Under the Radar decks, Summer 2011 Edition

[dontbiteitholmes]

Okay, so with the last SCG event we saw some serious under the radar action come in with Manaless Dredge, Blue Zoo, GBw Depths, and Burn in the top 16. I've been saying Burn has been a dark horse for a while now as it's finally a valid deck again with strong game against Control and Tribal decks that define the format right now.

What decks are Under the Radar right now in your opinion? Strong contenders that no one is playing or running the gauntlet against that have the potential to top 16 a large event like Legacy Nats or some SCG Open.

[troopatroop]

Tropical Island -> Nacatl is under the radar, imo. Caleb's build is very good, and you should test against it, but there are numerous other builds that can be sucessful. Daze and Force aren't in "that" deck, but they could be, and they're more likely to be played into if they expect the Jace list.

Noble Hierarch/GSZ enabling Jace in a BigZoo shell, is seriously brilliant. I'm jealous I didn't think of it before.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I'd say right now Dragon Stompy is under the radar. They have 8 Moon effect MD that can easily be dropped on the first turn and completely bury a deck that isn't able to fetch out a basic in time. I see a lot of lists that I don't like but I think the right one is out there somewhere and absolutely no one seems to be playing the deck right now.

[menace13]

Aluren isn't seeing as much play as I think it should. Laregly Misstep proof, plays Therapy+FoW and for the low cost of 2k can be yours! I don't play the deck(have the cards), so not sure if it is good in the current meta, but I think the format being slowed would only help it?

[NecroYawgmoth]

I'd say right now Dragon Stompy is under the radar. They have 8 Moon effect MD that can easily be dropped on the first turn and completely bury a deck that isn't able to fetch out a basic in time. I see a lot of lists that I don't like but I think the right one is out there somewhere and absolutely no one seems to be playing the deck right now.

Dragon Stompy is always under the radar... People just fear playing with it because it still has the same inconstance issues as it has 3 years ago. Also It is full of bad creatures. No creature is a really fat beater or anything similar to the other creatures in the format. The 8 Moons & 4 Chalice / Trini [and maybe Revoker] is all this deck has. That's the reason no one plays it.

[ivanpei]

Dragon stompy is really really under the radar. With people stretching it by skipping forces/playing less than 4, and hymns instead of thoughtseize, decks like these get destroyed by a moon effect. Misstep has replaced daze in many lists, making landing the t1 moon all that easier. Dragon stompy has crappy dudes. That has always been the problem. I'm currently playing a 6 equipment (3 jitte's and 3 sobm) + utility weenies version. Once red starts getting efficient beefcakes, we can start looking back at dragon stompy.

For now, it is just not powerful enough to warrant the inconsistencies.

[DrHealex]

Playing NO rug undefeated until round 4 where I faced against some deck that I can only assume would be called MONO RED PAINTER. first game he goes first and plays great furnace -> top, i misstep and assume its a painter deck, i play a trop and green sun for 0 to get dryad arbor, next turn he plays a mountain and plays grindstone and passes, next turn i fetch a volcanic and pass the turn. On his draw I clique and see 3x magus of the moon, jaya balard, mountain..yea i lost that game. g2 he gets painter combo and wins.

[Shawon]

Also, if Dragon Stompy fails to resolve a turn 1 Moon effect, its win percentages drastically fall. Any deck with Show and Tell in it just needs ONE island to ruin you. And that's just one deck or more precisely, one subset of a metagame that can beat you. And +1 to ivanpei's last sentence.

[CorpT]

Is this the I-call-my-favorite-deck-under-the-radar-to-make-myself-feel-better-even-though-it-is-actually-not-good thread?

[kiblast]

Is this the I-call-my-favorite-deck-under-the-radar-to-make-myself-feel-better-even-though-it-is-actually-not-good thread?

So true. I mean, how can you call DS an ''under the radar deck'' ?

edit: unless by ''under the radar'' you mean: correctly ignored by the meta.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Is this the I-call-my-favorite-deck-under-the-radar-to-make-myself-feel-better-even-though-it-is-actually-not-good thread?

No, I don't play DS. I did play Burn at the last SCG because I thought it was a good call, not because it's my deck or because I can't afford to play anything else (I can pretty much afford to play everything else). I went 6-3 losing to 2 UW Stoneforge decks (one of which ended with him @ 1 life on game 3) and a Lands player who obviously got extremely lucky (first turn Zuran Orb, Exploration, Mox Diamond, Life from the Loam, which dredged into his Glacial Chasm game 1, Game 2 I start out with a 3x Price of Progress hand and he once again manages to drop a turn 1 Orb and turn 3 Chasm and I never found a Relic which would have won me the game at multiple points).

[SurFitOfTheVine]

Tropical Island -> Nacatl is under the radar, imo. Caleb's build is very good, and you should test against it, but there are numerous other builds that can be sucessful. Daze and Force aren't in "that" deck, but they could be, and they're more likely to be played into if they expect the Jace list.

Noble Hierarch/GSZ enabling Jace in a BigZoo shell, is seriously brilliant. I'm jealous I didn't think of it before.

Caleb's deck is nothing new.

[(nameless one)]

I think in general, Chalice decks are under the radar.

Also, is CounterTop that horrible now because of Mental Misstep? It's not that they can't run their own set.

[ESG]

CounterTop took a big hit with the printing of Green Sun's Zenith. The printing of Mox Opal and the unbanning of Grim Monolith didn't help either. Mental Misstep and Batterskull were two more problems the deck didn't want to see.

[Malchar]

The deck I'm currently playing is under the radar, but if I told you what it was then it wouldn't be anymore.

[Amon Amarth]

I really like Aggro Loam because it is the best deck that dodges MM and doesn't have to do any distorting. It has a solid game plan against aggro decks and tons of CA against dedicated control decks. Plus being RBG gives it a ton of excellent SB options. I'd seriously consider looking into it.

[Hopo]

I really like Aggro Loam because it is the best deck that dodges MM and doesn't have to do any distorting. It has a solid game plan against aggro decks and tons of CA against dedicated control decks. Plus being RBG gives it a ton of excellent SB options. I'd seriously consider looking into it.

But you wouldn't say a deck that just recently won a high profile tournament is flying "under the radar", would you?

[catmint]

Playing NO rug undefeated until round 4 where I faced against some deck that I can only assume would be called MONO RED PAINTER. first game he goes first and plays great furnace -> top, i misstep and assume its a painter deck, i play a trop and green sun for 0 to get dryad arbor, next turn he plays a mountain and plays grindstone and passes, next turn i fetch a volcanic and pass the turn. On his draw I clique and see 3x magus of the moon, jaya balard, mountain..yea i lost that game. g2 he gets painter combo and wins.

You probably mean Imperial Painter. It might be underplayed, because of the price for imperial recruiter...

[kiblast]

But you wouldn't say a deck that just recently won a high profile tournament is flying "under the radar", would you?

It is underplayed anyway. Problem is that you don't learn how to play AggroLoam in a week... probably very few players play it because is a bit difficult to pilot properly ?

[Finn]

What a letdown. I thought this was a link to an actual article rather than a cheerleader convention.

Ooh, and anything that plays aggro and discard should be good right now, but not for long. Blue is somehow losing its footing.