[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

[rsaunder]

It became axiomatic when every deck in the format started playing 6-8 fetches.

Yes, I had to look up what axiomatic meant.

[Deep6er]

Don't forget that even if you cut Stifle (which quite a few people down here hate), you should replace it with a blue card.

We've been over this for weeks. Stifle isn't my favorite card in the deck, but I acknowledge that it's probably about the best of the worst options in the deck. I think it's important because Sinkhole + Wasteland (and by extension Stifle + Wasteland) is never enough to actually keep your opponent off of mana. Eva Green and Thrash are examples of this. Having played many games with and against the both of them, I've found them to have too little land destruction to maintain the early game long enough for me to have the devastating impact necessary to win the game. Eva Green does this better than Thrash because Sinkhole is stronger than Stifle, but still occasionally doesn't do enough. Sometimes you only get one Sinkhole and one Wasteland and your opponent recovers, whereas if you'd had one more spell, he would have been locked out of the game. It's happened too many times to just be anecdotal evidence.

[nitewolf9]

Yes, I had to look up what axiomatic meant.

I like that word.

But yeah, don't get me wrong, we tried to replace stifle. The problem was the blue card count for force of will, because you really, really want force to be reliable. I don't know what else would go in that slot. Maybe hymn to tourach? Once again, if hymn were blue...

It seems like stifle would go against the deck's strategy of tapping out to play sinkhole or thoughtseize, but it doesn't always play out like that. Also, with the other LD, stifle stays relevant for a longer period of time. The deck ideally wants 3 lands in play (preferably sea, trop, bayou), and then things start getting stupid. I understand your argument entirely, but I'm not sure if there really is another option there if we want to stick to this kind of strategy. Like I said before it was good to me all day.

Edit: Damn you, Dave.

[frogboy]

It became axiomatic when every deck in the format started playing 6-8 fetches.

So people just forgot the card existed for four years? I'm willing to stipulate that your Wasteland/Sinkhole deck is probably the most reasonable place to play your conditional land destruction spell, but it's usually pretty easy to finesse your first two land drops to avoid it. When Scourge came out, people jammed it into everything and then realized it sucked and quit playing it, and that was in a format where it was one mana, kold target Dragon player.

edit: what if you just played Spell Snare?

[Deep6er]

Spell Snare was beyond awful in testing. It was even more conditional than Stifle, while being worse.

Stifle does have more targets than just fetches though. Countering the comes-into-play abilities of various Survival creatures helps that match immensely, while countering Storm triggers helps the combo match.

I'm not even saying the card is good, but it's about the best of the worst options.

[rsaunder]

What about pithing needle? You might be able to finesse the mnabase to be able to hit fetches. It's proactive, kinda land destruction, and hits all sorts of other stuff.

Although the manabase for this deck would be awful if you tried to cut a color of U fetch.

EDIT: Nevermind. There's no way it could work.

[Hanni]

SECRET NINJA EDIT#2!: How about extirpate to make the land D you do play more devistating? I know it's awful tempo-wise in probably 80% of all situations, but it might be worth a shot.

You're still forgetting about the blue spell count. In this mindset, the deck would be better off playing Hymn because Hymn can occasionally take lands from the opponent's hand while actually being a good card. Extirpate is bad in this sort of deck, because it never wants to get to the really late game to see its effect.

Holding U open isn't necessarily bad. If you're tapping out to cast BB spells, so what? That means you decided that playing said spell was better than casting Stifle. If you hold open blue but don't cast Stifle, it either means you didn't have a relevant play on your mainphase, or you misplayed. The fact that Stifle is relevant at hitting fetchlands throughout the entirety of the game while still have other relevant targets is in fact strong. Additionally, you also need to weigh in that in some games, you Daze, bouncing a land back to hand, and you actually will have only 1 land (U) open on the next turn to cast that Stifle. The deck only has so many 1cc plays to fill out the early game curve, where Stifle fits in really nice.

Lastly, it's also interesting that the opponent either plays around it (which in itself generates some tempo), or they don't know it's in the deck and walk right into it.

Like I said, I tried this concept a good while back, and Wasteland/Stifle/Sinkhole performed very well for me as an LD suite.

[Isamaru]

This looks just like the deck that someone at my Legacy tournament played (or was it everyone? I forget now...)

Keep up the gaod work and congrats on the finish!

[aTn]

Nice deck !
I'm a bit tired of playing Vorosh-Still (no offense Bardo, your deck is awesome, but I've been playing it for almost a year now), so I guess I'll give Team America a try at my next local Legacy tournament, which is this thursday...

I was wondering (having not tested the deck yet), how are the UGW-Threshold, Swan-Threshold, UGB-Threshold, Landstill and It's the Fear match-ups ? Are decks packing recurrence (like It's the Fear or Aggro-loam) hard to deal with ?

EDIT: Oh yeah, and congrats on the finish !

[Slayer001]

First, gratz on the finish ;)

I like this deck also, because I like eva green, but this is just like the better eva green. mayeb I will proxy it up for some testing at my local store and will post some matchups in here.
So for now I don't have nothing more to say because I haven't tested it yet, but keep up the good work and I realy like the idea behind this deck.

[Deep6er]

Team America beats the piss out of It's the Fear. Since Dan's done the playing against Landstill, I believe him when he says it beats that too.

Threshold (with Counterbalance) is a bit rough. I'd say that it's about 50-50, possibly even favored for Threshold. Post board, with Grips and Edicts, it gets a lot better.

If they don't have Counterbalance, the match up is a lot easier.

[Guy I Don't Know]

I don't know if you know about the card called encroach? it is a duress for nonbasic lands... i thought it could maybe fit in the deck, ive wanted to play a deck similar to this deck with encroach, wasteland, sinkhole/hymn, and stifle and this seems like that deck.

[socialite]

I don't know if you know about the card called encroach? it is a duress for nonbasic lands... i thought it could maybe fit in the deck, ive wanted to play a deck similar to this deck with encroach, wasteland, sinkhole/hymn, and stifle and this seems like that deck.

Talk about tunnel vision.

[Carabas]

People have been talking about extra threats. Would Quirion Dryad work as a 1 or 2-of?

[nitewolf9]

If you run dryad, you want to see it early. It sucks as a topdeck. I don't think it's worth running as a less than 4-of. If I were going to run a 1-of threat, I'd probably just run a 1-of cantrip instead, like portent. But why the hell would I do that.

[Deep6er]

People have been talking about extra threats. Would Quirion Dryad work as a 1 or 2-of?

We've tried it before. Plus, the fact that it's not a four of makes it worse. You do know that in order for that card to be good, it has to be played on turn 2, right?

Otherwise, it's awful.

We've tried most in the way of extra threats, and there are two conclusions.

1) There's nothing we really want to take out of the main deck for them.

2) There's nothing strong enough to play.

That's the problem. There needs to be a new creature that's just as good as Tombstalker/Tarmogoyf for it to be playable in Team America.

[nitewolf9]

Something like this would suffice:

retarded rowboat
creature - rowboat assassin



islandwalk

This rowboat is fucking retarded...

4/4

[troopatroop]

Something like this would suffice:

retarded rowboat
creature - rowboat assassin

islandwalk

This rowboat is fucking retarded...

4/4

What about Shadowmage Infiltrator? I know it's been mentioned before, but I haven't seen a comment on it. Too slow?

[darkalucard]

Did you test:

• Nantuko Shade
• Trinket Mage

and

Why not more Bloodstained Mire's to get the Bayou?

Why not 1x Island and 1x Swamp?

And you can cut a blue card, you can run FoW with 16 blue cards, and you have 20 blue cards.

[Deep6er]

Because the Bayou isn't as important as having Islands for Daze.

Basics can interfere with your strategy more often than not because you have a lot of early colored mana requirements in Sinkhole, Stifle, and Daze (which counts because you need an Island). Plus, since you need a Swamp in play for Snuff Out to work, that's important too.

Shade was too slow, and Trinket Mage is fucking awful. That card is the opposite of tempo.

You should NOT run 16 blue cards in a deck that needs Force as much as this deck does. You want to cast every single card in this deck. Holding a Brainstorm for Force is very different from holding a Stifle and it gives you different options when playing. I've tried only sixteen blue cards in earlier versions, but it ended up having an extreme impact on the amount of times I was able to cast Force of Will.