Yeah, I don't want to make any baseless accusations. I'm sure he's a fine player. Regardless, shuffling thoroughly is never a bad idea. It just seemed a bit shady that he was tabbing out and moving around cards that would have been good to cast, not potential fetch targets.Originally Posted by nitewolf9
In ANY case, we would all love to hear a report of your exploits! Any notable matches in the Swiss? Any changes to the deck you'd make based on the tournament?
Those rips were ridiculous...
Dan, was kinda sad we didn't get to see you block an Emrakul with three Tombstalkers this time.
Follow me on Twitter @RaNDoMxGeSTuReS
Congrats, Dan!
Did you guys cut up the Top 8 at all?
-Matt
Thanks! Yeah, we did a top 8 split. Usually a top 8 split isn't enough to be worth it, but with the new prize structure it was a good chunk of change. But I wanted that trophey...
they haunt minds...
What do you do about Merfolk besides Googling for the closest Long John Silver's while getting your face smashed by a bunch of 5/5 Islandwalkers? Is it worth boarding Llawans?
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Here's another card that may be ok: Golgari Charm. Wipes the board of all X/1s at instant speed, or can regenerate your creatures if needed.
Regarding Merfolk: This is a matchup that has gotten A LOT better thanks to Shaman and Decay. You'll still want a sweeper or two in the board, as well as some more targeted removal. If we integrate my suggestion of a minor red splash, we also gain access to REBs.
Edit: Here's a hypothetical sideboard for the red splash. This is feasible if you play 4 Deathrite's and fit a Volcanic somewhere in the 20 lands.
3 Pyroblast
2 Sulfur Elemental
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Jace, TMS
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Nihil Spellbomb
The red cards are very powerful against the UWx decks, and those decks do not tend to play Wastelands of their own. Pyroblasts are also strong against the majority of combo decks, as well as other Ux control decks. Sulfur Elemental is good against Maverick and not shabby in other matchups where you need extra pressure. It's just an idea right now, but one that may be worth exploring.
How do you guys feel about 3-4 Engineered Plague in the board? We were having this discussion over in the midrange/control thread and hadn't come to a solid conclusion. The Europeans seem to love it, though.
It seems like it would be good against Maverick and Lingering Souls, two matchups/cards that can be problematic, and also is good against Goblins.
Resolving multiple Engineered Plagues against fish seems a little bit like a pipe dream, but if it happens, you can shut down the deck. Not sure if that's an actual reason to play EPlague though.
I like the idea of a red splash. Splashing red in BUG reminds me of Drew Levin's BUGr wizard deck he talked about in this article: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...ng-Advice.html
I tested the deck for a while on Cockatrice, thinking that the manabase was too greedy... but the 4 Stifle / 4 Snapcaster Mage let you protect your non-basics pretty well. If we add 4 Deathrite Shaman, it's even easier to produce red mana.
Talking about Stifle, I'm interested in trying it in a more "midrange" BUG shell, like Next Level Threshold does. NLT is a more midrange version of RUG Delver that uses Stifle / Wasteland to tempo the opponent while playing threats a little bigger than RUG Delver's. It's fun when you have Jace against an opponent with 2 lands :)
Here are a few recent decklists:
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...1&iddeck=68590
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post653112
It seems like it's pretty easy to port the concept to BUG:
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
3 Stifle
1 Life from the Loam
1 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 2 Hymn to Tourach
SB: 1 Liliana of the Veil
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 1 Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 Ghastly Demise
SB: 1 Spell Pierce
You could add a Volcanic Island and a few REBs / Pyroblast in the sideboard for the blue matchups. With Volcanic Island + Deathrite Shaman, you can play Engineered Explosives on 4 or 5 :)
I would definitely play two Golgari Charms in these slots. Its our Rough//Tumble at instant speed that also kills Mother of Runes. Besides being a very strong card against Aggro its also a very good card against other decks like Esper for example because all the abilities are relevant in this matchup when facing Supreme Verdict/Explosive/Vindicate, Detention Sphere, Lingering Souls/Snapcaster/Clique... You can also board it against RUG depending on the rest of your sideboard since it kills Library, Mongoose (Shaman keeps them small), Delver of Secrets (not the aberration ofc) and counters Lightning Bolts.
Another little drawback of Plague you have to consider is that against Maverick a Plague on Humans will also knock out your Delvers. Imo the best you can do atm is to stay away from Snuff Out (though its one of my favourite cards but you have to make sacrifices in the current metagame ...) and play Dismember instead, with 2 Golgari Charms and 1-3 Disfigure in the SB (number can vary depending on your local Meta) and 1 Jitte in your 75.
After seeing the success of the two BUG Delver decks at the SCG Open this weekend, I'm thinking of playing the deck at SCG Vegas this weekend. I'm fairly new to Legacy, and have been playing RUG Delver for the past 6 months or so. I'm really interested in this BUG deck, though, because of the inclusion of Abrupt Decay and the ability to have great sideboard slots. After browsing the lists and reading through the last few pages of this forum, I think this is the deck I might take:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Tombstalker
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Snuff Out
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Ponder
2 Bayou
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
I don't have a sideboard built yet, but I like the Jace/Clique plan, a few Red Blasts, and other 'normal' cards, and I'm considering 1 or 2 Golgari Charm.
What are your thoughts on this?
Not to be blunt, but it looks like you basically copied these lists and incorporated wcm8's red splash suggestion.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=51260
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=51253
So, why not go with wcm8's suggested sideboard?
3 Pyroblast
2 Sulfur Elemental
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Jace, TMS
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Nihil Spellbomb
Personally, I would run Darkblast over Sulfur Elemental. Darkblast has more implications (Elves) and costs less mana. Golgari Charm is another option for this slot. Darkblast has some nice interactions with all of your creatures (you can dredge if you don't like what you see with Delver, the rest of the explanations are self-explanatory). Additionally, I would probably run 2 targeted discard spells (Thoughtseize) over V. Clique or JTMS.
There is nothing wrong with net decking, especially if you are new to the format. I usually net deck and make minor changes based upon my experiences and expected match ups, and I consider myself to be an experienced legacy player.
If you net decked the main deck, why not net deck the sideboard?
The only glaring issue I see with your proposed deck is Wasteland. If you run into a Wasteland, you are screwed. After BUG did well this past weekend, if people adjust to the format, Wasteland will see more play next weekend, due to BUG's notorious fragile manabase. True, Deathrite can produce R (which is a very nice feature). I would run Badlands over Volcanic Island. You need to get to BB on turn 2 to cast Hymn and you can cast turn 1 Deathrite off of Badlands, but not Volcanic Island. This does slow down Daze. It also slows down UU out of the board, like JTMS and V. Clique. However, if you are running Red Blasts, the Red Blasts should fill the roles of V Clique and Jace.
EDIT: Here is the sideboard I would run:
3 Pyroblast
2 Golgari Charm
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Pithing Needle (mainly for SDT, also for Jace, Aether Vial, and other random stuff)
2 Thoughtseize
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Nihil Spellbomb
I question the Jitte here and I may replace it with a Sylvan Library (or maybe you should do -1 Deathrite, +1 Library in the main - I can understand your reason for running the 4th Deathrite with the 4-color deck, however, main deck Sylvan Library is so good and it will help you find your colored sources). You may also want to consider Maelstrom Pulse, maybe in place of the Jitte. I would still run Badlands over Volcanic Island because I think you need the B mana more than the U mana.
EDIT 2:
You are also going to update your fetchlands to match your manabase. If you go with Badlands, you'll want lots of lands that will grab Swamps. I would run your mana base like this:
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wastelands
You could cut to 3 UGS and add an extra fetchland if you would like.
Tested this deck with a few friends today online. I feel like the red splash isn't needed in my opinion, its good, but it seems too risky! The mana base isn't as good as I thought it was. Having to fetch for Bayou + Underground Sea 80% of the time without Shaman feels incredibly scary. You still can get wasted out of the game. I haven't got to test it, so I'm not going to conclude on how viable it is. What matchups would you want the REBs in for in 3s?? UW Miracles? We already have Decay for that.
But if I was to splash red, I would add a Badlands for sure. Tropical Island is by far probably the worst Dual-land in this deck. What is Red Blast actually needing to counter? Just run more black disruption spells in the sideboard like Duress / Thoughtseize. The deck really doesn't have too many bad matchups except for Lingering Souls / Blade decks. We can always run Krosan Grip for stuff like that.
Still trying to figure out a way to efficiently deal with Lingering Souls, Darkblast is very good, but I don't think siding 1 copy is enough. Multiple Umezawa's Jitte may do it as well!! You are still going to be very behind in card advantage against those. You actually don't lose to Lingering Souls, I think the equipment on the Tokens are what gets you. I think this deck is pretty weak against Maverick or just GWb strategies in my opinion. Mom neutralizes all our removal spells and we really don't have any good 1 CMC removal spells. Maybe we should look out for that since Miracles may be taking a small backseat.
My ideal sideboard.
2 Thoughtseize / Duress
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Darkblast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Vendillion Clique
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Dismember -> feel like its better than the Snuff Out if this deck becomes popular.
2 JTMS
Just remembered that Envelop is probably one of my favorite cards in the sideboard in tempo decks. Adding Spell Snares in the Sideboard also really helps against the Stoneblade decks.
Dread of Night is good against Lingering souls and also maverick/Death and taxes
Darkblast is horrible versus souls. You have to give up 3 draw steps to kill 4 tokens trading 4 to 1!!!
I dont think souls is a big issue due to
1) lack of popularity
2) jitte being the bigger problem with is answered bydecay
3) Maelstrom & deed as 3cmc sweepers for tokens
4) deathrite's ability to remove souls from the yard.
If Maverick & souls is popular you could argue to run Virtues Ruin (also hits 4/4 angels and knights, but costs 4 under thalia!) or Dread of Night (which i would prefer), but Pulse & deed are more versatile cards.
My thoughts on the removal issue:
1cmc removal is key for mother & lackey - ghastly demise is not a good option anymore due to deathrite. Disfigure is probably second best hitting "everything" except for monsters. Big creatures have to be dealt in another way altough disfigure might be a good combat trick at times.
Currently playing: Elves
Golgari Charm is our answer to Lingering Souls. Or Tombstalker. Still not sold on Tombstalker.
Regarding REB/Pyroblast: The red inclusion definitely eats into the sideboard space, and ultimately may not be worth it. But the value of this card for a tempo deck can't be understated. It's a one-mana instant that can answer game-winning cards on the stack -- Snapcaster Mage, Vendilion Clique, Show and Tell, Jace, etc. It also has value in that it can also answer blue permanents in play, something that neither discard nor counterspells can achieve. While it is true BUG has alternative answers to problems via cards like Maelstrom Pulse, such cards tend to be clunky and often get met by a Spell Pierce. REB is incredibly versatile and powerful in a format centralized around blue cards.
I agree that Badlands would probably be the superior Dual for this tech.
This is just speculation for now, but with the stability of colored mana Deathrite provides, White is another option on the table for a sideboard splash. Unfortunately, I don't think white really offers anything powerful enough to justify its inclusion. Maybe in some bizarro future world where the meta is full of artifact/enchantment decks, Serenity may be an option. Lingering Souls is randomly awesome. Just throwing the idea out there for future reference.
I also think that the sideboard should definitely run at least 1 Jace, leaning towards two. In some matchups, you're going to get forced into the long game and there's no better card for this than Jace. Thanks to Deathrite, casting Jace won't be as problematic as it used to be and won't necessitate sideboard space for Life from the Loam (although this card certainly isn't a bad option). I could also imagine the deck going more all-in on the planeswalker plan and running 3, cutting most of the maindeck creatures and bringing in more removal.
A question for the deck going forward is regarding Thoughtseize vs. Hymn to Tourach. Obviously Hymn worked well for Dan and Alix this past weekend, but I've always felt that Thoughtseize was the superior card outside of aggro-heavy metagames. I feel like a turn 1 Thoughtseize is generally a more powerful play, as even a resolved turn 2 Hymn isn't guaranteed to hit the most problematic card (and resolving it against a format full of Stifle, Daze, and Spell Pierce isn't always that likely). If your opponent is holding a Force of Will and protecting a super-important card, Seize will achieve the same thing for 1-mana less. I also feel that the knowledge of your opponent's hand is useful in terms of sequencing your next few lines of play.
edit: here is a link to my sideboard option guide. I will update this periodically as new cards are printed.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ht=#post620813
Last edited by wcm8; 12-04-2012 at 03:12 PM.
I'm sorry if I implied anything different. I didn't mean to try to sound like I had brewed up something all on my own, I really did just take the decks that were successful, tweak 2 or 3 cards to add the splash of red, and then post the list. I'm looking to see if people thought it was 'ready' for this weekend.
Thanks for your other comments, they were very helpful :)
Frontier Sideboarding: Four-Color Control
Thanks to the mana fixing that Deathrite Shaman provides and the flexibility of the fetch/dual-lands, it is entirely feasible to include a minor splash into a fourth color as a sideboard option. Obviously, this is contingent on a few factors: 1) the deck you are bringing the card in against is unlikely to be running Wasteland or other forms of mana disruption of its own; 2) the card you are sideboarding is very light on colored-mana requirements, ideally requiring only one colored mana; 3) the card is high-impact enough to make it worth it to de-stabilize your mana base AND does not have an equivalently-powerful option available in Black, Blue, or Green.
So for example, Path to Exile is a card that is fantastic against RUG but fails the first criterium since they run Wasteland, as well as the third criterium since Black has plenty of removal options that are powerful enough. Grim Lavamancer is a great card that unfortunately fails the second criterium since it is mana intensive (and it also interferes with your other creatures, as well as failing the first since the majority of aggressive decks run Wasteland). Serenity, while certainly high-impact, is an example of a card that fails the third criterium since Pernicious Deed exists.
Although Team America is primarly a Blue-based control deck, many of the most important cards in the deck require Black to play. Thus, when deciding which dual land to squeeze into your mana base, you may want to consider either Badlands or Scrubland instead of Tundra or Volcanic Island. Accordingly, adjust the fetchlands for the appropriate splash: either Misty Rainforest or (more likely) Verdant Catacombs to go along with your Polluted Deltas.
Red
Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast: Considering how Blue-centric Legacy is, having a one-mana instant that both counters and destroys any Blue spell (at ANY stage of the game, not just in the early stage) is incredible. A big draw in playing RUG aside from burn is gaining access to REB. Jace is a card that traditionally gave BUG fits, as our threats are a bit more fragile and we don't have burn to kill the format's best planeswalker. Many of the format's best control decks lean heavily on resolving Jace to establish control and eventually win the game, and also commonly do not play Wastelands of their own. There are plenty of other problematic blue control cards: Snapcaster Mage, Brainstorm, Counterbalance, Vendilion Clique, Detention Sphere, various counterspells, etc. REB can give us an additional edge in these sorts of matchups to supplement our discard, counterspells and mana denial. REBs are also useful against most combo decks that are popular, as they tend to feature cantrips and game-winners such as Show and Tell or Time Spiral.
A minor point, but worth mentioning: Pyroblast is perhaps ever so *slightly* better for this deck, as you can burn it on a non-blue permanent in order to fuel Deathrite Shaman or Tombstalker.
Ancient Grudge: The two-for-one and minimal mana cost is what sets this card ahead of green artifact removal options. It's also worth noting that even if it gets pre-emptively discarded, the card remains ready for use at a later time -- useful against Esper Blade which usually runs discard of their own. It's a high impact card that's worth considering against Stoneblade and Affinity, and really anything that runs plenty of artifacts. Also, unlike Abrupt Decay, it *can* hit artifact lands such as those in Affinity's mana base or Mishra's Factory.
Sulfur Elemental: I think that Dread of Night or Massacre are probably better for a deck with access to black, but it's worth considering the Elemental since he also doubles up as uncounterable, instant-speed threat. Useful against UWx decks with their near-infinite removal and counterspells, as well as for answering Lingering Souls. This sort of card is definitely a metagame consideration.
White
Lingering Souls: This is a one-card army. I could see this being played along with Liliana of the Veil, Umezawa's Jitte, or Intuition. Unfortunately, many of the decks that you'd really like this for are often playing Wastelands and may cut you off of your white source. This is probably the only card currently available that would make a white splash a serious consideration.
Timely Reinforcements: An even stronger form of anti-aggro. Not quite as powerful as LS in my opinion though.
Ethersworn Canonist: I think we have alternative methods of battling Storm-based combo, but just mentioning it for completeness.
Meddling Mage: another wrench in the spokes of combo that doubles as a clock. A unique effect you don't see in other colors.
Please let me know if there's anything worthwhile that I've missed, but be sure that it passes all of the criteria mentioned above to be worthy of serious consideration.
I was thinking about the whole Jace / V. Clique sideboard last night. In my edited sideboard, I removed both, opting for 1-cc cards Thoughtseize and Pithing Needle. This deck is already committed to BB for Hymn and Tombstalker. Every other spell is either 1 or 2 cc and requires single colored mana (sometimes in combination for cards like Abrupt Decay). I'm wary to go into the 3-cc and 4-cc threats, especially if they are UU threats.
I think we have two options:
1) Splash red. Keep the sideboard to 1 and 2 cc cards and focus on BB.
2) Keep it 3 colored. Perhaps, you can try to run V. Clique and Jace alongside Hymn and Tombstalker. You'll notice Dan did this, but Alix did not.
If you end up playing a long match and your mana goes unmolested, Jace and Clique are great. However, if you or your mana base are under duress, I think it is potentially fatal to attempt to play Hymn and Tombstalker at BB, Clique at 1BB, and Jace at 2BB in a four-color deck that is also trying to produce G and R.
Thanks for the sideboard options links. They are very thorough and helpful (both the one directly above and the link provide two posts above).
EDIT: Regarding the Hymn/Thoughtseize debate, Alix ran two Thoughtseize in his board (Dan ran 2 Spell Pierce). I originally opted not to answer this question, because I thought it would be too complicated. Here's my list:
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Ghastly Demise
4 Inquision of Kozilek
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Liliana of the Viel
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
3 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
Sideboard
4 Flusterstorm
3 Spell Pierce
4 Engineered Plague
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Maelstrom Pulse
Originally, I started testing out Delvers. However, I found that my sorcery/instant count wasn't high enough to readily support flips, so I changed to Nimble Mongooses. I was running a 2/2 Inquisition of Kozilke/Thoughseize split, but I recently switched to all IoKs because the Thoughtseize life loss was relevant and I wasn't finding targets that I couldn't take with IoK. Life loss is a little more precious to me since I am running Bob. I like Liliana, I find she locks games down, just my personal preference.
I didn't want to run Force of Will with Dark Confidant, so I cut all main-deck counterspells. If I face strong combo, I can remove the 3 Ghastly Demise and 4 Abrupt Decay for the 7 counters in the board (assuming my opponent doesn't do something cute like bring in Defense Grid. I could also cut the Mongooses and leave the Abrupt Decays in). The Engineered Plague are solely for a Goblin infestation I am dealing with ;)
So, my perspective on Thoughtseize vs. IoK is tailored to the build that I am running. One of the reasons I keep the two Pulses in the board is to hit larger targets that I can't get with IoK or Abrupt Decay.
The only card I really don't like in this deck is Ghastly Demise. I've thought about running Disfigure. Vendetta. Snuff Out. Darkblast. Go for the Throat. Maybe I'll try a 1 Darkblast two Go for the Throat split. Or Dismember, as NiteWolf suggests below. We are going for BB already.
No worries. Sorry if I offended you. I'm not trying to be the heavy at thesource. :)
Given your list above, I still wonder if you would like to run 3 Deathrite and 1 Sylvan Library. Other than that, the list looks solid. Golgari Charm and Ancient Grudge along with REB allows you to move away from Maelstrom Pulse in the board, because you already have a lot of spells that destroy permanents.
If you want to try a 4 color build, I would suggest committing a bit more to the idea and running a true 4 color deck. I feel this would require you to cut wasteland in order to work, but if it offers enough power it could be worth it.
That being said, I don't think the deck has any holes that can't be filed in the BUG color combination. The only thing I really wanted to have access to during the tournament was Krosan Grip, and I am going to be playing a couple of copies in my board moving forward. Batterskull is still obnoxious, and K. Grip tells people exactly what they can do with that card. Hitting top is also very relevant against miracles.
I was unimpressed by clique all in all on the day, but was certainly happy to have it against show and tell during the top 8 match. I would have won without it but it is clearly a great option for combo decks. The problem is that combo is not really that much of a presence outside of maybe dredge, and we aren't exactly weak to those strategies to start with.
Also, Dismember's stock will probably rise over Snuff Out if more and more people decide to play BUG. That is probably the only thing I would change in the main deck.
they haunt minds...
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