I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Leovold, he generates value in a very different way than Shardless Agent and is a proactively good card in the maindeck for combo. He's also fantastic vs Lands, which is a pretty tough matchup. You may be right though, maybe he's best in a non-Shardless shell. He's breathed a fresh breath of air into BUG decks anyway which is exciting.Originally Posted by btm10
But I have to disagree that Shardless has enough mana creatures, in my experience it's the opposite. Why I've moved away from the deck is I feel like it's about half a turn behind the format at the moment. While Hierarch is a bad cascade, smoothing out clunky draws is potentially what the deck wants. I'll try and get some games in with this build and see how it goes.
I'm interested in hearing about your results. I've actually been very happy with the deck lately, but it seems that we've approached the clunk problem in different ways. I've leaned more heavily on cantrips and on optimizing my curve/mana utilization. I've also been mulliganing fairly aggressively. I definitely think the extra mana dorks are worthwhile once you go down the Leovold path since you'll have a harder time realizing the CA from cards you draw without the extra mana. Exalted is also attractive.
But Sharless BUG has plenty of mana. In fact it sometimes has too much (draw 3 lands off Ancestral Vision anyone?). If you want extra mana you should just play the 23rd land. it's more solid and consistent than another mana dork that can be killed. you don't want to play anything you don't want to cascade into. that's why discard is played at low numbers (because it's not always relevant to what's on the board) and also a lot of times cascading into Deathrite Shaman just feels like the worst thing you could cascade into (assuming all cards in your deck are live during that point in time).
Card selection in shardless bug should always be thought of as how often do I want to cascade into "blank". it's about tuning the deck towards specific matchups to make your cascades more consistent. think you're playing against more creature decks? play less visions or forces and play more strixes. think you're going to play against a lot of control and combo? add more discard and draw spells like Thoughtseize and Sylvan Library.
The same thought process should be considered while sideboarding. Don't sideboard in anything you don't want to cascade into. and don't leave Baleful Strix in against Miracles. I see people do that a lot because it "draws a card". It's bad. Don't do it. Also, if you're leaving in Force of Will post board, count your blue cards to make sure you have enough. with 4 Force of Wills you want a minimum of 18 blue cards (including the Force of Wills). if you don't have at least 18 after sideboarding, you may want to consider shaving some number of them. This can be tricky since a lot of our sideboard cards aren't actually blue cards.
While I agree with the sentimemt (and overall approach to the deck), I think you're not distinguishing between lands as mana sources and Deathrite and Hierarch as mana sources. Hierarch and Deathrite get worse as he game goes on, but they're never dead theway a land is. Exalted is meaningful text no matter whatthe opponent is doing, and Deathrite is still Deathrite. I think that there's a strong argument for at least a fifth mana dork if you're adding Leovold to the main since he's slow on his own and unlike Agent Leovold requires that you actually pay for the extra cards you draw. Sometimes Cascade fails you, but that's a risk of playing the deck.
You've got a good general principle here, but there are some cards that are locks: if you want to run zero Decay, you probably just want to play another deck. There's also the converse of your statement: sometimes you run cards that cost 3 just to make sure you can't Cascade into them but you still want that effect in your deck, and then there's Vision itself, which is a horrible late-game topdeck but an excellent Cascade pretty much all the time. I'm also not allergic to certian comditional cards in Shardless. When various TNN Blade decks were common, Golgari Charm pulled its weight purely on flexibility: an answer to TNN, a counter for Supreme Verdict, Enchantment removal, and a hoser for Elves and D&T in one sideboard slot. Did you sometimes Cascade into it on a empty board or when your opponent just had a Batterskull or Stoneforge Mystic? Sure, but it was totally worth having in the deck. Similarly, I was very high on Dimir Charm before Eldrazi happened. The cards you wanted to counter were overwhelmingly Sorceries anyway, and being removal for most of the widely played creatures in the format meant that it wasn't dead in fair matchups. Sometimes it was a low value Cascade hit, but that's a price worth paying. Flusterstorm is also somewhat common, and Surgical Extraction is far and away the most commonly played Graveyard hate in successful lists. Both are usually mediocre to bad Cascades, but running them isn't strictly incorrect.Card selection in shardless bug should always be thought of as how often do I want to cascade into "blank". it's about tuning the deck towards specific matchups to make your cascades more consistent.
Agree. In principle these rules are solid, I think I'm less inclined to play reactive cards like Golgari Charm than you are, but there are certainly matchups/metas where it's OK to do so. I've seen a pretty big uptick in TNNs recently, so Charm may have a slot. Other options I'm considering are Diabolic Edict and Engineered Plague. I'm really liking the idea of overloading on Edicts in the SB, probably 3. It's good vs TNN/Angler/Goyf/Mongoose from Delver decks, Marit Lage from Lands, Eldrazi etc.
My thoughts exactly! Noble may be a lousy cascade on occasion, but there is a high enough reward in my mind to justify trying it. I got in a bunch of games with the deck over the weekend with some friends and it felt really smooth. I cascaded into Noble once and it was still fine. Having additional creatures, as small as she is, with Jitte came up a couple of times too.
Leo also gives us the nice option of playing some Mindbreak Traps for storm. Drawing 10+ cards off Tendrils should hopefully find one.
the only justification to running that many 1 mana creatures would be if you're running Opposition. BUG Opposition is a deck that's popped up here lately. it may be more of what you're looking for.
I disagree, Leovold on turn two is insanely powerful against the whole format, he demands an answer in so many matchups. Additionally Agent or Strix/Goyf + Wasteland are all strong plays as well as simply being able to play around Daze vs Delver decks. There's also ramping into Jace and Jitte + equip.
I realise Noble is not the norm and she may end up not being the direction this deck wants, but I still think with the printing of Leovold it's an avenue that's worth exploring. I'm playing the additional dorks for tempo, the card disadvantage is recouped easily with this deck.
My suspicion is that Leovold BUG is more of a parallel BUG deck than it is an outgrowth of Shardless, but I think that's where you gain the most from Hierarch as an additional mana dork. Not making black is a pretty big drawback for Shardless as its typically built, but I think that Leovold encourages and enables more of an aggro-control approach since both halves of his ability facilitate protecting the queen. I'm liking him as a 1-of in my sideboard for grindy matchups, but don't think I should be trying to open up MD slots for him.
I'm running a sideboard Deluge over Charm right now because of how often I want to cast it for more than 1.
I really like Edicts, but I also really like having 1-mana removal, so my sideboard spot removal is 2 Disfigure + 1 Dismember. In a metagame with less D&T I'd run an Edict or two, but killing a turn 1 Mother of Runes is too important to cut a 1 cmc removal spell for a 2 cmc removal spell.
What're y'alls plans against grixis delver? The deck has been giving me fits lately! When I'm on the draw i feel like I'm always on the back foot and that shardless is a deck that's at least a turn or two too slow. On the play this feels much different. I'm siding out all my hymns all my lilianas (whether they're on pyromancer or not) and 1 force for a disfigure golgari charm toxic deluge maelstrom pulse and murderous cut. Playing around stifle, daze and for haymakers like maelstrom pulse playing around spell pierce gives them so much time to do damage it feels miraculous to stabilize lately. The two strixes (wish i had more, leovold is in the 3rd strix slot but he seems powerful in this matchup too), goyfs and maindeck jitte seem like my important cards.
What do ya think?
Pulse is pretty mediun against them, but I would never board Liliana out - she's great in that matchup, especially if they aren't playing Pyromancer. The basic gameplan is to overload on removal and Jund them out. A typical game 2 plan (on the draw, with them having Stifle and Young Pyromancer) is:
-3 Hymn to Tourach
+2 Disfigure
+1 Dismember
I'm running a pretty hostile maindeck (1/1/1 Deluge/Pulse/Jitte) but if you're running something clunkier or with more discard/Jace then I'd look to cut those for more removal. Hymn is pretty solid on the play against the Stifle version. I wouldn't cut Forces simply because you're fine trading cards for time in that matchup. Prioritize killing Delvers, then Deathrites, then Anglers, and finally Young Pyromancers. It takes a lot of Elementals to get around even 2-3 X/2s, and Goyfs should be bigger than Anglers most of the time.
My main is the same with the jitte/deluge/pulse so after board I have 2 deluge 2 pulse with pulse and murderous cut neon my answers to gurmag. I'll test keeping the lilianas in this week if anything it's more removal but you rely so heavily on a board wipe to get good use out of her.
What do you do in the following situation:
You resolve Liliana on the following board in game 1:
You: Shardless Agent, Tarmogoyf (4/5, no good way for opponent to shrink it), Deathrite Shaman, Bayou(untapped) Sea, Trop, Swamp, Vision on 3 counters, Hymn and Catacombs in hand, you're at 8 life.
Opponent: Deathrite, Young Pyromancer, 2 tokens, Gurmag Angler, 1 card in hand, Sea, Volc (both tapped), 14 life. They've cast one bolt.
+1 liliana discarding the land and leave up deathrite, although the land might have more utility than the hymn at this point. On upkeep check the graveyard to see if they could cast a gurmag off of the top with what's in their graveyard and use deathrite accordingly. if they attack with gurmag block with the shardless most likely growing goyf big enough to block gurmag profitabl in the following turns. You've stabilized somewhat and now try to resolve your ancestral.
What are the Tarmogoyf pumps; What's in the yard?
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Those sorts of lines are what I've seen people screw up the most, so you're doing the right thing. I probably wouldn't bother activating Deathrite, but that's minor. You might be catching the wrong end of variance. The matchup is only slightly favorable ao it's entirely possible to lose.
so it looks like Leovold is here to stay huh?
I'm considering him for the board, don't love him in the main unless you're cutting back on 3 mana removal like Pulse and Deluge.
i think we would be fools being in bug colors to not seriously think about running leovold in our 75s considering that he shuts off your opponents brainstorms and ponders (#1 and #4 of the top most cards in legacy right now) and then it makes wasteland (#2 most played card in legacy right now) less efficient. @btm i agree hes somewhat awkward in the 3 drop slot and also being all three colors, but i really do believe his pros outweigh his cons, ive been running him since he became legal and there has not been a moment where i felt like "what the hell is this doing here, i wish this were something else right now".
Could you post your most recent list and success? Leovold intrigues me.
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=14310&d=285408&f=LE
Only 3 5-0 but plenty of 4-1 on mtgo.
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