damage. Scry>/= Ice. Scry is good by it's lonesome and gets better with Couunterbalance. The end.

Top is good by it's self, and better with Counterbalance. It should be used even if you use Burning-Tree Badass.

In closing: Dragon and Burning-Tree Badass are not mutually exclusive, Sensei's Divining Top and Burning-Tree Badass are not mutually exclusive, and fast damage and controling the board state are not mutually exclusive (Yeah, that was just a good excuse to say Burning-Tree badass three times in a sentance, but it's all still true).

kabal
01-06-2008, 10:20 AM
The Top 8 is in for the 1/5/08 2 Beta Tundra Windter Event (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7677&page=6#post194477) and looks like both Lam Phan & Dave Caplan top 8'd with UGR Threshold + Wasteland. There was 49 people at this event and below is what they were playing. Granted, I don't have the exact deck, but it is the basic contents. It didn't contain CB/Top or BTS.

Tarmogoyf
Nimble Mongoose
Trygon Predator (Sideboard)

Force Of Will
Daze
Lightning Bolt
Fire/Ice
Rushing River
Stifle
Ponder
Brainstorm
Portent

Wasteland
Tropical Island
Volcanic Island
Fetches

Kyachi
01-06-2008, 02:15 PM
I'm pretty sure that you could stick Tarmogoyf and Force of Will in a deck with about fifty two islands and manage to do alright. All those results speak to is the ability of Threshold to win in environments that pack a lot of hate for them, or to win with subpar builds due to the sheer power of the core deck.

I still think that people are looking at Counterbalance/Top engines in the wrong way. People want to look at it and see a malleable Chalice at anything in any situation, but that just isn't likely. Think about when you're playing Threshold and your opponent casts a spell. You are instantly faced with several options. You can: Counter the spell, which is a good option is you are sure that you will be unable to deal with it later; Let the spell resolve and kill it with removal later; Ignore the spell and either block it with creatures or just honestly ignore it because it doesn't matter. All CB/Top does is remove this choice making process about a lot of spells. Suddenly you aren't faced with this process every time a spell resolves, and even if it is a bad spell that your opponent is casting, you are then able to save your counterspells, removal spells, or blockers for things that you do care about, because every individual card will have to be dealt with in one way or another, and this enables you to have a deeper pool of resources than your opponent.

Counterbalance isn't there to annihilate some matchups and clutter the board and your hand in others. Counterbalance is always good because it wins attrition wars, period. A nice feature of it is that it can cancel interactivity completely and just plain win games, but that isn't the best part. It lets you counter the stuff that you normally wouldn't worry about countering, the small things that incrementally can make a difference in the long run, but don't warrant an individual answer. Think about all that before you say it's bad.

On a related note, I would run Top even without Counterbalance. It's just too nuts to not have, even if you want to run Burning-Tree Shaman.

quietmage
01-06-2008, 04:32 PM
please fix it

4-tarmogoyf
4-nimble mongoose
2-fledgling dragon

4-force of will
4-daze
4-top
3-counterbalance
4-lightning bolt
2-vedalkin shackles
2-eng explosives
4-ponder
4-brainstorm
2-magma jet (or fire/ice, cant decide)

4-tropical island
4-volcanic island
2-wooded foothills
2-polluted delta
2-flooded strand
1-island
1-forest
1-mountain


Sideboard:
4-hydroblast
2-pithing needle
4-pyroclasm
4-grips
1-???

please help :)

xsockmonkeyx
01-06-2008, 10:42 PM
list

please help :)

You have 6 threshold creatures and only 8 cantrip effects that go to the graveyard. While threshold is a secondary goal for running cantrips you still want to be able to reach it consistantly. I would go -1 Top, -2 Magma Jet, -1 Shackles/Explosives +4 Predict. As for the manabase i think you need the 2nd island more than the single mountain and you could cut a Trop for another Foothills.

raharu
01-06-2008, 11:35 PM
Again, I inquire: why is everyone insisting that the deck only run 10-11 creatures when the deck wants to (for lack of a better phrase) thrash the piss out of the opponent? Why is this the general concensus? What am I gaining by diluting my ability to deal 20 damage in a quick, timely maner? BTS can fuck couch like no other when not attacking, and Dragon fucks couch like no other when it does. Considering that neither are really bad in either role (just more effective at one than the other), and they aren't horrible together, why in God's name shouldn't I play both to increase my ability to deal that 20? This is why I would play red, right? To have more agressive options, is it not? Since the conception of NQGr, the reason to run it has been the more agressive tertiary (Dragon) and the more agressive removal (Lightning Bolt, Magma Jet, Fire// Ice), yeah? Is the exact same not true now? Why would I want to try to maintain a white level of control when it has always been openly admited that I can't? I'm fairly sure that the reason that NQGr is the better choice to take into a random metagame would be because it can end matches faster, matches that would generally be close or slightly unfavorable because of the long-windedness of the matches. If I'm off target, let me know.

In all honesty, can you really say that Red has better sideboard options to White? The only advantage I could see would be the ability to run REB and probably Price of Progress (I would think that this would be much better tech than Blood Moon against Landstill). Really I think that they both have lackluster sideboards, but that's just me.

On a side note, has anyone tested Pyrostatic Pillar for use against storm combo or is Stifle just the better option all around?




On an entirely new topic, has anyone thought about splashing black into the deck for a better sideboard and Terminate (replacing the secondary burn)?

kabal
01-06-2008, 11:45 PM
In all honesty, can you really say that Red has better sideboard options to White? The only advantage I could see would be the ability to run REB and probably Price of Progress

How about Pyroclasm and Ancient Grudge. When playing the white splash, what white spells do people really run it their boards these days? Not many, maybe 0-3.

raharu
01-07-2008, 12:27 AM
How about Pyroclasm and Ancient Grudge. When playing the white splash, what white spells do people really run it their boards these days? Not many, maybe 0-3.

In that first sentance you may have well just said ZOMG, Goblins!!!!! The only situation outside where Pyroclasm has any relevance outside of that would be storm combo finishing with Empty the Warens, which could either be stopped with countermagic or Stifle'd, both with pretty much the same measure of effectiveness. maybe you could argue that 'Clasm is one-sided board sweep when paired with a Crypt, but one of those, if not both, are going to walk into a counter or a CounterTop activation. Ancient Grudge, I would think, would be out-classed by Krosan Grip, unless you had Stax/ Affinity running rampant in your metagame, but in that case I would rather have Shattering Spree, which is essentially doing the same job as Serenity, just a tad bit less voulnerable and not on the same scale (or even close early on, since the deck only runs 4/5 red-producing lands).

Shugyosha
01-07-2008, 11:14 AM
Stormcombo can't always be handled with counters and having redundant answers against a deck that may have Duress/Pyroblast/Chant/Xantid postboard isn't that bad.

Clasm also helps with Ichorid and random weenie decks.

I never run REB or PoP in UGR sideboards. Blood Moon is much more effective. It wins games by itself, as long as you have a Forest, obviously.

White cards that are usually used are Armageddon and sometimes Jötun Grunt as additional beater and gravehate. Although Geddon is nice Blood Moon is much better i think.
Some lists also pack Worship but its too expensive and fragile I think.

Goblin Snowman
01-07-2008, 03:12 PM
Again, I inquire: why is everyone insisting that the deck only run 10-11 creatures when the deck wants to (for lack of a better phrase) thrash the piss out of the opponent?

Because you then lose the redundency of the additional cantrips, which allow you to run fewer lands, and find whatever answer you need at the time.



Why is this the general concensus? What am I gaining by diluting my ability to deal 20 damage in a quick, timely maner? BTS can fuck couch like no other when not attacking, and Dragon fucks couch like no other when it does. Considering that neither are really bad in either role (just more effective at one than the other), and they aren't horrible together, why in God's name shouldn't I play both to increase my ability to deal that 20? This is why I would play red, right? To have more agressive options, is it not? Since the conception of NQGr, the reason to run it has been the more agressive tertiary (Dragon) and the more agressive removal (Lightning Bolt, Magma Jet, Fire// Ice), yeah? Is the exact same not true now?

I don't think so. The reason to run Red is because you believe that it may compete better in some metagames than White. Not because it's more agressive.



Why would I want to try to maintain a white level of control when it has always been openly admited that I can't? I'm fairly sure that the reason that NQGr is the better choice to take into a random metagame would be because it can end matches faster, matches that would generally be close or slightly unfavorable because of the long-windedness of the matches. If I'm off target, let me know.

Because you can easily maintain a White level of control. Red, while subpar in the mirror, has many more control options from the board and the exact same (good) cards that White has. If you think you can't run Control Red, you're way off target. Some builds allow for more controlling than others. I have no issues running a CB/Top build of Red into a random tourny.



In all honesty, can you really say that Red has better sideboard options to White? The only advantage I could see would be the ability to run REB and probably Price of Progress (I would think that this would be much better tech than Blood Moon against Landstill). Really I think that they both have lackluster sideboards, but that's just me.

Ok. Then run White. I feel the additional sideboard options are worth the loss of Swords. If you don't, play around with White a few times and tell me if you're justified in your thinking.



On a side note, has anyone tested Pyrostatic Pillar for use against storm combo or is Stifle just the better option all around?

Pillar isn't terrible, but it suffers from CotV syndrome. It hurts you too damn much to make it worth it. More so when you realize you've taken enough damage for them to mini-Tendril's you.



On an entirely new topic, has anyone thought about splashing black into the deck for a better sideboard and Terminate (replacing the secondary burn)?

Thoughsize is very sexy, I'll admit. What list do you propose we start with for testing's sake?

Waikiki
01-07-2008, 03:38 PM
Hi, I'm new to ******** but I like to build a very agressive build. I started with the UG build and tranformed it a little bit with the addition of red.


// Lands
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [A] Tropical Island
3 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [B] Volcanic Island

// Creatures
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
4 [OD] Werebear
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
2 [P3] Strategic Planning
4 [LRW] Ponder
3 [SC] Stifle
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NE] Daze
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [A] Lightning Bolt
2 [AP] Fire/Ice

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [OV] Hydroblast
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [DIS] Trygon Predator

The maindeck is my concern right now Cause I would like to keep it as agressive as possible. Does anybody have some input that would improve the decks main goal?

chokin
01-07-2008, 06:47 PM
@ Wai - I think Strategic Planning is a bad cantrip IMO. Predict is much better if you're running enough cantrips, Top, or if your opponent uses a tutor like Mystical/Enlightened. Also at sorcery speed, it needs more oomph. It's like a Mental note at double the cost, loss of speed, but gaining a little bit of card choice.

Also, since you're taking out a lot of the emphasis of red, I'd suggest dropping 1-2 Volcanic Islands for some basics.

raharu
01-07-2008, 10:12 PM
Because you then lose the redundency of the additional cantrips, which allow you to run fewer lands, and find whatever answer you need at the time.

... If you actually READ my list, you will find that I run the same amount as any of the previous builds, more if you count Magma Jet. Unless you want to run more than 60 cards, I really don't think that it is possible to run more cantrips and Counterbalance. Again I'm going to present the question: why should I run fewer creatures in an agressive deck?



I don't think so. The reason to run Red is because you believe that it may compete better in some metagames than White. Not because it's more agressive.

Is it possible that it is better in some metagames than others because it is more agressive??? Some metagames mandate faster wins. Just thinking aloud.


Because you can easily maintain a White level of control. Red, while subpar in the mirror, has many more control options from the board and the exact same (good) cards that White has. If you think you can't run Control Red, you're way off target. Some builds allow for more controlling than others. I have no issues running a CB/Top build of Red into a random tourny.

Neither do I. If you looked at my last hypothetical list, it's in there.


Ok. Then run White. I feel the additional sideboard options are worth the loss of Swords. If you don't, play around with White a few times and tell me if you're justified in your thinking.

Again, I believe that Blood Moon requires too much set-up to make it good. I may be wrong, but I don't think so, or else I wouldn't have said that in previous posts. This will be my last post concering Blood Moon, since I really don't see the point in testing it.


Pillar isn't terrible, but it suffers from CotV syndrome. It hurts you too damn much to make it worth it. More so when you realize you've taken enough damage for them to mini-Tendril's you.

Yeah, I figured that, I was just wondering.


Thoughsize is very sexy, I'll admit. What list do you propose we start with for testing's sake?

Something like this:

Control: 12
Thoughtseize x3
Daze x3
Counterbalance x2
Force of Will x4

Removal: 7
Lightning Bolt x4
Terminate x3

Cantrips: 10
Sensei’s Divining Top x2
Brainstorm x4
Ponder x4

Creatures: 13
Nimble Mongoose x4
Dark Confidant x3
Tarmogoyf x4
Fledgling Dragon x2

Lands: 18
Underground Sea x3
Tropical Island x3
Volcanic Island x3
Polluted Delta x3
Flooded Strand/ Wooded Foothills x3

Island x2
Forest x1
OR
+1 Volcanic Island
+1 Tropical Island
+1 Underground Sea



I’m not sure this is close to optimal, but Terminate >= Swords to Plowshares in most occasions, Thoughtseize, being proactive, furthers the goal of aggressive control, and there really isn’t any glaring weakness in the main deck while allowing black sideboard elements. I pretty much replaced BTS with Dark Confidant and Magma Jet with Terminate, but I really couldn’t tell you where the room for 3x Thoughtseize came from (I think -1 CB, -1 Top, and -1 Daze/ Magma Jet).

Mental
01-08-2008, 08:20 PM
So I'm building this deck, and I have a question. I need a list as a starting point.

I know a few things: I want to play Counterbalance. I want to play Vedalken Shackles. I don't want to play Fire//Ice.

Anyways, any help would be appreciated. What is the standard CB Thresh list today?

Goblin Snowman
01-08-2008, 10:47 PM
... If you actually READ my list, you will find that I run the same amount as any of the previous builds, more if you count Magma Jet. Unless you want to run more than 60 cards, I really don't think that it is possible to run more cantrips and Counterbalance. Again I'm going to present the question: why should I run fewer creatures in an agressive deck?

Why is the deck the aggressive one? Make a case for what matchups are improved by building the deck more aggressively.

You should run less creatures in Threshold as, as you stated yourself, there are only 60 slots in the deck. No one wants to run multiple four and three drops in a deck with 17 land. You will run into the problem of having excess creatures clutter your hand in the early stages of the game, where you are in your weakest state, and most likely to fold to disruption of your cantrip engine and manabase. Additional cantrips are good at every state in the game, allowing you to selectively choose which answers you need in the shortgame and providing excellent topdecks later on. Are you ever sad to see a Ponder later in the game when mana is not a concern?

Citrus-God
01-09-2008, 10:52 AM
Why is the deck the aggressive one? Make a case for what matchups are improved by building the deck more aggressively.

Landstill.... the deck is going to fall apart even harder if you make it more aggressive though.


Additional cantrips are good at every state in the game, allowing you to selectively choose which answers you need in the shortgame and providing excellent topdecks later on. Are you ever sad to see a Ponder later in the game when mana is not a concern?

He's right.

JDunkin00
01-09-2008, 04:44 PM
Hi, I'm new to ******** but I like to build a very agressive build. I started with the UG build and tranformed it a little bit with the addition of red.


// Lands
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [A] Tropical Island
3 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [B] Volcanic Island

// Creatures
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
4 [OD] Werebear
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
2 [P3] Strategic Planning
4 [LRW] Ponder
3 [SC] Stifle
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NE] Daze
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [A] Lightning Bolt
2 [AP] Fire/Ice

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [OV] Hydroblast
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [DIS] Trygon Predator

The maindeck is my concern right now Cause I would like to keep it as agressive as possible. Does anybody have some input that would improve the decks main goal?

I also think you need to drop in some basics at the cost of a couple duals maybe even 1 less wasteland. Also strategic planning isn't the best 3rd cantrip Portent, Predict, probably even S.D.Top would all be better choices. Just my opinion though. I think pyroclasm is a excellant sb card as well. In my u/g thresh I use hailstorm just to get a pyro type effect.

raharu
01-09-2008, 08:08 PM
@ Waikki: Your list makes me a sad panda. There is no Counterbalance, there is no Sensei's Divining Top, there is no tertiary. Try Fledgling Dragon (since this deck is more control oriented). That Trygon Predator in the board is pretty sexy, though I would like to see that in the main. After finding some room for Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top, I would do this:

-4 Where?bear

+ 2 Fledgling Dragon
+1 MD Trygon Predator
+1 your choice (Prolly CB/ Top)

@ GoblinSnowman: I would presume that you would benifit from being more agressivn against MUC, Stax, and random Discard/ other random dedicated control. Not Landstill because they're counting on you overextending into an agro role and giving them a 3/4 for 1 from Wrath (although if you ran more creatures, you wouldn't be hurt as badly by getting threats sweeped).

Also, are you really going to have creature clutter in the opening hand with 12-13 creatures in the deck as opposed to 11? If you really think so, show me the math please.

EDIT: show me where you run more than 15 cantrips plx, because obviously one of us can't count, and I really hope it isn't me (I still don't know my ABC's yet in french, and I'm in my 5th year...).

Mental
01-09-2008, 08:28 PM
Landstill.... the deck is going to fall apart even harder if you make it more aggressive though.



He's right.

Anti~American, would you mind posting your current Red Thresh list, or your suggested one?

Citrus-God
01-10-2008, 10:45 AM
@ GoblinSnowman: I would presume that you would benifit from being more agressivn against MUC, Stax, and random Discard/ other random dedicated control. Not Landstill because they're counting on you overextending into an agro role and giving them a 3/4 for 1 from Wrath (although if you ran more creatures, you wouldn't be hurt as badly by getting threats sweeped).


You can Counterbalance. Just put down 1-3 creatures and proceed to Counter every WoG effect as Counterbalance protects your Counters and your creatures from Swords and such. Besides, you can slow roll your threats. Running 8-11 guys is enough.

As for Stax and Dragon Stompy, I think Hydroblast, SDT, and Grudge are the cards to play. Fetch out a basic Island and go nuts on Hydroblast. This is another good reason to go back to White because you dont need Red to play Hydroblast.

@Mental:


// Lands 16
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island
1 Island


// Creatures 11
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Fledgling Dragon


// Spells 33
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Portent
4 Predict
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Counterbalance
4 Lightning Bolt


// Sideboard 15
1 Forest
1 Counterbalance
2 Control Magic
3 Blood Moon
2 Krosan Grip
2 Ancient Grudge
4 Pyroclasm


But seriously, I think White is the way to go. Hydroblast and Swords is just good against Dragon Stompy. The artifacts/enchantment hate slots can go towards Serenity, Naturalize, and EE.

JDunkin00
01-10-2008, 05:45 PM
As for Stax and Dragon Stompy, I think Hydroblast, SDT, and Grudge are the cards to play. Fetch out a basic Island and go nuts on Hydroblast. This is another good reason to go back to White because you dont need Red to play Hydroblast.




But seriously, I think White is the way to go. Hydroblast and Swords is just good against Dragon Stompy. The artifacts/enchantment hate slots can go towards Serenity, Naturalize, and EE.

Staying u/g is also viable allowing for more basics to naturally draw out of your deck. Also gives the one of snapback for alt cast pseudo removal and anti hellbent shenanigans.

PhanTom_lt
01-13-2008, 03:15 PM
Just won a local 7 man tourney. In the finals I defeated Goblins with a black splash. In the Swiss won against 60 basic land.dec, lost to those same Goblins, won against UG madness and Belcher. I played a hybrid of Adan's tempo list and a list of Counterbalances.

My list:
2 Tropical Island
2 Breeding Pool
2 Volcanic Island
1 Steam Vents
3 Wasteland
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Wooded Foothills

Creatures:
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Burning Tree shaman

Spells:
4 FoW
4 Daze
3 Counterbalance
2 Sensei's divining top
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fire/Ice
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Portent
2 Vedalken Shackles
2 Repeal

SB:
3 Pyroclasm
3 Krosan Grip
3 Stifle
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Spell Snare.

I've tried Portent this time, and almost always it has been unspectacular, except, when I gave Belcher another Belcher when all he really needed was 1 mana to kill me. On the other hand, Serum Visions has never been very good either, except I really like to draw a card now. And I didn't have Predicts.
The Goblins matchup presented another problem - how to deal with Wort. She won on her own in two turns against me in the Swiss, by returning already dead Warchiefs and Matrons. 4 Lightning Bolt ain't enough, especially when I have to deal with Lackey on first turn. Suggestions?

Waikiki
01-13-2008, 03:34 PM
I placed 1st place in a 15 man tournament with UGr ***** (no CB)

UGwb *****
Faery stompy
Dragon stompy
Ichorid (jip)
Terranova
Terrageddon (leander)
Pikula (bas)
T.E.C (Roelke, wel benieuwd naar je ervaringen)
Aluren
WW

My list:

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

// Lands
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [A] Tropical Island
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [B] Volcanic Island
1 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [OD] Werebear

// Spells
4 [LRW] Ponder
3 [SC] Stifle
4 [DIS] Spell Snare
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NE] Daze
4 [A] Lightning Bolt
3 [AP] Fire/Ice
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [IA] Portent

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [DIS] Trygon Predator
SB: 3 [MI] Mind Harness
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip


I played vs 4c *****/Terranova/Aluren and faery stompy

kabal
01-13-2008, 03:37 PM
I placed 1st place in a 15 man tournament with UGr ***** (no CB)

What did you list look like? Obviously it did not include CB.

Waikiki
01-13-2008, 03:47 PM
list is up, the portents supposed to be strategic planning but I didn't have those at the time.

kabal
01-13-2008, 03:48 PM
list is up

How did Mind Harness work out for you?


portents supposed to be strategic planning but I didn't have those at the time.

With only 14 actually lands to cast spells and all the sorcery speed cantrips, do you feel it is hard to counter your opponent's spells? Seems that maybe Opt maybe option to allow you to free up your mana.

I know Portent allows you to look deeper and potential disrupt your opponents library, but just seems that this build will have trouble balancing early game with cantrips and counters. Then again, Daze and FoW can help you with that. Finally, this style of build won Gencon and continues to perform well maybe it is the right formula.

As for Strategic Planning, can't really speak to it since I have never tried it but seems like a weak option compared to other spells you could use it is place.

Waikiki
01-13-2008, 04:10 PM
Mind harness stole 1 goyf and a terravore. So its been really great to me. Since I didn't expect to do fine agains terranova.

Also planning is great to me. Im happy everytime I see it. It gives me options to grow goyf and gain ***** faster.

goobafish
01-13-2008, 05:02 PM
Good to see people picking up the list. I am not a big fan of needles in the sideboard as they help with so few matches, the only matches I can see them being helpful in is Survival, 43 land and Landstill. Landstill uses deeds, and Needle is card disadvantage. Needle is great against survival and 43 land, with 43 land seeing so little play, needle isn't worth sticking in the board for that matchup.

Waikiki
01-14-2008, 04:20 PM
what sb cards would you prefer over the needles then? They seem to fix alot of random problems for me.

goobafish
01-14-2008, 04:23 PM
Either more Predators or Pyroclasms.

thedarkness
01-17-2008, 12:01 PM
Wow, it's been a while since I've posted here... x.x

Anyway, I'll start by saying that this is for a tournament that starts in about an hour, and I'm expecting a LOT of Dragon Stompy. That being said, here's the list I'm planning to run in this tournament as of now:

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

Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Werebear

Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Pithing Needle
4 Ponder
4 Fire/Ice

Sideboard
SB: 3 Engineered Explosives
SB: 4 Pyroclasm
SB: 2 Hydroblast
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast


Now, I realize that some of the cards in the maindeck and sideboard may be questionable for the Stompy matchup, and maindecked needles may seem a bit odd, but there's logic to each choice.

First off, this is obviously a very aggro build, but 8 burn spells and 12 creatures, but I think that will be an important and necessary part of today's tournament. Suffice it to say, most of the people where I play use aggro of some sort or belcher or other random decks, while the better players frequently use either landstill, stax or thresh.

The shell of this build is from David Caplan's (spelling?) GenCon 2007 top 8 list, and with some help from a few friends, I think it has been fairly well improved. Now for the card choices that may seems a bit odd.

4 Stifle and 4 Wasteland: Mana denial will probably be a very important factor in this awful metagame, and Stifle hits the random belcher decks too, if they somehow resolve a belcher or hit the mana for an ETW.

12 threats and 8 burn spells: I need to be able to race random rogue decks as well as established aggro and combo decks, as well as take out things like Magus of the Moon.

Maindeck Pithing Needles: With the exception of 2 Krosan Grips in the board, this deck curves out at 2, Force of Will excluded. This deck does NOT want to be staring down Countertop. Ever. It also stops a lot of other cards, such as Eternal Dragon in Rifter, which is fairly common here, Deed in Landstill and some other decks, Survival, etc, etc.

3 EE and 4 Pyroclasms sideboard: as I see it, Dredge is an awfully painful matchup, but not entirely unwinnable. If I counter their Dread Return, I will usually, or at least fairly often, have one turn to destroy the zombies. The reason for 4 Pyroclasms and 3 EE is simple: Pyroclasm can't be Needled, and also takes out Magus of the Moon in a pinch.

2 Ancient Grudge and 2 Krosan Grip sideboard: Grudge is better against Stax variants, and Grip stops Countertop, since they won't likely keep a 3cc on top against a deck that curves out at 2.

Blue Blasts over Red Blasts: Dragon Stompy scares me. What else is there to say?


To me, the list looks pretty solid, but I'm here for opinions and/or suggestions, if anyone has any. Thanks in advance!


Edit: so far, I'm 4-2 games, 2-0 matches. I lost both game 1's, but basically dominated games 2 and 3. I was paired against Belcher round 1, lost to a bad hand against an unknown deck (no counters, didn't mulligan), and he made 12 gobs on turn 1. Games 2 and 3 I boarded in 11 cards and drew a total of 16 of 38 potential answers to his deck between games 2 and 3. Round 2, I was paired against burn, lost game 1 to a total lack of blue spells for my Force, but won games 2 and 3 thanks to boarding in blue Blasts.

raharu
01-18-2008, 04:07 PM
How were the DragonStompy matches? Your Maindeck looks bretty good against them, with 12 ways to answer Magus and counters for Blood Moon (although few other answers for the latter), although I question A) the Wastelands, and B) the complete lack of basics.

Adan
01-21-2008, 08:27 AM
Though I said I won't post again here:

I placed 4th at out local monthly event. We were 37 participants, playing 6 rounds of swiss.

I played David "goobafish" Caplan's maindeck and modified the Sideboard to make it better for our meta.

// Lands
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [B] Tropical Island
4 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [AP] Fire/Ice
4 [A] Lightning Bolt
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [DIS] Spell Snare
1 [PS] Rushing River
1 [TSP] Wipe Away

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [10E] Pyroclasm
SB: 2 [NE] Submerge
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 [DIS] Trygon Predator

Trygon Predator was the most boarded card yesterday since our meta was infested with Chalice Aggro, Stax and Affinity.
Submerge is a cool tempocard against the mirrormatch. And Needles are supposed to be good against Landstill and Survival. Whatever.

So, here are my matches:

Match 1 - One of the Ball brothers with Affinity

g1: I somehow have manaproblems and he has got Engineered Explosives set on to. That holds back my 2 Tarmogoyf in my hand and I don't have a 3rd mana to play Goyf with Stifle-backup. I think I played it like a retard. In a bad situation, he double-Thoughtcasts, overextends and smashes me.

I boarded in 3 Predators and 2 Krosan grips. I think I boarded out Stifles, some Spell Snares and Ponders...

g2: He is somehow manascrewed and just goes Citadel, Worker, go.
I manage to get a 3rd turn Predator. He plays Ornithopter. In my turn, I Bolt Ornithopter, Waste his Vault of Whispers, attack with Predator, destroy his Worker, leaving his Citadel as his only permenent. He scoops immediately.

g3: I don't have predator, but some acceptable amount of counters, burn and cantrips, which find me 3 (!!) Goyfs. I start beating him with 2 of them because I was afraid of EE. Since he was colorscrewed and knocking on his deck everytime he draws a card, I was confident that I could Spell Snare his EE. He topdecks a black mana and plays Perish T_T.
But never mind, the 3rd Goyf in my hand comes in and then I win.

1-0-0

Match 2: Andreas Pisch with... GW Elves.

g1: I had to mull to 5 because I had a hand with a single Wasteland as land twice. I lost that one since he overextended too fast and played Oblivion Ring for my Goyf.

Stifles out for Pyroclasms and Predators for some additonal manpower.

g2: This time I had a regular draw and he the crappy draw. I screwed him with Fire/Ice onto his Elves, Wasteland for his lands and then I Brainstorm-Ponder-bla into 3 Mongeese which do their job very quickly together with Lightning Bolt.

g3: Just like game 2, but this time there were 2 Goyfs instead of Mongeese.

2-0-0

Match 3 - Clemens "Der_imaginäre_Freund" Wolff with UWb Cunning Landstill

I was prepared for a 2-0 loss. We knew what each other plays and so I also knew that he will smash my face in since I also know his deck's possibilities and flexibility. He also plays a up-to-date version with Tolaria West and Humility.
No chance. His deck did what it was supposed to do and I lose 2-0.

2-1-0

Never mind, I can still go 5-1-0

4th Match - Harald Herrlich with 3color Vialgoblins.

My favourite trashtalker-opponent.

g1: I see the true power of the manadenial-element. I manage to get the goddraw, screwing him, deliver early Goyfbeatz and dazing everything dangerous. WOW!

Out: 4 Spell Snare, 1 Ponder In: 3 Clasms, 2 Needles.

g2: This time my draw was worse and his better. I don't have Lightnign Bolt for Wort and he smashes me with double-Warchief, Gangbanger and Piledriver.
And this time he screwed ME.

g3: He relies on his single Aether Vial. I waste-stifle all of his lands and manage to Bolt Wort which comes in through Vial. After that I have some time to draw-go for critters or at least cantrips to find some critters.
Since he didn't draw anything except Goblins but no lands, I eventually won that game with Mongo-Beatz and burn to the dome.

3-1-0

5th Match - Mirko Bretz with Angel Staxxx

Stupid matchup.

g1: It's quite balanced, but when I tried to overrun him, he plays Ghostly Prison which I can't counter because of 3Sphere. Then he has got Waste-Lock and I say: "Aw, c'mon! game two!" Those 3 Spell Snares which stuck in my hand...

So out came 4 Spell Snares and 4 Stifles, and In came 2 EE, 3 Predators and 3 Grips. H8 ftw!

g2: I have a predator in my hand, Daze and FoW. KEEEEEEP!
He has got a slow start with Plains, go. 3rd turn I drop Trygon Predator.
He laughs because he thought I made a joke when I said I play him. And he thought it was a bad random creature, just like I did at the beginning. After he read the oracle text, you could see the big confusion in his face. After destroying some Ghostly Prisons, 3Spheres and Crucibles: "What the fuck? What shall I do against that fucker? O.o" "g3?" "Hm, yeah".

g3: Similar to game 2, but he mulled to 5. The Trygon predator came later in the mid-game where he recovered from his bad opening hand. But then I drop it and begin to make pressure. I wrecked a crucible and he plays Oblivion Ring.
Fine, EOT: Krosan Grip. "GG"

4-1-0

The last game I IDed with Fabian Moyschewitz because we both didn't want to play anymore. Though I knew he plays Deadguy which I could completely rape with Spell Snares, Burn, Dazes, Stifle against Wasteland and so on... I thought: "OK, then no one will kick out the other from the T8" when he offered me a draw.

4-1-1

When I looked at the standings, I should be 5th, but then I ended up 4th because of a better Opp-Score, taking a foil Apocalypse Pernicious Deed.
I traded it against a normal Pernicious Deed and a signed Bloodstained Mire so I can continue to work on my new 5color Highlander.

So, special thanks to David "goobafish" Caplan for his list.

Sometimes I could not manage the concept since I always want to play 1st Turn Ponder or Mongoose instead of Land-Go just to save my landdrop from Wasteland or Stifle a fetch. Sometimes I'm also in some situations where it's just like in the old days where I played UR Landstill: You can handle EVERYTHING, but then you run out of gas because you can't apply any pressure because the threat-density is smaller and that build generates less CQ than...my NQGw /w CB-Engine and predict for example.

But I wanted to try something new and in the end it played quite smooth. And one more T8 appearance without Counterbalance, just to disprove your statement "lists without CB suck".

edit: 2 feed the Landstill thread: Clemens Wolff won the tournament 5-0-1 with UWb Cunning Landstill /w Humility and Tolaria West (techy card!).

goobafish
01-21-2008, 09:17 AM
Congrats on doing so well with it,

I have also found that at the last event when predators were added, I very often sided them in, as they are amazing in so many matchups. I am not a fan of needles through.


Sometimes I could not manage the concept since I always want to play 1st Turn Ponder or Mongoose instead of Land-Go just to save my landdrop from Wasteland or Stifle a fetch

This is a common problem with those who are picking up this list. You almost always save the landdrop for stifle if you have it, or spell snare if you are playing second. You want to drop the goose if you know you are playing against goblins.


So, special thanks to David "goobafish" Caplan for his list.
Hope you enjoyed.

kicks_422
01-21-2008, 09:26 AM
I've always advocated running Predators as the 3rd creature. Nice to see a handful of people seeing how good it is.

Shugyosha
01-21-2008, 08:10 PM
But I wanted to try something new and in the end it played quite smooth. And one more T8 appearance without Counterbalance, just to disprove your statement "lists without CB suck".

True.
A team mate and me played the same list at a local tourney, too. I lost two mirrors in which a combination of landscrew, landflood killed me along other things and went just 2-2 but my friend went 4-0. Regardless of my problems with the list we both found it very powerful.
Although we both missed the 9-10 creature from time to time.

MeddlingMage001
01-22-2008, 09:37 AM
I like your list, Adan.

@ Goobafish and Adan: The one-off Rushing River and Wipe Away look a little random to me. Are they really needed? Were they good during your games?

I think they only serve to bounce a CB, Moat or to break a Stalemate, right?

goobafish
01-22-2008, 09:52 AM
Those are the main reasons, along with:
Deed, Humilty (which is now popular), Confinement, Tombstalkers, Shackles, Jitte, SoFI, Sea Drake and saving your own creatures.

They are reset buttons and game winners.

Adan
01-22-2008, 11:15 AM
Those are the main reasons, along with:
Deed, Humilty (which is now popular), Confinement, Tombstalkers, Shackles, Jitte, SoFI, Sea Drake and saving your own creatures.

They are reset buttons and game winners.

Yeah, those are enough reasons to play them. I first played Repeal because it doesn't produce disadvantage for some speed, but it's very manaintensive.
So I just ended up netdecking the list as it was.

raharu
01-29-2008, 04:19 PM
Could Temporal Spring be a good option as a "tempo" card? It serves the same purpose as what's run in those slots right now, but better because it eats thier next topdeck as well and still dodges Counterbalance. Thoughts?

luka66_6
01-29-2008, 05:01 PM
Could Temporal Spring be a good option as a "tempo" card? It is sorcery soo i think it is noot god in red *****.

kicks_422
01-29-2008, 07:28 PM
The Split Second of Wipe Away or the versatility of Rushing River far outweigh the Lapse effect of Temporal Spring, IMO. If you're using it on Counterbalance, your opponent's deck most probably has some way to recover after that.

BTW, has anyone been having problems with running only 18 lands, with 4 of them Wastelands? Isn't that a bit too low? I think it's safer to run 20...

EDIT: And another question, in reference to Adan's list a few posts above... In your report, you boarded out the Spell Snares almost every game. Will you still keep them MD? If you'll be dropping them, what would you replace them with?

goobafish
01-29-2008, 08:35 PM
BTW, has anyone been having problems with running only 18 lands, with 4 of them Wastelands? Isn't that a bit too low? I think it's safer to run 20...

This is a common question and is answered simply by the fact that the deck is MADE to run on 1-2 lands. If you get mana heavy hands, the lands are useless. and as such you want to prevent this as much as possible.

Spell snares are very rarely sided out. It seems that some places in the report where snares were sided out that they should not have been. It says they were sided out for the Affinity Matchup (they counter ravager and cranial plating) and for the Angel Stax matchup, where it is absolutely key to counter chalice at 1.

Against goblins is one of the the only places where you side them out, and you leave them in when playing against the new Tarmo-gobbo lists.

Whit3 Ghost
01-29-2008, 10:09 PM
where it is absolutely key to counter chalice at 2.

You mean Chalice at one, correct?
Also, my report from the Running GAGG, where I made top8 with David Caplan's UGr Thrash list can be found here:
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8492

goobafish
01-29-2008, 10:10 PM
Yep, my bad, will edit that.

Citrus-God
01-30-2008, 10:15 AM
The Hatfields and Calosso played Moon Thresh, which I think is pretty cool.

// Lands 17
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
3 Island


// Creatures 11
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Fledgling Dragon


// Spells 32
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Portent
3 Predict
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
2 Blood Moon
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt


// Sideboard 15
1 Counterbalance
1 Magus of the Moon
2 Blood Moon
2 Krosan Grip
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Red Elemental Blast
4 Pyroclasm


The decklist looks better than ever and still has the standard arsenal. Blood Moon is a bomb in the metagame right now. With all the Magus of the Moon running around, adjusting the mana base to it wouldnt hurt. 3rd Dragon is just essential now with the Moon effects.

Has lot's of 5th effects (Portent, Magus), which is good, since it maximixes the potential for better odds. The 5th Portent is awesome. This card is a must. The 5th Moon seems kinda cool.

REB is probably a good card right now. It's probably better than Grip in the mirror. It counters CB and helps win counter wars. They're also good against Landstill because they're extra counters to help resolve bombs like Moon. REB is also the nuts against Breakfast.

Congratz to Alix Hatfield (ObFreely) for the great finish.

luka66_6
01-31-2008, 11:56 AM
I really like this "new" ***** with blood moons. It is the way to go at the moment I belive specially with dragon stompy on the rise. :smile:

how about adding Taurean Maulers in deck?

fetchesbasiclands
01-31-2008, 03:52 PM
how about adding Taurean Maulers in deck?
I really don't believe they are any good here.Counterbalance stops your opponents from playing spells,so does Moon.So they're kinda anti-synergistic with Mauler and besides,what would you cut?Dragon flies and beats for 5-10 while you could not even consider cutting Goyf or Mongoose for Mauler.one card I would like to add in the board is Trygon Predator,but it's manacost can be tough under a Moon.

luka66_6
01-31-2008, 04:37 PM
I really don't believe they are any good here.Counterbalance stops your opponents from playing spells,so does Moon. Yes i bought Maulers before this tech with moons and dragons was posted. :) Counterbalance and Maulers are OK because they get counter even if spell is countered but moons are different thing all together. But i guess i would only play 2 dragons and 3 moons main.

PhanTom_lt
01-31-2008, 04:55 PM
Playing Blood moon in a DragonStompy metagame is not tech. Adjusting your manabase to fight it is. Although from my limited experience in MWS, I beat Dragon consistently, of course, except when they go nuts and I don't have Force. But their Trini is not that hard to play around, it looks like a different card, not the same as Stax's Trini. Just out-aggro them, if you managed to counter their first threats.

However, I'm still concerned how to deal with Warren Weirding from Gobs.

zulander
01-31-2008, 04:56 PM
Let's pretend goblins played 4x diabolic edict. How would you deal with it?

Adan
02-01-2008, 02:35 AM
Let's pretend goblins played 4x diabolic edict. How would you deal with it?

Counter it in some situations? It's not different from the past where Goblins played 4 Swords to Plowshares...
When you play UGR Tempotresh (the canadian one), you may also have Spell Snares to deal with it.

chokin
02-01-2008, 12:46 PM
Playing Blood moon in a DragonStompy metagame is not tech. Adjusting your manabase to fight it is. Although from my limited experience in MWS, I beat Dragon consistently, of course, except when they go nuts and I don't have Force. But their Trini is not that hard to play around, it looks like a different card, not the same as Stax's Trini. Just out-aggro them, if you managed to counter their first threats.

However, I'm still concerned how to deal with Warren Weirding from Gobs.

I agree with the statement about Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon. If they are gonna play something that has a mirrored effect that they are hurt less by and can drop as early as turn 1, don't play it, play against it. Use more basics.

Trinisphere can be a pain in the ass when it's dropping turn 1 and 2...that means all of our cantrips now cost 2U.

Now, if people were playing Moon effects because other people had a hard time dealing with it, then other people are morons and Thresh should ideally trash them. But all in all, it's a neat list. That singleton Portent is a cool idea, but how has it been working?

slyfer
02-03-2008, 09:26 AM
Warning for severly ignoring the forum rules and inflammatory content. ~ Nightmare

Citrus-God
02-06-2008, 09:50 AM
That singleton Portent is a cool idea, but how has it been working?

It makes sure you mulligan less, have more control over your early game, and yea... it's just another Ponder.

chokin
02-08-2008, 01:09 PM
I was thinking to myself this morning and was wondering what the best version was to run.

Here's what I have as of this minute:
17 Land
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Island
1 Forest

11 Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Fledgling Dragon

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Predict
1 Portent
4 Lightning Bolt
2 OPEN SLOTS or Fire//Ice

Sideboard
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Trygon Predators
2 Krosan Grip
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Pyroclasm
2 Submerge
1 OPEN SLOT

Tonight I'm expecting CRET Belcher(Detrivore and Red Akroma SB), UG Thresh(1 Goyf, 2 Breeding Pool, no Trops), White Weenies(No Jitte/SoFI), Pattern of Rebirth Combo, maybe a weird Tron deck, and some random jank.

Looking for improvements...any help is appreciated. Dragon Stompy isn't a threat (or played here), but Wasteland and Detrivore could be troublesome. Is everything looking ok? Should CBTop move to board? Should I change values anywhere?

Arsenal
02-08-2008, 02:46 PM
Counter it in some situations? It's not different from the past where Goblins played 4 Swords to Plowshares...

I disagree. In some builds, Warren Weirding is easily tutorable and recurrable. This is FAR different than Goblins randomly drawing into a StP, gets it countered, then never see it again.

PhanTom_lt
02-08-2008, 03:53 PM
@chokin: Try Vedalken Shackles. All around good card. Helps winning those randoms, ww, Thresh. Or try Blood Moons, seeing as you have sufficient slots for them.

@Arsenal. That was my point a little bit earlier. Mongoose no longer holds the fort, Spell Snares are awful vs Gobs (yes, I run them MB), as is CB-Top. However, if you let Wort stick, Warren weirding or no Warren weirding, you should lose.

chokin
02-08-2008, 06:00 PM
@chokin: Try Vedalken Shackles. All around good card. Helps winning those randoms, ww, Thresh. Or try Blood Moons, seeing as you have sufficient slots for them.

I have the slots to do it, but I am unsure as to how well it will do. Some decks it will simply rape, and others will be annoyed...most will be unaffected.

I'll try it out. If all else fails, I'll go Dragon Stompy.

Adan
02-10-2008, 03:39 PM
I disagree. In some builds, Warren Weirding is easily tutorable and recurrable. This is FAR different than Goblins randomly drawing into a StP, gets it countered, then never see it again.

I also disagree, Gempalm Incinerator is also tutorable and recurrable and prodices CA, Warren Weirding doesn't. Incinerator is also uncounterable. So I really don't understand that hype. Mongoose's shroud may be an argument, but you want to kill Goyf anyways, so you play like...5 Goblins, maybe on of them being Mad Auntie to have an eternal-blocker for the Goose and enough Goblins to kill the Goyf with Incinerator. You might also just attack with a lot of Goblins an Piledrivers, forcing the opponent to block the Pieldriver and then just regenerate it with Mad Auntie.

That's why I don't have such a high opinion of Warren Weirding...I mean...so what?

Whit3 Ghost
02-10-2008, 03:45 PM
I also disagree, Gempalm Incinerator is also tutorable and recurrable and prodices CA, Warren Weirding doesn't. Incinerator is also uncounterable. So I really don't understand that hype.
Yeah, but Incinerator requires you to have an already advantageous board position, Wierding does not. This is an incredibly key plus about Wierding.

Adan
02-10-2008, 04:28 PM
Yeah, but Incinerator requires you to have an already advantageous board position, Wierding does not. This is an incredibly key plus about Wierding.

But that's not difficult with that Guy...erm...Moog War Thingy? Mogg War Marshal, yeah. And Siege Gang might count as well if you can force through a Lackey and attack with it succesfully.

PhanTom_lt
02-12-2008, 05:33 PM
Though I said I won't post again here:

// Lands
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [B] Tropical Island
4 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [AP] Fire/Ice
4 [A] Lightning Bolt
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [DIS] Spell Snare
1 [PS] Rushing River
1 [TSP] Wipe Away

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [10E] Pyroclasm
SB: 2 [NE] Submerge
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 [DIS] Trygon Predator

.

Decided to test your list, but I noticed the lack of 3rd cantrip set, often I would just sit there holding spell snares and stifles with no cantrips to be found while something was beating me down. It actually felt more controllish to me than the CB+Top version. I don't think Ice can be thought as a "real" cantrip because usually you play for the red side. If only Electrolyze was 2 cc..

Wipe away is clearly superior to Repeal, it will stay in my list. And I put the BTS back in.

Osse
02-14-2008, 12:28 AM
What does the rest of the sideboard look like for those who are running Moons in the side? Also, are you running Magus of the moon or Blood Moon, or both?

Waikiki
02-14-2008, 03:24 AM
I don't think Ice can be thought as a "real" cantrip because usually you play for the red side. If only Electrolyze was 2 cc..


I barely use the red side. I considder the blue side to be the most used. In the early game you stifle/waste their mana base then you can continue to tap their other lands with ice. In the mid and late game you can push that final damage through by tapping their creature.

The only time I use fire is when I have to get rid of a confidant or the 2 dmg seals the deal.

Although my list is slightly different from the list you quoted.

kiwi
02-17-2008, 11:51 AM
I play magus of the moon in main deck rather than blood moon and he works ok for me, its more weak that blood moon but magus of the moon can hit the opponent.

Today I was playing in a tourney againts landstill he was hitting me with two mishra factories and I was at 10 of life and he said "I got him" then he passed turn I drew Magus of the moon and GG bye bye dual lands and mishras factories!!!

I think that ugr Threshold with blood moon or magus of the moon is the evolution of ugr threshold.

These cards make pairings like 41 lands or standstill more favorables.

Berzerked
02-18-2008, 01:18 AM
But that's not difficult with that Guy...erm...Moog War Thingy? Mogg War Marshal, yeah. And Siege Gang might count as well if you can force through a Lackey and attack with it succesfully.

Uhh...what lists are you looking at? As far as I know, War Marshal only sees play in Extended. (Also, don't pull out some random list as an argument for it's inclusion. it's not mainstream, and it's not good.)
Also, you seem to be pushing pretty hard on the back of some pretty unrealistic scenarios. First of all, Lackey has to resolve and deal damage through any combination of 4x Force, 4x Daze, 4x Bolt, 4x Mongoose 4x Goyf and 4x Fire/Ice. Then they have to have 1 of their 2 SGC in hand, on top of holding the Incinerator...Lets just say that has never happened to me playing UGR. Pyroclasm from the board kind of nullifies Gempalm, as well.

The point I'm trying to make is that Weirding is better than Incinerator in most cases, and especially against this deck.

Adan
02-18-2008, 04:07 AM
Uhh...what lists are you looking at? As far as I know, War Marshal only sees play in Extended. (Also, don't pull out some random list as an argument for it's inclusion. it's not mainstream, and it's not good.)
Also, you seem to be pushing pretty hard on the back of some pretty unrealistic scenarios. First of all, Lackey has to resolve and deal damage through any combination of 4x Force, 4x Daze, 4x Bolt, 4x Mongoose 4x Goyf and 4x Fire/Ice. Then they have to have 1 of their 2 SGC in hand, on top of holding the Incinerator...Lets just say that has never happened to me playing UGR. Pyroclasm from the board kind of nullifies Gempalm, as well.

The point I'm trying to make is that Weirding is better than Incinerator in most cases, and especially against this deck.

@Point 1: Mogg War Marshal IS played here, and it IS good since we have a lot of decks that run Tarmogoyf. And notice how good he is against Stax.

Anyways, @point 2:

Yeah, my opinion about Warren Weirding has changed...yesterday. I had to play against goblins and it makes Goblin Matron a Must-Counter (Ok, It always have been one, I know). It's pesky like hell and forces you to overextend to rescue your Goyfs. And it was found by Ringleaders. But it also forced me to cantrip the Counterbalance Engine together in g1. O.o

Osse
02-27-2008, 09:51 PM
Here's David's Thresh article (Sorry to beat you to it)
http://www.magiceternal.com/legacy/Legacythresh.html

I think he pretty much hit everything on the button, his explanations are pretty concise and nothing is really there to refute it. Very often I see players complaining that they do poor with Threshold (I did at first as well) but they just can't figure the deck out. I'm fairly certain that anybody who can properly learn the deck will stop doubting it by any means, and his version has become my Skeleton for actual Threshold lists (8 Dudes, 18 lands, etc).

One thing I didn't see mentioned in the article is Extirpate which should probably me mentioned as it can be tough (Not devastating if you play this right), but nonetheless. Also, what is the mirror like?

Vanco
03-01-2008, 11:09 AM
Very good primer.

Recently, I decided to give tempothresh a try and I really like it. But I have one remark. Very often I use bounce spells to remove annoying artifacts or enchantments. But I rarely use them to bounce creatures. And sometimes, there’s nothing interesting to bounce and the cards are stuck in my hands. So wouldn’t it be better to drop the bounce spells and add 2 trygon predators main? I side them in very often and I think 2 extra creatures would be a good addition. I’m not saying the bouce spells aren’t good, but are they really better than the predators?

Whit3 Ghost
03-01-2008, 11:54 AM
Very good primer.

Recently, I decided to give tempothresh a try and I really like it. But I have one remark. Very often I use bounce spells to remove annoying artifacts or enchantments. But I rarely use them to bounce creatures. And sometimes, there’s nothing interesting to bounce and the cards are stuck in my hands. So wouldn’t it be better to drop the bounce spells and add 2 trygon predators main? I side them in very often and I think 2 extra creatures would be a good addition. I’m not saying the bouce spells aren’t good, but are they really better than the predators?
Here's the thing, the broadness of the Bounce spells is the reason that they should continue to be maindecked. If you know your metagame really well, and aren't expecting Exalted Angel, Magus of the Tabernacle, Tombstalker, Reanimator, and other decks with creatures out of burn range, by all means, run the Predators. However, keep in mind that without an efficient clock and multiple Ices, you will have a difficult time dealing with any resolved fatties with asses out of burn range

fetchesbasiclands
03-09-2008, 04:09 PM
I'm thinking of cutting the Dragons for Fire/Ice in Moonthresh.Could someone explain is this just wrong?

Adan
03-09-2008, 04:38 PM
I'm thinking of cutting the Dragons for Fire/Ice in Moonthresh.Could someone explain is this just wrong?

Yes it is wrong because Fledling Dragon is still the beatstick you can cast under Blood Moon. And that also has got some synergies, because you can pump all your mana into the Dragon, making him more lethal than Mystic Enforcer.

Whit3 Ghost
03-09-2008, 06:16 PM
I'm thinking of cutting the Dragons for Fire/Ice in Moonthresh.Could someone explain is this just wrong?
It's not. I actually have been running the Canadian bounce configuration over two Dragons, just because they're nearly impossible to reliably cast and I really liked having an answer to everything. As for Fire/Ice, I'm not sure if this is the right the right deck for them. Moon Thresh wins by bombs, something that Fire/Ice is not.
You have to anylize what aspects of the deck you enjoy. Maybe Canadian Thresh might be a better choice for your playstyle.

Citrus-God
03-09-2008, 07:59 PM
Yes it is wrong because Fledling Dragon is still the beatstick you can cast under Blood Moon. And that also has got some synergies, because you can pump all your mana into the Dragon, making him more lethal than Mystic Enforcer.

Dragon is the reason why you run 3 of them thanks to Moon. Another reason why you shouldn't cut Dragon from Moon Thresh is because the deck is generally slow; you'll be trapped in stalemates more often without Dragon to break stalemates.

@White Ghost: Your right, Thrash is better for his play style. Moon Thresh is generally a very slow deck, so playing fast is a mistake a majority of the time.

fetchesbasiclands
03-10-2008, 10:49 AM
Well,I think Moonthresh is more of my playstyle.I just wanted to up the blue count a little,those bounces could do it better than F/I.I just don't really like early Dragons,so maybe cut one or two?

Citrus-God
03-11-2008, 09:44 AM
Well,I think Moonthresh is more of my playstyle.I just wanted to up the blue count a little,those bounces could do it better than F/I.I just don't really like early Dragons,so maybe cut one or two?

If you were to cut a card, a 3rd Dragon is fine, but put that Dragon in the board. Replace the Dragon with a 4th Counterbalance. There, you have 24 Blue cards.

Citrus-God
03-14-2008, 10:15 AM
What is everybody's boarding plan with Moon Thresh? Here's mine so far, which needs a few adjustments, imo.


Mirror:

-1 Forest
-1 Daze
-1 Portent
-1 Lightning Bolt
-2 Blood Moon

+3 Red Elemental Blast
+1 Counterbalance
+2 Krosan Grip


TES:

-4 Lightning Bolt
-3 Fledgling Dragon
-1 Nimble Mongoose

+2 Blood Moon
+1 Magus of the Moon
+1 Counterbalance
+4 Pyroclasm


Landstill:

-4 Daze
-4 Lightning Bolt
-1 Nimble Mongoose

+1 Counterbalance
+1 Magus of the Moon
+3 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Blood Moon
+2 Krosan Grip


43 Land:

-4 Lightning Bolt
-4 Nimble Mongoose

+2 Blood Moon
+1 Magus of the Moon
+1 Counterbalance
+2 Ancient Grudge
+2 Krosan Grip

Not sure about how I should board against this MU.


Breakfast:

Not sure yet, but would like suggestions.

kiwi
03-17-2008, 04:22 AM
Hello Anti~American4621, anti MUC may be

-2 blood moon
-4 lightning bolt
+3 red elemental blast
+2 ancient grudge
+1 krosan grip

On other hand, What do you think about having in the sideboard 4 pyroclasm and 1 engineered explosives againts Ichorid, is enought or not ?

Im going to have a tournament very soon and in the metagame will be at least one ichorid and I dont find an open slot for including tormod's crypt.

Odd Mutation
03-24-2008, 03:19 PM
Here's David's Thresh article (Sorry to beat you to it)
http://www.magiceternal.com/legacy/Legacythresh.html


This is indeed a very well written article. Thanks for the effort! I was just building my version of UGw Thresh but after reading this piece I changed to UGr again. I haven't regretted it since...

I'm thinking of adding 2 or 3 Tormod's Crypt to the side to fight Life From the Loam decks. I'm just not sure it's necessary or if the decks are even going to show up. We'll be having a Legacy tournement soon here in Belgium...

Robrecht.

PhanTom_lt
03-24-2008, 03:31 PM
43 Land:

-4 Lightning Bolt
-4 Nimble Mongoose

+2 Blood Moon
+1 Magus of the Moon
+1 Counterbalance
+2 Ancient Grudge
+2 Krosan Grip

Not sure about how I should board against this MU.


I wouldn't board out Mongeese, as they can often be game winners because Maze of Ith doesn't affect them. Is Ancient Grudge needed? Why?

smoky squirrel
03-24-2008, 04:47 PM
Be sure Robrecht that Loam and Terranova will show up, in big percentages too. And be sure that Trash has a bad matchup against it. You just cannot beat recurring Terravores. I have tried. It is only possible when you can disrupt their mana enough and have a threat. A tip in beating it, counter a quick Mox Diamond. And keep countering the loam. But I think I won't be playing Trash at the tournament. I guess, because I kinda fell in love with it...

kiwi
03-25-2008, 06:36 PM
I think that mind harness is a very good tech againts a metagame full of terravores , Countryside Crusher and other green monsters like dorans or tarmogoyf.

If you cant beat terravore you have to try to stole it!!!:laugh:

Adan
03-25-2008, 07:17 PM
This is indeed a very well written article. Thanks for the effort! I was just building my version of UGw Thresh but after reading this piece I changed to UGr again. I haven't regretted it since...

I'm thinking of adding 2 or 3 Tormod's Crypt to the side to fight Life From the Loam decks. I'm just not sure it's necessary or if the decks are even going to show up. We'll be having a Legacy tournement soon here in Belgium...

Robrecht.

If you are afraid of Loamdecks you should play the black variant anyways, Extirpate will save your ass, as well as better removal (Smother is excellent against Loam since it destroys...every creature they play).

Mental
03-26-2008, 12:27 AM
I wouldn't board out Mongeese, as they can often be game winners because Maze of Ith doesn't affect them. Is Ancient Grudge needed? Why?

They board in Chalice of the Void. And you lose.

Adan
03-26-2008, 05:25 AM
Ancient Grudge is still a too specific thing to me. We already have Trygon Predators, Krosan Grips and the insane Engineered Explosives to deal with pesky Artifacts and Enchantments.

Ancient grudge is the most clunky card among them, except you are expecting a lot of Affinity where I can imagine that card to see play.

Happy Gilmore
03-27-2008, 02:28 PM
I feel obligated to try any new Threshold build that puts up results. And I like the Option that "Canadian Thresh" gives me.

I did well at my local toury with it, but it always seems like I am on the verge of loosing at any moment. It didn't really feel like the thresh decks I am used to. I took it home and adjusted a couple of things, trying to keep as close to the original concept as possible. A number of things showed up in testing:

1. Wear Away was amazing almost always (I wish I had more of them)
2. Post sideboard, Submerge was amazing in the mirror match.
3. Top was good even without CB in the board.
4. Fire/Ice seemed weak almost always, even against goblins.
5. I liked the Versatility of Stifle
6. Spell Snare was good most of the time.
7. This deck needs more fetchlands
8. I feel this deck needs crypt in the SB, shrinking the opponents creatures was very good.
9. Trygon was not able to deal with the threats fast enough to matter.

Adan
03-27-2008, 03:44 PM
3. Top was good even without CB in the board.

Reason why this build should not run Sensei's Divining Top:

Without Counterbalance, the only reason to play Sensei's Divining Top would be Dark Confidant. But due to Thresholds low manacurve (and in this case the colorsplash), even that reason becomes redundant.

When you don't play Counterbalance, it automatically means that you are playing a more aggressive Threshold variant. And Sensei's Divining Top is contradictory to that concept since he is a permanent, thus not getting you Threshold and he is manaintensive: he requires mana you would rather use for playing critters or Brainstorm/Ponder in your turn.

Yes, Brainstorm in your own turn. That's how he's played correctly most of the time since you can play him, exchange some cards into better ones and then fetch the crap away, drawing completely new cards. You then have access to every card and may utilize them in the same turn you have drawn them. That's why I think 4 brianstorm and 4 Ponder are already enough to generate a nice cardquality.


4. Fire/Ice seemed weak almost always, even against goblins.

Against Goblins, huh? Extra removal is never wrong against Goblins and in the mirror, tapping away a Mystic Enforcer for example to gain 1 extra turn can be extremely valuable (same is true for Tarmogoyfs).

The thing is that this kind of Threshold is designed to be more aggressive. And for that purpose, goobafish (the designer) has chosen the red splash as it offers you burnspells to deal more damage. And well, 4 Lightning Bolts are not enough. And so the second-best and most versatile burnspell Fire//Ice is included. But Fire//ice may also be a card you have to get used to first.

But if playec correctly, he should always be a advantageous cantrip or generates CA (by disposing a critter and ping or disposing 2 critters).

But all the Burn together can also act as kill in the second place which is also vital because you run less creatures than usual.



7. This deck needs more fetchlands

Possible, if you want to raise the permanentcount you would have to compensate it by increasing the number of fetchland, BUT what do you want to cut? This deck already runs 18 lands, 4 of them being Wastelands which eventually land in the grave and 6 fetchlands. That makes a total of 10 permanents that can be sacrificed to fuel the grave.

(by the way, trick: Activating Wasteland's ability needs you first to announce the ability, then announcing the targets and THEN sacrificing it as activation cost. In emergencies, Wasteland may target itself, gets sacced and then is countered on resolution).


8. I feel this deck needs crypt in the SB, shrinking the opponents creatures was very good.

Since Tarmogoyf is out I don't like Crypts in the SB anymore, but if you play in a meta where a lot of people are playing Werebears as additional critters you might also try Loaming Shaman (savage tech in the past, shrinking EVERY critter and then being the biggest creature with 3/2). But thanks to Tarmogoyf, this is an out-dated thing. But if you want to play Crypts in the SB, just do it. That's what a SB is good for.


9. Trygon was not able to deal with the threats fast enough to matter.

Dunno, but in the yet Stax-infested meta where I play, I found he's an excellent sideboardcard. Also useful against Affinity.

kiwi
03-27-2008, 03:54 PM
What do you think about playing werebear instead of the dragon ?

Its difficult to play the dragon without blood moon in play and from my point of view werebear can give us green mana after blood moon came into play and this is a great advantage.

On other hand tarfire makes bigger tarmogoyf and is another weapon for killing creatures like dark confidant, goblin lackey, tarmogoyf after being blocked by another tarmogoyf (with another instant in the graveyard) and more random stuff.

I like this list.

3 [U] Tropical Island
2 [LND] Island (3)
1 [LND] Forest (1)
3 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills

4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [OD] Werebear

2 Blood Moon

4 [NE] Daze
4 [A] Lightning Bolt
3 [CS] Counterbalance
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [LRW] Tarfire
3 [OD] Predict

fetchesbasiclands
03-27-2008, 04:11 PM
I can't see a reason to play a card as bad as Tarfire in Thresh,Tarmo just doesn't quite justify it's inclusion.Dragon and Werebear certainly both fill different roles,but I could try the Bear in Dragon's place,mainly because I hate to see Dragon in multiples.

noobslayer
03-27-2008, 04:59 PM
I strongly disagree with Tarfire and Predict. Both cards are outclassed by better ones available. Namely cards like Engineered Explosives, Spell Snare, Portent, and better beats in the form of Tarmogoyf.

Adan
03-27-2008, 05:11 PM
I strongly disagree with Tarfire and Predict. Both cards are outclassed by better ones available. Namely cards like Engineered Explosives, Spell Snare, Portent, and better beats in the form of Tarmogoyf.

I also agree with that Tarfire-debate, but Predict should be in the deck since it has got more synergy with the whole deck than Mental Note:

You can get rid of dead Tops (or Tops that come too early and are rather disturbing) and turn them into Cardadvantage (same is true for other clunky cards).
You mill 1 card to get 2 (in general) useful ones. These cards will eventually get either onto the board or into the graveyard anyways, which makes Predict a better Metal Note. And a card such as Predict is - in my opinion - necessary to get Threshold a littlebit earlier which is vital when playing additional Threshold-dependant creatures than Mongeese (i.e. Mystic Enforcer/Dragon and/or Werebears).

Whit3 Ghost
03-27-2008, 08:28 PM
I feel obligated to try any new Threshold build that puts up results. And I like the Option that "Canadian Thresh" gives me.

I did well at my local toury with it, but it always seems like I am on the verge of loosing at any moment. It didn't really feel like the thresh decks I am used to. I took it home and adjusted a couple of things, trying to keep as close to the original concept as possible. A number of things showed up in testing:

1. Wear Away was amazing almost always (I wish I had more of them)
2. Post sideboard, Submerge was amazing in the mirror match.
3. Top was good even without CB in the board.
4. Fire/Ice seemed weak almost always, even against goblins.
5. I liked the Versatility of Stifle
6. Spell Snare was good most of the time.
7. This deck needs more fetchlands
8. I feel this deck needs crypt in the SB, shrinking the opponents creatures was very good.
9. Trygon was not able to deal with the threats fast enough to matter.
1. Agreed, the all purpose spells are awesome.
2. Submerge looks interesting, I'm not sure what to take out for it.
3. The only thing Top can be run over is Bounce, which you already stated you loved. It's way to mana intensive to be used early, and cards in this deck need to come down and be useful quick.
4. F/I is one of the best cards in the deck and has been consistently awesome for me every time I played the deck. I would like to see some more examples of what exactly was going wrong.
7. Maybe going down to 6 Duals/7-8 Fetch would work, but I haven't had too many manabase issues.
8. Crypt is an option, but I haven't really found it necessary.
9. Preds has been a house for me.

Odd Mutation
03-29-2008, 04:46 AM
Here's David's Thresh article (Sorry to beat you to it)
http://www.magiceternal.com/legacy/Legacythresh.html


This is indeed a very well written article. Thanks for the effort! I was just building my version of UGw Thresh but after reading this piece I changed to UGr again. I haven't regretted it since...

I'm thinking of adding 2 or 3 Tormod's Crypt to the side to fight Life From the Loam decks. I'm just not sure it's necessary or if the decks are even going to show up. We'll be having a Legacy tournement soon here in Belgium...

Robrecht.

Adan
03-29-2008, 08:21 PM
This is indeed a very well written article. Thanks for the effort! I was just building my version of UGw Thresh but after reading this piece I changed to UGr again. I haven't regretted it since...

I'm thinking of adding 2 or 3 Tormod's Crypt to the side to fight Life From the Loam decks. I'm just not sure it's necessary or if the decks are even going to show up. We'll be having a Legacy tournement soon here in Belgium...

Robrecht.

That is EXACTLY the same thing you wrote 1 page before:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=217939&postcount=1112

And I just said that Tormod's Crypts are rather inefficient in fighting Loam-Decks. If you are afraid of Loam, play the black tempo variant as Stifle and Extirpate will save your ass most of the time.

Adan
04-18-2008, 01:02 PM
Double Post, but I'm nearly freaking out.

Swans of Bryn Argoll:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=68567&d=1207024026

Lightning Bolt becomes Ancestral recall, Chain of Plasma becomes...infinite Cardadvantage?!

Happy Gilmore
04-18-2008, 01:19 PM
Your one step behind us, try to catch up http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9096

:wink:

Nihil Credo
04-18-2008, 01:23 PM
Double Post, but I'm nearly freaking out.

Swans of Bryn Argoll:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=68567&d=1207024026

Lightning Bolt becomes Ancestral recall, Chain of Plasma becomes...infinite Cardadvantage?!
Welcome to two weeks ago (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9096).

Adan
04-18-2008, 02:03 PM
Gimme a break, like I'm paying attention to that forum...

Why isn't it discussed here? Derf is like bugging on me the whole day because of that deck. Taking a closer look, this is like Cephalid breakfast with a lot more protection and consistency.

It's actually still Thresh, but the random topdeck -> "I win" is ridiculous.

I think you should move the discussion into this thread.

Nihil Credo
04-18-2008, 02:47 PM
Why isn't it discussed here? Derf is like bugging on me the whole day because of that deck. Taking a closer look, this is like Cephalid breakfast with a lot more protection and consistency.

It's actually still Thresh, but the random topdeck -> "I win" is ridiculous.

I think every team out there is testing this new brokenness - I know some Italians are doing that, as well as gathering up foil asian Chains of Plasma (and preparing for the Swans, obv).

Incidentally, this bugs me somewhat. No matter how much I struggle against it, I am still a proud person, and I find it mildly frustrating that coming up first with the Swans-Thresh build may not score me any points. Unless Nightmare name-drops me in his upcoming article, that is.

kiwi
04-19-2008, 03:37 PM
I played Thres moon today in a tourney, I thought that blood moon in Threshold would be less powerfull than before because now more decks play basic lands and they are maked for playing around moon efects, but today blood moon was the MVP of the deck :) its still awesome in some pairings.

Mental
04-19-2008, 03:50 PM
Gimme a break, like I'm paying attention to that forum...

Why isn't it discussed here? Derf is like bugging on me the whole day because of that deck. Taking a closer look, this is like Cephalid breakfast with a lot more protection and consistency.

It's actually still Thresh, but the random topdeck -> "I win" is ridiculous.

I think you should move the discussion into this thread.

I tested this for a while. 2-3 Swans is optimal. The decks strong, but I prefer Canadian Thrash in general. It's just a slightly better version of Moonthresh - Of course, Swan sucks in the mirror but owns UGb Thresh.

Adan
04-19-2008, 04:18 PM
Of course, Swan sucks in the mirror but owns UGb Thresh.

What?

He sucks in the mirrormatch? SRSLY? They neither die to burn nor to combat damage and give you infinite cardadvantage. Addionally, they fly.

Why they should own UGb or UGw is a riddle to me since they still get eaten by Swords to Plowshares and Ghastly Demise (and by Thoughtseize indirectly).

Could you please elaborate why it should own UGb? Because you think everyone is playing Smother or what?

Mental
04-19-2008, 04:22 PM
What?

He sucks in the mirrormatch? SRSLY? They neither die to burn nor to combat damage and give you infinite cardadvantage. Addionally, they fly.

Why they should own UGb or UGw is a riddle to me since they still get eaten by Swords to Plowshares and Ghastly Demise (and by Thoughtseize indirectly).

Could you please elaborate why it should own UGb? Because you think everyone is playing Smother or what?

Ghastly Demise sucks. Smother is played much more often.

I meant the swan mirror, and it was kinda a joke. But in seriousness, the card is decent against most optimal non white Thresh Builds, and and is also good against non White Landstill. It justs costs a lot of mana and is clunky in general. Still, I have to say I like it over Fledgling Dragon.

Adan
04-19-2008, 05:18 PM
Ghastly Demise sucks. Smother is played much more often.

What a boring, well-formulated argument...

For me (i.e. in a random meta), Ghastly Demise is better than Smother since there is a lot of stuff (dangerous stuff) which Smother can't handle. Things like 1st Turn Lackey, Dragonstompy, GeddonStax, Affinity and Survival are an issue where I play. That's why Ghastly Demise should be played over Smother.

It's still not a reason why that thing should own UGb Thresh. I think I have to test it with Diffy since UGb has got the advantage of disrupting and/or forcing the onw Counterbalance through counterbackup better than other variants thanks to Thoughtseize.
I could then do the comparison with 5color Thresh which runs Swords to Plowshares.

Mental
04-20-2008, 08:46 PM
What a boring, well-formulated argument...

For me (i.e. in a random meta), Ghastly Demise is better than Smother since there is a lot of stuff (dangerous stuff) which Smother can't handle. Things like 1st Turn Lackey, Dragonstompy, GeddonStax, Affinity and Survival are an issue where I play. That's why Ghastly Demise should be played over Smother.

It's still not a reason why that thing should own UGb Thresh. I think I have to test it with Diffy since UGb has got the advantage of disrupting and/or forcing the onw Counterbalance through counterbackup better than other variants thanks to Thoughtseize.
I could then do the comparison with 5color Thresh which runs Swords to Plowshares.

I would play Smother in almost any meta because there's a lot of time that Demise just can't hit Goyf. That's all there is too it to me - if you're worried about Threshold, Landstill, Breakfast, Survival, etc, play Smother. I use Nimble Mongoose or FoW on the draw to deal with Lackey, and on the play any number of things.

In my testing you have the upper hand over UGb (or better than usual) because you have burn for their Confidants, creatures to match theirs, but one creature that they cannot deal with. Basically, for every creature that they have, you have an answer. But for them, that's not true.

I guess things are different if they play Demise, however, Demise often can't hit Goyf as UBG thresh tends to take a long time to get Threshold.

Adan
04-21-2008, 02:16 AM
I would play Smother in almost any meta because there's a lot of time that Demise just can't hit Goyf. That's all there is too it to me - if you're worried about Threshold, Landstill, Breakfast, Survival, etc, play Smother. I use Nimble Mongoose or FoW on the draw to deal with Lackey, and on the play any number of things.

In my testing you have the upper hand over UGb (or better than usual) because you have burn for their Confidants, creatures to match theirs, but one creature that they cannot deal with. Basically, for every creature that they have, you have an answer. But for them, that's not true.

I guess things are different if they play Demise, however, Demise often can't hit Goyf as UBG thresh tends to take a long time to get Threshold.

"Demise can't hit Goyf most of the time" is like 99,9% pure bullshit since you are using Brainstorm-Ponder-Fetch to generate cardquality anyways. You will eventually get cards into your graveyard in that way, surprise. And who says you need Threshold? 4 or 5 cards are already enough to make Demise good. In the early turns, the Goyf is 3/4 in average and that's not too big for Demise. In the lategame, Demise even gets stronger. it might be true that UGb Thresh reaches Threshold later than the tempobuilds, but this is true for every build that is running Counterbalance due to the higher permanentcount. But UGb runs slightly less permanents since Pithing Needles/Explosives are replaced with thoughtseizes which also can do a lot against the mirrormatch (assuring your own Counterbalance to get through, stealing the oppnent's or simply pick his creatures).

And I don't know against whom you have tested, but you usually play Confidant when you can protect him via Counterbalance since he wins you the mirrormatch if he doesn't gets handled. Test against a competent player...

Against the decks you mentioned, it makes absolutely no difference whether you play Demise or Smother, except for Survival since random Loxodon Hierarchs or Ravenous Baloths can still smash your face in. Demise can kill them and every other creature they run (except that Big Game Hunter maybe, but who plays that crap?).

I'm rather worried about Dragonstompy fatties, the Stax creatures and Goblins. And in the mirrormatch, it doesn't get hit by Spell Snares.

And yeah, Smother can't handle the swans, which will be an issue in the future, so that's why everyone should play Demise in UGb.

The reason why the mirrormatch against UGb is silghtly in favor of UGr is completely different. It's simple: Burn.

UGb has already got an increased lifeloss because of Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Fetchlands, Force of Will.
The 5color build of the Hatfields don't run Dark Confidants, but City of brass, so the same is true here.

But nevertheless, the mirrormatch is decided by who resolves Counterbalance first and then apply pressure. Or at least, who can generate the bigger cardadvantage (meaning Counterbalance as well. And Dark Confidant).

Mental
04-21-2008, 02:20 AM
"Demise can't hit Goyf" is like 100% pure bullshit since you are using Brainstorm-Ponder-Fetch to generate cardquality. And who says you need THRESHOLD. 4 or 5 cards are already enough to make Demise good. In the early turns, the Goyf is 3/4 in average and that's not too big for Demise. In the lategame, Demise even gets stronger.

And I don#t know against whom you have tested, but you usually play Confidant when you can protect him via Counterbalance since he wins you the mirrormatch if he doesn't gets handled. Test against a competent player...

Against the decks you mentioned, it makes absolutely no difference whether you play Demise or Smother, except for Survival since random Loxodon Hierarchs or Ravenous Baloths can still smash your face in. Demise can kill them and every other creature they run (except that Big Game Hunter maybe, but who plays that crap?).

I'm rather worried about Dragonstompy fatties, the Stax creatures and Goblins. And in the mirrormatch, it doesn't get hit by Spell Snares.

And yeah, Smother can't handle the swans, which will be an issue in the future, so that's why everyone should play Demise in UGb.

It all really depends if you are afraid of creatures with CMC > 3 and +1 CMC for your removal, or Black Creatures and an occasional dead card. You may have a point that if Swan Thresh becomes good, you would want Demise. I guess Demise does have some pros. It's much more likely to make someone fuckup and board in Crypt/Leyline against you, which is great, and it is strong against Dragon Stompy.

raharu
04-24-2008, 10:01 PM
Even though it seems like no-one runs tempothresh anymore, but would it be techy/ mildly viable to run Lava Blister in the Fire/Ice slots? More mana disruption or damage (in the late and early game respectively) couldn't be that terrible, and Fire/ Ice seems lacking. Perhaps it will suffer the same problem as Browbeat (givig the opponent the better of two choices), but perhaps it'll revive the sub-archetype/ threshold niche.

chokin
04-24-2008, 11:12 PM
Even though it seems like no-one runs tempothresh anymore, but would it be techy/ mildly viable to run Lava Blister in the Fire/Ice slots? More mana disruption or damage (in the late and early game respectively) couldn't be that terrible, and Fire/ Ice seems lacking. Perhaps it will suffer the same problem as Browbeat (givig the opponent the better of two choices), but perhaps it'll revive the sub-archetype/ threshold niche.

I think your comparison of Blister to Browbeat is accurate. Wasteland does the job and doesn't get hit by Spell Snare.

F/I lacking? I think it's pretty techy in tempo builds. It helps sneak past blockers and helps keep them off their mana. It can be a quasi Time Walk sometimes(usually not though). It messes with combat which is hot and helps finish off Goyfs that chump.

I don't play the TempoThresh build(MoonThresh eff-tee-dub) but I think that the only slots worth playing around with are the two slots for bounce. Or if your meta doesn't support Spell Snare, drop those. But I think the build is geared to beat weak manabases. Then again, so is MoonThresh in trying to go Oops, I Win with Blood Moon, Tempo is just more straight for the throat about it.

Swan looks hot. I ordered foil Chains, a foil Conflag, and 2 foil Lightning Storm so if it gets popular, I have some cool cards.

Tacosnape
04-24-2008, 11:45 PM
Has anyone considered running Swans / Chain of Plasma in Threshold without a kill? Like, running Swans in the 3rd creature slot, and Chain of Plasma where Fire//Ice might be?

Like, seriously. Rather than run acceleration and a kill spell that Threshold struggles to use effectively without this combo, what about the possibility of just using the combo to sculpt a seven-card hand that would be nearly impossible for the opponent to overcome? When you draw your deck, you'll very likely have two mana open (You played the Swan for 4, then you Chain of Plasma it next turn), meaning you can drop a Goyf, or two Mongeese, then be sitting on some completely sick arrangement of countermagic, removal, bounce, additional threats, or whatever. Then you ride your Swans to victory while your Goyfs either assist or play ground defense.

Rood
04-24-2008, 11:57 PM
I thought about this too, Swans+Chains alone will bulk up immense card advantage to garuntee you can't lose =/.

chokin
04-25-2008, 01:14 AM
I dunno. It just seemed to be a good idea to me to run the kill because it's only 1-2 more cards than Swans+Chain. Thresh's list is already pretty tight, but EoT Chains into a 30+ sized hand WITH a kill condition sounds really hot.

Even if you don't want to run the kill, you have Bolt->Recall at least. Yes, without Swans the combo is useless, but it's 1-2 cards that could potentially be dead.

"be sitting on some completely sick arrangement of countermagic, removal, bounce, additional threats, or whatever."

I think that sitting on a bunch of Force+Daze with that kill condition is smexy. Both kill mainstreamed ideas for the kill condition dodge CB and Spell Snare, leaving Force of Will and Daze as the only counters to worry about since we should have all of our counters while they should have less. Well, Spell Snare/CB could ruin the day if we're depending on a resolved Chains.

I think it's worth it. It's an additional threat in the form of "Counter or Die".

koba
04-25-2008, 05:36 AM
Has anyone considered running Swans / Chain of Plasma in Threshold without a kill? Like, running Swans in the 3rd creature slot, and Chain of Plasma where Fire//Ice might be?

Like, seriously. Rather than run acceleration and a kill spell that Threshold struggles to use effectively without this combo, what about the possibility of just using the combo to sculpt a seven-card hand that would be nearly impossible for the opponent to overcome? When you draw your deck, you'll very likely have two mana open (You played the Swan for 4, then you Chain of Plasma it next turn), meaning you can drop a Goyf, or two Mongeese, then be sitting on some completely sick arrangement of countermagic, removal, bounce, additional threats, or whatever. Then you ride your Swans to victory while your Goyfs either assist or play ground defense.

It would indeed be nice if lightning storm could be cut from the list. I think that it has been considered before though: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9096
Adding accereration is not a good idea and that list looks already very much like a normal threshold list with fire/ice and fledgling dragon replaced. But I like having one single kill spell and be able to end the game immediately. Drawing your whole deck may otherwise not always help if your opponent has a 12/12 terravore or a whole bunch of goblins on the board or something like that. Has anyone tested this out yet?

spirit of the wretch
04-25-2008, 06:39 AM
Has anyone considered running Swans / Chain of Plasma in Threshold without a kill?

I think that isn't a pretty good Idea. There are just too many MU where a perfect hand won't necessarily win you the game:

Loam (if the already cast their big guys)
Ichorid (Counter are kind of meh here and Burn might be too slow)
Enchantress (with a Word of War in play)
43 Land.dec
Stax (if they have a 3Sphere out and are able to resolve a Geddon)
perhaps some more I'm currently not thinking of.

Basically you can't handle threats that already hit play no matter how awesome your hand is, simply because the deck doesn't play any solutions besides burn. So I'd rather invest 1/2 cards and win for sure.

arsenalpow
04-25-2008, 09:33 AM
Even though it seems like no-one runs tempothresh anymore

Its still quite functional from what i've seen. The stifle/spellsnare/wasteland package can absolutely decimate some matchups.

goobafish
04-25-2008, 09:48 AM
Even though it seems like no-one runs tempothresh anymore

March 15th, 2008 88 players
1) Sergi Garcés - U/G/r Threshold

March 30th, 2008 34 players
1) Cristian Tinti - UGR Thresh

April 5th, 2008 33 players
5. Aleix Dosta - UGr Threshold

Seems to be taking more spots than any other kind of UGr Thresh.

raharu
04-25-2008, 11:06 AM
I know it's good, I just haven't seen anyone talk about it or play with it (although I'm not one to follow tournaments that closely).

goobafish
04-25-2008, 11:08 AM
There is actually a video of someone piloting it against landstill. Both players make infinite mistakes through, mostly the thresh player from what I can see.

http://magictahiti.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=165

Happy Gilmore
04-25-2008, 02:41 PM
Has anyone considered running Swans / Chain of Plasma in Threshold without a kill? Like, running Swans in the 3rd creature slot, and Chain of Plasma where Fire//Ice might be?

Like, seriously. Rather than run acceleration and a kill spell that Threshold struggles to use effectively without this combo, what about the possibility of just using the combo to sculpt a seven-card hand that would be nearly impossible for the opponent to overcome? When you draw your deck, you'll very likely have two mana open (You played the Swan for 4, then you Chain of Plasma it next turn), meaning you can drop a Goyf, or two Mongeese, then be sitting on some completely sick arrangement of countermagic, removal, bounce, additional threats, or whatever. Then you ride your Swans to victory while your Goyfs either assist or play ground defense.

Why not run 1 Spell Book so you can sculpt a 20 card hand that they have no chance of overcoming? Still I would rather have some sort of alternate win condition

Metaknight
04-25-2008, 03:02 PM
There is actually a video of someone piloting it against landstill. Both players make infinite mistakes through, mostly the thresh player from what I can see.

http://magictahiti.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=165

you know what i hate, when people don't take ping damage. Also, would it really be worth it yo run swan and chain over dragon and fire/ice? I understand that you sculpt your hand like Plato but don't you lose control then? I don't know about anyone else's opinion, but Chain of plasma kinda sucks on its own.

chokin
04-25-2008, 03:51 PM
In that video, why didn't the Landstill player activate Factory and block Goose in game 1? Did the Thresh player put the RFG card in the GY from Force around 7:30?

Swan+Chain/Bolt is awesome for CA. It's not so awesome when your opponent burns it for CA though. Now that I think of it, this is similar to CBTop in the sense that it is a 2 card combo. CBTop costs less, doesn't win you the game instantly(but can be devastating), and one piece without the other is still pretty good. SwanChain is twice as much, wins fast, but each piece pretty much sucks without the other. I guess Swan can swing and can be bolted for Recall, but looking at it piece by piece, it looks pretty bad.

Does Thresh have the power to consistently get 4 mana, the bird, and the burn to do this? If yes, then why not gives Swans a try. If no, let's stick to improving the current builds.

goobafish
04-25-2008, 05:41 PM
Or how about wasting that second stifle instead of playing the spell snare on the counterspell in game 1, and not playing that Tarmogoyf from about 4 turns?

slyfer
04-25-2008, 05:41 PM
What are the answers that Red version can use to fight combo decks?
White has for example:
1) needle (sometimes also maindeck)
2) mage
3) gaddock

By combo deck I mean tendrils, belcher and Icorid above all...

Happy Gilmore
04-25-2008, 06:04 PM
you know what i hate, when people don't take ping damage. Also, would it really be worth it yo run swan and chain over dragon and fire/ice? I understand that you sculpt your hand like Plato but don't you lose control then? I don't know about anyone else's opinion, but Chain of plasma kinda sucks on its own.


I personally have been underwhelmed with Fire/Ice in every build of UGR I have ever played. The prospect of having Ancestral Recals in my deck seems worth cutting Dragon in my oppinion, and Swan pitches to FoW. Both cards are good on their own. Chain of Plasma really has no drawbacks, no one is going to be stupid enough to chain it back so you can kill another creature.

Having an "I win Button" in UGR thresh is worth testing for at the very least. I'll put the deck together tonight and see how it does in testing.

Metaknight
04-25-2008, 06:49 PM
Needle, stifle, and crypt seem pretty good.

EDIT: I wasn't saying don't test it, because it definitely needs testing, for all i know, its the greatest thing since Penicillin, but i've always loved Fire/ice when ever i drew it.

Tacosnape
04-26-2008, 02:38 AM
What are the answers that Red version can use to fight combo decks?
White has for example:
1) needle (sometimes also maindeck)
2) mage
3) gaddock

By combo deck I mean tendrils, belcher and Icorid above all...

Why not Mogg Fanatic? Fanatic wrecks Ichorid, Fanatic hurts Cephalid Breakfast, and Fanatic can be used to pick off Confidants against Fetchland Tendrils.

MattH
04-26-2008, 11:02 AM
Chain is an instant, so why do you need to cut the kill card? Turn four, play Swans. Chain the swans on the opponent's turn 5 upkeep, and you keep your huge hand until your turn, when you can untap and Lightning Storm or whatever with all the protection your deck can muster.

Or, if your four lands included two or more red sources, you can just go off on your own turn 5. Tap 1R to Chain, leaving at least one Volc untapped. When you draw your library, simply play another Volc as your fifth land drop and tap for 1RR and win. It's even easier if you use Conflagrate.

arsenalpow
04-28-2008, 01:10 PM
I played tempothresh in a tourney over the weekend. It was a small tourney 18/5 rounds/cut to top 8.

rd 1
Mono green aggro with beserk x4
game 1 - i kept a fetch and double wasteland hand, i figured its solid about almost anything.....except basic lands. He ran me down pretty quick as I cantripped into nothingness

game 2 - bolts and fire//ice > small creatures. I got a goyf down and started the beats. He beserked my goyf to kill it, i stifled the "die at end of turn" trigger and finished him off

game 3 - same as game 2, although he manged to off one goyf with a triple beserk after i countered the first 2

rd2
legacy boros
game 1 - spellsnare/daze/removal, stick a mongoose and ride to the end
game 2 - same as above, cool guy but easy matchup

rd3
white stax
game 1 - by far this decks worst matchup, he walked into 3 dazes and i miraculously squeaked it out

game 2 - he had a ridiculous opening. Turn 1 grid. Turn 2 crucible. Turn 3 smokestack and 3sphere. I scooped it up at the point as i couldn't comeback from that

game 3 - long and drawn out with him eventually wearing me down. i couldn't get through the ghostly prison, 3sphere, grids and armageddon with an active magus tabernacle.

rd 4
paird up w/ the 3rd undefeated guy w/ chord of calling vesuvian shapeshifer dreadnaught craziness
game 1 - i had no clue what was happening or going on. He ended up sticking a fathom seer and flipping up shapeshifter to copy his draw ability. He then used eternal witness with chords of calling etc etc and eventually just put me down. He had forces and other permission with alot of big scary spells that dont get snared.

game 2 - out tempo'ed him. A couple dazes, a snare, stifled some fetches and rode a goyf.

game 3 - long and drawn out with his shapeshifter copying eternal witness to bring back solid cards. Eventually he copied into naught and killed me

rd 5
ceph breakfast with stifle naught
game 1 - at this point i was the best 2-2 and 1 of us would be making top 8, so win and i'm in! Game started with him ripping me up with therapy pretty good x3, he stuck a vial and comboed out.

game 2 - i drew lots of bolts and fire//ice, it was fairly difficult for him to assemble the combo through my permission and removal. I stuck a couple goyfs and ran him down.

game 3 - im holding a fairly solid hand with a daze and he just mulliganned. I was feeling good until he godhanded me.
turn 1 land, vial
turn 2 land, vial in nomad, cast illusionist (daze?) force your daze GG?
An absolute perfect 6 card hand + the card he drew....

O well you cant win em all i guess

Here's what i played

4 brainstorm
4 stifle
4 spellsnare
4 daze
4 force of will

4 ponder

4 lightning bolt
4 fire//ice

4 tarmogoyf
4 nimble mongoose
2 engineered explosives

4 tropical island
4 volcanic island
4 wasteland
2 wooded foothills
2 polluted delta
2 flooded strand

sideboard
4 tormod's crypt (i refuse to concede the dredge matchup)
3 pithing needle
3 krosan grip
3 pyroclasm
2 ancient grudge

My teammate won the whole thing with a new goblins list that we have been working on. Warren's weirding + Wort = Profit

raharu
04-28-2008, 04:17 PM
sideboard
4 tormod's crypt (i refuse to concede the dredge matchup)

Mogg Fanatic/ Frostling?

goobafish
04-28-2008, 04:28 PM
It seems that if you had Blasts and Predators, you would have had a much better change of winning 3 of those matchups.

arsenalpow
04-29-2008, 07:33 AM
i believe i was lucky to even steal one game from the stacks player as it is our worst possible matchup. The predators were always underwhelming when i played with them before, but i agree that a few blasts would been key.

koba
04-29-2008, 08:52 AM
Mogg Fanatic/ Frostling?

Are you guys really advocating mogg fanatic as a sideboard card? And if so, in addition to crypt or replacing it? Fanatic seems too narrow to me. It has its uses against ichorid and breakfast, but so does crypt. Crypt is also useful in other match-ups like aggro-loam, while I cannot think of other match-ups where fanatic shines (especially if you already play with 4 bolts and 4 fire/ice).

Siding in both crypt and fanatic (and pyroclasm) against ichorid is probably overkill, no? The sideboard is already pretty tight as it is. I would rather have something that wins the mirror-match than devote 6-8 slots to ichorid...

Oh yeah, to answer the question about what red thres has to offer against combo: pyroclasm is pretty decent against goblin/zombie tokens.

Jeremy
04-29-2008, 10:24 AM
Hi everyone from Jeremy!

concerning the worst matchup of ***** UGr, I think of the advantages that the new Heap Doll can give:

Vs. Landstill could stop wasteland-crugible win in early game
Vs. Wstax it could stop him to use armageddon so quickly, or keep him from using smokestack at two with God's Eye.Anyway it's non sufficient, and grudge/predator is best in this MU
Vs. Ichorid this thing is god! (>>mogg fanatic)

Other Mu's utility

Vs. Cephalid -> same as tormod, forces him to have stiffle or abeyance too as protection
Vs. Survival - > Bye, squee..
Vs. Iggy-Pop variants -> nice for targets of gotten gains
Vs. Aggro-loam or 43 lands ->Slows them up a lot to find 2nd Lftl
Vs. Mirror -> earyl game combat trick Vs. opponent's mongooses?

Vs. Goblin (it ain't a problem anyway) -> other answer to lackey

General purposes

It's a turn1 drop, with a decent ability
it gives to our Goyfs Artifact and creatures (+2/+2) just for 1 mana
It could save us from Haunting Echoes or Extirpate on discarded/removed creature

Useless Vs.

Enchantress
Solidarity (really going down)
Affinity (going down)
Burn (growing in Italian Metagame)
Faerie Stompy
Dragon Stompy
Rock

For last four decks, it means easier sideboarding :laugh:

What do you think? I belive I can test a couple of in maindeck +1/2 in sb.

Adan
04-29-2008, 01:08 PM
There was a better card run in Threshold long time ago: Phyrexian Furnace.

Cephalid Breakfast has got a bad matchup against NQGr anyways. If then can't resolve a Tarmogoyf, their creatures will die due to your mass of burnspells.

But in many of your scenarios, Pithing Needle can do the same or even better.

I can't really understand that this 1-Mana-Cryptkeeper gets attention and Offalsnout not (but it's still crap).

raharu
04-29-2008, 03:37 PM
Crypt doesn't kill Dark Condidant or Mother of Runes (both of which will give red thresh fits if allowed to resolve) and it doesn'tanswer Lackey (although that's a marginal agrument that really shouldn't even be mentioned). It devours the combo creature pieces of Cephelid Breakfast's combo, and provides extra reach in MU's that it could matter. While Crypt is the better board card (I would just run black for Extirpate anyway because it's >>>>> Crpyt), Frostling does have it's uses and shouldn't be scoffed at. It'll slap a damper on Ichorid from turn one and give you breathing room to work with, and it swings (again, lots of magrinal content, but they are boons for it and prolly should be mentioned).

chokin
04-30-2008, 02:57 AM
rd 4
paird up w/ the 3rd undefeated guy w/ chord of calling vesuvian shapeshifer dreadnaught craziness
game 1 - i had no clue what was happening or going on. He ended up sticking a fathom seer and flipping up shapeshifter to copy his draw ability. He then used eternal witness with chords of calling etc etc and eventually just put me down. He had forces and other permission with alot of big scary spells that dont get snared.

game 2 - out tempo'ed him. A couple dazes, a snare, stifled some fetches and rode a goyf.

game 3 - long and drawn out with his shapeshifter copying eternal witness to bring back solid cards. Eventually he copied into naught and killed me

Wait. Vesuvan Shapeshifter...copying Eternal Witness...does nothing, amirite? I think you played Mandorissem from the MTG.com forums. Arrogant jerk seems to think he's broken the format with his invincible deck.

Anyways, grats on your finish.

Heap Doll is junk. Doesn't Crypt do this job for free? Frostling < Mogg Fanatic. If you're concerned with Mom and Bob, Pyroclasm does nicely and Fire//Ice is a nice card for x/1s.

Adan
04-30-2008, 08:03 AM
Crypt doesn't kill Dark Condidant or Mother of Runes (both of which will give red thresh fits if allowed to resolve) and it doesn'tanswer Lackey (although that's a marginal agrument that really shouldn't even be mentioned).

SRSLY, if you can't handle THOSE when running RED, you are doing something wrong. You have 4 Spell Snares, 4 Bolts, 4 Fire//Ice, 4 FoW and maybe 2 Engineered Explosives, IF you play them over Bounce.


It devours the combo creature pieces of Cephelid Breakfast's combo, and provides extra reach in MU's that it could matter.

Cephalid Breakfast is an easy matchup and Tormod's Crypt does EXACLTY the same, really, EXACTLY the same thing as you had described in your scenario.


While Crypt is the better board card (I would just run black for Extirpate anyway because it's >>>>> Crypt), Frostling does have it's uses and shouldn't be scoffed at.

Frostling... WTF?!


It'll slap a damper on Ichorid from turn one and give you breathing room to work with, and it swings (again, lots of magrinal content, but they are boons for it and prolly should be mentioned).

Tormod's Crypt also does. I found that card interesting as well, because it's a creature that can remove 1-4 Bridges and X (X being a Dredger, Ichorid, Cabal Therapy, Dread Return or whatsoever).

But Tormod's Crypt removes EVERYTHING at the same time. So, running Tormod's Crypt is still the best way for Red to deal with Fuckorid and co.

If you are afraid of Ichorid, play the black splash since it has got the best matchup against Ichorid of all Threshold variants.

arsenalpow
04-30-2008, 08:12 AM
UGR should do well against breakfast, especially with all the sideboard hate you can bring in, however sometimes combo can just get there with counter backup and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

But those other 7/10 times you will crush them.

raharu
04-30-2008, 08:15 AM
SRSLY, if you can't handle THOSE when running RED, you are doing something wrong. You have 4 Spell Snares, 4 Bolts, 4 Fire//Ice, 4 FoW and maybe 2 Engineered Explosives, IF you play them over Bounce.

True, but to say you're always going to have an answer before they stick around for a turn is a little presumptious, no? It's not that hard, but MoR is a pain in the ass for any thresh build.



Cephalid Breakfast is an easy matchup and Tormod's Crypt does EXACLTY the same, really, EXACTLY the same thing as you had described in your scenario.
So Crypt has a Lava Dart built in that triggers on reseluotion, which stops them from setting up by keeping thier creatures in hand? Damn, I need to learn to read cards more often...


Frostling... WTF?!
Why is being a Goblin such a plus in a non-gblin deck? Same card, just not a goblin.



Tormod's Crypt also does. I found that card interesting as well, because it's a creature that can remove 1-4 Bridges and X (X being a Dredger, Ichorid, Cabal Therapy, Dread Return or whatsoever).

But Tormod's Crypt removes EVERYTHING at the same time. So, running Tormod's Crypt is still the best way for Red to deal with Fuckorid and co.

If you are afraid of Ichorid, play the black splash since it has got the best matchup against Ichorid of all Threshold variants.

I can't play a deck without black, so I guess it's a moot point because I'd have Extirpate in the board anyway :P

Adan
04-30-2008, 08:36 AM
True, but to say you're always going to have an answer before they stick around for a turn is a little presumptious, no? It's not that hard, but MoR is a pain in the ass for any thresh build.

So Crypt has a Lava Dart built in that triggers on reseluotion, which stops them from setting up by keeping thier creatures in hand? Damn, I need to learn to read cards more often...

Why is being a Goblin such a plus in a non-gblin deck? Same card, just not a goblin.

I can't play a deck without black, so I guess it's a moot point because I'd have Extirpate in the board anyway :P

I mentioned 16 answers which can additionally found by cantrips. Mother of Runes and Dark Confidant therefore can't be an argument for running such crappy cards to overkill.

I don't understand that part about Lava Dart, but Crypt is for free and still removes everything while you can burn aways their creatures and you can spare your mana for Spell Snare backup or Stifle. The manadenial plan is very very useful of you can keep Aether Vial off the table.

Why is being a Goblin a plus? What? The difference between Mogg Fanatic and Frostling is that Mogg Fanatic can ping players as well. Frostling can't. RTFC...

Citrus-God
04-30-2008, 08:37 AM
I can't play a deck without black, so I guess it's a moot point because I'd have Extirpate in the board anyway :P

It's a mistake to run Extirpate over Yixlid Jailer in the Ichorid match-up.

Adan
04-30-2008, 08:39 AM
It's a mistake to run Extirpate over Yixlid Jailer in the Ichorid match-up...

... because there are too many cards that have to be shut off simultaneously. Jailer does it, Extirpate can just pick one of many.

He's right.

chokin
04-30-2008, 12:36 PM
Jailer is awesome against Ichorid. Extirpate is alright against Ichorid. But Extirpate is better against many other decks, while Yixid Jailer has a much more limited use IMO. I suppose it could be used against decks running Loam, Genesis, Dread Return. But Extirpating a freakin Force of Will or Counterbalance or ThreatX is undeniably kick ass.

Wait. Isn't this the UGR forum? Lol. Are people gonna be doing UGbr now? Just wondering.

"Frostling...WTF?!" I was thinking the same thing, only trying to be nicer :P

arsenalpow
04-30-2008, 12:58 PM
I wanted to run a UGbr list but i couldn't figure out how to squeeze in the thoughtseizes. White is only useful for plow and maybe enforcer. I think black is almost necessary lately as thoughtseize is such a solid play turn 1

raharu
04-30-2008, 04:21 PM
I wanted to run a UGbr list but i couldn't figure out how to squeeze in the thoughtseizes. White is only useful for plow and maybe enforcer. I think black is almost necessary lately as thoughtseize is such a solid play turn 1
Perhaps it's viable to use red as the secondary splash for just Terminate (Lightning Bolt is great, but it doesn't kill everything and takes MD space)? I guess it would look something like this (sidenote: this is a really fast, rough draft):

lands: 18

Creatures: 12
Nimble Mongoose x4
Tarmogoyf x4
Dark Confidant x4

Spells: 30
Sensei's Divining Top x3
Ponder x4
Brainstorm x4
Daze x4
Counterbalance x3
Force of Will x4
Thoughtseize x4
Terminate x4

It's a rather square list, packed to the point that Lightning Bolts/ Dragons/ [Fire/Ice] don't have any space to squeeze in. You could shave in places t fit some of them in, but I like the list as it is, with lots of 4-ofs and the few 3-ofs being unwanted in multipuls.

@ Frostling: Facepalm. So much for my badass foil set of them :frown:.

arsenalpow
05-01-2008, 08:55 AM
I still don't think confidant is the correct play in a deck that runs force of will. In fact in my tourney report i didn't state it, but the game where i beat the chord of calling/shapeshifter deck he flipped up force of will with confidant which severly accelerated the clock i had on him. Had he not flipped up that FoW for 5 damage he might have been able to find an answer.

I just feel that it is probably too risky. Stating that, here is a possible solution

4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Tombstalker

4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Terminate

4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize

3 Counterbalance

3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island

This might be a little too land light but im sure it can be tweaked.

raharu
05-01-2008, 03:39 PM
Outside of Extirpate and Engineered Plague in the board, Dark Confidnt is almost the entire reason you would want to be playing black (Thoughtseize). Cutting it for a threat that shrinks the rest of your board (Tombstalker) isn't really that optimal. If you're in a match that you don't feel comfortable with the life loss from Confidant, then wait until you draw/ cantrip a top before you lay it. The card advantage that it provides is too much to ignore.

arsenalpow
05-02-2008, 07:55 AM
I don't disagree that confidant is a fantastic card, however i just don't think he is right for threshold. I played Deadguy forever and confidant is well justified in that deck because it plays a critical amount of efficient disruption backed up with a clock. Threshold goes a bit longer than deadguy does because we do not have as fast as a clock, sometimes we can't even dig out a single creature through 2 or 3 cantrips.

I can see confidant being supported but it would have to incorporate the c/b top engine as well to mitigate confidants life loss. Looking over the list the other issue i have is the more we incorporate a 3rd a 4th color the more we cut back on blue cards. It makes it hard to support FoW when we dip below 16 blue cards.

4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant

4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Terminate??

4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize

3 Counterbalance

3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

sideboard options
Ancient Grudge
Pyroclasm
Extirpate
Leyline of the Void
Engineered Plague

I think terminate really is the solution we have been looking for. It at least makes me forget that we don't have swords which is really all i'm asking for. I am wary though of not having a solution for turn 1 lackey outside of Daze or FoW.

Nihil Credo
05-02-2008, 10:18 AM
If you're going to run four colours, is having Terminate for removal and Pyroclasm in the SB really an improvement over having Swords for removal and Plague in the SB?

arsenalpow
05-02-2008, 10:28 AM
I don't know, im just running this out there as theory. I think there are only a few things that a white splash would bring.

Swords to Plowshares
Mystic Enforcer
Hoofprints (not a fan at all)
Orim's Chant (thats a stretch)

A red splash gives better sideboard options. The 5-color builds wanted red just for the superior sideboard options

Ancient Grudge
Pyroclasm
Red elemental blast
pyroblast

kikkofrio
05-02-2008, 10:29 AM
Terminate + plague + pyroclasm?

Fear of aggro?

Nihil Credo
05-02-2008, 10:48 AM
For SB options, White offers Armageddon, Gaddock Teeg/Meddling Mage, Serenity. Black+Red can slaughter aggro, but Black+White can be a nightmare for control.

Happy Gilmore
05-02-2008, 06:54 PM
If you're going to run four colours, is having Terminate for removal and Pyroclasm in the SB really an improvement over having Swords for removal and Plague in the SB?

Firstly, why would you run Terminate over Shriekmaw for removal.

Second, you run white for Swords and nothing else. Except for that, red can do everthing as good, or better. Those who think white is better than red against control are smoking crack. Every since players began tuning Landstill white has become worse and worse against control. The chances of landing an Armageddon against control are so incredibly small. This is not to say that Ugr is particulary good against control (especially if the control deck is also playing Tarmogoyf). However, red has reach in the form of burn, and that normally ends the game.

Adding black to Ugw is a logical way to increase the decks potency, and it is just a small jump to get to 5c. The 5c manabase is more stable than the 4c manabase (yes, I am serious). REB/ Ancient Grudge/ Pyroclasm/ (and Blood Moon if only playing UGr) are damn good reasons to chose red, if only for the access to them in the SB.

PhanTom_lt
05-03-2008, 05:02 AM
Because sometimes you need to kill that Dreadnought or Tombstalker, which usually are very hard to deal with.

Adan
05-03-2008, 01:23 PM
Second, you run white for Swords and nothing else. Except for that, red can do everthing as good, or better. Those who think white is better than red against control are smoking crack. Every since players began tuning Landstill white has become worse and worse against control. The chances of landing an Armageddon against control are so incredibly small. This is not to say that Ugr is particulary good against control (especially if the control deck is also playing Tarmogoyf). However, red has reach in the form of burn, and that normally ends the game.

I won't say it's wrong, but I'm not happy with your exaggeration.

Against Landstill, the black and red tempo-variants (with the manadenial element) seem to be the best, but from all the control-oriented builds, UGW Thresh is better since you can nearly hardlock UWb Landstill with CBalance and Gaddock Teeg.

And even if he manages to handle that, you have Armageddon as backup if we suppose your opponent has blown out all of his counters to deal with Balance+Teeg.

It also depends which build you mean. Against Cunning landstill, NQGw seems appropriate to me, but against the 4color lists, yes, Red seems to be good, especially when you are running Moonthresh. But in most of the cases, UGW's Pithing Needles can do exaclty the same like the Moon and even more (like shutting off Decree of Justice, Engineered Explosives, Deed and so on). Pithing Needle won't shut down your opponent's mana compared to Blood Moon, but Blood Moon is more situational and needs a big setup and that's a thing we can't afford against control, the solutions need to be quick and efficient.

Against other controldecks where Armageddon won't be countered, White is also superior to Red. But I don't know whether Rifter, TrainWreck, TruffleShuffle or whatsoever is played anymore.

edit: Haven't seen PhanTom_lt's post, but he's also right, those critters are very hard to deal with. In most of the cases, you have to rely on Force of Will. Or something like 2-3 Goyfs on the board to race them (utopic...).

kiwi
05-04-2008, 10:17 AM
I have a lot of doubts, now there are a lot of landstill decks and this is a easy match up for thres moon but its difficult for UGR threshold tempo.

Thinking about metagame in general what do you think that is better ugr threshold tempo or thres moon ?

Mental
05-04-2008, 01:54 PM
I have a lot of doubts, now there are a lot of landstill decks and this is a easy match up for thres moon but its difficult for UGR threshold tempo.

Thinking about metagame in general what do you think that is better ugr threshold tempo or thres moon ?

Depends on what kind of Landstill.

Against decks like UWbg Landstill, you want to play Tempo Thresh because you can rape their manabase and Stifle their Deeds. Moonthresh doesn't do much here because they'll never let moon stick or resolve, and CBalance doesn't do much to them.

Against UWb/UW Landstill, you probably want to play MoonThresh because Moon, while it doesn't devastate them, shuts down their only Wincons and Counterbalance is very strong.

Adan
05-04-2008, 02:48 PM
Depends on what kind of Landstill.

Against decks like UWbg Landstill, you want to play Tempo Thresh because you can rape their manabase and Stifle their Deeds. Moonthresh doesn't do much here because they'll never let moon stick or resolve, and CBalance doesn't do much to them.

Against UWb/UW Landstill, you probably want to play MoonThresh because Moon, while it doesn't devastate them, shuts down their only Wincons and Counterbalance is very strong.

SRSLY, WTF?!

Against 4color Landstill, you want to play Moonthresh, because blood moon annihilates their manabase. 4color Landstill with the 12 Duals, 6 fetches, 4 Mishra's and 2 Monasteries usually fold to Blood Moon.
They will of course do anything to prevent Blood Moon from hitting the table, but it will win if it does (except you play it when your opponent has got a Deed out. But that's the most stupid thing you could ever do...).

Against Cunning Landstill, which has actually got enough outs for Blood Moon, Moonthresh isn't really good. This one can only won by fast and aggressive play, but at the same time, you have to watch out for WoG, EE and Humility. So you have to play UGR Tempothresh since you have to deliver beats and generate speedadvantage via Wasteland, Stifle and reach with Burn.

Mental
05-04-2008, 05:12 PM
SRSLY, WTF?!

Against 4color Landstill, you want to play Moonthresh, because blood moon annihilates their manabase. 4color Landstill with the 12 Duals, 6 fetches, 4 Mishra's and 2 Monasteries usually fold to Blood Moon.
They will of course do anything to prevent Blood Moon from hitting the table, but it will win if it does (except you play it when your opponent has got a Deed out. But that's the most stupid thing you could ever do...).

Against Cunning Landstill, which has actually got enough outs for Blood Moon, Moonthresh isn't really good. This one can only won by fast and aggressive play, but at the same time, you have to watch out for WoG, EE and Humility. So you have to play UGR Tempothresh since you have to deliver beats and generate speedadvantage via Wasteland, Stifle and reach with Burn.

What I mean to say is, against Cunning Landstill, Counterbalance is very good. In my experience playing UBGW Landstill, I have more Counterspells online then the Thresh player does by the time they can drop Blood Moon, so they're just playing normal UGR Thresh, with a lot of cards that are bad against me (counterbalance).

Then again, you've probably tested this a lot more than I have.

Adan
05-04-2008, 06:00 PM
What I mean to say is, against Cunning Landstill, Counterbalance is very good. In my experience playing UBGW Landstill, I have more Counterspells online then the Thresh player does by the time they can drop Blood Moon, so they're just playing normal UGR Thresh, with a lot of cards that are bad against me (counterbalance).

Then again, you've probably tested this a lot more than I have.

Ah, ok, unter these circumstances, I could agree with you, except that Counterbalance still sucks against UWb Landstill if you don't have Gaddock Teeg (which you won't have when playing Red). Engineered Explosives is the efficient solution against Counterbalance.

But of course, the fact that it shuts down their removal and miscellaneous stuff like brainstorm is pretty good, but Engineered Explosives is the equivalent to Pernicious Deed here.

Of couse, you can generate a lot of speedadvantage and screw 4color Landstill with canadian Thresh, but Blood Moon is the auto-win when it hits the table.

And I somehow see why Redblasts are coming up, they are pretty cool and help you to force through a Blood Moon.

Mental
05-04-2008, 11:31 PM
Ah, ok, unter these circumstances, I could agree with you, except that Counterbalance still sucks against UWb Landstill if you don't have Gaddock Teeg (which you won't have when playing Red). Engineered Explosives is the efficient solution against Counterbalance.

But of course, the fact that it shuts down their removal and miscellaneous stuff like brainstorm is pretty good, but Engineered Explosives is the equivalent to Pernicious Deed here.

Of couse, you can generate a lot of speedadvantage and screw 4color Landstill with canadian Thresh, but Blood Moon is the auto-win when it hits the table.

And I somehow see why Redblasts are coming up, they are pretty cool and help you to force through a Blood Moon.

My builds of UW Landstill are usually built on a lower CC as a way to deal with Thrash, so that's why I was saying that Moontresh rolls them. But, at the same time, I can see your points.

REB/Pyro is good I guess, but I've never had the space for them in my board, between Grip, Needle, Clasm, Moon, and Crypt in Moonthresh and Grip, Clasm, SDT and Counterbalance in Thrash.

from Cairo
05-05-2008, 12:31 AM
Depends on what kind of Landstill.

Against decks like UWbg Landstill, you want to play Tempo Thresh because you can rape their manabase and Stifle their Deeds. Moonthresh doesn't do much here because they'll never let moon stick or resolve, and CBalance doesn't do much to them.

Against UWb/UW Landstill, you probably want to play MoonThresh because Moon, while it doesn't devastate them, shuts down their only Wincons and Counterbalance is very strong.

This makes no sense at all. It seems almost 100% backwards.

Stifle and Wasteland can mess up either UWb or Uwbg... but naturally the one running more colors is going to be hurt more by Blood Moon. Obviously neither Landstill variant is going to let Blood Moon resolve if it's at all possible, but they pack the same counters so they are equally likely to have the answer to it; to say Uwbg will never let it resolve makes no sense, by that logic UWb never will either. When it is cast, either deck needs to have FoW or 2 mana open for Counterspell., considering both builds run 8 counters I fail to see why one is any more likely to counter it.

If Blood Moon resolves against Uwbg without them having a Deed on the board its essentially GG. They have no basics and have zero post resolution outs. If anything, it shuts down all of Uwbg's win conditions, seeing as they are manlands and spells that can not be cast with only Red mana.

Post resolution, UWb can preemptively have an Island and Plains (or draw into one of the two), with any nonbasic (now Mountain) that opens them up to EE@3, additionally they have Cunning Wish for BEB that only requires Basic Island if played over two turns. For what little it's worth, with a pre-fetched or drawn Basic Plains, Decree of Justice could be cycled for a bunch of tokens, so it is possible that UWb could cast a win condition and win through a late game Blood Moon without even dealing with it.

Counterbalance effects both decks equally as well... they both have Brainstorm, Swords, Counterspell, and Standstill, some lists have Stifle or Diabolic Edict in addition, but generally those 4 major ones (Brainstorm, Swords, Counterspell, and Standstill) will be present in 4 copies in either color variation, spells with CMC 3 or greater generally aren't effected much by Counterbalance anyway, so I fail to see how Counterbalance is stronger against one variant or the other, it seems fairly mediocre against both.

Mental
05-08-2008, 12:27 AM
This may be really janky, but what do you all think of Vexing Shusher in the SB of this deck? I'm thinking of it in Moonthresh. It seems very powerful as it's a way to force through your bombs through Counterbalance (including Moon) and should give you an edge in the mirror. However, it is vulnerable and doesn't create the problem it does when played in combo, namely, that it forces the opponent to board out removal and lose, or keep in removal and clog up their MD.

Discuss.

Citrus-God
05-08-2008, 04:41 PM
Also sounds good in Swan Song Red Thresh. They can combo out midgame without any much interference... I mean, now it sounds like Bob the Belcher v2.0. If you guys dont know what Bob the Belcher is, it's a cross between Belcher and Landstill. It switches between roles playing combo or control. Against Control, it plays combo with control back-up and against aggro, it plays control with combo back-up. So for Swan Song Thresh, you should get the idea.

Adan
05-09-2008, 05:30 AM
Also sounds good in Swan Song Red Thresh. They can combo out midgame without any much interference... I mean, now it sounds like Bob the Belcher v2.0. If you guys dont know what Bob the Belcher is, it's a cross between Belcher and Landstill. It switches between roles playing combo or control. Against Control, it plays combo with control back-up and against aggro, it plays control with combo back-up. So for Swan Song Thresh, you should get the idea.

What?

Anyways, I actually took moonThresh, threw out the Dragons and other stuff I found not necessary and ended up with this:

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [A] Tropical Island
2 [A] Island (1)

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [SHM] Swans of Bryn Argoll
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose

// Spells
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [A] Lightning Bolt
4 [ON] Chain of Plasma
4 [NE] Daze
1 [TSP] Conflagrate / 1 [CS] Lightning Storm
1 [IA] Portent

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [IA] Pyroclasm
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 2 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [A] Red Elemental Blast

It should look similar to Nihil's list (I don't know it anymore, except that he plays Lightning Storm).

koba
05-09-2008, 07:35 AM
I really like that list, especially its mana base and I think 3 swans should be sufficient. The only thing which I do not agree with is the singleton portent instead of a third top, but that's nitpicking.

Why would you ever play conflagrate over lightning storm? Conflagrate is neutered by graveyard hate and costs 3 red mana instead of 2 red and one colorless. Isn't lightning storm almost always the better card in this combo?

diffy
05-09-2008, 08:03 AM
I really like that list, especially its mana base


I don't like playing only 18 lands while wanting to consistently hit as many lands as possible to play and abuse Swans (e.g. hitting the first 5 land drops to then have a backup Bolt (aka. Anc) in case they remove the Swans). I've played 20 lands in my last version and have recently moved down to 19, but my build is also more controlish than Adans so you could possibly also get away with playing 18.



Why would you ever play conflagrate over lightning storm? Conflagrate is neutered by graveyard hate and costs 3 red mana instead of 2 red and one colorless. Isn't lightning storm almost always the better card in this combo?

The trick with Conflagerate is that you can discard it to your last copy of Chain of Plasma making it cost only 2 Red mana.
I agree that it is worse than Lightning Storm though as it is close to un-hardcastable whereas Lightning Storm still can be used as a crappy Bolt from time to time.
Adan mainly wants to play Conflagerate over L. Storm because he fears that you might fizzle due to not having enough lands. He has a point here, especially if you're playing against something with Life from the Loam, but as you only have to redirect the last copy of Chain of Plasma to your opponent's dome (17), swing with Swans (13) and then play L. Storm with 5 lands discarded (10, 0), you should always have enough lands as backup to neuter your opponents. As a last resort, you can still kill your opponent the next time you untap with all those additional burn spells you have drawn.

I think the discussion over Swans Thresh should be held in its own thread (here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9096)) though, especially since the lists differ from the NQG norm by quite a margin (e.g. 8 burn spells but with Counterbalance).
I'm also promoting cutting Nimble Mongoose because you reach Threshold very slowly (no Predict, you want to save your Burn spells most of the time) leaving only the standard Ug aggro control shell (cantrips/CounterTop/Goyfs etc) in common with NQG.
On the same account, I'm still sold on Daze not having a place in this deck: you want to develop your manabase and at least my list plays out much more controlish than your average NQG/r making the tempo setback quite harsh. Also, I've found that everyone automatically plays around Daze when they see that you're playing something with Cantrips and Blue Duals turning them into a virtual Time Walk even if you don't play them any more.

For reference, here's my list (still fluctuating heavily though):



/// Maindeck (60 cards)

// Lands (19)
4 Flooded Strand (http://magiccards.info/on/en/316.html)
4 Polluted Delta (http://magiccards.info/on/en/321.html)
4 Volcanic Island (http://magiccards.info/be/en/302.html)
3 Tropical Island (http://magiccards.info/be/en/299.html)
4 Island (http://magiccards.info/guru/en/2.html)

// Creatures (8)
4 Tarmogoyf (http://magiccards.info/fut/en/153.html)
4 Swans of Bryn Argoll (http://magiccards.info/shm/en/151.html)

// Cantrips (11)
4 Ponder (http://magiccards.info/lw/en/79.html)
4 Brainstorm (http://magiccards.info/mm/en/61.html)
3 Sensei's Divining Top (http://magiccards.info/chk/en/268.html)

// Permission (8)
4 Counterbalance (http://magiccards.info/cs/en/31.html)
4 Force of Will (http://magiccards.info/ai/en/42.html)

// Tempo (5)
2 Repeal (http://magiccards.info/gp/en/32.html)
3 Fire/Ice (http://magiccards.info/ap/en/128.html)

// Burn (9)
4 Lightning Bolt (http://magiccards.info/be/en/163.html)
4 Chain of Plasma (http://magiccards.info/on/en/193.html)
1 Lightning Storm (http://magiccards.info/cs/en/89.html)

/// Sideboard (15 cards)
3 Blood Moon (http://magiccards.info/dk/en/57.html)
4 Tormod's Crypt (http://magiccards.info/dk/en/109.html)
4 Pyroclasm (http://magiccards.info/ia/en/214.html)
2 Trygon Predator (http://magiccards.info/di/en/133.html)
2 Krosan Grip (http://magiccards.info/ts/en/202.html)

Happy Gilmore
05-09-2008, 08:23 AM
I don't like playing only 18 lands while wanting to consistently hit as many lands as possible to play and abuse Swans (e.g. hitting the first 5 land drops to then have a backup Bolt (aka. Anc) in case they remove the Swans). I've played 20 lands in my last version and have recently moved down to 19, but my build is also more controlish than Adans so you could possibly also get away with playing 18.



The trick with Conflagerate is that you can discard it to your last copy of Chain of Plasma making it cost only 2 Red mana.
I agree that it is worse than Lightning Storm though as it is close to un-hardcastable whereas Lightning Storm still can be used as a crappy Bolt from time to time.
Adan mainly wants to play Conflagerate over L. Storm because he fears that you might fizzle due to not having enough lands. He has a point here, especially if you're playing against something with Life from the Loam, but as you only have to redirect the last copy of Chain of Plasma to your opponent's dome (17), swing with Swans (13) and then play L. Storm with 5 lands discarded (10, 0), you should always have enough lands as backup to neuter your opponents. As a last resort, you can still kill your opponent the next time you untap with all those additional burn spells you have drawn.

I think the discussion over Swans Thresh should be held in its own thread (here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9096)) though, especially since the lists differ from the NQG norm by quite a margin (e.g. 8 burn spells but with Counterbalance).
I'm also promoting cutting Nimble Mongoose because you reach Threshold very slowly (no Predict, you want to save your Burn spells most of the time) leaving only the standard Ug aggro control shell (cantrips/CounterTop/Goyfs etc) in common with NQG.
On the same account, I'm still sold on Daze not having a place in this deck: you want to develop your manabase and at least my list plays out much more controlish than your average NQG/r making the tempo setback quite harsh. Also, I've found that everyone automatically plays around Daze when they see that you're playing something with Cantrips and Blue Duals turning them into a virtual Time Walk even if you don't play them any more.

For reference, here's my list (still fluctuating heavily though):



/// Maindeck (60 cards)

// Lands (19)
4 Flooded Strand (http://magiccards.info/on/en/316.html)
4 Polluted Delta (http://magiccards.info/on/en/321.html)
4 Volcanic Island (http://magiccards.info/be/en/302.html)
3 Tropical Island (http://magiccards.info/be/en/299.html)
4 Island (http://magiccards.info/guru/en/2.html)

// Creatures (8)
4 Tarmogoyf (http://magiccards.info/fut/en/153.html)
4 Swans of Bryn Argoll (http://magiccards.info/shm/en/151.html)

// Cantrips (11)
4 Ponder (http://magiccards.info/lw/en/79.html)
4 Brainstorm (http://magiccards.info/mm/en/61.html)
3 Sensei's Divining Top (http://magiccards.info/chk/en/268.html)

// Permission (8)
4 Counterbalance (http://magiccards.info/cs/en/31.html)
4 Force of Will (http://magiccards.info/ai/en/42.html)

// Tempo (5)
2 Repeal (http://magiccards.info/gp/en/32.html)
3 Fire/Ice (http://magiccards.info/ap/en/128.html)

// Burn (9)
4 Lightning Bolt (http://magiccards.info/be/en/163.html)
4 Chain of Plasma (http://magiccards.info/on/en/193.html)
1 Lightning Storm (http://magiccards.info/cs/en/89.html)

/// Sideboard (15 cards)
3 Blood Moon (http://magiccards.info/dk/en/57.html)
4 Tormod's Crypt (http://magiccards.info/dk/en/109.html)
4 Pyroclasm (http://magiccards.info/ia/en/214.html)
2 Trygon Predator (http://magiccards.info/di/en/133.html)
2 Krosan Grip (http://magiccards.info/ts/en/202.html)


You can absolutely play 18 lands with Swan. The only time I have ever played 19 was in a build with 4x Wasteland. 18 is still too high in my oppinion. I also believe 4x Swans is too many. And why the heck are you not running Nimble Mongoose? Effectively you have dropped your beater count to 4 which is way way too low. 11 burn spells?! Holy crap thats a lot. And whats with Repeal? Where would you actually use that card? Its neat but doesn't actually do anything in particular. I'm not necessarily saying that Fire/Ice and repeal are bad, but in Legacy without Goose your going to have a hard time killing someone via any other method than comboing.

Kainan
05-09-2008, 10:17 AM
Hello guys,

I was reading this thread all along but I couldn't find what I was looking for (or maybe I just passed it through).

Which matchups do you think are bad for UGr Thresh? Anyone in special? I am building a sideboard here and any tips are highly welcome :)

raharu
05-09-2008, 11:15 AM
Hello guys,

I was reading this thread all along but I couldn't find what I was looking for (or maybe I just passed it through).

Which matchups do you think are bad for UGr Thresh? Anyone in special? I am building a sideboard here and any tips are highly welcome :)
Ichorid and Enchantress, to name two. Tormod's Crypt is decent against Ichorid, and if you expect Enchantress, I would be playing the white splash for Serenity and Gaddock Teeg (Serenity > Teeg is really strong against Enchantress). I've heard that landstill isn't that great of a MU either, but I wouldn't know firsthand.

Kainan
05-09-2008, 11:20 AM
Oops, that's shitty then, since in my field there are quite a lot Ichorids and Enchantress ^^

I was planning to run the red version, because I have the Volcanic Islands and not the Tundras and because I like the tempo strategy. Nonetheless, if I will auto-lose to those decks, I guess I should run a variant.

Anyway, any tips for making a sideboard plan against those matchups?

Adan
05-09-2008, 11:20 AM
Ichorid and Enchantress, to name two. Tormod's Crypt is decent against Ichorid, and if you expect Enchantress, I would be playing the white splash for Serenity and Gaddock Teeg (Serenity > Teeg is really strong against Enchantress). I've heard that landstill isn't that great of a MU either, but I wouldn't know firsthand.

Trygon Predator rocks against Enchantress and can be played in actually every variant of Thresh since Ug are the basic-colors of Thresh... No need for White here.

Kainan
05-09-2008, 11:33 AM
Well, but I guess you agree that Serenity is a game-breaker against Enchantress, right? ^^

I am running a Trygon MD and 2 on the sideboard. However, I am still worried about Enchantress and specially Ichorid matchup.

For you to have more info, here is my current sideboard:

2 Trygon Predator
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Loaming Shaman
2 Hydroblast
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroclasm

Predator is there against Enchantress and Affinity mainly.
Crypt is there for GY hate.
Shaman is there for Ichorid and further GY hate in case it's needed.
Hydroblast against Dragon Stompy and Gobs.
Pithing Needle hits Aether Vial and other activated abilities I may encounter.
Finally, Pyroclasm against aggro, Ichorid and, why not, Enchantress.

b4r0n
05-09-2008, 11:39 AM
Anyway, any tips for making a sideboard plan against those matchups?

In addition to Trygon Predator (which is good against a variety of decks), you have access to Tranquil Domain (which is specifically good for hating Enchantress). Crypt is basically your only hate for Ichorid, unless you want to bring in narrow cards like Heap Doll or Night Soil or something. Against both Enchantress and Ichorid, Engineered Explosives is a decent option to have. However, it's difficult to tell you exactly how/what to side without seeing your maindeck.

EDIT:

For you to have more info, here is my current sideboard:

2 Trygon Predator
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Loaming Shaman
2 Hydroblast
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroclasm

Predator is there against Enchantress and Affinity mainly.
Crypt is there for GY hate.
Shaman is there for Ichorid and further GY hate in case it's needed.
Hydroblast against Dragon Stompy and Gobs.
Pithing Needle hits Aether Vial and other activated abilities I may encounter.
Finally, Pyroclasm against aggro, Ichorid and, why not, Enchantress.

Your sideboard doesn't look very focused at all. If Ichorid and Enchantress are genuine concerns, I would suggest:

3 Tranquil Domain
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Hydroblast
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Pyroclasm

Or, if your field is more diverse, you could consider just giving up on a specific negative matchup (like Ichorid for example, which is very difficult for Thresh to win), and just focus on improving the matchups that are winnable.

Kainan
05-09-2008, 11:45 AM
Oh, indeed. Sorry. Here is my MD:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nimble Mongoose
1 Trygon Predator

4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
4 Spell Snare
4 Daze
4 Fire / Ice
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Rushing River

2 Island
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
1 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard (again):

2 Trygon Predator
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Loaming Shaman
2 Hydroblast
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroclasm

EDIT:

If I am giving up the Ichorid matchup, then I will not run Thresh, hehe. My metagame, while varied, has a lot of Ichorids running rampant. Maybe I just a better idea to drop Thresh and run something else (I don't want this tho) :(

Adan
05-09-2008, 11:55 AM
Oh, indeed. Sorry. Here is my MD:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nimble Mongoose
1 Trygon Predator

4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
4 Spell Snare
4 Daze
4 Fire / Ice
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Rushing River

2 Island
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
1 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard (again):

2 Trygon Predator
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Loaming Shaman
2 Hydroblast
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroclasm

EDIT:

If I am giving up the Ichorid matchup, then I will not run Thresh, hehe. My metagame, while varied, has a lot of Ichorids running rampant. Maybe I just a better idea to drop Thresh and run something else (I don't want this tho) :(

Then play NQG/b with Extirpate + Yixlid Jailer ftw.

Kainan
05-10-2008, 07:09 PM
Hey guys,

Well, finally UGr Thresh, even in my metagame, which is quite hard to actually manage to win with TempoThresh. Nonetheless, I finished 2nd and I am very happy. It's quite incredible how this deck can just win, even when you are almost defeated. The list I used is the one posted above. I won a Bayou Black Bordered :P

I only lost to a weird UGB Control deck, but because I had no luck finiding a red mana source.

Anyway, I won 2-0 vs UG Thresh. I won 2-0 vs Angel Stompy. Won 2-0 vs Faerie Stompie. Won 2-1 vs Goblins. Lost 1-2 to the afore mentioned control deck. Won 2-0 vs 43land (actually, was 30 something lands).

The best card: Stifle. Honour mention to Spell Snare.

The worst card: Maybe, in this metagame, Rushing River.

Funny thing of the day: I used FoW only 3 times in 6 rounds. Funny... Actually one guys asked me if I actually run FoW :(

Well, I hope you have the same luck and success I had with the deck too!

frolll
05-10-2008, 07:36 PM
Yup, I've seen your list on Legacy-France; this random Trygon Predator maindecked looks quite hot to me. :)

I was playing something mora akin to the "original" Canadian Thresh, but I'll try it with the 2/3 Flyer which prolly appears to be a really nice choice in the metagame.
The weird control deck was a Tog variant methinks...

Oh, and actually, my sb's looking like that :
3 Null Rod
4 Trygon Predator
4 Pyroclasm
4 Leyline on Singularity

The Leylines are awesome at stopping Empty the damend Warrens and Zombie Tokens. And they're Blue, bonus. :) But the Aggro Loam matchup isn't all that good... =\ Well, congratulations for your second place, especially while sailing across a rough field at Magic Corporation.

And I would like to add : Spell Snare is a truly golden card. Winning Goyfs war before they happen and countering that Survival or anything is really nice; at 1 mana the card is costed perfect for the deck... Hell, while testing it did buy me games against Stax variants (Wg or Wr) in the form of countering the critical CotV set at 1. So, maybe Stifle does mess actually with people mana, and coupled with Wastelands they sure are über cool, but Spell Snare kinda reads "U : Counter target bomb. Don't lose life or any other cards."

Just some thoughts, sorry if it's not organized very well...

Sanguine Voyeur
05-10-2008, 07:41 PM
Why Null Rod?

Is there an abundance of Affinity?

frolll
05-10-2008, 08:02 PM
Actually, there was 2 tournament in a row when some guy not playing Legacy until then smashed the field to pieces with an Affinity (Springleaf Drum version); he won duals with an extended deck, that was somewhat confusing...

But Null Rod is also nice to stop the Artefact Mana of fast combo decks, and like, against generic Storm (or Belcher :p which get fucked by Null Rod but hey) that kills with EtW, I board out Bolts and some Fire/Ice to get Rods and Leyline. Shutting off the Petals, Moxes and LEDs is sometimes just what you need in order to win.
And it's quite the beating against those weird people playing Affinity, sure.

That being said, any advices on a better card for this slot ? I'm open, I'll not eat you guys :)

I'll post my maindeck, if you don't mind :

// NAME : [T1.5] Thrash
// CREATOR : frolll (magic-ville.com)
// FORMAT : Classic
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
2 Serendib Efreet
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Fire / Ice
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
4 Ponder
SB: 4 Trygon Predator
SB: 4 Leyline of Singularity
SB: 4 Pyroclasm
SB: 3 Null Rod


Enjoy and discuss =)

Sanguine Voyeur
05-10-2008, 08:05 PM
Chalice would be able to shut of artifact mana for zero. It would take out Moxen, Petals, and LED's a full two turns before Null Rod.

Kainan
05-10-2008, 08:09 PM
I'd drop the Efreets for some bounce spells or even maindeck Pithing Needles (depends on the metagame).

Those two slots are normally spent for metagame cards, so if you can let us know what's your metagame (roughly) then that would help us to give you some useful tips :)

frolll
05-10-2008, 08:32 PM
Well, thanks a lot for the input guys, but now, I go get some much needed sleep...
Chalice of the Void has the downfall of not being castable at more than 0... And it's kinda like Leyline, if you don't have it in your opening 7, it's not that great. But that deserves test. ;)

The meta is a non-meta if I may say this that way... Lots of "budget aggro" an "casual combo"; the Efreet were there mainly because the are in fact Blue so they pitch to FoW and sometimes the additionnal clock is nice (or just the Flying aspect of things). I know it was a Rushing River and a Wipe Away in the firsts lists, but these ones missed punch to me. Affinity is quite high, Ichorid too, since I suppose it's cheap. They're is not all that much of Wastelands, so the manabase kinda works, even if it does look terrible. :p

That's it for now.

Next "main" concern : Is Counterbalance something to run or not (either in the md or sb) ?

Kainan
05-11-2008, 04:09 AM
I always say "no" to Counterbalance in UGr Thresh. However, some lists do run Counterbalance and have some success, but normally you'll see more TempoThresh winning a tournament than a UGr CB-Top ones.

If your meta is full of aggro decks and Ichorid, I would run EE maindeck or even Werebear. If you think you can win aggro decks without EE, then drop these and go for Echoing Truth for Ichorid matchup. Dredge is a nearly impossible matchup for UGr: We do not have a clock faster than they have, counters do nothing, burn sucks, Stifle generally sucks too. The deck is useless against them. Echoing Truth can help in this matchup maindeck and prepare a good sideboard strategy.

Adan
05-11-2008, 05:06 AM
I always say "no" to Counterbalance in UGr Thresh. However, some lists do run Counterbalance and have some success, but normally you'll see more TempoThresh winning a tournament than a UGr CB-Top ones.

That is because there is no reason to run UGr "CBalance" Thresh over UGw or UGb "CBalance" Thresh since it has got nothing superior to UGw or UGb so far. This may change with the inclusion of the random "Topdeck -> I win"-combo Swans of Bryn Argoll + Chain of Plasma (+Lightning Storm/Conflagrate).

MoonThresh might be a exception, but due to the fact that it is a very situational metagame choice that needs a lot of setup from Turn 1 on, I won't count that.

It may win some games, but since UWb Cunning Landstill is becoming more and more popular than the 4color variants, I would not run MoonThresh anymore.

Ichoid is indeed a bad matchup. The only way to fix this is running a playset of Leyline of the Void in the SB, but that means you are wasting 4 slots just to beat 1 matchup.

But whatever, there's no deck that can beat everything.

koba
05-11-2008, 05:10 AM
The meta is a non-meta if I may say this that way... Lots of "budget aggro" an "casual combo"

That doesn't sound anything like the tournament scene in Belgium. If you get tired playing against such decks, you can always head over to Antwerp on tuesday evenings. Anyway, chalice is far too narrow and only useful in match-ups that are already in your favour. If you want to play the tempo version with stifle, wasteland and spell snare, play without counterbalance. Otherwise, use it.

I tested the swans version (almost exactly Adan's list) yesterday against goblins, white thres, dragon stompy and aggro-loam and so far I like it. I also found the mongoose underwhelming though. I'm thinking of adding black to the list to add confidant instead of mongoose. The mana base would then be:
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground sea
2 [A] Island (1)

The black splash would also allow to sideboard jailer/extirpate instead of crypt. So what is the opinion about this?

frolll
05-11-2008, 05:23 AM
Taliking about small semi-private events in Brussels and Wallonie... Well, I know in Flanders it's much more competitive. ;) Maybe I'll travel all the way to Antwerp someday, but not anytime soon, sadly...


I'll test the Swans build, since having a combo finish as an out against Zooish decks seems really really strong. And I just let go of the Counterbalance idea, since I don't want to run Moon Thresh nor Ugw ones. Thanks for advice, people. =)

Adan
05-11-2008, 05:33 AM
Taliking about small semi-private events in Brussels and Wallonie... Well, I know in Flanders it's much more competitive. ;) Maybe I'll travel all the way to Antwerp someday, but not anytime soon, sadly...


I'll test the Swans build, since having a combo finish as an out against Zooish decks seems really really strong. And I just let go of the Counterbalance idea, since I don't want to run Moon Thresh nor Ugw ones. Thanks for advice, people. =)

In my opinion, Counterbalance is quite important in the Swans-build since Swans are comparable to Sea Drake - they need to be protected, otherwise it sucks.
And Counterbalance-Top seems to be - at least as a 2/2 split - reasonable.

18 lands seem to be fine, but Nimble Mongoose really sucks sometimes since you reach Threshold very late. I'm running the constellation of the Hatfields with the single Portent as 5th Ponder, which seems to be a good idea since we need 2 combopieces which can be searched together with the CQ, but I might change it and run at least 3 Predict again since they generate CA and mill cards, making Mongoose slightly better.

It also compensates the problem of just running 17 lands.

This is what I came up with recently, I always took the Hatfield's Moonthresh as a base for "my" build:

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [A] Tropical Island
1 [A] Island (1)

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [SHM] Swans of Bryn Argoll
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose

// Spells
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
2 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [A] Lightning Bolt
4 [ON] Chain of Plasma
4 [NE] Daze
1 [TSP] Conflagrate
3 [OD] Predict

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [IA] Pyroclasm
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 2 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [A] Red Elemental Blast

diffy
05-11-2008, 05:41 AM
I'm thinking of adding black to the list to add confidant instead of mongoose.

Exactly what I have been testing since two days - Mongoose just never has Threshold making it a pretty bad blocker/beater. Black adds quite a lot in Dark Confidant (additional dig) and Thoughtseize (protection for Balance or Swans).

Here's my current list:



/// Maindeck (60 cards)

// Lands (18)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 City of Brass
1 Island

// Beaters (8)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Swans of Bryn Argoll

// Card Advantage (15)
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Dark Confidant

// Permission (10)
2 Thoughtseize
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will

// Burn (9)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain of Plasma
1 Lightning Storm


The manabase is pretty stable as it is, especially since the two splashes are only very light ones. Also, the two City of Brass are better than one might think, props to the Hatfileds for coming up with this tech.
The 18 lands are just in for a test currently, I'll move back to 19 when I face problems in testing.

odabella
05-11-2008, 07:04 AM
Exactly what I have been testing since two days - Mongoose just never has Threshold making it a pretty bad blocker/beater. Black adds quite a lot in Dark Confidant (additional dig) and Thoughtseize (protection for Balance or Swans).


On the other hand you add also some risks/disadvantages to the deck:

- Dark Confidant/Chain (Opponent can throw it back to Dark Confidant when you need to kill opponents creatures)
- Lifeloss; Top helps you but Swans, FoW, Cities and returned Chains of Plasma are looking risky, at least on paper.

Did you ever suffer from it in your testings yet?

kiwi
05-21-2008, 02:42 PM
Any one is testing UGR Threshold with Swans of Bryon Argoll?

Can any one say some thing about the testing ?

Im thinking in buying some Swans of Bryon Argoll for My UGR Threshold but I havent see any top 8 with a Threshold + Swans of Bryon Argoll

Do you think that this kind of Threshold can be competitive in the actual metagame or is better UGR tempo?

chokin
05-21-2008, 03:11 PM
Any one is testing UGR Threshold with Swans of Bryon Argoll?

Can any one say some thing about the testing ?

Im thinking in buying some Swans of Bryon Argoll for My UGR Threshold but I havent see any top 8 with a Threshold + Swans of Bryon Argoll

Do you think that this kind of Threshold can be competitive in the actual metagame or is better UGR tempo?

Adding Swans to the deck isn't a bad idea. You just really need to get those lands down consistently if you want to power out the combo or have additional stall elements to wait it out. I think Confidant is awesome because he gets you extra lands and the pieces. Losing life here and there to get everything ready by turn 4 or 5 with protection backup is awesome.

I think I saw a list run 4 Goyf and 4 Swans. No Geese or Confidants. It also ran Pyroclasm to deal with the Goblin/aggro meta. I thought of how awesome Pyroclasm would be against Goblins with a Swan down. It's like a one sided Wrath that gives you 2 cards.

Shugyosha
05-21-2008, 04:34 PM
I tested swans and also played nightmare's build in a small tourney going 3-1-0 2nd place. I played against:

Goblins: killed him with swan beatdown both times.

Uwb Landstill: Magus of the Moon won one game. The other one I won through a Humility.

Belcher: Counters won. Swans played no role and boarded second game.

UGr Swanthresh: Stupid mirror match. He comboed me first game, then I kill him with swam beatdown. Third game he Goyfs me to death with me sitting on three nonthreshed Geese. I had to fucking Grip my Top to get threshold but he brainstormed for a Bolt.

You see, I killed with swan beatdown but not with the combo. Swans are quite effective beaters against some decks. Comparing to Dragon (and Enforcer) they are easier to cast, pitchable and not threshold dependent.

I think the reason that few Swanthresh decks made top8 so far is that we are still not have the correct build. As stated before Mongoose is not that good in this version of the deck.

My new build just splashes the combo to keep near the typical deck structure:

// Lands
4 [R] Tropical Island
4 [R] Volcanic Island
2 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [UNH] Island
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [UNH] Forest
2 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [SHM] Swans of Bryn Argoll

// Draw
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [LRW] Ponder
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [OD] Predict

// Protection
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [CS] Counterbalance

// Reach / Removal / "draw"
3 [AT] Lightning Bolt
3 [AP] Fire/Ice OR Magma Jet OR Pyroclasm (despite many people I like F/I)
2 [ON] Chain of Plasma

The landbase is oriented towards Blood Moon SB. You have a Forest and two Islands to cast every creature you play.

The deck is very draw heavy and the swan/chain combo also has no other aim but to draw cards. Draw 10-20 cards then drop land, Goyfs discard stuff and stick with a hand of counters. No need for fancy combo kills. Dropping Goyfs is kind of a combo if you ask me.

Adan
05-22-2008, 01:37 AM
I tested swans and also played nightmare's build in a small tourney going 3-1-0 2nd place.

Nightmare built a SwanThresh list, where? The only ones to build Swanthresh-Deck so far were Nihil Credo, Der_imaginäre_Freund and me I think...

Anyways, it looks quite OK, congratz on the finish.

Happy Gilmore
05-22-2008, 02:12 AM
I tested swans and also played nightmare's build in a small tourney going 3-1-0 2nd place. I played against:

Goblins: killed him with swan beatdown both times.

Uwb Landstill: Magus of the Moon won one game. The other one I won through a Humility.

Belcher: Counters won. Swans played no role and boarded second game.

UGr Swanthresh: Stupid mirror match. He comboed me first game, then I kill him with swam beatdown. Third game he Goyfs me to death with me sitting on three nonthreshed Geese. I had to fucking Grip my Top to get threshold but he brainstormed for a Bolt.

You see, I killed with swan beatdown but not with the combo. Swans are quite effective beaters against some decks. Comparing to Dragon (and Enforcer) they are easier to cast, pitchable and not threshold dependent.

I think the reason that few Swanthresh decks made top8 so far is that we are still not have the correct build. As stated before Mongoose is not that good in this version of the deck.

My new build just splashes the combo to keep near the typical deck structure:

// Lands
4 [R] Tropical Island
4 [R] Volcanic Island
2 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [UNH] Island
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [UNH] Forest
2 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [SHM] Swans of Bryn Argoll

// Draw
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [LRW] Ponder
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [OD] Predict

// Protection
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [CS] Counterbalance

// Reach / Removal / "draw"
3 [AT] Lightning Bolt
3 [AP] Fire/Ice OR Magma Jet OR Pyroclasm (despite many people I like F/I)
2 [ON] Chain of Plasma

The landbase is oriented towards Blood Moon SB. You have a Forest and two Islands to cast every creature you play.

The deck is very draw heavy and the swan/chain combo also has no other aim but to draw cards. Draw 10-20 cards then drop land, Goyfs discard stuff and stick with a hand of counters. No need for fancy combo kills. Dropping Goyfs is kind of a combo if you ask me.

I like your list but I feel that you need to have 4bolt 4Chain as your burn spells. My list in testing right now is: -3 Predict +1 Swan, +1 Land (my landbase is somewhat different), and +1 Win Condition(I was even considering Inner Calm Outer Strength).


Edit:
I wasn't tired tonight and I stumbled onto the perfect win condition. More about this once I do some more testing. Give you a hint, its an echantment from the new set.

Adan
05-22-2008, 04:58 AM
I like your list but I feel that you need to have 4bolt 4Chain as your burn spells. My list in testing right now is: -3 Predict +1 Swan, +1 Land (my landbase is somewhat different), and +1 Win Condition(I was even considering Inner Calm Outer Strength).


Edit:
I wasn't tired tonight and I stumbled onto the perfect win condition. More about this once I do some more testing. Give you a hint, its an echantment from the new set.

ugh, I guess I will reveal my current list then:

// Lands
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [R] Tropical Island
4 [R] Volcanic Island
2 [A] Island (1)

// Creatures
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
3 [SHM] Swans of Bryn Argoll
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [OD] Predict
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [B] Lightning Bolt
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [IA] Brainstorm
1 [TSP] Conflagrate
3 [ON] Chain of Plasma

This is pretty optimized I guess, I play the 3/3 split between Swans and Chains because 4 Swans are overkill and Chain of Plasma is a bad card alone.

Predict is soooo important since your landcount is low, it ensures you to draw lands when you need them. Additionally, it's mill-effect compensates the high permanentcount which makes Nimble Mongoose suck 8that's the problem Clemens had all the time). Predict compensates that AND the low landcount. Additionally, it has got a huge synergy with the rest of the deck, obv.

by the way, what Enchantment did you mean, Knollspine Invocation? You have to pay X and discard a card with converted mana X, so that means if you want to throw a Force of Will at your opponents head, you would have to pay 5 mana...

Shugyosha
05-22-2008, 07:11 AM
Nightmare built a SwanThresh list, where? The only ones to build Swanthresh-Deck so far were Nihil Credo, Der_imaginäre_Freund and me I think...


Here is the link (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15756.html) to Nightmares list. I played the Bird Ensemble (last of the lists) and managed to drop a CB turn and dodged wasteland Tropical screw by Goblins via Lotus Petals but still its a very bad topdeck so I'm playing more traditional thresh as listed in my post above.

@Gilmore: Yes I'm looking into adding the 4th Bolt for something, maybe I will cut a top. But I don't want to clog my mainboard up with combostuff so I play very few of them. I concur with Adan about the Predicts. You need them to draw the cards to win and to make Geese not suck.

@Chain of Plasma: The card is better than one might think. Few people care to discard a card to bolt you in return. Especially when you are able to re-copy it and/or counter it. Thats why I play so many burn right now. I use it as reach mostly.
But I admit that it mostly sucks when trying to kill a Goyf that just hugged your Goyf in combat.

Happy Gilmore
05-23-2008, 11:46 AM
Are you ready? are you guys really ready for this tech?

Wheel of Sun and Moon


Practically infinite force of Wills
infinite damage via lightning bolt
draw every card and never deck
stack your deck every turn


Did I mention that it also randomly hoses your worst matchup?

chokin
05-23-2008, 02:53 PM
Are you ready? are you guys really ready for this tech?

Wheel of Sun and Moon


Practically infinite force of Wills
infinite damage via lightning bolt
draw every card and never deck
stack your deck every turn


Did I mention that it also randomly hoses your worst matchup?

Interesting, HG. You could stack your deck with this. Swan Combo into drawdeck...then end of turn, discard and stack your deck. You could have a hand of Chain, Goyf, Goyf, Force, Force, blue card, blue card to play Goyfs and have protection for the second round of hand filling. Or you could get all of your burn and go for the throat.

Interesting. I'd like to see it in action though. I don't know if it's better than LS or Conflag(win now or pwn in CA+CQ). I personally would stick to the win-now.

Adan
05-23-2008, 03:23 PM
Are you ready? are you guys really ready for this tech?

Wheel of Sun and Moon

Shit, I really believed you would make a good suggestion. Got pranked.

But your idea is very good, but I see the following problem: You need GG as well as RRR to combo. And you are not winning instantaneously.

The question I am asking is, why would you increase the permanentcount of the deck with Wheel of Sun and Moon? If you enchant yourself you will never get threshold ever, which makes Nimble Mongoose suck. Design fail. The higher permanentcount in general makes Nimble Mongoose suck. So, if you can't play aggressively with Nimble Mongoose, the build itself loses a lot of flexibility. Design fail...

Don't get me wrong, the idea is indeed good, but Wheel of Sun and Moon is a rather dead card in general. And after some testings, I don't really like it as a hoser for the Ichorid matchup, Leyline of the Void seems to be better because it can get online on Turn 0, while Wheel of Sun and Moon only gets online Turn 2. you would need to be on the play, with the Ichorid player going to EOT discard. THEN it would be good. But I still don't really like it.

kiwi
05-24-2008, 08:58 AM
What is better to include in the side board (in a random metagame) Trygon Predator or Krosan Grip?

Krosan Grip

Pros:
-Destroy counterbalance, Split Second..

Trygon Predator

Pros:
-It does damage and destroys one artifact or enchantment each turn.
Slops:
-When you play Trygon Predator you have to wait one turn for starting to destroy artifacts or creatures,.
-Obviously is weaker than an instant with split second, trygon predator can be countered or killed by swords to plowshares or lightning bolts.
-He is ability isn't and instant you can destroy mishra factories or including in some situatios The abyss.


What's better in a random metagame?

Ironstickman
05-24-2008, 09:48 AM
K grip>tygron when playing against: landstill(humility,etc), belcher,countertop decks,faery stompy (tygron is no longer evasive) dreadnought decks,aluren

k.grip=tygron survival?,affinity...

tygron>grip: Dragon stompy, white stax & loam perhaps?

I run 3 grip/ 2 predator split in my standard tempo build (haven't incorporated the combo yet by the way)

Since krosan is more versatile and has instant assured effect i would run it over the predator which is just a tech against DS and stax mainly (a very good one though)

Whit3 Ghost
05-24-2008, 10:58 AM
Predator's biggest strength is against countertop.

Also, Predator is a flying threat against Landstill.

Ironstickman
05-24-2008, 04:14 PM
Yes but landstill
1) has many ways to deal with it stp/Fow/Counter/creature removal
2) you need to destroy imediately pernicious deed/eplosives before activation to safe your goyf
3) It won't destroy humility

whereas with the grip can't even be countered
predator is potentially good against DS and stax BECAUSE they will not be able to get rid of him easilly and most of their deck is based on artifacts or enchantments thus landing more of them in table (predator hits more than once).

Against countertop is where predator is better than what I thought at first, but notice that grip will destroy the top more efficiently aswell

testing against aggro loam predator has proven to be fairly superior to gripsince you will always take away a mox + chalice or moons if they board them in.

Adan
05-24-2008, 04:28 PM
Trygon Predator was a great tech by goobafish, Clemens and I simply copy-pasted it because it seemed to make sense here in our meta (Stax, Stax, Stax, Affinity, Survival, Mirrors...), but after all, Krosan Grip seems to be more versatile.

Happy Gilmore
05-24-2008, 08:15 PM
Shit, I really believed you would make a good suggestion. Got pranked.

But your idea is very good, but I see the following problem: You need GG as well as RRR to combo. And you are not winning instantaneously.

The question I am asking is, why would you increase the permanentcount of the deck with Wheel of Sun and Moon? If you enchant yourself you will never get threshold ever, which makes Nimble Mongoose suck. Design fail. The higher permanentcount in general makes Nimble Mongoose suck. So, if you can't play aggressively with Nimble Mongoose, the build itself loses a lot of flexibility. Design fail...

Don't get me wrong, the idea is indeed good, but Wheel of Sun and Moon is a rather dead card in general. And after some testings, I don't really like it as a hoser for the Ichorid matchup, Leyline of the Void seems to be better because it can get online on Turn 0, while Wheel of Sun and Moon only gets online Turn 2. you would need to be on the play, with the Ichorid player going to EOT discard. THEN it would be good. But I still don't really like it.

Let me give you the run down on how I make it work.

1.You cast Swan
2. You cast Chain durring your OPPONENT'S turn drawing almost every card in your deck (you must have Wheel)
3. take your turn and play wheel of sun and moon, along with a land and whatever else while keeping 1R open
4. Discard all but 3Fow, 3 Blue cards, and Chain (stack your deck with the discarded cards.
5. Cast chain durring your opponents upkeep with 3x Fow backup

Rinse and repeat.

You can kill via infinite bolts or simply with beats. Its a hard lock practically. Just watch out for Krosan Grip post board (And if you were smart your boarded out the combo anyway for Blood moon and REBS)

With 2RR up durring your opponents turn you can counter any number of cards up to the ammount of life you have left and the number of blue cards in your deck, you can respond to each copy of Chain by FoW something and putting it on the bottom only to draw it again. You will also be able to Draw the orignal chain of plasma off of the copies.

I wasn't joking this is actually good and provides for so so many ways to abuse it.

Happy Gilmore
05-24-2008, 08:30 PM
Shit, I really believed you would make a good suggestion. Got pranked.

But your idea is very good, but I see the following problem: You need GG as well as RRR to combo. And you are not winning instantaneously.

The question I am asking is, why would you increase the permanentcount of the deck with Wheel of Sun and Moon? If you enchant yourself you will never get threshold ever, which makes Nimble Mongoose suck. Design fail. The higher permanentcount in general makes Nimble Mongoose suck. So, if you can't play aggressively with Nimble Mongoose, the build itself loses a lot of flexibility. Design fail...

Don't get me wrong, the idea is indeed good, but Wheel of Sun and Moon is a rather dead card in general. And after some testings, I don't really like it as a hoser for the Ichorid matchup, Leyline of the Void seems to be better because it can get online on Turn 0, while Wheel of Sun and Moon only gets online Turn 2. you would need to be on the play, with the Ichorid player going to EOT discard. THEN it would be good. But I still don't really like it.
I guess I cant assume that you can grasp the combo intuitively, let me break it down step by step:

1.You cast Swan
2. You cast Chain durring your OPPONENT'S turn drawing almost every card in your deck (you must have Wheel)
3. Take your turn and play wheel of sun and moon, along with a land and whatever else while keeping 1R open
4. Discard all but 3Fow, 3 blue cards, and Chain (stack your deck with the discarded cards.
5. Cast chain durring your opponent's upkeep with 3x Fow backup

Rinse and repeat.

You can kill via infinite bolts or simply with beats. Its a hard lock practically. Just watch out for Krosan Grip post board (And if you were smart your boarded out the combo anyway for Blood moon and REBS)

With 2RR up durring your opponents turn you can counter any number of cards up to the ammount of life you have left and the number of blue cards in your deck, you can respond to each copy of Chain by FoW something and putting it on the bottom only to draw it again. You will also be able to draw the orignal chain of plasma off of the copies.

I wasn't joking when I said that this is actually good. There are so so many ways to abuse it.

Adan:

Hosing ichorid with Wheel is just a bonus. And I dare to say that anyone who plays Layline over Crypt in the board of threshold is an idiot.
If you cant get threshold by the time you hit 4-6 mana you fail on every level including knowing when to muligan. Not to mention that even with zero cards in the yard you can get to thresh before casting wheel of sun and moon if you go off the way I just specified.
:g::g: is never and issue if you do it the way I described, all you need is one G the turn before you go off so that by droping a second green source the following turn with 40+ cards in hand you can easily resolve it.
"The higher permanent count alone makes Nimble Mongoose suck" <-just a note-> Moon thresh has more permanents.

Nihil Credo
05-25-2008, 07:25 AM
Lightning Storm turns the combo into a kill and occasionally kills a creature.

Wheel of Sun and Moon turns the combo into a soft-lock and occasionally hoses Ichorid/Loam.


Honestly, I don't see an improvement here. The FoW soft-lock is pretty useless if, for example, you're staring down lethal damage on the board.

Happy Gilmore
05-25-2008, 02:17 PM
Lightning Storm turns the combo into a kill and occasionally kills a creature.

Wheel of Sun and Moon turns the combo into a soft-lock and occasionally hoses Ichorid/Loam.


Honestly, I don't see an improvement here. The FoW soft-lock is pretty useless if, for example, you're staring down lethal damage on the board.

If you added 1x Seathing Song you could do infinite damage in one turn. Although its not necessary.

Adan
05-25-2008, 05:08 PM
If you added 1x Seathing Song you could do infinite damage in one turn. Although its not necessary.

It would still make no sense since you will waste more slots for a softlock-combo.

The the "win-now" combo which is actually even more compact than your suggestion is still superior.

chokin
05-25-2008, 11:02 PM
It would still make no sense since you will waste more slots for a softlock-combo.

The the "win-now" combo which is actually even more compact than your suggestion is still superior.

I think a majority of people who run Swan combo agrees that 3 Swan and 4 Chain is the way to go. Throwing 1 Conflag or 1-2 Lightning Storm makes the deck go from "zOMG I is drawin' muh library gettin' teh CA" to "pewpewpew i win" at the low cost of having to play 2 slots more max.

This whole Wheel business sounded cool to me at first, but winning right away sounds way better than winning over a few turns. Even the drop-all-my-Goyfs method may take time.

Anyone have insight as to which finisher is better? Conflagrate or Lightning Storm. I could see 'Flag being Extirpated or Crypted and so forth, but what if my opponent has a land in hand and waits until the LS is at lethal?

Adan
05-26-2008, 04:10 AM
I think a majority of people who run Swan combo agrees that 3 Swan and 4 Chain is the way to go. Throwing 1 Conflag or 1-2 Lightning Storm makes the deck go from "zOMG I is drawin' muh library gettin' teh CA" to "pewpewpew i win" at the low cost of having to play 2 slots more max.

This whole Wheel business sounded cool to me at first, but winning right away sounds way better than winning over a few turns. Even the drop-all-my-Goyfs method may take time.

Anyone have insight as to which finisher is better? Conflagrate or Lightning Storm. I could see 'Flag being Extirpated or Crypted and so forth, but what if my opponent has a land in hand and waits until the LS is at lethal?

No, i play 3 Swans and 3 Chains because Chains are often a worse burnspell than... say, Fire//Ice.
And anyways, if you can resolve Swans, you can abuse the Lightning bolts as Ancestral Recalls. I never had big problems finding a Chain when Swans were out. And even if I didn't, I backed it up with CBalance-Top and defeated my opp via beatdown.

I guess i will try lightning Storm as well, because Clemens' explanation sounded quite logic:

Copy the last Chain onto your opponent (17), swing with Swans (13) and then Lightning Storm with 5 Lands discarded (0), leaving you enough lands to misdirect the Storm if your opponent does.

But I still think that this is quite shaky, that's why i play Conflagrate. The advantage is that you don't need LANDS and can inflict lethal damage without attacking or dealing any damage before without the risk to die to it (even if your opponent WOULD play Misdirections, just shoot X-1 to his head and 1 on... his Goyf or whatever so it has got multiple targets).

The disadvantage is that you will never going to hardcast Conflagrate ever, Lightning Storm can actually kill a creature.

But my reasons not to play lightning Storm are pretty bad, just decide by yourself what plays more smoothly for your feeling.

kiwi
05-27-2008, 03:05 PM
I have been testing thres swan during the last days and in my opinion UGR Threshold tempo is a more consistent deck in the actual metagame.

landstill101
05-28-2008, 02:48 PM
Since we are turning threshold into a combo deck, what I figured I would do would be to ask for people to list their sideboards for an unknown meta right now for the decks that havn't gone combo and the ones that have just to see if there is a huge difference, if there is any new tech that could really help: Right now I have not tested any of the things on the last 2 pages with swan and the combos, I have stuck with a tempo version that has done very well with me.. Here is my sideboard.

3 pyroclasm
2 submerge
3 krosan grip
3 trygon predator
2 engineered explosives
2 tormod's crypt

The one card that is not talked about is submerge, which in the past has kind of been my deathmark against goyf for this deck, my friend who is the one who made this side for me is thinking about raising the count of submerges because they are that good, has anyone else tested this out? And if not hopefully you will.

goobafish
05-28-2008, 02:52 PM
I have tested them and dismissed them. We found them to be too narrow, but amazing when they can be used. There are no blasts in your sideboard, which is a huge mistake.

Adan
05-28-2008, 04:17 PM
The one card that is not talked about is submerge, which in the past has kind of been my deathmark against goyf for this deck, my friend who is the one who made this side for me is thinking about raising the count of submerges because they are that good, has anyone else tested this out? And if not hopefully you will.

Submerge was my tech :wink:

Here, from our January Legacy Event, Hassloch:

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=12729

I tested them and they are pretty amazing against mirrormatches, it bounces Tarmogoyfs and Mystic Enforcers onto the top of the library. To a degree, this also generates speedadvantage and can be done even though the opponent has got Counterbalance out.

Unfortunately, I have not found any other matchups against which they could be good yet, but I guess it's pretty funny against UG Dreadstill or something similar.

Obfuscate Freely
05-28-2008, 05:34 PM
Submerge was my tech :wink:
Good find. Even Alan Comer is using your tech, now (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=sideboard/strategy/sb20020124b)!

...Wait. That's the original Miracle Grow list, from seven years ago. I'm not sure you can claim credit for this one. :wink: