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Thread: [Deck] Canadian Threshold (aka RUG Delver, Tempo Thresh)

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    [Deck] Canadian Threshold (aka RUG Delver, Tempo Thresh)

    Link to the old thread: Click

    Note: This primer is meant to be extensive. If you're a seasoned player of either the deck, or even perhaps Legacy as a whole, there might be some familiar truths further down. This primer was written with new players in mind, but it assumes familiarity with Magic as a game at least. It uses some common colloquial Magic terminology. Though the writer's own Magic resume might be modest, other writers with proven skill are quoted or referenced throughout the primer.


    Background:
    Threshold as a deck has its roots in both the old Extended format and in Vintage. In Extended, there once existed a deck known as Gro, an aggro-control deck, blue-green, with a very low mana curve, plenty of cantrips and big green finishers like Werebear and Quirion Dryad. In Vintage, around 2005, there was a deck dubbed "Birdsh*t", which paired the disruptive elements of the Fish decks (Stifle, Wasteland, Daze, Force of Will, Misdirection) with creatures like Nimble Mongoose, Werebear and Meddling Mage. These decks could be regarded as the progenitors of the first Legacy Threshold lists.

    In the beginning, Threshold came in very different varieties - some splashed white for Swords to Plowshares and Mystic Enforcer, some played straight blue-green Threshold, some played Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top, and some played big-impact cards like Blood Moon and Fledgling Dragon. The deck dubbed Canadian Threshold had none of this. It was a raw tempo deck, designed to disrupt the opponents early plays with Stifle and Wasteland, land a creature and protect it with Daze and Force of Will, and ride it all the way home. The deck popularised by David Caplan and Lam Phan looked something like this:


    UGr Canadian Thresh, by David Caplan, circa 2007-2008

    2 Flooded Strand
    2 Polluted Delta
    2 Wooded Foothills
    4 Wasteland
    4 Tropical Island
    4 Volcanic Island

    4 Nimble Mongoose
    4 Tarmogoyf

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Spell Snare
    4 Stifle
    4 Daze
    4 Force of Will
    4 Lightning Bolt
    4 Fire // Ice
    1 Rushing River
    1 Wipe Away

    It's amazing how much of the deck is still relevant today. Above is essentially the same deck that's still relevant in today's Legacy meta game. Caplan's list plays full sets of Spell Snare and Fire // Ice, which one won't see today, and the last two cards were considered "flex slots" even back then, but otherwise it's very similar to the RUG lists of today. Caplan lists some of his achievements with the list in this article.

    Canadian Threshold (henceforth known as RUG for the sake of brevity) existed almost unchanged all the way up to the release of Innistrad. Up until then, new cards like Green Sun's Zenith, Dismember and maybe above all, Spell Pierce was played in both the main deck and sideboard with varying success. Innistrad, however, had Delver of Secrets. This humble common Transform creature turned out to be a true powerhouse, and it pushed RUG to the very forefront of the format, as one of the best decks - if not the very best deck in Legacy.


    RUG today:
    Back during Caplan's success with the list, it was commonly agreed that 58 of the cards in the main deck were tried, tested and true, and only the flex slots - commonly consisting of either catch-all bounce spells in Rushing River, Wipe Away or very early Snapback, or more threats like Vendilion Clique - were ever up for debate. These days, we're at six flex slots, and the common "Thresh 54" looks like this:

    8 fetch lands
    4 Wasteland
    3 Tropical Island
    3 Volcanic Island

    4 Delver of Secrets
    4 Nimble Mongoose
    4 Tarmogoyf

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Stifle
    4 Daze
    4 Force of Will
    4 Lightning Bolt

    These 54 cards make up the foundation of RUG, and as a player one needs very strong reasons to make any changes to these cards. The last six cards, however, are completely meta-dependant and up to personal preference. A common set up is:

    2 Spell Pierce
    2 Spell Snare
    2 Forked Bolt

    Other cards that could be a part of these flex slots include, but are not limited to, Dismember, Fire // Ice, Gitaxian Probe, Chain Lightning and more rarely Tarfire. These eight cards are up to each individual pilot, and each come with its own up- and downsides. In a meta of mostly fair decks, meaning decks that actually pay for its spells and wins with creatures, it makes sense to stick up on more removal. Forked Bolt is the preferred method, since it comes with the ability to trade two-for-one, but Tarfire is instant and pumps Tarmogoyf, Chain Lightning is excellent when it comes to aiming for the opponent's face, and Dismember can kill Tarmogoyfs, Batterskull tokens and other larger creatures and so on. On the other hand, in a meta game of unfair decks, decks that tend to cast nine spells and then a Tendrils of Agony or put a Griselbrand into play without paying full price, it's preferred to play with more counter magic.

    Most tend to go down a middle road and play a bit of each.


    The controversial Probe
    Gitaxian Probe is the odd one out, and hasn't found real popularity quite yet, but needs to be evaluated in a different light than the other cards. A turn 1 Gitaxian Probe can provide extremely useful information for the RUG pilot, for example, whether or not one should leave mana up for Stifle or play a Delver. It also often pumps Tarmogoyf, since RUG tends to play only Ponder and Forked Bolt for Sorcerys, and it is a card in the graveyard for threshold and thus Nimble Mongoose. Lastly it cantrips, and it does all of this for absolutely no mana. Pilots of UWR Delver has known the power of Gitaxian Probe for quite some time now, and while UWR is also a tempo deck with cards that tend to lose power the further the game knows, they often don't play Stifle, one of Legacy's most situational but powerful cards. They also don't have any creatures with threshold, and only rarely even utilize the grave through Grim Lavamancer. RUG loves cards in the graveyard a lot more, and also plays Stifle and should in theory make better use of the card than UWR Delver.

    Lately even BUG Delver pilots have begun tinkering with the card. Jerry Mee took this list all the way to third place at SCG Providence in June of 2014, and while the deck is BUG in colours, it's RUG at heart, with Stifle, Spell Pierce and only 18 lands, all three not common choices for the archetype known as Team America. Jerry Mee also chose to play 62 cards in his main deck to fit in the entire set of Gitaxian Probes, and stresses the importance of the card in this report here on the Source.

    While playing more than 60 cards in RUG might not be correct, it is evident that the RUG pilot seriously needs to consider Gitaxian Probe in the main deck.


    The 54 and why they're awesome, or card-by-card analysis:
    The lands: Earlier versions of RUG played mostly the same manabase as the RUG of today, but with the ratio of fetch lands and duals swapped. Today, most people prefer to go with 8 fetch lands and 6 duals, to help Nimble Mongoose grow, and to power up Brainstorm and Ponder. Wasteland is technically a land, but is rarely used to cast spells. In most RUGs, the only spell in in the main deck Wasteland could help cast is Tarmogoyf, and even then it is quite rare.

    Wasteland could be regarded as a zero-mana Stone Rain which prevents you from using your own land drop that turn. Even then, it's extremely powerful. However, it is best used when RUG is already ahead on the board, or else it just prolongs the game in the best-case scenario and sets RUG back even further in the worst-case scenario.


    The creatures: These twelve creatures are pound-for-pound some of the most efficient beaters in the format. Nimble Mongoose is the creature that separates RUG from other Delver decks, and it is immensely helpful against decks with cheap and efficient spot-removal, such as Swords to Plowshares, Abrupt Decay or Lightning Bolt. It is rather slow, compared to the other two creatures however, but worth its weight in gold in some match-ups.

    Contrary to many other Legacy decks, the creatures in RUG are there to so what creatures were designed to do - swing for the fences. There is nothing fancy about the creatures here, they are just ruthless, efficient and above all, cheap to cast.


    Daze and Force of Will: These counterspells are part of what makes RUG such a strong deck. Its inherent ability to interact with the opponent even while tapped out means RUG is often able to drop a creature and protect it even when seemingly out of options. Daze is stronger in RUG than in other decks like UWR Delver or BUG Delver, in the former case because Stifle means Daze is relevant for more turns, and in the latter because RUG's curve is lower, and returning an Island to your hand is therefore a relatively cheaper price to pay.

    These can be boarded out in some match-ups, however. Daze is a lot weaker on the draw than on the play, and Force of Will is quite bad when RUG is faced with another fair deck, because trading two cards for one with the opponent is not what you want to do when you're in for a race.


    Lightning Bolt: This is quite frankly one of the most flexible, if not the most flexible, removals in all of Magic. It is often used to remove blockers or take down creatures with some sort of utility (Deathrite Shaman, Stoneforge Mystic or Dark Confidant, just to name a few), but it can also be used to close a game earlier than an opponent predicts. A Lightning Bolt to the face is an entire turn of swinging with a flipped Delver of Secrets or a threshed Nimble Mongoose. It can be sided out against combo decks, but this upside, the fact that it can be aimed at the opponent, means that it's far from as dead as other removal spells like Swords to Plowshares or Abrupt Decay against combo.


    Stifle: This card has been an issue for debate for a lot of RUG's life in the format. Drew Levin, in his old Threshold primer, talks the card down, but he still includes it in a newer article about a year and a half later. Stifle is one of those cards that has a million applications, but is in itself not that powerful. It is included primarily to counter fetch land activations, but in reality it has to be used more like a utility spell, being both a permanent solution in some cases and a temporary solution in others.

    It can be used as a permanent answer to Legacy's plethora of abilities against cards like Stoneforge Mystic's, Rest in Peace's or Snapcaster Mage's enters-the-battlefield triggers, against Miracle triggers on Terminus, against Cascade triggers on Shardless Agent or Bloodbraid Elf, against the trigger cards like Ancestral Vision creates when the last counter is removed, against Engineered Explosives, Pernicious Deed and so on.

    Further, it is a temporary solution to cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Lilliana of the Veil, or Batterskull. The fact that Stifle is temporary in these situations is moot, RUG thrives on the tempo these plays create.

    Historically, Stifle has fallen out of favour because of other decks like Merfolk which are more or less Stifle-proof. These days, play it and play the set. Learn to cast it for tempo and value.


    Brainstorm and Ponder: The former of these two is rather controversial, and most players, from the loudest players in the "ban Brainstorm" camp to the most ardent of its defenders, agree that it is probably the best card in the format. It is therefor a shame that so many people make grave mistakes when playing with it. Newer players might get stuck at the card type line and play it exclusively at the end of the opponent's turn, only to untap and immediately draw one of the cards he or she put back. This is far from the optimal way of playing Brainstorm because then it might as well read:


    Bad Brainstorm
    Instant
    Draw three cards then put to cards from your hand on the top of your library in any order. Skip your next two turns.


    This is hyperbole, but it is at least an indicator of what happens when one plays Legacy's best card in the way described above. For context, a well-played Brainstorm is the equivalent of an Ancestral Recall.

    What many newer players fail to realise is that by waiting until your own main phase, Brainstorm digs a card deeper, and therefore lets you see more cards in the end, trading a blue mana for this fact. This trade is well worth it in RUG, which can easily still operate by dropping another land and casting all but four spells in the deck.

    AJ Sacher has written an article about this phenomenon. The article as a whole is well worth the read, but it's not all applicable to RUG. To summarise, before casting Brainstorm, a RUG pilot should first answer these three questions:

    1. Do I have a way to shuffle my library after casting the Brainstorm?

    2. Do I have two dead cards to put back on top of my library?

    3. Do I need to play a threat, or find the answer to a threat now?

    If the answer to at least one of these questions above is "no", then it's usually better to wait a turn. Save the Brainstorm, see more cards and work with more information. It should be noted that these rules are far from set in stone, and even the most experienced RUG pilot could get Brainstorm-locked (i.e. be forced to put back two bad cards and draw them again naturally over the course of two agonising turns), but it should serve well as a guideline.

    Ponder operates a different space as a cantrip, since it is sorcery speed and comes with a built-in shuffle effect. Its synergy with fetch lands should be noted, however, because it allows the RUG pilot to grab one or two good cards from a Ponder, while shuffling away the bad ones.

    RUG tends to play these cards quite aggressively compared to many other Legacy decks. This is because RUG likes it when it gets to disrupt the opponent's early game, land a threat and then just take it from there, which sometimes means casting Brainstorms and Ponders, especially the latter, only to find a creature to exploit a temporary gain.


    Tempo, or How it Ends:
    Tempo as a term in Legacy has a few different definitions, and it has yet to be explained in this primer, despite occurring numerous times above. Adrian Sullivan writes in an old article that Tempo decks "Generally wins the game by playing out creatures quickly and then negating an opponent's attempt to kill them long enough to win the game." This is RUG's very essence, it wants to play an early threat, control the opponent's board development through Stifle and Wasteland, counter answers to RUG's threats with Daze and Force of Will and then win before the opponent can get a foot in the door.

    If this plan is somehow evaded, and if the opponent finds ways to interrupt the threats of RUG, or if he somehow gets to play his bombs, RUG will probably lose. Each card in RUG has a small effect, and the pilot must learn to sequence the plays correctly in order to maximise the output from each spell.

    That said RUG top decks quite well. It won't draw itself out of a tight spot with a giant spell that turns the board state around, like a Terminus or a Jace, the Mind Sculptor or things like that, but it does play a criminally low amount of lands, meaning more than two thirds of RUG's draw steps will result in a new spell in hand. This is not to be underestimated.


    On inevitability, and what RUG's up against
    Mike Flores writes in "Who's The Beatdown?" about the different roles different decks might assume in a game of Magic. The article, despite its age, is worth the read if you haven't read it already, but essentially - Flores states that in a match-up of similar decks, it's important to identify what role you have to play. The two that Flores identify he dubs "beatdown" and "control" respectivly, and he notes that decks could very well in some match-ups be beatdown, but have to switch to a control role in other match-ups, or else they'll lose.

    Flores writes, among other things,:
    In similar deck vs. similar deck matchups, there are a couple of things that you want to look at to figure out what role to play:
    1. Who has more damage? Usually he has to be the beatdown deck.
    2. Who has more removal? Usually he has to be the control deck.
    3. Who has more permission and card drawing? Almost always he has to be the control deck.
    If you are the beatdown deck, you have to kill your opponent faster than he can kill you. If you are the control deck, you have to weather the early beatdown and get into a position where you can gain card advantage.



    I like to use the word "inevitability" instead. Basically, there are decks that, given enough time, will amass the mana and cards necessary to render any attempts from RUG to win the game pointless. For example, a deck like Miracles aims to prolong the game as long as possible, using cards like Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top, Swords to Plowshares + Snapcaster Mage, Terminus, and so on, in an effort to simply survive long enough to make enough land-drops, and eventually cast a Jace, the Mind Sculptor with enough protection to get him to 12+ counters, or an Entreat the Angels with enough angels to kill in a single swing, clearly too many for RUG to deal with. In this match-up, Miracles has the inevitability, do to its higher amount of bombs in the deck, and thus, RUG will have to be the aggressor, the beatdown, in order to win. However, a deck like Team America (BUG Delver) also has the inevitability against RUG, because given enough time, BUG will find one of its Tombstalkers, a creature that RUG has a hard time dealing with, and probably go on to win if it doesn't get countered. Team America will often find itself in the beatdown role, however, so this is never static.

    RUG, because of its blessing as a tempo deck, is often the beatdown, because many opponents have the inevitability. Most decks will beat us if you compare the highest-power card in RUG, with the highest-powered cards in other decks, because the low mana curve and tiny mana base of RUG doesn't have any room for any Jace, the Mind Sculptors, Natural Orders, or other high-power, high-cost spells. RUG's power lies with the early turns of the game, before the opponent can establish a proper board, and as such, RUG can rarely fall back on its own inevitability. It does happen, against Storm combo for example, but RUG rarely have the luxury to fall back on the raw power of its cards.


    RUG in Legacy today:
    Commander 2013 came with an entirely new threat in True-Name Nemesis, and it has certainly made an impact on the format. Looking form RUG's point of view, it can't interact with True-Name Nemesis outside of the stack at all. Other decks have founds tools to deal with it in Golgari Charm, Edicts or similar narrow sideboard tech, some play main deck answers to it in Terminus and Supreme Verdict, while others just plain don't care about it since they are busy trying to be even more un-interactive with cards like Show and Tell or the Storm mechanic.

    RUG will have to face this new threat in some other way, and upping the number of Pyroblasts or Red Elemental Blasts in the sideboard to at least three is a good start. Further, True-Name Nemesis tends to come hand-in-hand with equipments, meaning having a good artifact removal spell like Ancient Grudge, maybe even two, in the sideboard will prevent it from going completely nuts. RUG could in theory play its own True-Name Nemesis, but lacks the equipment or Merfolk lords to make it really worthwhile. Further, it doesn't really want to cast three-mana spells at all.

    Also printed recently (in Legacy time) are three cards from the Return to Ravnica set. One of these, Abrupt Decay, is a removal spell which can't be countered in conventional ways. It doesn't hit Nimble Mongoose, but it does mean that Tarmogoyf and Delver of Secrets are more fragile than ever. Another is a one-mana Planeswalker (more or less) in Deathrite Shaman, which should be killed on-sight every time without mercy. It allows the opponent to negate the mana-denial plan of RUG to some extent, while it shrinks Tarmogoyf and Nimble Mongoose. The last, Rest in Peace, completely shuts down two thirds of RUGs threats, and such should be countered at all times if possible. It can be handled through Stifle to some extent, since it at least lets RUG keep threshold or keep Tarmogoyf at a threatening size, even though it prevents more cards from entering graveyards. RUG also lacks the luxury that Abrupt Decay provides in these circumstances, unfortunately.

    Despite all these new threats to its position, and despite it not doing quite as well right now as it has done for the past year-and-a-half, RUG remains a strong contender in Legacy. It does have a heavy skill requirement on its pilot, but it has proven over and over that it can thrive in almost any given meta game.


    The Controversial Nemesis
    One way to adress parts of the problems listed above, mainly the frailty of some of the deck's threats, and the deck's reliability on the graveyard is to add True-Name Nemesis to it. As far as True-Name Nemesis shells goes, tempo-based RUG is probably one of the least effective, since it lacks the mana-acceleration to power it out in a game's early turns, and it also lacks the equipment necessary to make the True-Name Nemesis truly effective. That said, True-Name Nemesis is one of those cards that many fair decks struggle to deal with, at least pre-board. It's evasive, difficult to remove and can also be a defensive road-block for any non-evasive creature on the other side.

    There are no certainties in Magic, less-so with partially un-proven lists. People have experimented with running various creature bases in the deck, replacing 1-2 Tarmogoyf with True-Name Nemesis while making no other changes to the deck, cutting Tarmogoyf completely for 3 True-Name Nemesis and an Island, and so on. It seems that the metagame have adapted to True-Name Nemesis and he is not the be-all, end-all of creatures that some predicted he would be, but he does make some difficult match-ups on the fair side of the spectrum easier, like Death and Taxes, while still being effectively shroud threat 5+ against Miracles.
    Last edited by Purgatory; 06-30-2014 at 05:42 PM.

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