[DECK] BUG Aggro Control

[ivanpei]

First off, I was inspired by this deck:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21423_Deck_Tech_BUG_with_Gerry_Thompson.html

BUG
Featured by Gerry Thompson on 2011-03-20 (Legacy)
As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/21423.html
Print this deck!

Maindeck:

Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Terravore

Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Go for the Throat
2 Spell Snare


Planeswalkers
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorceries
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize

Lands
2 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:

3 Ghastly Demise
2 Krosan Grip
2 Spell Pierce
3 Submerge
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Life from the Loam
2 Maelstrom Pulse

I like this list because it combines the power of Hymm to Tourach and Dark Confidant with a blue shell. The Rock decks have Bob, Hymm but when it comes to a grind late game, the dead discard and mox's can cost you the game. In Team America, the deck has no real CA engine other than Jace, which it cannot reliably cast with 20 lands. I was left in a conundrum after that, until I saw this list. Unlike Team America and The Rock which use Hymm as a disruptive tool and go ahead to pound the face quickly FTW, this deck uses Hymm as a Card advantage tool. With Bobs and Jaces, you can slug it out mid-late game very well.

However the first thing to strike me about this list is how terrible it looks against aggro. I mean Just 4 Go For The Throat as removal? GFTT is a 2cc spell which is absolutely too slow vs Goblins, Kitties and Folk. And 7 Discard spells is too many, especially since you are playing Force and Daze as well. The deck only has 17 blue cards! Very Greedy! I propose the following list:

Ivan Pei BUG

Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Terravore
2 Vendillon Clique

Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Go for the Throat
3 Ghastly Demise


Planeswalkers
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorceries
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Ponder

Enchantments:
2 Threads of Disloyalty

Lands
2 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland


What I've done is basically cut the 1cc discard and the Spell Snares which are conditional and bad topdecks lategame for cards that will help VS aggro. The 2 Thoughtseize's slack is picked up by Clique which makes your combo/control MU still very good. I replaced 2 GFTT and 1 Inquisition with 3 Ghastly demise. This gives you an efficient 1 mana removal spell which can deal with a T1 Lackey/Mother of Runes/Cursecatcher. You still have 2 GFTT and 2 Jaces to deal with Stalker so I think it's a good idea to play Ghastly Demise. Spell Snare is too conditional nowadays and you are definitely not keeping any mana open everyturn. You don't play Stifles, Top or any other cards that require you to keep mana open so Spell Snare is suboptimal and hard to cast.

I added Threads of disloyalty because it's an absolute bomb VS aggro and midrange. Taking Tarmogoyfs/Bobs/Coralhelm Commanders etc is just ridiculous. At worst it pitches to force VS combo control. IMO Threads is ridiculously underplayed right now. Most importantly, it bumps up the Blue count to 19. I'm itching to test this list. It seems better balanced against aggro and still retains the disuption/gas vs combo and control. Thoughts?

[Aggro_zombies]

Ghastly Demise is also pretty terrible against aggro, since it will take forever to kill the things you want to kill with it. Threads also doesn't steal Knight of the Reliquary, which is the natural trump to Tarmogoyf these days. If anything, cutting the numbers on GftT and discard spells makes you worse against the kind of midrange/big aggro decks that naturally beat aggro anyway.

In short, Gerry T's list was probably fine given what he was expecting for this tournament (tempo decks, midrange decks, Fish).

[ivanpei]

Against Tempo, midrange, Gerry's list is fine. I'm not hating on his list or anything, I think it's perfectly good. I just think that the deck is "meta-ed" too much that it really seems that it would just auto lose to Goblins, Zoo and even folk. The deck needs some tuning to be able to beat quick decks that dump their hand quickly. As for Threads, it's not the best option against aggro, but it's blue, which is needed to bump the blue count from dangerous (17) to okay (19). Any ideas on what could replace threads? Sower seems to be good to but it's 4 to cast. With 22 lands, I think you can reach 4 mana consistently. Then again, Sower is bad against Zoo because any removal spell/lavamancer can torch it.

As for Ghastly, the deck plays 10 fetches and 4 wastelands. I'm pretty sure the graveyard will not be a severe restriction on being able to play the card. I'm aiming to make the deck servicable vs fast aggro so that BUG just doesn't keel over and die to it.

[Aggro_zombies]

But the meta Gerry expected was full of midrange and tempo decks. You wouldn't play Team America in a meta full of aggro. Actually, you probably shouldn't play any tempo deck in a meta full of aggro, but that's a slightly different issue.

As for Threads, Mind Harness is probably fine. Most of the things you'd want to steal are large (because they can effectively race you) and green (because green creatures are large). The cumulative upkeep is probably not much of an issue when you take a 7/7 Knight and start smashing, for example.

EDIT: Clique is not good if your stated goal is to beat aggro. In fact, Clique is really, really bad against aggro.

[Jim Higginbottom]

clique is good against the format.

[ivanpei]

I agree, I will test more and see if Clique makes the cut, I'll replace em with ponders as I need to keep the blue count at 19. As for Threads vs Mindharness, both seem really good. I'll try them and see which I prefer. I'm not fond of the cumulative upkeep in a control deck though. Mindharness seems much better in merfolk decks which have a very fast clock.

[Aggro_zombies]

clique is good against the format.
How so? Where do you want it?

Clique has historically been strong against decks more on the control end of the aggro-control spectrum because of flash, the ability to take a potential trump card, and 3 power along with evasion to get past defending Tarmogoyfs. Those types of decks are pretty bad in the format right now.

What does Clique do against Team America? Tombstalker races it all day while costing about the same and while being more difficult to kill.

What does Clique do against Merfolk? One or two lords can easily present a much better clock than Clique, and a midlevel Commander plus any other lord blocks and kills Clique. I mean, yeah, you can ambush a Commander in midcombat with one, but then why not run more removal and have added flexibility? Plus, Merfolk has enough redundancy that it's fairly immune to the "disruption" aspect of Clique.

What does Clique do against Junk? Junk has actual discard, a naturally positive matchup against the kind of decks that want Clique, and much, much better creatures (hit me all you want with your 3/1, I'm rumbling back with my 7/7 Knight and 4/5 Tarmogoyf).

What does Clique do against aggro? Zoo gets three power for a third of that cost, and can kill Clique in any number of ways while being resilient to its ability. Goblins can race Clique with Piledriver and kill it with Incinerator, Fanatic, and Sharpshooter. Affinity may very well not have a hand when you drop Clique, in which case you have a 3/1 that lets you cycle a card and then...what? Trades in combat with something because you're hemorrhaging life against the high-speed aggro deck and absolutely have to block?

Clique is kind of underpowered these days. The triggered ability is just not very good against the best decks right now, and a 3/1 for three is not good either. The flash is irrelevant since the speed of the format is such that leaving three mana up on your turn means you're not being proactive enough. With Tarmogoyf and Terravore, you're probably already providing enough of a clock, which means your extra guys really need to either have loads of utility (Bob) or cover a weakness. I'm not convinced Clique does either.

EDIT: I think I should clarify what Gerry's deck is. Team America is a tempo deck. That comes with certain metagame baggage: weak versus aggro, strong versus combo, strong versus slow decks, mirror is highly draw dependent. Gerry realized that the expected meta for this 5k was more of the same; Team America did well in the previous 5k, but Merfolk won it, so both decks would still be out in force. Gerry needed a way to trump the tempo mirror, not become a total dog to Fish, and still retain Team America's other good matchups. Jace and Bob let him trump the tempo mirror: he has just enough tempo elements that he can fight the disruption on even terms, but he has Jace to pull ahead with card advantage and removal (let your opponent empty his graveyard to cast Tombstalker, then bounce it. Guess what? That Tombstalker isn't going to show up again for a while). He keeps the discard and cheap taxing counters to beat combo decks. Terravore makes an opposing tempo deck's normal plan of land destruction unattractive because it speeds up your (very reasonably costed) clock and lets you race Tombstalkers. And so on. Basically, what he did was make a metagamed version of Team America designed to beat the mirror; he did the same thing about a month ago with red Caw-Blade in Standard. Basically, you're taking a metagame deck and distorting it further to try to beat something to which a generalized tempo deck is naturally soft. If you're going to mess with the deck, don't start with Gerry's list, start with stock Team America.

[bakofried]

Goddamit guys he played a tweaked Team America deck, we don't need a new thread. He took Team America and gave it cards to crush the mirror because he was expecting it. It's not a new archetype.

It's like starting a new thread for B/W Tempo when it's just Deadguy with vial. Seriously.

[ivanpei]

It's pretty different. No Stifle and especially no Tombstalker. This deck plays very differently from Team America. Bob + Jace changes how the deck is run. This is more control and not very aggro while Team America is all in disruption and Tombstalker for the quick clock.If you've tried this deck, you'll realise the gameplan is very different from Team America. Team America throws everything at the opponents face and drops a fatty. The deck then tries to kill the opponent before the opponent recovers.

Gerry's deck is different. He tries to slowly grind the game down into an attrition war which he will dominate with Bobs and Jace. This deck loves the long game which Team America hates. The lists look 70% the same but the decks play totally differently. It's like saying whats the difference between Bob-Tendrils and Gush-Tendrils in Vintage? Both have 70% the same cards and kill with tendrils but both play totally differently. One is more controllish with Bob-Jace for the late game mini tendrils while the other is all in with Gush-Fastbond into the nuts.

As for Clique, the card is still pretty good today, but not in control decks. If a deck has an aggro problem, it should not play Cliques. Cliques are great in decks like Bant which crush aggro but have a problem against control/combo.

[Aggro_zombies]

It's pretty different. No Stifle and especially no Tombstalker. This deck plays very differently from Team America. Bob + Jace changes how the deck is run. This is more control and not very aggro while Team America is all in disruption and Tombstalker for the quick clock.If you've tried this deck, you'll realise the gameplan is very different from Team America. Team America throws everything at the opponents face and drops a fatty. The deck then tries to kill the opponent before the opponent recovers.

Gerry's deck is different. He tries to slowly grind the game down into an attrition war which he will dominate with Bobs and Jace. This deck loves the long game which Team America hates. The lists look 70% the same but the decks play totally differently. It's like saying whats the difference between Bob-Tendrils and Gush-Tendrils in Vintage? Both have 70% the same cards and kill with tendrils but both play totally differently. One is more controllish with Bob-Jace for the late game mini tendrils while the other is all in with Gush-Fastbond into the nuts.

As for Clique, the card is still pretty good today, but not in control decks. If a deck has an aggro problem, it should not play Cliques. Cliques are great in decks like Bant which crush aggro but have a problem against control/combo.
It's not that different. It drops the cards that are crappy in the mirror (Stifle, Tombstalker) and runs cards that are awesome in the mirror (Jace, Bob). You're still on a plan of spending the first couple of turns disrupting them with cheap counters and discard, but your trumps change to Jace and Terravore and you have more staying power to help against decks that can recover from an initial tempo onslaught, or which are resistant to one. Your deck is different, but that's because it's several steps removed from the parent Team America list from which Gerry deviated. But I'm also pretty sure that the modifications you made to the deck killed it as a viable archetype in a modern Legacy metagame.

[ivanpei]

Back on topic though, I think dismissing Aggro as non-existant is not a good call. Zoo still sees a very large amount of play. Also, the deck plays 17 blue cards, so some additional tweaking is required, no? I'm trying to get help from Sourcers on improving what seems like an impossible MU vs fast aggro. If mods think this is too similar to Team America, please feel free to merge the treads. I posted this deck here in N&D because I don't want to disrespect Dan's deck, which is a different beast. Anyway, any constructive comments on the deck? This is N&D, I'm allowed to post experimental stuff.

[Aggro_zombies]

Back on topic though, I think dismissing Aggro as non-existant is not a good call. Zoo still sees a very large amount of play. Also, the deck plays 17 blue cards, so some additional tweaking is required, no? I'm trying to get help from Sourcers on improving what seems like an impossible MU vs fast aggro. If mods think this is too similar to Team America, please feel free to merge the treads. I posted this deck here in N&D because I don't want to disrespect Dan's deck, which is a different beast. Anyway, any constructive comments on the deck? This is N&D, I'm allowed to post experimental stuff.
Team America and other tempo decks are naturally soft to fast aggro. It's been a problem matchup for forever. If your meta is infested with tempo decks, you show up with Zoo and wreck them. Just look at the 5k from today: Affinity won. The smart players are going to realize that aggro beats tempo and the meta will swing back to Zoo, Affinity, and Goblins in the next few tournaments. Then the meta will swing to big aggro and combo as people look to beat heavy fast aggro metas. Then the meta will swing back to tempo decks as people look to exploit the vulnerabilites of slower decks and combo decks that are sensitive to disruption on their early turns.

It's a huge and predictable rock-paper-scissors, and it's moving on roughly a per-SCG 5k basis. If I were going to LA next weekend, I'd be running Zoo built to beat Merfolk and Affinity.

EDIT: I guess I'm saying that there's no way to improve the aggro matchups while also maintaining Team America's other good matchups. The cards don't overlap, and black is light on Legacy-playable sweepers.

[ivanpei]

I agree, if I were to go to the next SCG, I'd bring some Zoo variant to kick ass with kitties. I guess I'm being too optimistic, searching for a deck that has Team America's good MUs yet pretty decent vs aggro. I got my ass whooped playing Bant-Progenitus against Zoo. I had warmonks, I still lost. Zoo is just that good against anything not combo.

Gerry's deck is probably a good meta deck that will end up fading into obscurity. I'll continue working on it though. Thanks for the insight, Aggro_zombies.

[Aggro_zombies]

Well...

You're in black and green. Pernicious Deed is an option, but three mana up front plus somewhere between one and three to use it is a lot. If you play it as soon as possible (probably necessary against fast aggro), you lose your entire third turn not saving yourself from your opponent's clock, which is rough.

There's EE, but that's even less of a complete sweeper, while suffering from a lot of the same "this isn't stopping the bleeding" kind of problems.

You could run a million one-for-ones and just hope to get there with a bigger clock, but black's one-for-ones are way worse than white's.

That said, the pool of answer cards for fast aggro decks is roughly this (in these colors):

Darkblast
Doom Blade
Go for the Throat
Disfigure
Innocent Blood
EE
Deed
Mind Harness

Along with matchup-specific, very narrow, or otherwise weak answer cards like Steel Sabotage, Ensnare, Agony Warp, and so on.

EDIT: I would be careful about how many anti-aggro cards I run main. One of TA's strengths is that all of its cards do something in the vast majority of matchups, even if they aren't exactly optimal. For example, discard isn't the best against aggro, but you at least have the chance to strip the most powerful threats from your opponent's hand, thereby saving yourself some damage. Loading up on maindeck removal makes you best matchups worse, since the removal is stone dead versus combo (whereas discard is good) and so-so against midrange (where discard helps your plan to disrupt the opponent while setting up a fast clock). You're probably better off sideboarding really heavily in aggro matchups.

[Ajsmirnov]

Try Phyrexian Crusader against Zoo/Boros/Sligh... They simply cannot kill it and it stops everything except giant-sized Tarmogoyf

[ivanpei]

Try Phyrexian Crusader against Zoo/Boros/Sligh... They simply cannot kill it and it stops everything except giant-sized Tarmogoyf

Wow, crusader is really good against aggro actually. It's unburnable/swordable. Great against everything except Stalker, Goyf and lorded fish. Warrant's testing.

[Ajsmirnov]

And few times I saw people being killed with it, when Jitte equipped. But in other decks sure