AngryTroll
01-01-2008, 12:18 AM
After seeing the announcement by Peter Rotten and Lonely Baritone, I've decided that it is time to post the deck I've been working on. I, like everyone else, am not done with the testing, but the list is not unrefined.
I've been tossing around decks for the contest for a few weeks, and I ended up settling on GBW. Unfortunately, it turns out that the rest of the world decided on this color combination as well. However, the list I've been working on seems to be more unexplored territory.
My goal was to build a midgame aggro deck that dodged much of the common hate and shortcomings of the format. This is actually related to the terrible treefolk deck I built and tested against Dragon Stompy. Even a terribly underpowered deck can smash a metagame deck; this is common knowledge. Combining this knowledge with my experience playing UGw Thresh in a largely random metagame was the foundation for the deck.
I've always run 2 Mystic Enforcers in Thresh, even before it was "cool". I tried the deck with only 1, but the "I win" factor of Enforcer is incredibly strong. Even with 2 Enforcer, though, modern UGw Thresh is only running 10 creatures. If my opponents were able to cast a constant stream of threats that were as large as or larger than Mongoose and Goyf, I had to dig hard for Enforcers. 4 Force, 3-4 Daze, 4 Swords, and 3 Counterbalance is usually enough to stop most decks from clogging up the ground. However, if a deck is able to ignore Counterbalance, the Thresh player ends up playing catchup. This is part of why the Goblins matchup is difficult: more Goblins end up in play than Thresh can deal with with just Swords and non-Counterbalance counters. Of course, the blinding speed and mana disruption are the rest of the problem.
So, I the goal is to build a deck to dodge metagame decks, dodge Counterbalance, out-creature Thresh, and have some game against Goblins as well. A tall order! Here is what I have been working on.
Armadillo Stompy
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 River Boa
4 Shriekmaw
4 Spiritmonger
3 Duress
3 Thoughtsieze
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Armadillo Cloak
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Savannah
4 Bayou
Sideboard
2 Duress/Thoughtsieze
4 Gaddock Teeg
3 Armageddon
3 Krosan Grip
4 Engineered Plague
Birds of Paradise
Accelerates into a second turn Duress/Thoughtsieze and Goyf, or a second turn Boa and regeneration, disruption and Boa, Sword of Fire and Ice, etc.
Tarmogoyf
I initially was trying to run no Goyfs, and run a combination of Withered Wretch and Loaming Shamans in the deck to shut down opposing Goyfs, Mongeese, Nantuko Monestaries, and Dragons. However, running my own Goyfs is much stronger. Beware; the deck is not running very many of any card type, so we are relying on our opponents to help out. Against Goblins, these will hit Land, Creature, and perhaps Instant easily. However, a 2/3 is good enough against Goblins.
River Boa
River Boa, and not Spectral Linx? Yup. See the part about Armadillo Cloak below. Islandwalk is amazing against most decks, and both Swords and Armadillo Cloak offer evasion against Goblins. River Boa can hold off a Mongoose or a Tarmogoyf until you find an enchantment or equipment, your opponent finds a Swords, or you find another creature.
Shriekmaw
I was running Smother alongside Swords and looking for more evasive creatures to wear equipment...everyone loves Shriekmaw. He's a two-for-one, an evasive creature, and hard to counter with Counterbalance. Great.
Duress, Thoughtsieze, 2 Cabal Therapy
Nick pointed out that after a certain number of Duresses, Therapy ends up being just better. I was running 4 Duress, 4 Thoughtsieze, but you always know what cards you fear, and you often know your opponents hands following a Duress. Feel free to play with these slots if the 3/3/2 makes you uncomfortable.
Sword of Fire and Ice
With creatures with Fear and Islandwalk, Sword is a house. A Goyf wearing a Swords beats other Goyfs all day long.
The Seriously? parts: Spiritmonger and Armadillo Cloak
But wouldn't this deck be better if you took out Armadillo Cloak and put in Pernicious Deed? I don't think so. Instead of blowing up my Goyfs and Birds, I can make my Goyfs better than theirs.
One River Boa wearing an Armadillo Cloak will race an opposing Tarmogoyf, or play defense against two. A Tarmogoyf wearing a Cloak will race two Goyfs. A Spiritmonger wearing a Cloak will race everything in the format but combo, (or some ridiculous board that I am sure someone can think of. No, it won't stop 4 Piledrivers and 217 other Goblins all at once.)
Oh, Spiritmonger. He doesn't get played because he doesn't have any evasion. Running Armadillo Cloak and Sword of Fire and Ice give evasion to everyone's favorite superfatty. Even without evasion, Spiritmonger makes Thresh find and resolve a Mystic Enforcer. Even one connection from a Cloaked Spiritmonger is a 16 point life swing (or 8 points + (8-Tarmogoyf's toughness) + 1 card advantage). Getting a creature sent farming in response to Armadillo Cloak is disappointing; Duress, Thoughsieze, and Therapy should aim for Swords to Plowshares.
Cards not in the deck
Pernicious Deed: Shriekmaw and Swords provide removal for the team, while River Boa and Goyf stall the ground. Instead of stalling into a reactive board sweeper, they stall into Spiritmonger or an Armadillo Cloak to end the game.
Troll Ascetic: Troll is one of my favorite creatures of all time. He dodges Swords to Plowshares, carries an Armadillo Cloak or a Sword like a champ, and holds off Goyfs while killing Mongeese. However, a 3/2 for 1GG is terribly slow. To block and kill a Mongoose costs 2GGG; to block with Boa is only 1GG. Boa also has evasion built into it. I was sad to remove Troll from the deck, but I think the deck is stronger without him.
Strengths of the Deck
The deck does a pretty good job of dodging Chalice for 1, Trinisphere, and Counterbalance. The creatures in the deck are evenly matched or better than Thresh's creatures, and if an Armadillo Cloak ever resolves and swings, the game breaks wide open. The deck is not reliant on its graveyard, and it can pack hate from two of the strongest hate colors.
Matchups
I am not satisfied with my testing to post percentages. In fact, I want to do more testing before I post anything conclusive. So far I have done random testing against a variety of decks instead of dedicated testing against any decks. This let me get a feel for the matchups and the deck's performance, but certainly did not give me enough games to post conclusive match results. Plus, as I played games against different decks, the deck adapted. I tested against Thresh first, then moved on to Goblins, and it became clear that the deck needed to be shored up against the little green men (as opposed to the huge green men). I do have the themes of the matchups, however.
Remember, more testing data will be listed as I do more testing. I wanted to get this list up here sooner than later, though, and let other people chime in their thoughts and ideas while I keep working on it.
Against Goblins, you have Plague in the Sideboard. This match is tough, but not unwinnable. Getting a Cloak or Sword to stick to a creature early is the goal; if you can, you have a decent shot at winning. If you don't, you will probably lose. Engineered Plague helps, but it won't win you games two and three on its own.
Against Thresh, stick creatures early and often. Save Swords to Mystic Enforcer; you have 4 River Boa, 4 Tarmogoyf, 4 Shriekmaw, and 4 Spiritmonger to deal with Goyfs and Mongeese. Spiritmonger is a house; it will shut down everything but Enforcer until he is sent farming. There were originally only three Spiritmongers in the deck, but he goes farming too often, so I bumped him back up to four.
Against TES, Belcher, etc: Play game one. Why not? Side in more hand disruption, Gaddock Teeg, and try to pick up the second two games. With Thresh the dominant deck of the moment, I focused on beating Thresh and hoping to dodge combo in the first few rounds. You will still run into it at some point, so hope you can pull out the second two games.
Against Breakfast: Engineered Plague their key dudes, send guys farming, and smash with evasive Cloaked guys. I haven't tested this matchup yet.
Against Landstill: Slow roll the dudes. River Boa shines here. This is a matchup where Sword of Fire and Ice is much, much better than Armadillo Cloak. Pretty straightforward: slowroll a threat until they deal with it, then try another one. Gaddock Teeg in the sideboard comes in, but he'll probably go farming. Obviously, bate Swords with River Boa and Tarmogoyfs, but you will have to go for it sooner than later.
Conclusion
I like the deck. A Spiritmonger wearing an Armadillo Cloak is will end any game within a turn or two. The deck does have a fair amount of inherent strength, but it doesn't do anything stupid or broken. Thresh is a much more streamlined deck; the number of cantrips also makes it more consistent than this. Goblins is a much stronger aggro deck. The combo game is rough. However, the deck is decent enough that I continued development of it, and I think it is good enough to be posted here. It needs work, and I will keep testing the matchups until I post them here. The deck is best suited for a metagame full of Thresh and decks aiming to beat Thresh, not a metagame ripe with combo and Goblins.
Questions, Ideas for Further Thought, etc
Sensei's Diving Top: An excellent source of card quality over the course of the game. Should anything come out for it?
Krosan Tusker: Helps reach 5 or 6 land, generates card advantage, and is even a 6/5 creature for his trouble. I ran two for a while, but dropped them when I increased the Spiritmonger count back to four.
Pernicious Deed: I predict this card's exclusion and Armadillo Cloak's inclusion to be the biggest contention points.
The Goblins matchup: Is it as hard as I thought? Does it need more attention? Is it worth more attention, even if it is unfavorable?
The Combo matchup: Is there more effective hate than Gaddock Teeg to bring in? He stops Belcher, Tendrils, Empty the Warrens, and is strong against Landstill as well. Does this spot need to be more dedicated to hating on the combo matchup?
Is this deck really better than the 45 other GBW aggro, aggro-control, and control decks submitted to the contest so far? Obviously, I think that it is at least worth more attention, or else I would not have posted it.
I've been tossing around decks for the contest for a few weeks, and I ended up settling on GBW. Unfortunately, it turns out that the rest of the world decided on this color combination as well. However, the list I've been working on seems to be more unexplored territory.
My goal was to build a midgame aggro deck that dodged much of the common hate and shortcomings of the format. This is actually related to the terrible treefolk deck I built and tested against Dragon Stompy. Even a terribly underpowered deck can smash a metagame deck; this is common knowledge. Combining this knowledge with my experience playing UGw Thresh in a largely random metagame was the foundation for the deck.
I've always run 2 Mystic Enforcers in Thresh, even before it was "cool". I tried the deck with only 1, but the "I win" factor of Enforcer is incredibly strong. Even with 2 Enforcer, though, modern UGw Thresh is only running 10 creatures. If my opponents were able to cast a constant stream of threats that were as large as or larger than Mongoose and Goyf, I had to dig hard for Enforcers. 4 Force, 3-4 Daze, 4 Swords, and 3 Counterbalance is usually enough to stop most decks from clogging up the ground. However, if a deck is able to ignore Counterbalance, the Thresh player ends up playing catchup. This is part of why the Goblins matchup is difficult: more Goblins end up in play than Thresh can deal with with just Swords and non-Counterbalance counters. Of course, the blinding speed and mana disruption are the rest of the problem.
So, I the goal is to build a deck to dodge metagame decks, dodge Counterbalance, out-creature Thresh, and have some game against Goblins as well. A tall order! Here is what I have been working on.
Armadillo Stompy
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 River Boa
4 Shriekmaw
4 Spiritmonger
3 Duress
3 Thoughtsieze
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Armadillo Cloak
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Savannah
4 Bayou
Sideboard
2 Duress/Thoughtsieze
4 Gaddock Teeg
3 Armageddon
3 Krosan Grip
4 Engineered Plague
Birds of Paradise
Accelerates into a second turn Duress/Thoughtsieze and Goyf, or a second turn Boa and regeneration, disruption and Boa, Sword of Fire and Ice, etc.
Tarmogoyf
I initially was trying to run no Goyfs, and run a combination of Withered Wretch and Loaming Shamans in the deck to shut down opposing Goyfs, Mongeese, Nantuko Monestaries, and Dragons. However, running my own Goyfs is much stronger. Beware; the deck is not running very many of any card type, so we are relying on our opponents to help out. Against Goblins, these will hit Land, Creature, and perhaps Instant easily. However, a 2/3 is good enough against Goblins.
River Boa
River Boa, and not Spectral Linx? Yup. See the part about Armadillo Cloak below. Islandwalk is amazing against most decks, and both Swords and Armadillo Cloak offer evasion against Goblins. River Boa can hold off a Mongoose or a Tarmogoyf until you find an enchantment or equipment, your opponent finds a Swords, or you find another creature.
Shriekmaw
I was running Smother alongside Swords and looking for more evasive creatures to wear equipment...everyone loves Shriekmaw. He's a two-for-one, an evasive creature, and hard to counter with Counterbalance. Great.
Duress, Thoughtsieze, 2 Cabal Therapy
Nick pointed out that after a certain number of Duresses, Therapy ends up being just better. I was running 4 Duress, 4 Thoughtsieze, but you always know what cards you fear, and you often know your opponents hands following a Duress. Feel free to play with these slots if the 3/3/2 makes you uncomfortable.
Sword of Fire and Ice
With creatures with Fear and Islandwalk, Sword is a house. A Goyf wearing a Swords beats other Goyfs all day long.
The Seriously? parts: Spiritmonger and Armadillo Cloak
But wouldn't this deck be better if you took out Armadillo Cloak and put in Pernicious Deed? I don't think so. Instead of blowing up my Goyfs and Birds, I can make my Goyfs better than theirs.
One River Boa wearing an Armadillo Cloak will race an opposing Tarmogoyf, or play defense against two. A Tarmogoyf wearing a Cloak will race two Goyfs. A Spiritmonger wearing a Cloak will race everything in the format but combo, (or some ridiculous board that I am sure someone can think of. No, it won't stop 4 Piledrivers and 217 other Goblins all at once.)
Oh, Spiritmonger. He doesn't get played because he doesn't have any evasion. Running Armadillo Cloak and Sword of Fire and Ice give evasion to everyone's favorite superfatty. Even without evasion, Spiritmonger makes Thresh find and resolve a Mystic Enforcer. Even one connection from a Cloaked Spiritmonger is a 16 point life swing (or 8 points + (8-Tarmogoyf's toughness) + 1 card advantage). Getting a creature sent farming in response to Armadillo Cloak is disappointing; Duress, Thoughsieze, and Therapy should aim for Swords to Plowshares.
Cards not in the deck
Pernicious Deed: Shriekmaw and Swords provide removal for the team, while River Boa and Goyf stall the ground. Instead of stalling into a reactive board sweeper, they stall into Spiritmonger or an Armadillo Cloak to end the game.
Troll Ascetic: Troll is one of my favorite creatures of all time. He dodges Swords to Plowshares, carries an Armadillo Cloak or a Sword like a champ, and holds off Goyfs while killing Mongeese. However, a 3/2 for 1GG is terribly slow. To block and kill a Mongoose costs 2GGG; to block with Boa is only 1GG. Boa also has evasion built into it. I was sad to remove Troll from the deck, but I think the deck is stronger without him.
Strengths of the Deck
The deck does a pretty good job of dodging Chalice for 1, Trinisphere, and Counterbalance. The creatures in the deck are evenly matched or better than Thresh's creatures, and if an Armadillo Cloak ever resolves and swings, the game breaks wide open. The deck is not reliant on its graveyard, and it can pack hate from two of the strongest hate colors.
Matchups
I am not satisfied with my testing to post percentages. In fact, I want to do more testing before I post anything conclusive. So far I have done random testing against a variety of decks instead of dedicated testing against any decks. This let me get a feel for the matchups and the deck's performance, but certainly did not give me enough games to post conclusive match results. Plus, as I played games against different decks, the deck adapted. I tested against Thresh first, then moved on to Goblins, and it became clear that the deck needed to be shored up against the little green men (as opposed to the huge green men). I do have the themes of the matchups, however.
Remember, more testing data will be listed as I do more testing. I wanted to get this list up here sooner than later, though, and let other people chime in their thoughts and ideas while I keep working on it.
Against Goblins, you have Plague in the Sideboard. This match is tough, but not unwinnable. Getting a Cloak or Sword to stick to a creature early is the goal; if you can, you have a decent shot at winning. If you don't, you will probably lose. Engineered Plague helps, but it won't win you games two and three on its own.
Against Thresh, stick creatures early and often. Save Swords to Mystic Enforcer; you have 4 River Boa, 4 Tarmogoyf, 4 Shriekmaw, and 4 Spiritmonger to deal with Goyfs and Mongeese. Spiritmonger is a house; it will shut down everything but Enforcer until he is sent farming. There were originally only three Spiritmongers in the deck, but he goes farming too often, so I bumped him back up to four.
Against TES, Belcher, etc: Play game one. Why not? Side in more hand disruption, Gaddock Teeg, and try to pick up the second two games. With Thresh the dominant deck of the moment, I focused on beating Thresh and hoping to dodge combo in the first few rounds. You will still run into it at some point, so hope you can pull out the second two games.
Against Breakfast: Engineered Plague their key dudes, send guys farming, and smash with evasive Cloaked guys. I haven't tested this matchup yet.
Against Landstill: Slow roll the dudes. River Boa shines here. This is a matchup where Sword of Fire and Ice is much, much better than Armadillo Cloak. Pretty straightforward: slowroll a threat until they deal with it, then try another one. Gaddock Teeg in the sideboard comes in, but he'll probably go farming. Obviously, bate Swords with River Boa and Tarmogoyfs, but you will have to go for it sooner than later.
Conclusion
I like the deck. A Spiritmonger wearing an Armadillo Cloak is will end any game within a turn or two. The deck does have a fair amount of inherent strength, but it doesn't do anything stupid or broken. Thresh is a much more streamlined deck; the number of cantrips also makes it more consistent than this. Goblins is a much stronger aggro deck. The combo game is rough. However, the deck is decent enough that I continued development of it, and I think it is good enough to be posted here. It needs work, and I will keep testing the matchups until I post them here. The deck is best suited for a metagame full of Thresh and decks aiming to beat Thresh, not a metagame ripe with combo and Goblins.
Questions, Ideas for Further Thought, etc
Sensei's Diving Top: An excellent source of card quality over the course of the game. Should anything come out for it?
Krosan Tusker: Helps reach 5 or 6 land, generates card advantage, and is even a 6/5 creature for his trouble. I ran two for a while, but dropped them when I increased the Spiritmonger count back to four.
Pernicious Deed: I predict this card's exclusion and Armadillo Cloak's inclusion to be the biggest contention points.
The Goblins matchup: Is it as hard as I thought? Does it need more attention? Is it worth more attention, even if it is unfavorable?
The Combo matchup: Is there more effective hate than Gaddock Teeg to bring in? He stops Belcher, Tendrils, Empty the Warrens, and is strong against Landstill as well. Does this spot need to be more dedicated to hating on the combo matchup?
Is this deck really better than the 45 other GBW aggro, aggro-control, and control decks submitted to the contest so far? Obviously, I think that it is at least worth more attention, or else I would not have posted it.