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

[Bed Decks Palyer]

How does that sound?

Pretty good. Also, I think we should start to use fingertoppskänsla as a new MtG terminus technicus. :-)
I like the idea of general guidelines, and I hope that you'll find a way how to keep space for every pilot while simultaneously making a helpful sb recipe.
Also, I hope that you'll find time and courage to bring RUG to one of the tournaments you've mentioned, it'll be lovely to make some other result. Good luck!

I've been playing Rug since delver was introduced to the format, I rarely board out daze and stifle. Even on the draw I don't board daze out, the card I board out the most in just about every match-up is FOW. The draw back of losing a blue card to it means games. I hate pitching cards to it. The sideboard I've been running the most of is 1 sulfur elemental, 1 V-Clique, 2 REB, 1 Pyroblast, 3 Submerge, 1 grafdiggers, 1 Spell Pierce, 1 Flusterstorm, 1 Kgrip, 1 Ancient Grudge and 2 rough/tumble. I consider flusterstorm a flex spot mostly. I do like life of the loam a lot in the deck, it's won me so many games. I plan on trying out a Divert or a Ghost quarter in the future. For boarding against BUG I board out FOW and bring in 3 Submerge and Spell Pierce. For Elves I board out usually Daze depending on the play or draw and board in Rough/Tumble, Graf and 1 Spell Pierce. For DnT I board out usually FOW and bring in Sulfur, 2 Rough/Tumble and 1 Grudge. For SnT I board out Lightningbolt and play the 3 blasts and 1 Pierce. I can't think of any match-ups really right now. I mean its kind of obvious to me on what to take out and what to board in for match-ups since I've been playing the deck for a long ass time.

Yeah, you're pretty much right. I sb out one or two Dazes on draw, and I nearly never take out Stifles, unless there's zero targets for it (does such a deck even exist?); I also quite often take out most of FoWs, and Spell Snare/Pierce and or Forked Bolt come out in matchups where they don't matter.
I don't sb Bolts too often, except against heavy control (and even then it's a questionable choice to take them out, as every Bolt works like poor man's Time Walk; otoh, we need creatures, some ways to protect them and an out to CB/Entreat/younameit, so maybe cutting Bolts is necessary).
As Purgatory wrote, there are times when I hesitate to sb out FoWs, as it's versatile card and there are matchups where you need it, because there are many different threats and you can't solve them with specialized cards. But I don't have any example at ready...

[Purgatory]

I think we should start to use fingertoppskänsla as a new MtG terminus technicus. :-)

I completely concur, and I'll be sure to use it in the guide :)

Thanks for the feedback so far guys!

[Bed Decks Palyer]

A question:
I looked through the cousin thread (bUrg Tempo) and I noticed a very strange, yet a bit interesting card being advocated as a sb slot. It's meant as a protection from Abrupt Decays (and "REB your bug" types of play) that spoil our fun every now and then. The card?

Mizzium Skin

Is it any good? It costs as few mana as possible and on rare occasions (FB/Pyrokinesis targeting two unflipped Delvers) it may save two dudes. Otoh, it's extremely narrow. Even the bonus is unworthy, as Goyfs already can't kill themselves, and Insectiles would still die.
IDK. It stops Swords to Plows and might be good against Pyroclasm or Jitte counters.

[Purgatory]

I think it's way too narrow.

[ShiftyKapree]

A question:
I looked through the cousin thread (bUrg Tempo) and I noticed a very strange, yet a bit interesting card being advocated as a sb slot. It's meant as a protection from Abrupt Decays (and "REB your bug" types of play) that spoil our fun every now and then. The card?

Mizzium Skin

Is it any good? It costs as few mana as possible and on rare occasions (FB/Pyrokinesis targeting two unflipped Delvers) it may save two dudes. Otoh, it's extremely narrow. Even the bonus is unworthy, as Goyfs already can't kill themselves, and Insectiles would still die.
IDK. It stops Swords to Plows and might be good against Pyroclasm or Jitte counters.

I honestly would rather play divert than that card considering, I haven't tested it in a but being able to blow up a tarmgoyf or deathrite from divert is hilarious and good. Most likely depending on the next tournament I attend if bug is still in huge numbers I'm going to play divert. I'm in my last semester now so I really haven't had time to play anything except EDH and some legacy games.

[sawatarix]

I have had long discussions concerning RUG in the past,present and especially in the future with my group of experienced players and there were interesting brews/cardchoices we worked on.
That's the List i would play right right now:

Deck: "The pure RUG-Star"

Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard

Creatures:10
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 True-Name Nemesis

Spells:32
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
4 Daze
2 Dismember
4 Force of Will

Lands:18
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:15
2 Flusterstorm
3 Forked Bolt
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Submerge


The preordain also could be the 7th removal i guess.
Played in a local tournament last week and succeed.
The deck is a bit slower than the current stock list but plays very similar to the traditional canadian ******** list (4 goose+4 goyf),kinda controlish.
The big advantage is that we don't have to use force of will to protect our creatures because they have shroud obviously.(exeption:delver which gets sometimes boardet out postboard)
The games turnes put like this:
You land a thread they can't handle and then disrupt all their plans with infinite countermagic/removal.
And it works pretty well so far.

Ideas and feedback are appreciated,sawatarix


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Bed Decks Palyer]

That's the List i would play right right now:

Deck: "The pure RUG-Star"

Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard

Creatures:10
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
2 True-Name Nemesis
...

Ideas and feedback are appreciated,sawatarix

I don't know. It's nice to have creatures that don't need nursing (except for Delver, but yeah, he's meant to deal nine damage and then TNN finishes the game), but I still think that Goyf is too fast and big to not include it. You may play a 3/4 Goyf on turn2 and then it blocks all the annoying creatures ever (Lackey, most of DnT dudes, Confidant, etc.) or it immediatelly starts dealing damage in matchups where it matters (combo and control).
But the fact that the deck is less reliable on grave and that TNN presents a reasonable clock/block, moreover one that's nearly impossible to get rid of... well, maybe this is viable approach.
Btw, any chance the deck would improve with one USea somewhere in there andthe Dismembers switched to Decays? No, I don't wanna sidegrade the pile into bUrg, after all, there's not a single DRS in it, but I'd be interested in opinion about Dismember vs. Decay. But I guess Wasteland is a card, so why make the manabase fragile just because of one or two cards.

[poxy14]

@sawatarix: ive tried playing that same crit config last month but with (4 delvers, 3 goose, 3 goyfs, 2 tnns)
with already 12 crits, sometimes i cant draw a clock, after lots of cantripping... (though a landed delver and goyf can easily be targeted), i agree that with ur list, the only thing we need to protect is them delvers...

sometimes i miss goyf, when i face dredge, tribal decks, burn, goyf dec...
but literally fast vs slow decks... i usually board em out when i see white (rip) and rely with them too when i face burn...when mongoose is real slow vs a resolved gob guide..
my deck that top'ed last sunday was (4 delvers, 3 goose, 4 goyfs, 1 tnn)
goyfs did nothing against removals, and this is were i missed the 4th goose.. or the 2nd tnn...

this May 4 ill be going with this list (4 delvers, 3 goyfs, 3 goose, 1 tnn and 1 vendilion clique)
tnn is slow, but gives us game mid range...i'll take away some its' slowness by replacing it with a cliq..
i'll test this sat and give u guys updates...

[Contract Killer]

Well boys I would like to present to you the newest edition to RUG removal:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/jo...spite-of-mogis
I mean it doesn't deal damage to the face which is a huge bummer in the matches where they don't have creatures (combo, miracles, etc). The thing that this card does bring to the table is an out to resolved batterskulls, goyf stalemates, tombstalkers and pretty much any targetable creature in the format. Hell we might even be able to kill a resolved griselbrand now not that we should let it resolve to begin with, but extra outs are nice. The scry as an extra bit of card filter seems really good as well. Overall in the course of a game we by turn 3 or 4 (from my experience) have done at least 1 cantrip, 1 counterspell and 1 removal. The downsides are blanking as a turn 1 removal spell for deathrite among other creatures. What are your thoughts?

[Blitzkreuz]

At first I really thought wow,this will replace my forked bolts,but you said it yourself,it cannot deal with sth as first turn answer (deathrite or mother). Maybe as 1 off?

Or maybe sideboard material? Would definitely kill those damn Kotr. I hate them^^ but is maverick such a dominant deck in the format right now?

Gesendet von meinem HTC One X+ mit Tapatalk

[Vain]

@Contract Killer
Spite of mogis seems pretty bad. Dismember or even flame slash would be better.

@Sawatarix
Glad to see more people cutting goyfs for True-names, as I think that currently TNN>goyf overall.
I play a very similar list to yours but with the following changes:

-3 spell pierce
-1 preordain
-2 Dismember
+3 gitaxian probe
+2 chain lightning
+1 spell snare

I don't really like dismember nor mainboard spell pierce. In my experience, dismember usually ends up as a 'pay 4 life destroy target delver/DRS'. It's a dead card against combo/control and paying 4 life sucks against decks like U/R delver. As for spell pierce, we already play 4 softcounters. Increasing that amount makes your mid- to late game a lot worse. On top of that, since you don't play goyfs, you won't use them as often to counter removal.

I play gitaxian probe for the following reasons:
- The deck is pretty low on creatures, so playing more cantrips doesn't seem like a bad idea.
- With the information of gitaxian probe you can sometimes choose to not play your delvers and pitch them to FoWs, blanking removal spells.
- Probe speeds up getting threshold.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

At first I really thought wow,this will replace my forked bolts,but you said it yourself,it cannot deal with sth as first turn answer (deathrite or mother). Maybe as 1 off?

Or maybe sideboard material? Would definitely kill those damn Kotr. I hate them^^ but is maverick such a dominant deck in the format right now?

I don't mind KotR, it's not played in big numbers and you got Surmerge for her. What is more frightening is non-Forested Tombstalker (all the Pox, WB, mono-B and similar decks; not that those are that usual) that you cannot Submerge and is too big for a sole Bolt. And of course Batterskull in any UW/non-G deck that is once again too big to burn and your only out is one Grudge. Still, the card seems narrow and the fact that it does very little in the opening turns when you need to remove the turn1 bug/DRS/MoR is what killed it.
Also, do we really need another card cold to RiP?


Vain, I like your reasoning. But I still can't send my Goyfs to bed, they are so good in tribal matchups. Also, I don't own any TNNs and I don't plan to buy any, the card is hiddeous (I may just as well start playing Infernal Tutors, Dark Confidants and Cabal Therapies), moreovoer I don't trust it will last for long. (But then again if they don't ban it on the next announcement, then they'll never do it.)

[cheerios]

To the guys playing TNN, have you not missed rough/tumble? Rough/tumble is one of the best sb cards for us. The card together with submerge just owns elves. The card is also pretty good against vial decks.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[Emo]

I played in a small tournament last night with some mixed success going 2-2 losing to lands and deathblade and managing to beat imperial painter and miracles. I managed to steal a win from lands (which is a tough matchup) on the play game 2. Against deathblade I lost games 2 and 3 because of TNN. Everyone I encounter keeps on beating the same drum by saying the way to beat TNN is to "never to let it resolve", but those decks that play it run IOK/thoughtseize, hymn (on occassion), and substantial permission which more often than not, is enough to overpower our permission. In both games last night I had a superior board position with multiple green threats and cards in hand like bolt and pierce, but in both instances a topdecked TNN single-handedly took over the game. I honestly think the best way to deal with TNN is by including a small number of TNNs of our own as others have stated earlier in this thread. I bought a TNN yesterday and felt disgusted and ashamed with myself as a person .

I don't want to cut all my goyfs and can't decide what is a better split 2 goyf/2 TNNs or 3 goyf 1 TNN- what are other people's thoughts/ experience with the number of TNN's they run? The card seems clunky but also necessary.

[Myelectronicdays]

There are tnns all over my meta... im packing like 3 rebs and 3 pyros in my SB.. those dudes never hit the board.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Emo, I got similar feeling like you got, it's extremely hard to counter TNN esp. preboard when we don't have those additional Blasts. I guess I should swallow my pride and purchase one TNN and see what happens. That, or maybe use Clique to fly over the ground stalls and take away their equips, Termini and ITs.
I think one TNN should be enough. You got lots of digging power to find a singleton gamebreaking card, and honestly, it's not like RUG with it's manabase and no acceleration may play more than one, two at the very most.
I'm just throwing some stuff on MKM, so once I'll acquire enough funds for the ugly rogue, I'll get myself one copy. If they ban it, so be it. Guess I may use it in EDH...

A small idea: What are people's opinions on these two creatures:
Riptide Pilferer (to fight combo and control)
Trygon Predator (to fly over TNN and eat BSK, Jitte and such)

I guess their far too expensive and/or they lack at least one in power (Pilferer) or thoughness (Predator) to be relevant in combat and withstand usual removal. Otoh, I'm starting to hate all those Vials, Jittes, CBs and similar stuff, and Pilferer is (may be) quite solid against combo to prevent their sculpting. With Crypt/Relic, they can't PiF you out of nowhere, and SnT doesn't like to discard cards either.
But I need to admit that I got soft spot for Trygon Predator ever since I played NQGw in a Counterbalance/CotV infested metagame, and it was much better in a deck with 18 real lands and an occasional Werebear to pay for Daze. Pilferer seems like a very funny card, and its effect is pretty unexpected in blue shell, otoh, it's not like tapping for 1/1 on turn2 is without danger, so yes, maybe it's just that, a funny card.

There are tnns all over my meta... im packing like 3 rebs and 3 pyros in my SB.. those dudes never hit the board.

How does your board look like? I'd say one may cut some number of Flusters, as REBs may work in the Storm or Miracles mu, but still, it's whopping six slots occupied with what's simply one card, so I'm pretty interested what have you done with your sb. (Not that I never thought about six REBs before, just that it's a confessed fear and you may lack those slots in other matchups.)

[Contract Killer]

TNN should stay out of our md at the very least. The card is just bad in every way with what we're trying to accomplish. In addition he's so bad against combo when you have to tap out where with goyf you could leave at least one mana up or play him a turn earlier. Playing a 3 mana threat significantly lowers the power of daze since we need more mana and we're wanting to wasteland/daze them.
Now as for playing against him to say the least just run more burn to aim at the head. With my 8 bolt plan I haven't really had any issue with him and denying their mana helps a lot too. If you force them to counter your stifles you'll have more permission for TNN itself. Sideboard 2 price of progress really do help to deal with the TNN shells since all the decks that run him UWR, BUG, deathblade etc have absurd mana bases. All those decks extend to at least 4 non basics at any one time.

[poxy14]

I personally hate that abomination too(tnn), find it too uninteractive and unfun..but rug's ability to adjust and adapt to current situations made this archetype so good the past years..red,blue and green offers amazing tools and that kept us strong battling adversities...i think its bout time to readjust..i hate tnn, but what can i do..if only i would be able to keep every tnn.dec from going to three manas, or counter it without my opponent countering back..then thats good game for my ground green armies, but once resolved..usually 8 of these folds on just ONE card..and that sucks..i would however suggest to cut one goyf, if ur planning to test tnn, 2 is clunky, and ive tested it..several times i just pitch my tnn to fow to counter a tnn..if its a goyf or a goose, it should be over for us..goyf trumps tribal, but is very vulnerable to removals..a combo of 1tnn, 1cliq, 3goose, 3goyfs and 4delvers excites me..i once pondered maindecking a sulfur vs fourth goyf when dnts were rampant..we have answers.to evrything and tnn. We just need to adjust a bit..once again.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Yeah, I think both of you are right. The eight bolts builds should fare well against slower decks esp. if they rely on SFM->BSK->TNN to stop our initial onslaught. A ground 3/1 dude shouldn't be that threatening if you manage to slow down theirdevelopment long enough to let their life points drop below ten or so where Chain Lightning Bolts should end the game.
I guess that TNN is pretty weak in RUG. We don't want to tap out for it jus tto let the opponent get himself out of Stifle lock, or resolve Terminus or simply combo out. And, if there's some build that may use the ugly merfolk, I think that 4/4/3/1/1 split of Delver, Mongoose, Goyf, TNN and Clique may be the best. You'll have some fast flyer, a hard-to-remove ground beater, solid wall and a quick attacker, a dude to breakthrough in the midgame and an evasive and disruptive flash faerie.

[Emo]

Sideboard 2 price of progress really do help to deal with the TNN shells since all the decks that run him UWR, BUG, deathblade etc have absurd mana bases. All those decks extend to at least 4 non basics at any one time.

I hadn't thought about this but you are absolutely right about POP- It shines against the greedy mana bases that run TNN- I will try running two of these in the board because it so happens to be another great card against lands (another matchup I hate)

I ..a combo of 1tnn, 1cliq, 3goose, 3goyfs and 4delvers excites me..i once pondered maindecking a sulfur vs fourth goyf when dnts were rampant..we have answers.to evrything and tnn. We just need to adjust a bit..once again.

Yeah, I think both of you are right. The eight bolts builds should fare well against slower decks esp. if they rely on SFM->BSK->TNN to stop our initial onslaught. A ground 3/1 dude shouldn't be that threatening if you manage to slow down theirdevelopment long enough to let their life points drop below ten or so where Chain Lightning Bolts should end the game.
I guess that TNN is pretty weak in RUG. We don't want to tap out for it jus tto let the opponent get himself out of Stifle lock, or resolve Terminus or simply combo out. And, if there's some build that may use the ugly merfolk, I think that 4/4/3/1/1 split of Delver, Mongoose, Goyf, TNN and Clique may be the best. You'll have some fast flyer, a hard-to-remove ground beater, solid wall and a quick attacker, a dude to breakthrough in the midgame and an evasive and disruptive flash faerie.

Thank you and I agree that the split of 1 TNN 1 Clique seems versatile and well suited for the mid game and is the optimal split, I think I am going to try out either the 4/4/3/1/1 split or the 4/3/3/1/1 split.