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bladewing019
01-21-2008, 07:55 PM
The List

// Lands
5 Forest
4 Wasteland
2 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Tropical Island
2 Island

// Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Eternal Witness
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Krosan Tusker
1 Tradewind Rider

// Spells
2 Plow Under
4 Stifle
4 Primal Command
3 Threads of Disloyalty
4 Temporal Spring
// Sideboard
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Pithing Needle
4 Daze
4 Propaganda
• The sb is obviously very meta dependent but this is a general example. Also does anyone have any name suggestions?
Explanation

I built this deck on the basis that not letting your opponent play makes the game a lot easier. The deck wants to get ahead on tempo with mana dorks and the put a permanent-on-top-of-opponent's-library style cards ("bounce cards"). From there you should be able to ride your Goyfs/Garruk/Tuskers to the win since your opponent won’t be drawing new cards or developing their board very effectively.

Card Choices

Creatures:

Tarmogoyf- Best cheap green beater, ends games quickly and slows down opposing aggro decks.

Eternal Witness- Recurs threats and lets you chain Primal Commands, works well with late game Tradewind Rider

Krosan Tusker- Smoothes mana and lets you color fix against Wasteland. Is used over Mulldrifter because of the bigger body and because it guarantees a land.

Elves/Birds- Needed to accelerate into 5cc cards, lets you play turn 2 spring which is amazing on the play.

Tradewind Rider- The decks silver bullet. Late game you fetch it with Primal Command and then you can use it to remove annoying permanents of your opponents, or get infinite Eternal Witness activations. Might be win more but so far has been pretty useful.

Other Spells:

Temporal Spring- Hits any permanent, is usually at its best when its “bouncing” your opponents land turn 2 on the play. But it can remove any kind of problem later in the game. Stopping your opponents mana development and making them loose draws creates a lot of tempo, tempo that the other deck should never be able to make up.

Plow Under- I only run 3 since it is the most narrow of the “bounce” spells I run, but it has arguably the most raw power. If you have been denying your opponent land drops since the early game its not too unusual to not have 2 opposing lands to target. But it’s the best at what it does.

Primal Command- Where Plow Under has the most raw power, Command has the most versatility of the “bounce spells”. It chains Eternal Witnesses, removes problem non-creature permanents, slows down loam, and the 7 life bonus is randomly useful. Playing Command to put an opponents problem permanent on top of their library and then shuffling their graveyard into their library is a pretty good way to get rid of really annoying things for at least a few turns.

Garruk Wildspeaker- Perfect for this deck. Gets you to 5 mana easily so you can play your bombs and generates threats. The pump ability is also surprisingly useful since it turns those useless late game mana dorks into serious threats.

Threads of Disloyalty- Everyone plays Goyf now, and this trumps it. It also gives you control of annoying utility creatures.

Stifle- Usually acts as mana disruption by stopping fetches but is also good vs. storm, goblins, and is generally useful vs. randomness. I find that I usually want this more often than not, which explains it in the maindeck over the sideboard. I could easily see this being Daze though.

Lands:

6x Basics- It has proved to be a good ratio of lands to still be able to play what I want to through non-basic hate, and gives me what should be plenty of targets for Tusker.

4x Wasteland- Compliments Stifle and the other mana-disruption very well.

5x Fetches- Split to avoid Needle. Enough to reliably get a Tropical Island without taking too much life loss from excessive fetches.

4x Tropical Island- I’m playing a UG deck in Legacy

Exclusions

Force of Will- Seems unnecessary, didn’t test out well for the short time I had it in. There aren’t really enough MD Blue cards to support it and the card disadvantage does hurt.

Daze- No room, I could see it in either the Stifle or the Threads of Disloyalty slot.

Brainstorm/Ponder- The deck generally has enough redundancy that it doesn’t need this. Krosan Tusker plays the card draw role, while serving other purposes.

Genesis- Seems pretty strong except I have no way to reliably get it into the graveyard, and its not worth diluting the deck to run.

Stunted Growth- Could go in the Plow Under slot, but I chose to go with the card that affects the board.
The SB:

Kind of general right now. Could probably use a lot of tweaking, I’m the least sure of submerge and it might need something like crypt.

On that note I’m looking for someone to seriously test with. This deck has done well enough in games that I’ve played it that I’m confident enough to submit it, but it has been against MWS randoms, or against good players with non-tier decks. I don’t really know many people in the online legacy community and no one around me plays, so if anyone would be willing to help me test it would be great.

Sorry about the lack of testing but I wanted to finally get this posted and hope someone would be willing to test against me. I’ll be glad to put up results as soon as I have them.


Pros/Cons:

Weaknesses:

The one thing that has stood out to me the most is Dark Confidant. You can’t really use Threads on Confidant because most of your cards are 3 mana and up, and while its out your opponent won’t be losing draws to Command/Spring.

Gaddock Teeg: Blanks a lot of your cards but you can still play all your creatures, and its fairly easily solved with Temporal Spring and Tradewind Rider. Only really causes problems when they have a ton of pressure and you don’t have Goyfs.

Fast Combo: Your MU shouldn’t be horrible since you have MD Stifles, and they might wait to play around Daze/Force since you are UG. And if they wait you can stop them from drawing with your “bounce effects” but I wouldn’t really call the MU that favorable pre-board. But the SB can easily be changed to make this a positive MU.

There is almost definitely more but I can’t think of them off the top of my head.

Strengths:

This deck will get draws that just win vs. decks that need more than one land. You play the best creature in Goyf, you have MD disruption for every kind of strategy, including artifact and enchantments, and the deck is extremely redundant.

Thanks for reading and I hope that some one will be able to help me out with testing.

Isamaru
01-21-2008, 08:32 PM
This looks like the first deck in the competition that can actually beat Landstill, which nobody seems to be testing against or taking into consideration.

Bladewing, you should come up with a better title - this isn't just another UG deck :tongue: It may not be the flashiest combo, but it definitely does what it's supposed to do well.

Mental
01-21-2008, 09:00 PM
How good is Plow Under in a format with ton of Fetches/other Shuffle Effects?

Cabal-kun
01-21-2008, 09:04 PM
How good is Plow Under in a format with ton of Fetches/other Shuffle Effects?

You set their mana position back. It was explained in the opening post. :rolleyes:

bladewing019
01-21-2008, 09:06 PM
Considering it sets your opponent back 2 land drops its pretty good. Especially when combined with the redundancy of the other "bounce" effects. They might not have lost a draw but they did lose board position and tempo.

raharu
01-21-2008, 09:37 PM
@ name problem: Lands Still!?!?!?!?!?. It fits the deck :rolleyes:.

Maybe some Counterspell is order? Not much you can do to stop permanents from resolving other wise. Maybe that's not as important here (is it?). Psionic Blast could solve your Gaddock Tegg/ Dark Confidant problem.

That's all I have.

DragoFireheart
01-21-2008, 09:46 PM
This seems like an interesting deck idea. Can someone pull up a list of great U/G bounce spells? I'd like to see if we could reduce the mana curve.

bladewing019
01-21-2008, 10:03 PM
This seems like an interesting deck idea. Can someone pull up a list of great U/G bounce spells? I'd like to see if we could reduce the mana curve.

Any reduction to the mana curve will lead to less powerful/versatile spells.

Uproot is worse than Fallow Earth, which is a little more than half the cost of
Plow Under for half of the effect while being worse than Temporal Spring.

Whirlpool Whelm is a possibility but it only puts the card on top of an opponents library sometimes.

Forced Retreat/Time Ebb suffers from the same problem as Fallow Earth, but at least things like Stifle and Wasteland compliment Fallow Earth.

Etherwell costs 4 for a slightly better Time Ebb.

Nevermaker from Morningtide is a possibility but it cost 4 and cant hit lands, although it has the bonus of being a creature.

Repel is just worse than Time Ebb

Temporal Eddy is slightly more versatile but a lot the time I might not hit UU until I have 5 lands out anyways.

And after that all the options cost 5 or more. Unless I missed some, none of those seem strong enough to replace the cards currently in the deck.

@Raharu- Counters are largely unnecessary since you can control your opponents mana so effectively. Anything thats really problematic that they do resolve should be able to be taken care of by Rider, threads, or the "bounce" spells.

Psionic Blast is an option but I'm not sure if Teeg/Confidant are problematic enough to warrant Blast.

zulander
01-21-2008, 10:32 PM
Rushing river/wipeaway

bladewing019
01-21-2008, 10:48 PM
Rushing river/wipeaway

What makes either of those cards stronger than whats currently in the deck?

Zach Tartell
01-22-2008, 12:50 AM
What makes either of those cards stronger than whats currently in the deck?

Because, at the moment, you play 4 removal spells. 5 if Tradewind rider counts.

(0 Permision + 0 "oh, god, it's gone now" removal)/Agro-based stratedgy = problems

Goblins has wastes and ports, and fanatics, and Incinerators (and that new edict). Thresh has 4 hard counters, 4 dazes, and counterbalance/top to save the day. You have "Non creature permenant" spells in conjunction with a 2 colored "put it on top" spell.

I'm not saying that this is janky or anything, either - I think it's a cool idea with an under-used card. But you've got to, y'know, be able to beat agro decks.


Also, has stifle proved to be enough against combo?

raharu
01-22-2008, 01:07 AM
Would -4 Llanowar Elves, +4 Utopia Sprawl be worthwhile?

Also, lonelybaritone is right: you need either some form of removal or a method to put the stop on agro. I would say either splash for removal (and dilute the deck, so that's probably not the best idea), or run some number of Propaganda in the sideboard. It fits with the deck's gameplan, and it's in your color. Why not?

Maveric78f
01-22-2008, 02:07 AM
This looks like the first deck in the competition that can actually beat Landstill, which nobody seems to be testing against or taking into consideration.

Bladewing, you should come up with a better title - this isn't just another UG deck :tongue: It may not be the flashiest combo, but it definitely does what it's supposed to do well.

I win Landstill with my Ubg merfolk deck. Why ? Because I play vial (standstill and counterspells are useless), high mana disruption (4*waste, 4*rishadan port, 4*stifle) and I have a goldfish kill on turn 5/6. That's right, I did not make the MU analysis because testing is so random (landstill is not a well-defined archetype). That's not the subject but it had to be fixed.

from Cairo
01-22-2008, 02:14 AM
Would -4 Llanowar Elves, +4 Utopia Sprawl be worthwhile?


I'm 99% sure that Utopia Sprawl is an awful card outside of Enchantress.

At least when top decked late game and not accelerating the game plan Llanowar Elves can swing in at situations, tap as one of the 2 creatures for Tradewind Rider or serve as a chump to Goyf.


Is GU really the right set up for this? It strikes me as a great finisher to Green Stompy... Blue really just gives you Tradewind Rider, Stifle and a glorified Fallow Earth... wouldn't Chalices and Sphere's be better?

something like

Forests
x Wastelands
x Ports
4 Tombs
x Traitors

4 Goyf
4 Witness (even though it sucks with all the :2: producers)
x Call of the Herd ?
Blastoderm ? Deranged Hermit ?

4 Chalice
x Trinisphere / Tangle Wire?
x Fallow Earth
x Plow Under
x Primal Command

Like Trinity Green style? I'm not really following what Blue and mana Elves gives you that Chalice and :2: lands don't do equally/better.

Again I like the idea of abusing Plow Under type effects, just not sure the shell makes sense.

Lemuria
01-22-2008, 05:39 AM
You run 4 Witness, so I think Intuition is a very good way to get the cards you need. Have you consider it?

bladewing019
01-22-2008, 09:47 AM
You run 4 Witness, so I think Intuition is a very good way to get the cards you need. Have you consider it?

I considered Gifts and Intuition and did some testing with Gifts. You need to rework the shell but it does make Genesis a more realistic possibility. The thing is Gifts actually ends up weakening the decks entire game plan. Primal Command goes in the tutor slot while adding to the decks redundancy.

Sorry I don't have time to reply to everyone else. I will when I get home from school.

EDIT*

Because, at the moment, you play 4 removal spells. 5 if Tradewind rider counts.

(0 Permision + 0 "oh, god, it's gone now" removal)/Agro-based stratedgy = problems

Goblins has wastes and ports, and fanatics, and Incinerators (and that new edict). Thresh has 4 hard counters, 4 dazes, and counterbalance/top to save the day. You have "Non creature permenant" spells in conjunction with a 2 colored "put it on top" spell.

I'm not saying that this is janky or anything, either - I think it's a cool idea with an under-used card. But you've got to, y'know, be able to beat agro decks.


Also, has stifle proved to be enough against combo?

Rushing River and Wipe Away don't really qualify as removal anymore than Temporal Spring. It still doesn't permanently solve the problem, I'd say they both do a worse job overall than Temporal Spring although being situationally better because of the ability to hit more than one permanent/split second. I'd rather run Propaganda in the board or some other much more powerful effect against aggro than just regular bounce.

I don't get what your point is in the Goblins have wastes and ports etc. paragraph is. I have even more mana denial than goblins between Plow Under, Wasteland, Stifle, Primal Command, Temporal Spring, and if it needs to Tradewind Rider can hold back one land a turn just like port. I have atleast as much control as goblins so that was probably not the best example. And against a lot of decks all of your board disruption can be just as effective as Thresh's counters.

That being said some bigger creatures can cause problems if they hit early enough, espescially Countryside Crusher. Your main advantage against crusher is that all of your bounce spells turn into straight LD spells (which only really helps if they dont have loam and exploration). If anybody has any suggestions of cards that actually help out more against bigger creatures, or just improve my problem areas in general I'm still definitely open to suggestions, and it would be even better if you could test those changes with me.

Against Belcher Stifle has been plenty. If I have it Belcher doesn't really have enough disruption or extra resources to play around it in a decent amount of time and unless they follow a failed Belcher activation with LED the next turn then I should win. Against TES it definitely hasn't been as good but is still useful. Every turn you slow them down your chances of winning go way up. The deck AT BEST seems to have a 50-50 MU with combo pre-board, which I would like to improve but not at the cost of my other MUs. It seems like a problem best addressed in the SB.


Would -4 Llanowar Elves, +4 Utopia Sprawl be worthwhile?

Also, lonelybaritone is right: you need either some form of removal or a method to put the stop on agro. I would say either splash for removal (and dilute the deck, so that's probably not the best idea), or run some number of Propaganda in the sideboard. It fits with the deck's gameplan, and it's in your color. Why not?

Utopia Sprawl is pretty bad against Wasteland. It does work well with Garruk, but I don't think the interaction is strong enough that I want to open myself up for 2-for-1s like that. Also Elves attacks (for an actually relevant amount of damage because of Garruk's overrun ability), and can slow down aggro.

Propaganda is a definite possibility in the board vs. aggro. Splashing would be extremely hard on this mana base that has so many double colored costs and would probably require me to drop Wastelands. Which I don't really see as being worth it except as a last resort.

@from Cairo

Thats not Trinity Green style it IS Trinity Green. Which would not work for CaNG :P. Really I like the versatility blue gives you more than artifacts. This deck could easily run 3sphere/Chalice, but they only are really better against combo assuming you land them turn 1. I don't think combo is a big enough force to warrant the loss of flexibility that comes with taking out blue. Especially in the SB.

Long post hope I didn't miss anything, let me know if I did.

memnarch
01-24-2008, 09:24 PM
Have you thought about opposition? Its almost an opposition deck already with all the ankle bitters. It also plays into your plan of locking the opponent down, effectively armageddoning them.

bladewing019
01-24-2008, 10:38 PM
Have you thought about opposition? Its almost an opposition deck already with all the ankle bitters. It also plays into your plan of locking the opponent down, effectively armageddoning them.

I have not tried it. But what would you suggest it in place of? I don't think I run enough creatures to effectively abuse it.

Also I got some testing in, although it wasn't much.
2-0 vs. Burn, Primal Command for 7 life and denying them a draw is amazing. Command effectively trades for 2 and a third of there non-land cards, while not letting them see new cards. With how fast burn already goes into top deck mode this is extremely effective. I had pretty average draws, and the burn deck had medium to good draws and I still completely dominated the games. Even after this limited amount of testing I'm not worried about the MU at all.

4-1 vs. Belcher, First of all I feel obligated to say that Belcher had pretty bad hands in 3 of the 5 games. We only played one game pre-board and it went pretty badly for me. All I needed was a Stifle, but I didn't find one in the first two turns and lost. I boarded in Needles, Grips, and BEBs, taking out Threads, Plow Under and I think Tuskers (deciding that if I was in a position where I could safely use its ability I was going to win anyways). The Belcher deck drew pretty horribly in 3 of the next 4. 2 games he drew all fuel and no kill, and by the time he had the kill I had Grip, Stifle, and Needle to stop him. One game he had all fuel and one Burning Wish, but he had to use Land Grant before he could do anything letting me know my BEB only had to hit Wish to stop him. The other game he actually got a good draw he had both lands out on turn 2 and a mox. He emptied his hand into Belcher, and just had to untap to win, but I had the Needle to stop him. Followed up a little later by a Command targetting Mox and searching for Goyf, causing him to concede.

I need a much larger sample game size to come to any conclusions about the Belcher MU, and how I might need to change my SB to improve it, but at least I was able to get some games in.

Mordenkaynen
01-25-2008, 10:43 AM
I'm not sure if it's too weak, but Skyshroud Cutter may be an idea vs some kinds of aggro. At least it can allow you to do not worry much of 1st turn lackey - you don't allow him to attack and next turn you run your stratagy (temporal spring from elves for example). Or 1st turn mongoose wouldn't damage you so hard (you see, he can be a problem as an untargetable creature). Also it can do the aggresive work, but it looks rediculous.
Another idea is chalise of the void. If you drop it (on 1) turn 2 or 3 it can protect you vs. something very quick, as burn, actually. Even it forbid elves, it would give you good advantage, I think.

yawg07
01-25-2008, 12:00 PM
I gotta say this deck is really fun to pilot, but needs some sort of countermagic.
I was testing with my friend and this deck has a very good Pox matchup.
Garruk sort of punches pox in the balls, and Primal command puts Prison on top and shuffles in the yard.
Then he switched over to Ichorid and I hurt very badly. It was far too fast to combat, and I couldn't see Primal Command.

bladewing019
01-25-2008, 05:32 PM
I'm not sure if it's too weak, but Skyshroud Cutter may be an idea vs some kinds of aggro. At least it can allow you to do not worry much of 1st turn lackey - you don't allow him to attack and next turn you run your stratagy (temporal spring from elves for example). Or 1st turn mongoose wouldn't damage you so hard (you see, he can be a problem as an untargetable creature). Also it can do the aggresive work, but it looks rediculous.
Another idea is chalise of the void. If you drop it (on 1) turn 2 or 3 it can protect you vs. something very quick, as burn, actually. Even it forbid elves, it would give you good advantage, I think.

Skyshroud Cutter is way to weak to be a solution against current aggro decks. The creatures I have the most problems with are things like Tombstalker and Countryside Crusher. Giving them 5 life so I can chump block once, assuming their threat doesn't have evasion is not going to help much.

At any point after turn 1 Chalice at one has always felt underwhelming to me. Since I can't play it turn 1 and it creates 8 dead cards I don't think its the best fit for the deck. Maybe in the sb but what would you board it in against and have it be fast enough to be relevant?



I gotta say this deck is really fun to pilot, but needs some sort of countermagic.
I was testing with my friend and this deck has a very good Pox matchup.
Garruk sort of punches pox in the balls, and Primal command puts Prison on top and shuffles in the yard.
Then he switched over to Ichorid and I hurt very badly. It was far too fast to combat, and I couldn't see Primal Command.

Good to know that you like it, and that you were interested enough to play it. Command really isn't fast enough to do anything vs. Ichorid. I never have to play against Ichorid which explains my lack of graveyard hate in the board. Propaganda might also improve this MU, but I'm not sure I'll test it if I get a chance this weekend but I still need to find someone willing to test for a long period of time.

Thanks to everyone for the interest and suggestions so far.

EDIT* I was having to mulligan more than I liked due to having hands that were way too dependent on the mana elf I drew. I took out 1x Garruk (although I could easily see dropping 1x Plow Under) for a Forest. My mulligan rate has gone way down and the deck seems to run a lot smoother.

I also went down to 3x Needle in the board, and swapped out the Grips and Submerges for 3x Propaganda and 4x Daze. I'm testing this out to see if it helps against some of the things I'm having problems against, but the Grips might work their way back into the sb.

Isamaru
01-28-2008, 08:20 PM
Propaganda will definitely improve a lot of things you have trouble with, and fits the gameplan of mana denial. While it is normally slow, it can come down turn 2, and even turn 3 is fast enough to turn Ichorid into a horrible aggro deck.

I would look to take out a Krosan Tusker before I took out the Garruk you speak of, as both fulfill a similar role in most instances: Midgame mana accel or large alternate fat... only it seems like Garruk does this better while avoiding Pox and Deed. In our games you had way too many chump blockers for him to ever die to attacking creatures.

Chalice of the Void doesn't appear to really improve any matchup. Why bother including it? Besides, it goes against the strategy of the deck much more than in others that include it. I'd rather be able to play my turn 1 accelerants, Stifle, and BEB.

Temporal Spring seems like it would do a good enough job raping high-cc / hard-to-cast fatties (ie can't be Threads'd) that you shouldn't have a problem. What is the trouble specifically? You have BEB against Countryside Crusher, Burning Wish, etc., as I understand.

Tell us if Daze helps out. It seems like a "mainboard or not at all" card because it doesn't seem to be weaker or stronger in certain matchups. It fits with the deck's mana denial strategy, but hurts the acceleration element, as you knew in the original construction.

bladewing019
01-30-2008, 04:59 PM
I did some testing against BR goblins today, 10 games pre-board, 10 games post board, with the decks switching off being on the play or the draw. The pre-board games vs. Goblins were horrible. I won everytime I got Garruk, but Warren Weirdings are a definite problem, especially when recurred by Wort. Goblins won every game it got Wort active so I was 2-8 pre-board. I think I'm going to switch out a Plow Under for a Garruk since Plow is pretty narrow and Garruk was amazing every time I drew him.

Post-board I did much better. Bringing in BEB and Propaganda, for Plow Under, Threads (which was horrible against goblins curve, should this be Mind Harness?), and 1x Krosan Tusker. Propaganda was very good at slowing Goblins down, but SGC and Wort made it not a great long game plan. On the other hand I was happy to see BEB always. It countered anything they didn't vial in/wasn't named Warren Weirding and destroyed Worts. It is my only real out to Wort and it let me win all the attrition wars since I could recur them with Witness and eventually Witness + Tradewind Rider let me lock Goblins out of the game completely if I had Propaganda to stop attacks. I ended up being 6-4 postboard which isn't good enough after only going 2-8 preboard. The 2nd MD Garruk should improve both numbers at least a little and switching my SB Threads to the 4th Propaganda should help even more.

To summarize:
-1 Plow Under for +1 Garruk
-1 SB Threads of Disloyalty for + 1 Propaganda
* Maybe -3 Threads for + 3 Mind Harness (or Psionic Blast as early suggested, anyone else have opinions on this slot?)
* Wort and Warren Weirding are ridiculous in Goblins
* You can't rely on Propaganda(s) to carry you through the long game vs. BR Goblins
*BEB and Stifles have been crucial to winning the Goblins MU
*Threads sucks vs. Goblins

Cabal-kun
02-07-2008, 09:12 AM
Has there been any thought about adding Echoing Truth? You run Eternal Witness, so you have a miniature graveyard combo between the two (2 Eternal Witness + 1 Echoing Truth). Outside of that it allows you to bounce troublesome permanents and provides some protection against EtW.

bladewing019
02-07-2008, 04:35 PM
Outside of hosing EtW echoing truth doesn't strike me as a particularly strong MD card. For a bounce spell that works well with Witness I think I would prefer Curfew. Stalls things like Lackey on the play or the draw and most of the time should set your opponent back more than you.

What would your replace MD (or SB) with Echoing Truth?

Alfred
02-10-2008, 01:12 PM
I suggest Submerge in the SB. Nothing like putting their Goyf on top of their library for free! Submerge is also rockin' if you resolve a Plow Under right before it because it delays them drawing into the lands they need to replay.

Also, why the hell no Counter-top? Counter top could EASILY slide into this deck, though you would probably need to include a few more 2CC cards, like Whirlpool Whelm or something. Whelm could be pretty strong with the inclusion of SDT.

I just wanted to say that I had a deck like this as well, but I called it "Back on Top!" I think that would be the better name for this deck ;)

bladewing019
02-10-2008, 03:20 PM
Submerge was originally in the SB, but I changed it to Propagandas, since Submerge wasn't as effective as I hoped it would be.

Counter-Top doesn't really have much of a place in this deck, my curve doesn't match other Legacy decks curves at all really, which makes Counterbalance pretty useless.

I've decided against running Whelm because a lot of the time it will end up just an unsummon for twice the cost.