[SCD] - Thoughtseize ( in Blue decks! )

[Uncoordinated]

The only archetype I've seen that pairs Thoughtseize with Force/Daze is Team America. I'd like to generate some discussion on the topic of proactive/reactive. I would especially like input on the different roles something like Thoughtseize vs. Stifle/Snare would play in a generic UB shell ( probably tempo oriented ).

Some obvious questions:
- What are the primary uses for Thoughtseize? What type of deck does it prey on, or when is it superior to the reactive blue compliment?
- Disadvantages? Decks you don't want to use it in?
- What overlap does a 1cc disruptive sorcery have with similar costing instants? When is it better/worse?
-- Removal ( Lightning Bolt, Swords )
-- Tempo disruption/counter ( Stifle, Snare, Pierce, Force )
-- Other comparisons that aren't linked by casting cost.

Some commonly cited disadvantages which I believe restrict Thoughtseize's use in UB decks:
- Doesn't generate tempo all the time.
- Not a source of CA.
- Sorcery.
- Superultrabad topdeck in mid/late stages of the game.


Thoughts ( heh )?

- Uncoordinated.

[tsabo_tavoc]

-Life loss (Inquisition is arguably better)
-Vendillion Clique

[spedn7]

Inquisition can't take force of will Ad Nauseam or Ill-Gotten Gains along with some other cards i can't think of thoughtseize is good at removing a key card at the coast of life. It is only truly weak against aggressive decks that have redundancy but then so is Inquisition and duress. So to answer your question it is best against control and combo deck were you can take a key card

[from Cairo]

Some obvious questions:
- What are the primary uses for Thoughtseize? What type of deck does it prey on, or when is it superior to the reactive blue compliment?


Prehaps most importantly it gives the player information about his opponent's game plan at a very early stage in the game. Casting a Turn 1 Thoughtseize generally leaves you knowing what's going to be coming in the next couple turns to follow and one can adjust their game plan and/or devote resources differently to best prepare for what they've seen.

It can be important as a way of avoiding dealing with Artifacts, Enchantments and Planeswalkers, that Black generally doesn't have solutions to once they resolve. It preys on any card that's central to a given decks strategy, it's often powerful when an opponent keeps a hand because it has card X, then Thoughtseize removes that card and the opponent's left with a lackluster grip. It's relatively catch all, which I suppose is it's big upside over the Blue spells mentioned. Spell Snare can't take a StP, KotR or Jace, etc; Spell Pierce can't solve a Goyf or a Goblin Lackey; Stifle really only generates a 1 for 1 trade vs permanent's with Sacrifice clauses.



- Disadvantages? Decks you don't want to use it in?


Life loss adds up, pairing it with Dark Confidant or Snuff Out can be risky especially versus decks like Zoo. As far as 1cc discard goes it's the most versitile, but the cost has to be considered. Some decks are probably less concerned with hitting Creature cards or have LD to delay opponents from having mana for expensive spells; in these cases, Duress or Inquisition of Kozilek (respectively) might be better suited. Utility creature heavy decks should probably also consider Cabal Therapy into the equation if they have situational guys that they can sacrifice off.



- What overlap does a 1cc disruptive sorcery have with similar costing instants? When is it better/worse?
-- Removal ( Lightning Bolt, Swords )
-- Tempo disruption/counter ( Stifle, Snare, Pierce, Force )
-- Other comparisons that aren't linked by casting cost.


Removal is often superior versus Creature/Agro decks, permission and disruption are often better versus Combo and Control - the fact that Thoughtseize can do either I suppose is what makes it appealing. Though it's generally worse at both and it looses it's power as the game goes on longer.



Some commonly cited disadvantages which I believe restrict Thoughtseize's use in UB decks:
- Doesn't generate tempo all the time.
- Not a source of CA.
- Sorcery.
- Superultrabad topdeck in mid/late stages of the game.


Agreed. At face value it never generates tempo since you're expending resources to answer something, before your opponent expends resources to put it on the stack. But I assume you're implying that taking a card can leave them without a play on a subsequent turn and in that regard you're gaining tempo, since the opponent's passing back without progressing their board state.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for most of these points/observations are pretty apparent.

[Jonathan Alexander]

There are a few points that speak against Thoughtseize in control-orientated decks.
The most important one has been brought up by spedn7 and me over in the Faeries thread already; it's too narrow. It's really only good when you can take a key card with it.

Considering the cards that you'd be going to pick with Thoughtseize are entirely non-creature cards, Duress is strictly better here, but still inferior to Spell Pierce, in my opinion.

You're also rarely going to create tempo with it. When you took your opponent's single one-drop with it on turn one, you're actually the one who's behind, as you paid two life and neither of you developed a board position (apart from landdrops). If your opponent has another one drop, it's even worse for you, as you basically spend your first turn doing nothing but they developed a board.

Controlling and disrupting tempo is about controlling and disrupting your opponents development, and board development is an important part of this. You don't really want to slow down yourself.

Thoughtseize only gains tempo when you can cast it plus another spell that helps developing your board and take the single card with your Thoughtseize that your opponent could cast on their next turn. As this will generally be after turn two, chances are that your opponent won't have enough cards in hand for Thoughtseize to work properly and developed their board anyway.

On top of that, like you mentioned in the opening post, Thoughtseize clashes with other important one-mana spells, i.e. Stifle, spotremoval and countermagic.

[Rico Suave]

- What are the primary uses for Thoughtseize? What type of deck does it prey on, or when is it superior to the reactive blue compliment?
- Disadvantages? Decks you don't want to use it in?
- What overlap does a 1cc disruptive sorcery have with similar costing instants? When is it better/worse?

The primary use for Thoughtseize is disruption. There are a number of circumstances and reasons to play a card like Thoughtseize over a reactive blue instant and vice versa.

A main advantage is we decide when to cast Thoughtseize, whereas our opponent will frequently dictate when we are to cast our blue instants. This is important for many decks that do not want to delay their primary action spells. For instance if your game plan against a combo deck is "play creatures and disrupt long enough for those creatures to go the distance" then it is important your creatures arrive normally and on time. A turn 3 creature might be too slow, but the risk is that tapping out on turn 2 for that creature will result in the opponent winning the game because a Spell Snare is sitting in hand with no mana untapped to cast it. The opponent is dictating that this player save his creature for turn 3, but that might just be too slow of a clock and it won't be an effective execution of the strategy. Compare this to the use of Thoughtseize, which lets us input an untap step between our disruption and a threat we need to play. We can play Thoughtseize turn 1 when we had no intention of playing a creature. With the coast clear and the opponent not threatening to kill us, we can safely tap out for a creature on turn 2 like normal and make sure that our clock remains as aggressive as possible. Keep in mind that we don't need to play creatures for this to work - sometimes our "threat" will be something like a turn 4 Jace. And when our opponent is holding a gun to our head, there's a big difference between safely playing our Jace at 4 mana versus needing to wait until we topdeck another land, especially if we desperately need that Jace in play to draw more counters before our opponent topdecks another protection piece for his combo. Much of this use of Thoughtseize depends heavily on the deck it is being used in and what game plan is present.

Another main use of Thoughtseize is to remove problematic cards from our opponent's hand that blue instants simply cannot stop. The split second and storm mechanics are the most notorious examples of this. Other cards cannot be countered because our instants are on lockdown, such as if our opponent has a City of Solitude or Xantid Swarm effect active. And still other times we can't counter a spell because, frankly, it says "this spell cannot be countered" right on it such as Vexing Shusher. Essentially, using Thoughtseize instead of counters is a great way to sidestep a lot of hate that might otherwise be headed your direction, and it allows for greater deckbuilding possibilities as well as greater options during matches. For example a deck that relies solely on blue instants to defend itself will frequently just lose to a resolved Xantid Swarm. And that deck might need to compenstate during sideboarding, perhaps including creature removal. But a person who incorporates Thoughtseize into his plans might just be able to let the Swarm resolve, Thoughtseize the opponent's business, and ignore the Swarm entirely on his way to victory.

This does not mean every deck should play Thoughtseize. It is important to take into account what a deck is trying to do, what its goals are, and what its primary strategy is.

*Generally* speaking, I would say that the best use of cards like Thoughtseize is when backed by quick aggression. Discard tends to buy X amount of time, and one way to take advantage of that time is to play creatures and attack the opponent's life total to 0. Discard creates a window of opportunity - the more discard the bigger the window, and the faster the clock the less of a window is necessary. But both factors need to be there, because there is little point making our opponent discard if we cannot take advantage of that time in one way or another (because that time will run out and then we lose).

On the other hand, while I have praised Thoughtseize all this time it is important to note that blue instants do something Thoughtseize does not. They force the opponent to commit resources into putting the threat on the stack before we deny it. This includes mana, but it can also include other cards too (such as if our opponent plays Ritual Ritual Ad Nauseam). So, once again *generally* speaking, blue instants tend to do better in strategies that focus more on mid to late game tempo than early tempo gains. Why? Counters don't create windows of opportunity like discard does, all they do is buy time which is evidenced by how the opponent dumps mana into something before we counter it. Decks that want to counter things are generally looking to buy enough time until their superior mid and late game tempo plans can come to fruition. For example when playing counterspells I'm not looking to counter each and every thing my opponent does (though if that happens I'm all for it) but instead I'm more realistic and looking to simply keep the board clean long enough to thwart my opponent's early tempo aggression so that my cards like Jace can take the game over, fueling me with enough momentum into the mid and late game to dwarf anything my opponent might be doing at the same time.

Also, it's worth noting that Thoughtseize provides information which is invaluable. On the other hand, counters hide information from our opponent which discard does not do. Just some food for thought.

EDIT - Also, you have to be really careful about the word tempo. Most people really overuse the word and don't know what it means anymore, and most "tempo" decks aren't built around tempo so much as they are built around the idea of making the opponent's deck malfunction. There's a really big difference.

[wcm8]

So basically, a deck like Faeries is better off using cards like spell pierce or stifle because their win-condition is relatively slow. Team America on the other hand is trying to resolve an early Goyf or Tombstalker, and may make better use of thoughtseize.

[Rico Suave]

So basically, a deck like Faeries is better off using cards like spell pierce or stifle because their win-condition is relatively slow. Team America on the other hand is trying to resolve an early Goyf or Tombstalker, and may make better use of thoughtseize.

Faeries is one of the best possible candidates to include Thoughtseize...

[wcm8]

The cards are competing for the same slot (1cc disruption). All three become worse the longer the game drags on, it just matters which benefits the deck's underlying strategy the best and also what other forms of disruption are in the deck.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

IDK if it's been mentioned, but Storm is probably the best list for Thoughtseize. It almost never becomes irrelevant. I can't think of a match-up for storm that Thoughtseize sucks in.

[Julian23]

That would be burn.

[Rico Suave]

The cards are competing for the same slot (1cc disruption). All three become worse the longer the game drags on, it just matters which benefits the deck's underlying strategy the best and also what other forms of disruption are in the deck.

What makes you think these cards are fighting for the same slot? Are you saying it's impossible Faeries could run both Thoughtseize and Spell Pierce?

[Magicsk8ngenius]

That would be burn.

I think he was talking about REAL decks.


Anyways it seems that with survival gone that the meta is in a bit of disarray meaning a great time to pick up decks similar to ones discussed here. Any kind of tempo based strategy would be good at the moment. I'm about to pick up a BUG Thresh/Team America list and you can sure bet there will be 4x of this awesome card in it.

[Mr. Safety]

I'm curious why nobody has brought up the 'other' discard sorcery for B: Cabal Therapy

Cheap, targeted discard has historically been really good AGAINST control elements, specifically these:

1) Counterspells (do they Force/Daze your Duress, or do they let you TAKE their Force/Daze with Duress?)
2) Wipe the board, robbing you of board advantage/presence (I don't want my creatures leaving the battlefield, so I'll take that Firespout/Engineered Explosives/Perish)

What I like about Duress/IoK/Thoughtsieze/Therapy is that it makes your countermagic BETTER. I am sometimes wondering whether to counter spell X, or let it resolve because it is 'fishing out' my countermagic so a bigger threat can land. With targeted discard, you have the information to make that call. Early discard allows you to hoard counterspells, and that doesn't seem like a bad thing...

EDIT: why is burn 'not a real deck'? Because it hasn't won any tournaments recently?