3rd Place at TOGIT Mox Sapphire Event with the good countertop deck

[andrew77]

So I've known I would be heading to the TOGIT event since it was announced as the prize support is awesome and it is less than an hour drive. Last event I scrubbed out running dredge and it annoyed me enough to put dredge away for good. You don't really play games when you run dredge. You just play against hate and against your own deck. Anyway since dredge and TES are the only combo decks I consider viable and my TES cards are in the mail I pretty much knew I would be running control. For about a week I was sold on running zoo just based on the fact that it is very good and very easy to pilot. Most people don't know how to run their decks properly anyway so if you play zoo well it is hard to lose. Anyway, for whatever reason I seemed to be drawing poorly with zoo so I decided I would rather risk my fate to blind confidant flips over zoo's draws.

Just a quick tidbit about the deck. It is the best countertop deck out there. This is not an opinion. It is a fact. Dreadnought decks were never good. The bant progenitus counterbalance nonsense decks are also pretty terrible.

Decklist

20 lands
4 wasteland
2 island
1 forest
1 swamp
3 underground sea
2 tropical island
3 misty rainforest
3 polluted delta
1 scalding tarn (should have been a trop or misty)

10 critters
4 dark confidant aka I'm better than tarmogoyf
4 tarmogoyf
2 sower of temptation

30 other spells
4 brainstorm
4 force of will
4 stifle
4 counterbalance
3 daze
3 sensei's divining top
2 maelstrom pulse
1 putrefy
3 smother
2 thoughtseize

Sideboard
2 extirpate
2 relic of progenitus
1 tormods crypt
3 pernicious deed
2 hydroblast
1 blue elemental blast
1 threads of disloyalty
1 thoughtseize
1 glen elandra archmage
1 krosan grip

Round 1 playing Dreadstill: I stick confidant. Then another. He tries to do some stuff, but it is realy hard for him to land a dreadnought and even if he does I can kill it easily. If I remember correctly goyf joins confidant. Game 2 he starts off by drawing a card on the play. Means he has to shuffle a card back at random. Supposedly it was brainstorm and I waste his only land and that is pretty much it as he doesn't find another for some time.
1-0
Round 2 playing Zoo: I decide to make this game extremely complicated by forgetting to brainstorm in resp to his t1 nacatl because I was watching Bertoncini's game next to me. Would have hit daze with brainstorm. I know it was terrible, but it doesn't matter as I have goyf and some other goodies while he makes some poor attacks and that is that. Game 2 I do something stupid again and even though I assemble countertop by the end I am at 4 and fireblast is just enough to kill me. Game 3 he keeps a bad hand. I guess he thought vexing shusher was good. It isn't, especially when he has no t1 play. I get a quick countertop. He somehow sneaks in some PoP after I fetch out a green source for goyf and don't have a 2cc on top. This brings me down fairly low, but countertop and goyf do their job.
2-0
Round 3 playing Dreadstill. Game 1 some stuff happens and I win. Can't really remember, but it probably involved confidant. Game 2 he sneaks in a standstill. I break it for top. He goes for goyf and I decide not to force it and get forced stifled. I then proceed to not hit another land for the next 4/5 turns while goyf kills me. Game 3 was insane. I keep a mediocre hand and go fro turn 2 counterbalance with daze backup. It meets snare and fow. He then has his own counterbalance. It quickly turns into counterbalance top. He drops a goyf at some point. Sower steals his goyf. I land a counterbalance. He needs to find an answer for sower and finds bolt. He decides to let me draw before bolting (I draw top which would have countered bolt blind). I pulse the counterbalances since he has top and I don't. More crazy things happen, but I cannot really remember and I somehow win.
3-0
Round 4 playing Dredge. He mulls to 5 on the play. He doesn't have amazing dredges. I have a critter and a smother to make sure there's no bridge shenanigans. I win eventually. Game 2 I open with some hate. Game is slow as I apply no pressure. Eventually I win.
4-0
Round 5&6 draw in
4-0-2
So going into round 5 my friend running this exact list is 3-1. He would get in even at 4-2. He manages to punt to aggro loam and then almost kill himself against dredge. The game against dredge was really bad. It was as if he tried to kill himself. Because of this and the fact that it took him way too long to top it got dragged out and they drew game 3 even though my friend had double relic in play and couldn't lose.
Top 8 playing Alex Bertoncini with good Merfolk aka the green version: Game one I mulligan and never get a second land even though I dig very deep. I had like 7 turns as his clock was 2 curse catchers since most of the good cards fought each other early on. Game 2 I see an opener that looks pretty awkward with 2 stifle and 2 deed. Anyway, deed is just too good against merfolk and we are off to game 3. He mulls to 6 keeping a hand with mana issues. I have confidant and follow it up with goyf.
5-0-2
Top 4 playing Quinn the might Eskimo:
Game 1 I mull to 5 and can't really make a comeback. Game 2 I get a countertop lock out quickly and kill with confidant beats as well as 1 goyf swing at the end. Game 3 we get to the point where nether of us have much. He has stp, painter, moat in hand and I have fow, blue card, confidant, smother putrefy. He goes for moat and I decide to let it resolve and protect confidant with my counters as I still have 3 maindeck outs to moat. Looking back this was probably wrong, but either way it was irrelevant as my only threat was a goyf that was 3/4 cards down and he would have had an eternal dragon a turn or so after.
5-1-2

All in all this was a great event and a great deck. Dark confidant is nuts and makes all of your matchups against other counterbalance decks amazing. He is also a huge problem for merfolk. Deed is as well. I can't really think of a reason to run and other colors over black in countertop. The sb options are so much better and confidant is the best creature ever.

[NjPunk1]

Congrats on the top 8. I think the list is interesting and i might give it a try sometimes.
How was the archmage in the sideboard? What did you bring it in against?

Oh, I forgot to get my tarn back from you, so I'll just get it at the next vestal event (not next weeks) or something.

[andrew77]

Congrats on the top 8. I think the list is interesting and i might give it a try sometimes.
How was the archmage in the sideboard? What did you bring it in against?

Oh, I forgot to get my tarn back from you, so I'll just get it at the next vestal event (not next weeks) or something.

I completely forgot about the tarn. Just lmk what events you'll be at. I might go to the legacy tourny next saturday.

Archmage came in agaisnt a bunch of decks. If you look at Tim Hunt's list he ran sower in the slot. I don't really ever want a third sower. Archmage seems much more flexible and he can come in against any control decks. The only time I drew him he got countered though. The board definitely needs some work, but progress is being made. After testing different mixes of smother/putrefy/pulse I can pretty much say running 3 smother is a must and pulse is usually better than putrefy. Pulse randomly wins you games you have no business winning. I have lost some games to pulse not being instant speed, but that is much rares than the games I win from it killing enchantments or blowing up 2 hippies. 3 pulse is too much though. It would be possible to only run 3 removal spells and run the third thoughtseize main. I like 2 pulses though as it free's up room in the sb. You no longer need to run 3 krosan grips.

The only other real question is the basic lands. That forest can be really annoying. The swamp can too, but the forest is usually less important and can create situations where you have to mull what would be an excellent hand otherwise. At other events I have run only 2 basic islands and I have had games where running less basics lost me games as well as situations where it won me games. Same was true with running 4 basics. I just cannot say what is ideal as I do not know. I'm also unsure of whether it is better to run 6 or 7 fetches.

[NjPunk1]

I'm not worried about getting the tarn back soon, so no big deal. I completly forgot about it too, it was a long day.

I like your mix of pulse and putrefy in there, it seemed pretty good. I saw it blow up a bunch of solider tokens from a decree of justice and other randomly good situations.

I think running the extra basics is a necesary evil now with the way the metagame is shaping up around here. 4 lands decks?, aggro loam top 8?, hell the zoo deck ran wastes too. I know how you feel about having them though, they can really screw up a good hand by keeping you from casting your counterbalance. I run 3 non-blue lands plus noble hierarch in my cb list and it still comes up sometimes.

Half of the decks in the top 8 ran wasteland, and a lot of other decks there ran it too

[aTn]

Congrats !

Question/Comment:

Your match-up against aggro (e.g. Merfolk, Goblins) seems horrible. I know you won against Alex Bertoncini's Merfolk list during your tournament, but I doubt that your deck can win consistently against it.

Deeds seems uber-slow against Merfolk (and vs. mana-denial in general) + you always have the chance to run into Stifle (against certain Merfolk lists). It also looks like the Merfolk player had bad hands/draws.

Goblins looks like it would probably be even more horrible for you.

I'm saying all this because I was playing a similar deck, which I liked, until I realized that the Merfolk (and Goblins) MU were horrible.

What say you ?

No Plague in the SB ?? (IMO, Plague >> Deeds for the Merfolk MU).

[TOGITwill]

Yeah I was your R3 Dreadstill opponent.

That game 3 came down to you taking four damage from a bob flip revealing archmage to put you at three life, and me needing to dig for the last bolt. I topped and it wasn't in the top three (it was #5...) so I just passed and had to hope for a good bob flip on my part. That was a ridiculous game three though.

[AngryTroll]

Congrats on the finish.

Just a quick tidbit about the deck. It is the best countertop deck out there. This is not an opinion. It is a fact. Dreadnought decks were never good. The bant progenitus counterbalance nonsense decks are also pretty terrible.

Decklist
3 sensei's divining top
2 maelstrom pulse
1 putrefy
3 smother
2 thoughtseize

That's a pretty strong claim. Can you elaborate on the unusual numbers in the spell suite? How did you arrive at the 3/2/1 split on Smother/Pulse/Putrefy and the 3/2 split on Daze/Thoughtseize?

Second, Bant CounterTop Progenitus seems like it has a much better aggro matchup than this (with the War Monks and Swords over Smother), and it has a similar curve for counterbalance (with an extra 3cc and 4cc card slot).

[Illissius]

Yeah, I had similar thoughts. Great against aggro-control/combo decks, not so great against aggro decks. There's something like four cards in the entire deck which are good against Goblins. (No points for guessing.)

[andrew77]

Just thought I would answer some questions.

The 3 smother/2 pulse/1 putrefy mix came form me being wanting to run a bit more removal. The list originally ran 3 smother/2 putrefy. 3 smothers are essential as you have huge problems as is against things like t1 lackey or dark rit into hippie. Originally the deck ran 3 thoughtseize main, but I was very unimpressed with thoughtseize as a topdeck and pulse can really shine so I changed one to a pulse. Putrefy is pretty much strictly inferior to pulse. The only reason it is still in there is because you want instant speed removal against decks like merfolk that can just topdeck lord of atlantis and then swing with islandwalking mutavaults.

Onto certain matchups...

I have never run into the goblin matchup, but would probably assume it can be quite rough as I have no way to stop a t1 lackey on the play besides force. I'm not really worried about goblins though as it is not tier 1 and nobody plays it. Most goblins lists are quite bad anyway as they run instigator and their pilots aren't all that good either.

I'm not sure why everyone thinks the merfolk matchup is all that bad. I am 4-0-1 against it in tournaments. 2 of my friends have ran this deck too and they are 1-1 against it. These results aren't from small events either. They are from the SCG 5k at philly this past TOGIT event and some Vestal events. The fact of the matter is merfolk cannot keep up with the card advantage my deck generates. I have more removal than traditional countertop decks and a huge threat in dark confidant. If they try to fight a battle of attrition odds are that I will win. This means they need to get an aggressive hand. This also means they need to run goyf. If they don't run goyf their list is just bad and I keep lord of atlantis off the board and they just go home crying. Deed is also a complete house against merfolk. How is it slow? Merfolk doesn't goldfish turn 3 kills. They are pretty slow when it comes to applying pressure and I have plenty of time to drop deed and wipe their board. It is also useful against zoo, dredge, etc so there is noway I would switch to something as narrow as plague.

The zoo matchup can be tricky. All I can say is that against a good player playing a good zoo list who wins the die roll and is on the play I am probably not favored. When you factor in the fact that most lists can be flawed or that most zoo pilots aren't all that good it is at least 50-50 if not better. What most people seem to underestimate is the waste/stifle package and its effectiveness against zoo. You just win some games by shutting down their mana. I tested the bant decks against zoo and if they don't draw their dudes they are in much worse shape than me. If you don't draw the war monks all you have is goyf and you will get overrun. I even tested a u/g/w/b countertop list without waste/stifle and it did much worse against zoo because it didn't have waste/stifle to hamper them. There's no reason to believe they would mulligan a perfectly good hand in search of war monk g1 based on the fact that they are facing zoo. I don't have to worry about that. I just hope to win the die roll as being on the play means I should win. Deed is also very good against zoo and a lot of players aren't open-mined enough to anticipate it and will just get wrecked. Pulse can also shine if they run out 2 nacatls or something like that.