Shardless Thopters

[The Treefolk Master]

I am creating this thread for the discussion and possible improvement of the deck I ran 12th place out of 105 last Sunday. First and foremost, the list:

4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
4 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
3 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas

4 Shardless Agent
3 Stoneforge Mystic

4 Ancestral Vision
1 Batterskull
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sword of the Meek
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thopter Foundry
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

SB: 2 Supreme Verdict
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Humility
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Flusterstorm

Similar versions can be found on TCDecks and some have 4-0d a few MTGO Daily Events. I was originally clueless on what to play at the tournament, built this deck for fun and promptly 10-1d against a selection of DTB. The one game I lost was to Jund getting a double hymn, Triple Consecutive Bloodbraid draw. I could beat 2 Elves, but 3 were too much for me.

I think the list is pretty self explanatory; although I'll go into details regarding any card choices which you find strange.

My original list was running no MD counterbalances, and had Cliques and Goys in their place. Eventually, I realized Goyf was not doing anything; but combo match ups were atrocious pre-board; which led me to move the Counterbalances to the main deck, and make room in the sideboard for more combo hate (Flusterstorm).

Onto the (brief) report: 105 players means 7 rounds. I took no notes so I'm writing this off memory, and details are fuzzy.

Round 1 BUG Landstill

G1: Keep a one lander with double Brainstorm, double Top, Ancestral 1 random card. He drops an early Standstill, draws every piece of Countermagic in his deck and I scoop to Jace + Liliana + Standstill + Deed.

G2: Mull a no lander, keep a one lander. I assemble Thopter Sword with Academy Ruins recursion, explain to him that he can't really win after he's used his Extirpates on Agents and Mystic, and he agrees to move on to game 3.

G3: Keep a one lander (see the pattern right?). I play a bajillion Shardless Agents and he loses the card advantage war really hard. He made a few misplays which made it even easier for the Thopters. It wasn't even funny.

2-1
1-0

Round 2 ANT:

G1: I know he's on some form of Storm combo, and therefore mulligan to a hand with Force + Counterbalance, and suspend a turn one Visions. He strips my Force with Duress, and even though I topdeck another one to stop him the first time, my Counterbalance whiffs on every spell and I die before the last counter come's off visions.

G2: Mull into oblivion, die with no hate.

0-2
1-1

Round 3: Junk

G1: This is a 30 minute long, kill all your stuff with Decay/Vindicate/Pridemage/Pulse grindfest. In the end, I'm able to get an Academy Ruins which recurs Thopter Foundry and he's finally dead.

G2: His deck does a whole bunch of nothing while I drown him in Thopters.

2-0
2-1

Round 4: RIP Miracles

G1: I suspend 2 early Visions, which is usually awesome against Control, but Counterbalance kills my dream. I sneak through a Stoneforge Mystic which finds Batterskull and he's not able to kill it in time.

G2: I keep an awesome hand with 2 Foundrys, Counterbalance + Top, Sword of the Meek and Lands. He REBs, Forces, Wear//Tears and blind flips a few times to stop everything I have to do. I scoop to Clique + Karakas. Awkward.

G3: This game was way longer than it should have, since he blind flipped my like 3 consecutive times. I'm able to stop him from assembling Counterbalance + Top through Forces and a Krosan Grip. I get my combo down but he has Needle. After several turns of topping, I find Grip, kill his Needle, and make enough Thopters to kill him.

2-1
3-1

Round 5: Infect (how on earth is this guy 3-1?)

G1: He gets several counters on me, but I kill his Glistener Elf in response to Invigorate, stop everything else he has to do with Counterbalance + Top, and start making Thopters to avoid dying to Inkmoth Nexus. He scoops in frustration as he cannot resolve a single spell after Counterbalance gets going.

G2: Extremely similar to game one, except that Abrupt Decay on my Counterbalance buys him some time. Once I lock the game up, he attempts to Decay my Thopter Foundry. I do ye ole' trick of sacking another artifact to make Thopters, bin my Foundry, draw another one, and he picks up his cards furiously.

2-0
4-1

Round 6: ANT

G1: I don't see any disruption and die.

G2: I drop double Counterbalance, double Top, and win in turn five million with Thopters after he fails to find any Decays.

G3: Same as G2. Fun Fact: Has his Xantid Swarms been 1/1, I would have died to damage since he dropped 3 of them.

2-1
5-1

At this point, I'm extremely happy, since I *should* be able to draw into Top 8. Once the standings are posted, I'm obviously in 8th place and have to play.

Round 7: Affinity.

G1: He has a turn one land, memnite, mox, signal pest, frogmite, thoughtcast, turn 2 disciple plating equip swing, turn 3 tezzeret opener.

G2: He has the exact same opener minus Tezzeret + Master of Etherium. I open a non-lander and keep the following 6: 3 Lands, Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek, Batterskull. If he does not disrupt me; I can turn the tides with Thopters. He has Pithing Needle, and I extend the hand.

0-2
5-2

At this point, I'm extremely angry since I've lost my 2nd constructed match to Affinity in 3 years, and end up in 12th place for the millionth time in a row in a Legacy tournament. I get a Polluted Delta for my troubles.

Thoughts:

-At not point during the tournament I was able to cascade into Visions, which is one (the?) of the main interactions the deck is built upon. There's two ways to look at this: (1) The deck still works if plan A does not pan out as planned. (B) Agent is not needed. Visions go suspended A LOT and they were awesome. I took out Agenst against many opponents, but this was mainly due to facing several combo decks. Against BUG Still I drew several Agents and he got crushed by them. I cascaded into Mystic vs. The Rock and he was suddenly under a ton of pressure.

-I took an abnormal number of mulligans during the tournament. On the one hand, I faced combo deck which require aggresive mulligan into hate on my part, but I got many one land hands. I'm attributing this to variance, since a single tournament is not a large sample size by any means, and 22 lands seems a fine number. I could, however, see myself going up to 23...

-The deck crushes any fair deck. We win the card advantage war by a large margin, and no fair deck beats Thopter Sword without dedicated hate. Decay merely delays the inevitable. However, I faced several bad match ups. Any combo deck is bad, Miracles (RIP = ) is bad, and BUG Landstill is also bad (we're advantaged against any form of BUG deck except for this one; Pernicious Deed crushes us and so does Standstill). The fact that I was able to come on top against all of them but one gives me faith in the deck.

-I noticed that creature swarms can be troublesome. 4 Swords is nowhere near enough to stop several creatures, and you can only chump for so long. Sure, its all fine and dandy if you can get your combo down, but its not that easy. I'd like to get a single Terminus into the MD. Candidates for cuts are: 4th Thopter Foundry, 3rd Visions, or just paying 61. I'll probably start with the latter before cutting anything. Plus, Verdicts in the side MIGHT become Terminuses. It being blue and the ability to sweep no questions asked is awesome, but Terminus can be faster if aided by Brainstorm/Top, is instant speed and stops random stuff like Thrun (although the troll should not be a problem).

I was very happy with pretty much anything else, and would play the deck again, although I'd probably try to playtest more. I wen't to the tournament with 0 games with this list, and less than 20 with the one using Tarmogoyfs which I mentioned near the start.

Questions, concerns and suggestions are most welcome. I had a lot of fun with it, it sure felt competitive, and would like to make it as powerful as possible.

[Koby]

So I guess lets start with the obvious. Is the green splash worth the inclusion of Shardless Agent? Does the deck benefit from the less stable manabase for this wild card advantage?

[phazonmutant]

Alphastryk and I started a thread with a similar idea a while bad, maybe it could be useful to you?
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...hrite-Thopters

We both ended up dropping it after a couple of weeks, but it was really sweet. Overall, Tezzeret was marginal, Lili was hard to cast but very strong, the red splash was bad, and Top seemed to be too mana hungry. I didn't get to test Stoneforge that much, but it seemed pretty ok.
I think Deathrite would be a strong inclusion in your list. Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay are also a considerations, but there is a very real cost to the manabase for being incentivized to fetch B early. Basically, you should decide what are your primary colors and what are your splash colors. You could go UB splashing G and W for Decay, Deathrite, SFM; or you could go UW splashing BG for Deathrite and Thoughtseize. UB could get you discard and Lili, but makes it hard to play Swords to Plowshares.

I think that if you want to beat combo, playing Top-CB with Cascaders is not the way to go. Top and CB are both nonbos with Vision. It wasn't especially good even in my build. 4 Thopter Foundry might be too many if you're only playing 1 Sword. Depends how dependent on the combo you want to be.

So I guess lets start with the obvious. Is the green splash worth the inclusion of Shardless Agent? Does the deck benefit from the less stable manabase for this wild card advantage?

I think G is worth it if and only if you're playing Deathrite.

[Anusien]

I am not sure you can turn 3 new cards into victory very effectively.

[The Treefolk Master]

So I guess lets start with the obvious. Is the green splash worth the inclusion of Shardless Agent? Does the deck benefit from the less stable manabase for this wild card advantage?

To be honest; I'm not sure. I THINK it is, but I did well on sunday mainly without the help of Shardless Agent + Visions. It surely would have mattered more had I faced a larger number of BGx decks. It has crossed my mind to simply make it straight UW, but I would not cut Visions. The card is great; specially with all the Shaman decks running around.

phazonmuant
Alphastryk and I started a thread with a similar idea a while bad, maybe it could be useful to you?
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...hrite-Thopters

We both ended up dropping it after a couple of weeks, but it was really sweet. Overall, Tezzeret was marginal, Lili was hard to cast but very strong, the red splash was bad, and Top seemed to be too mana hungry. I didn't get to test Stoneforge that much, but it seemed pretty ok.
I think Deathrite would be a strong inclusion in your list. Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay are also a considerations, but there is a very real cost to the manabase for being incentivized to fetch B early. Basically, you should decide what are your primary colors and what are your splash colors. You could go UB splashing G and W for Decay, Deathrite, SFM; or you could go UW splashing BG for Deathrite and Thoughtseize. UB could get you discard and Lili, but makes it hard to play Swords to Plowshares.

I think that if you want to beat combo, playing Top-CB with Cascaders is not the way to go. Top and CB are both nonbos with Vision. It wasn't especially good even in my build. 4 Thopter Foundry might be too many if you're only playing 1 Sword. Depends how dependent on the combo you want to be.

I'll check it out, thanks.

The 4th Thopter Foundry is definitely the most debatable slot. I noticed that its quite good at buying time with Agents, plus it gets pitched Force quite a lot. Once I get a Sword, I'm pretty likely to win if I can find a Foundry, so I wanted to increase the odds of finding one. 3 might be enough though.

The deck is at its best vs. fair decks. I was on the bring a billion SB cards against combo to try and win games 2 and 3. However I decided that main decking Counterbalance was just a better call. You retain your strengths vs. fair decks, while having the ability to steal games against combo, which is not a realistic possibility without the lock.

Visions + Counterbalance is not the greatest synergy, I'll give you that, but you should be able to find some Brainstorms which help you reset your top cards; or simply find relevant costs on the top 3 through fetchlands.

I am not sure you can turn 3 new cards into victory very effectively.

I'm not sure I get what you're trying to say. The extra 3 cards *should* give you resources like Agents, Counterbalance, Top and Mystics which help grind out your opponent. You might also just find the combo and kill them. You might also draw 3 lands and die. You are much more likely to win if you resolve Visions, since you have so many cards which have individual high impact.

What's your point, exactly?

[Viridia]

Deck looks really interesting indeed, have you considered running a BUG shell with Thopter/Sword?

[comeback]

An already tested deck in Italy in 2012. Have a look to this thread that is in Italian but it's quite enough when it comes just to the decklists.
http://www.tipo1.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=29749

[Qweerios]

How about using Intuition + Loam + Ruins as a tutor engine for key cards like Thopter Foundry or Engineered Explosives? It will give you access to all of your utility lands as well, some interesting SB cards like Zuran Orb, Pithing Needle, Vedalken Shackles, etc... This way you can cut the chaff like Foundry #2-4.

I think your deck, as it is now, is trying to accomplish a little too much. I feel like you would be better off choosing between AV or CB, and I believe CB to be a little better when you can't play soft counters.

[frogger42]

I agree with Qweerios on the Visions - I think you're better off dropping them for another SFM and maybe CB. The manabase seems a little off, and I bet you don't really need that forest in there. Remember, you're running control, so if land #23 makes you more consistent in your openers, it will also help your long term gameplan with thopters and top. Agent doesn't seem a strong enough reason to go Green, though it's def great here... You might be able to go black to help Th Foundry, and run Confidant instead. It'd give you a few more slots for Spell Pierce or other Counters, if you feel you could use that. Or be really stable at UW.
But def use Stoneforge 4. And Jitte is pretty standard in the equip package. Kind of a minor concern, but how do you fare against Energy Field/Ensnaring Bridge, other prison things? You can also run your own Bridge to slow aggro, works great with Thopters.

[The Treefolk Master]

Deck looks really interesting indeed, have you considered running a BUG shell with Thopter/Sword?

It may have crossed my mind once or twice ever since Countertop Thopters was an actual deck; but I never got around to actually trying anything. I think Deathrite and/or Intuition are the main routes to follow if going BUG. Baleful Strix is probably pretty good too.

An already tested deck in Italy in 2012. Have a look to this thread that is in Italian but it's quite enough when it comes just to the decklists.

Great, I'll look at it. I had seen the deck before on TC Decks, but I didn't know about its origins.

How about using Intuition + Loam + Ruins as a tutor engine for key cards like Thopter Foundry or Engineered Explosives? It will give you access to all of your utility lands as well, some interesting SB cards like Zuran Orb, Pithing Needle, Vedalken Shackles, etc... This way you can cut the chaff like Foundry #2-4.

I think your deck, as it is now, is trying to accomplish a little too much. I feel like you would be better off choosing between AV or CB, and I believe CB to be a little better when you can't play soft counters.

There was a UWg Intuition Thopter build Top 8ing several tournaments in Spain a few years ago. He ran green for Loam, and Dust Bowl, Maze of Ith and Academy Ruins as his utility lands.

I like Intuition, my only concern with it it that it might be too slow.

You're probably right on it trying to do too much. When it works, you cascade visions, lock them out with Counterbalance and beat them down with Thopters/Batterskull. When it doesn't (more likely), it crashes. CB is better without the option of Spell Pierce/Snare and the like. If I do cut Visions though, Shardless Agent has to go since it doesn't really do anything now, and then I am able to add Counterspells. Do you have any decklists in mind, or are you just Brainstorming?

I agree with Qweerios on the Visions - I think you're better off dropping them for another SFM and maybe CB. The manabase seems a little off, and I bet you don't really need that forest in there. Remember, you're running control, so if land #23 makes you more consistent in your openers, it will also help your long term gameplan with thopters and top. Agent doesn't seem a strong enough reason to go Green, though it's def great here... You might be able to go black to help Th Foundry, and run Confidant instead. It'd give you a few more slots for Spell Pierce or other Counters, if you feel you could use that. Or be really stable at UW.
But def use Stoneforge 4. And Jitte is pretty standard in the equip package. Kind of a minor concern, but how do you fare against Energy Field/Ensnaring Bridge, other prison things? You can also run your own Bridge to slow aggro, works great with Thopters.

The Forest was actually nice to have since I often fetched mono basics and just blanked opposing Wastelands. Plus 4 Tundra and 3 Tropicals mean you should not hava mana issues. Straight UW is rock solid, but its not like UWG regularly dies to its mana base. Land 23 is probably going to find its way into the list one way or another.

You mean black in addition to white right, not straight UB? I like Confidant, it will probably die a lot, and its kind of risky against aggro/midrange if you do not have a Top out.

If I drop Shardless Agent, Jitte isn't really attractive unless I add more creatures (Confidant/Baleful Strix/Vendilion Clique). Energy Field locks didn't actually come up. G1 you're pretty cold to it should it resolve; your only out is Jace (not a great plan) and/or them messing up somehow. Ensnaring Bride should not be a concern unless they go hellbent. Plus, no many people are packing it, and they will not bring it against us.

I think I'd rather have Moat than Bridge to avoid Decay.

[Qweerios]

Going for Shardless/AV puts you in the same category as Shardless BUG, therefore you have to bring something in Bant that would compete with BUG.

And then there is UWg CounterThopterTop... which is somewhat of a dormant archetype. Here is what I had in mind:


Creatures (4)
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Vendilion Clique

Spells (20)
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
1 Terminus

Others (16)
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Batterskull
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Thopter Foundry
3 Counterbalance
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands (22)
1 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
1 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
4 Island
1 Plains

Sideboard (15)
2 Terminus
2 Krosan Grip
2 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Counterbalance
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives

[AllIsDust]

Caleb durward wrote a little on a deck like this:

Main Deck
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
3 Flooded Strand
3 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Academy Ruins
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Seat of the Synod
2 Ancient Den
2 Tree of Tales
4 Shardless Agent
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Ancestral Vision
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Mox Opal
4 Brainstorm
3 Thopter Foundry
4 Force of Will
1 Batterskull
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Sword of the Meek
4 Swords to Plowshares
Sideboard
4 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Counterbalance
1 Wrath of God
2 Path to Exile
1 Disenchant
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Tormod’s Crypt

http://www.channelfireball.com/home/...nce-of-shards/

[Holden1669]

I've been playing a similar list for a few months now and was thinking of starting a thread on it today when I found this one. I have been really enjoying playing this deck. I like how it can attack from different angles and Thopter Foundry is something that a lot of decks have difficulty with. My concern is that I think I'm pulling in too many directions at once. The easiest thing to drop would be the Goyfs and the Ooze to get to a full playset of Deathrite, Ancestral, StP, and Shardless. The Goyfs do win me a lot of games and let me take more of an aggro role at times. But still, there are a lot of 3's in this list and that's kind of a red flag.

Edit: I meant to mention that I got this list from a Caleb Durward tweet a while ago. I dropped the artifact lands pretty quickly because I had trouble casting my spells and added Deathrites when they came out.

My list:

3 - Ancestral Vision
3 - Deathrite Shaman
3 - Sensei's Divining Top
4 - Brainstorm
3 - Swords to Plowshares
3 - Tarmogoyfs
3 - Stoneforge Mystic
1 - Scavenging Ooze
3 - Thopter Foundry
1 - Umezawa's Jitte
1 - Sword of the Meek
3 - Shardless Agent
2 - Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 - Batterskull
4 - Force of Will
2 - Island
1 - Forest
1 - Plains
2 - Tundra
2 - Tropical Island
1 - Savannah
1 - Underground Sea
1 - Bayou
4 - Misty Rainforest
4 - Flooded Strand
1 - Windswept Heath
1 - Academy Ruins
1 - Karakas

* sideboard
3 - Counterbalance
2 - Terminus
1 - Supreme Verdict
1 - Sensei's Divining Top
1 - Nihil Spellbomb
1 - Tormod's Crypt
2 - Meddling Mage
1 - Engineered Explosives
1 - Vendilion Clique
1 - Detention Sphere
1 - Seal of Cleansing

[The Treefolk Master]

I have not given up on the deck just yet; so I though I'd share my most up to date list:

Verdicts are now main deck to make swarms more manageable. This opened sideboard space to shore up the Affinity match up (I'm still sore from losing to it; and it has a not-negligible presence in my meta), so I added Energy Flux and Engineered Explosives; the latter being useful against Elves, creature decks, Enchantress, etc.

I also added a 2nd Academy Ruins since its incredibly busted in this particular deck.

Without further ado:

4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
4 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
3 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins

4 Shardless Agent
3 Stoneforge Mystic

4 Ancestral Vision
2 Supreme Verdict

1 Batterskull
1 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

3 Counterbalance

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Humility
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Energy Flux

I got some games against BUG Landstill (a friend had it on site) and crushed him thanks to Agent out-carding him.

[Ayotte]

I've been playing a version of this deck and it's been very fun and worked very well. I would have gone 4-0 at a local event if it weren't for a very large misplay. I beat RUG Delver, Zoo (lol), and Reanimator, and lost to Merfolk.

I've also tested against goblins and done very well. Have yet to play against storm, which I think is important.

There are a lot of 3-ofs because I'm trying to figure out which plan I like more. So far, I'm considering cutting the thopter combo for another SFM, a Jitte, and another Shardless Agent.

I like the feeling of playing a miracles deck with Shardless Agent. It's a very good card for a control deck, and it's a good 3-drop for counterbalance. The visions being a non-bo with CB has come up a couple of times, however.

The sideboard has been very good. The extra enlightened tutor helps because there are a lot of sideboard cards that just beat some decks.

23 Lands
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
1 Celestial Collonade
6 Creatures
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Shardless Agent
31 Other
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
3 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Terminus
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Moat
2 Thopter Foundry
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of the Meek
3 Ancestral Visions

Sideboard
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Force of Will
1 Pithing Needle
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Relic of Projenitus
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Humility
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Supreme Verdict

[SirTylerGalt]

I've been playing a version of this deck and it's been very fun and worked very well. I would have gone 4-0 at a local event if it weren't for a very large misplay. I beat RUG Delver, Zoo (lol), and Reanimator, and lost to Merfolk.

I've also tested against goblins and done very well. Have yet to play against storm, which I think is important.

There are a lot of 3-ofs because I'm trying to figure out which plan I like more. So far, I'm considering cutting the thopter combo for another SFM, a Jitte, and another Shardless Agent.

I like the feeling of playing a miracles deck with Shardless Agent. It's a very good card for a control deck, and it's a good 3-drop for counterbalance. The visions being a non-bo with CB has come up a couple of times, however.

The sideboard has been very good. The extra enlightened tutor helps because there are a lot of sideboard cards that just beat some decks.

23 Lands
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
1 Celestial Collonade
6 Creatures
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Shardless Agent
31 Other
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
3 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Terminus
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Moat
2 Thopter Foundry
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of the Meek
3 Ancestral Visions

Sideboard
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Force of Will
1 Pithing Needle
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Relic of Projenitus
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Humility
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Supreme Verdict

Brian Demars suggested UWg Miracle with Shardless Agent last year. I thought it was a cool idea. You might be interested in his ideas:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...W-Control.html

[Ayotte]

Thank you for the link. I've started it here with as many gameplans as possible and I expect to end up cutting one or two and slowly moving closer to just being miracles with Shardless, which is probably good but I want to try it like this first.

[Tao]

I have not given up on the deck just yet; so I though I'd share my most up to date list:

Verdicts are now main deck to make swarms more manageable. This opened sideboard space to shore up the Affinity match up (I'm still sore from losing to it; and it has a not-negligible presence in my meta), so I added Energy Flux and Engineered Explosives; the latter being useful against Elves, creature decks, Enchantress, etc.

I also added a 2nd Academy Ruins since its incredibly busted in this particular deck.

Without further ado:

4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
4 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
3 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins

4 Shardless Agent
3 Stoneforge Mystic

4 Ancestral Vision
2 Supreme Verdict

1 Batterskull
1 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

3 Counterbalance

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Humility
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Energy Flux

I got some games against BUG Landstill (a friend had it on site) and crushed him thanks to Agent out-carding him.

The deck looks really sweet. Would love to hear more. But the Sideboard is an obvious mess, you should rebuild it from the start.

[The Treefolk Master]

The deck looks really sweet. Would love to hear more. But the Sideboard is an obvious mess, you should rebuild it from the start.

Looking at the sideboard, I now realize how shitty it looks. And that's because, well, it is.

I started with a small E. Tutor tool box but I'm thinking its too inconsistent. I think I've cast Enlightened Tutor once since I picked up the deck, and I had the game already locked up at that point.I'm not even sure its good enough; which seems strange in a Thopter deck.

The mandatory slots are

2 Krosan Grip
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Flusterstorm

3 Graveyard slots is the bare minimum, and I like the configuration of 1 Relic 1 Crypt 1 Cage.

Combo is our worse match up, so going up to 3 Cliques 3 Flusterstorm might be a good idea, similar to the Bant deck posted by Brian DeMars in his article (I'm also thinking Terminus could be better than Supreme Verdict). Other options include Ethersworn Canonist and/or Leyline of Sanctity (also useful vs Jund and Burn). Humility/Oblivion Ring could also fin its way in there.

Another sweeper could also work, either Engineered Explosives (nonbo with Cascade but awesome with Ruins, the advantages probably outweigh its dis-synergy), or a Terminus.

I found this list which 4-0d a MTGO daily a few months ago:

http://decks.mtgoacademy.com/Deck/175090

The sideboard does seem messy too, though.

@Ayotte: I don't thin cutting the Thopter combo is the way to go. It gives us inevitability (we should win most game which go long), and just wins games which we had no business winning. It just wins out of nowhere.

[thefreakaccident]

Terminus should definitely be in here.

one, its above the cascade threshold, and two, you need as low of a mana requirement in your removal as you can, and a wrath for 1-2 mana is pretty sweet.

That being said, I wouldn't run explosives if I was planning on blindly using shardless agent, as that's a waste of a cascade entirely, not to mention most of the time you will be the one with 0cmc tokens.